. THE BIBLE'S INTERNAL CONSISTENCY

What do I mean, when I speak of the Bible's internal consistency? I am talking about the Bible's internal harmony. From the first book of the Bible, Genesis, to the last book, Revelation, the Bible is absolutely consistent.

The skeptic says: "Why is that an evidence of divine origin? There are plenty of books that are internally consistent."

I agree, but let me share with you seven factors that make the consistency of the Bible an amazing evidence of its divine origin.

A. The Bible addresses life's most controversial questions. How did the universe come into existence? Does God exist? And if so, what is He like? Why does man exist? What is our purpose for being here? Why is there evil and suffering in the world? What happens to me after I die?

B. The Bible is a collection of 66 different documents. It might be easy to have harmony of thought in a single book like the Qur'an, that contains the teachings of a single man. But the Bible is not a single book. It a compilation of books: 39 books in the Old Testament and 27 books in the New Testament.

C. The Bible was written by approximately 40 different authors.

D. Many of the Bible's authors came from different educational and cultural backgrounds. Peter was a fisherman. Paul was a scholar. Daniel was a prime minister. Asaph was a musician. Matthew was a tax collector. David was a shepherd then a king. Luke was a historian and medical doctor. The Bible's consistency gets even more amazing when you consider fourthly that…

E. The Bible was written over a period of approximately 1500+ years, covering some 60+ generations. Not only were the authors separated from each other by hundreds of years in time, but...

F. Many of the authors were separated by hundreds of miles geographically. Many people don't realize this, but the Bible was written in a variety of places on three different continents. a. Africa (Egypt) b. Asia c. Europe (Rome for instance). Paul wrote four letters imprisoned in Rome, located in Italy. The apostle John, wrote while a prisoner banished to the Isle of Patmos in the Mediterranean Sea. The prophet Ezekiel wrote his work while held captive in Babylon. Jeremiah was in a dungeon. Luke wrote while traveling. Daniel wrote from a hillside and in a palace.

G. The Bible was written in three different languages (Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek).

Now, in spite of all of these different factors we find the Bible to be a consistent, harmonious, perfectly unified account of how God is seeking to reconcile sinners back to Himself through the person of His Son, Jesus Christ. This is an amazing evidence of its divine origin. If you're not convinced, go through your neighborhood and ask just 10 of your neighbors, what their beliefs are on the nature of the universe, the meaning of life, the origin of evil, the way of salvation, etc. and you'll immediately see how likely it is to have a variety of contradicting opinions!

4. EXTERNAL VERIFICATION

Many people don't know this but there are dozens of writings outside of the Bible that verify the historical accuracy of many of the names of people, places, and events mentioned in the Bible. In fact, external sources verify that at least 80 persons were actual historical figures, 50 people from the Old Testament and 30 people from the New Testament (see list of names and sources on p. 270 in I Don't Have Enough Faith To Be An Atheist by Norman Geisler and Frank Turek). Because of engravings and statues, etc., we even know what 18 (12 from the OT and 6 from the NT) of them looked like!

External verification of what the Bible says has led to a radical change of view among liberal scholars regarding the person of Jesus. Some had at one time put forth the false idea that Jesus never even existed; that He was merely a mythological character! But, today the existence of Jesus is hardly even debated within informed scholarly circles. The reason why? There are over 39 sources outside of the Bible that attest to more than 100 facts regarding Jesus' life, teachings, crucifixion, and resurrection. One of those external sources, was the 1st century Roman historian Flavius Josephus. In his writings Josephus verifies that Herod the Great, Herod Antipas, Caiaphas, Pontius Pilate, John the Baptist, James "the brother of Jesus," Felix, Festus, and even Jesus, were all historical figures. Listen to one of Josephus' statements about Jesus of Nazareth. I have purposely taken this from the Arabic text, of Josephus' writings called Antiquities, chapter 18:63-64, a text that is unchallenged by most critics of the Bible.

Josephus wrote: "At this time there was a wise man who was called Jesus. And his conduct was good, and (He) was known to be virtuous. And many people from among the Jews and the other nations became his disciples. Pilate condemned Him to be crucified to die. And those who had become his disciples did not abandon his discipleship. They reported that He had appeared to them three days after his crucifixion and that He was alive." These are not the words of the Bible or a Christian, but a Roman historian writing outside of the pages of Scripture. Josephus wasn't the lone voice. There were others as well:

A. Cornelius Tacitus (ca. A.D. 55 –120) a Roman Historian by who wrote around A.D. 115. Although he was not a Christian but he did verify that Jesus lived, that He was from Judea, that He lived during the reign of Tiberius (A.D. 14-37), and was executed by Pontius Pilate, who governed the province of Judea from A.D. 26-36.).

B. Gaius Suetonius (the chief secretary of Emperor Hadrian (A.D. 117 –138)

5. THE BIBLE'S AMAZING SCIENTIFIC ACCURACY AND FORESIGHT

Even though the Bible was completed 2,000 years ago, long before the invention of the microscope, the telescope, satellites, etc. it does not contain any scientific errors. This might be considered a miracle in itself. Without exception, every ancient religious writing has certain unscientific views of astronomy, medicine, hygiene, etc. The Qur'an says in Surah 18:86 that the sun sets in a muddy spring. Qur'an 18:86 "…when he reached the setting-place of the sun, he found it setting in a muddy spring" The only exception to these kinds of errors, among ancient religious writings, is the Bible.

Not only is the Bible free from scientific errors, it miraculously makes known numerous, accurate scientific facts about the universe thousands of years before modern scientists caught up. There are lots of them. For time's sake I will give you a few quick examples.

A. The Sun

In contrast to the Qur'an, the Bible teaches that the sun is actually on a circuit through space. Writing of the sun in Psalm 19:6, David said, "Its rising is from one end of heaven, and its circuit to the other end." For many years critics scoffed at this verse, claiming that it taught that the sun revolves around the earth. Scientists at that time thought the sun was stationary. However, it has been discovered in recent years that the sun is in fact on a circuit through space, just like the Bible says.

B. The Shape of the Earth

When the rest of the world believed the earth was flat, Isaiah declared that the world was round… Isaiah 40:22 "It is He who sits above the circle of the earth." The Hebrew word there for circle ["chuwg"] literally means "sphere." When did Isaiah write these words? Between 740 and 680 B.C. That was at least 300 years before Aristotle suggested, in his book On the Heavens, that the earth might be a sphere. Other verses are Proverbs 8:27 and Job 26:10. More than 2,000 years later some people still believed that Christopher Columbus (1451-1506) was going to sail off the edge of a flat planet in 1492!

C. The Suspension of the Earth

Before Isaac Newton discovered gravity Hindus believed that the earth rested on the back of an elephant who stood on the back of a turtle that was swimming in a great endless sea. The Greeks believed that the mythical god Atlas carried the earth on his shoulders. What did the Bible say? In one of the oldest books in the Bible, Job said in Job 26:7, "He [God] hangs the earth on nothing." Scientists did not discover that the earth hangs on nothing until 1650.

D. The Stars

Before the telescope was invented, man was able to number the stars. The Greek astronomer and mathematician Hipparchus (190-120 B.C.) said there were exactly 1,026 stars. The astronomer, and mathematician Ptolemy said there were 1,056 stars. The German astronomer, Johannes Kepler (1571-1630), counted 1,006. The whole thought of the stars being uncountable was contrary to modern science until the invention of the telescope. When Galileo first pointed his telescope to the heavens in 1608, we discovered there were a lot more stars than anybody had ever imagined, just as Jeremiah had said:

Jeremiah 33:22 "The host of heaven [a reference to the stars] cannot be numbered, nor the sand of the sea measured." Today, with the help of powerful telescopes and modern satellite photographs, scientists estimate the universe contains approximately 100 billion galaxies containing approximately 200 billion stars each. Carl Sagan (1934-1996), the world famous astronomer, said, "The total number of stars in the universe is greater than all the grains of sand on all the beaches of the planet Earth." (Cosmos, p. 196). That is enough stars for every person alive on planet earth to personally own approximately 2 trillion stars each. Dr. Mark Eastman says, "Counting at a rate of ten stars per second it would take over 100 trillion years. Surely the host of heaven cannot be numbered!"

If you want more of these kinds of amazing scientific insights, check out: answersingenesis.org and icr.org

How did the authors of the Bible know that the stars were uncountable, that the earth was round and hangs on nothing? Were they taking lucky guesses? I don't think so. Their flawless accuracy rules that out. The Bible says in 2 Peter 1:21 that "Holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit." God, who knows all there is to know about the universe He created, superintended the writing of the Bible to make sure that what He wanted written, was written.

6. THE MANUSCRIPT EVIDENCE

Manuscript? What is a manuscript? A manuscript is a hand-written copy of an ancient document that predates the invention of the printing press in 1455. There have been those (including the Mormons and Muslims) who have falsely asserted that the Bible has undergone corruption down through the centuries as it was copied and translated. But the evidence actually proves otherwise.

Today there survives more than 24,000 partial and complete, ancient handwritten manuscript copies of the New Testament alone, not to mention hundreds of Old Testament manuscripts that survive today dating back to as early as the third century B.C. These hand written manuscripts have allowed scholars and textual critics to go back and verify that the Bible we have in our possession today is the same Bible that the early church possessed 2,000 years ago. You can view these manuscripts yourself at places like the British Museum, the Cambridge University Library, the Smithsonian Institute, Oxford University, the National Library at Paris, Israel Museum

Even if we did not have any manuscripts, we have the writings of the church fathers. By church fathers we are referring to those leaders in the church, of the first three centuries A.D. that followed the original disciples. Men like Justin Martyr, Eusebius, Tertullian, Polycarp. These men in their writings and correspondence with other believers and other churches quote the Scriptures over and over again. In fact, the early church fathers refer to the New Testament alone more than 86,000 times. There are enough quotations from the early church fathers that even if we did not have a single manuscript copy of the Bible, scholars could still reconstruct 99. 86% of the New Testament that we have today.

So then, what kind of proof is the Muslim or Mormon able to offer to prove that the Bible has been changed or corrupted down through the centuries? None. To demonstrate or prove that the Bible has been corrupted, the Muslim or Mormon would need to be able to hold up ancient copies of the Bible and say, "Look, here's what the Bible used to say, and here is what the Bible says now. It has been changed." But that is exactly what the Mormon and the Muslim can not do. WHY? When you go back to the ancient copies of the Bible that are still in existence today in museum's and library's around the world, you quickly come to the conclusion, as numerous secular scholars have, that the text of the modern Bible has not undergone corruption. Isaiah 40:8 "The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God stands forever." Jesus said in Matthew 24:35 "Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will by no means pass away."