Mary Christmas: A Closer Look at the Mother of Christ

Mary Christmas

Mary.  Some exalt her to an equal status of holiness with the Christ-child she carried in her womb, and others nearly ignore her in an effort to compensate for the idolization of her.

What does the Bible say about Mary and how is this important to our celebration of Christ’s birth this year and every year?

The Bible says that Mary found favor with God. (Luke 1:28, 30)

In considering the Biblical accounts of men and women who obtained the favor of the Lord, the following stand out: Noah, David, Job, and Mary.

How does the righteous and holy standing of Mary before God compare with other Hebrew people recorded in the Old Testament?

Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked with God (Genesis 6:9, 7:1).  Yet, Noah’s righteousness did not mean that he did not sin because we see that just shortly after he left the ark he sinned by becoming drunk (Genesis 9:20-21, Ephesians 5:18).  David, was a man after God’s own heart (Acts 13:22), and yet we can all point to the fact that David sinned in his adulteress sexual relations with Bathsheba, and then subsequently having her husband killed. Job, in Job 1:1 is characterized as a man blameless and upright, who feared God and shunned evil. Yet, Job, when he had  seen God, said, I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes. (Job 42:5-6)

Our first encounter with Mary is similar in that the angel Gabriel declares, Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.  Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favor with God.  (Luke 1: 28, 30) Based on the accounts of Noah, David, and Job, we can conclude that finding favor with God does not equal a sinless state.  (Romans 3:23) Further,we gain hope and encouragement that finding favor with God is possible for us as it was possible for Noah, David, Job, and Mary before us.

Let us rejoice in the fact that though we are wretched sinners God characterizes us as ones who gain His favor because of our faith in the Messiah and obedience to His commands.  For Noah, David, and Job it was God’s promised Messiah to come. For Mary and for us it is in belief in the Messiah that has come.

The Bible says that Mary believed God and was His faithful servant. (Luke 1:38, 45)

 My soul glorifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has been mindful of the humble state of his servant. From now on all generations will call me blessed, for the Mighty One has done great things for me- holy is his name.” – Luke 1:46-49

Mary praised God for the honor of being the chosen vessel to birth the Messiah who would fulfill prophecy and redemption for all mankind.  We can glean an attitude of humility from Mary that God would choose to use us to accomplish His divine purpose and eternal plan.

Following the shepherds’ visit and Jesus’ staying behind in the temple, the Bible says that Mary treasured all these things and pondered them in her heart (Luke 2:19, 51) Mary, unlike us, wasn’t privy to cameras and recorders to capture all the special moments and firsts of Christ.  She had to record her beloved Savior’s face and firsts on the imprints of her heart and mind.  More than this, Mary pondered the ways and works of God.

In our hustle and bustle of the holiday season, and all of the year, we can neglect meditation on the words and works of God.  Mary sets another example of God-honoring living by thinking on Christ.

The Bible leaves Mary at the foot of the cross. (John 19:25-27) That is where we should leave Mary.  Not as an exalted figure by which we can speak to God, not as a iconic statue to be praised and worshiped, nor as a fashion accessory or good luck charm, but rather as Christ-servant and fellow sinner in need of the Savior. This is where everyone is found in relation to Christ–the foot of the cross.

In looking at Mary this Christmas, I will see her as:

  • A young woman who lived in such a way to please God that she gained His favor to be a chosen vessel for accomplishing God’s divine and eternal will.
  • One who believed God and served him faithfully.
  • One who pondered the ways of God and Christ.
  • One blessed to know Christ in infancy, life, death, and his glorified and resurrected state in heaven.

In response to the life of this godly woman I will:

  1. Like Mary, ponder God’s gift of Jesus and his way in which He accomplished Christ’s birth. See Luke 1 and 2.
  2. Put Mary in proper perspective this Christmas and praise the Creator not the created one.
  3. Walk humbly with God so at the right time God will see fit to use me…not all my life, but today and then the same tomorrow and the same tomorrow.

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Getting Ready as in the Days of Noah

Getting Ready Noah

The Bible tells us–even more specifically Jesus tells us–that in the last days it will be as in the time of Noah:

Just as it was in the days of Noah, so will it be in the days of the Son of Man. They were eating and drinking and marrying and being given in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all. Likewise, just as it was in the days of Lot—they were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building, but on the day when Lot went out from Sodom, fire and sulfur rained from heaven and destroyed them all— so will it be on the day when the Son of Man is revealed. On that day, let the one who is on the housetop, with his goods in the house, not come down to take them away, and likewise let the one who is in the field not turn back. Remember Lot’s wife. Whoever seeks to preserve his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life will keep it. (Luke 17:26-33, ESV)

God determined to destroy His creation and created because of the rampant sin on the earth.

The LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And the LORD regretted that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. So the LORD said, “I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens, for I am sorry that I have made them.” But Noah found favor in the eyes of the LORD. (Genesis 6:5-8)

The sins of our day are not unlike the sins of Noah’s day; in fact, sin has been the same since the days of Adam and Eve after the fall. Murder, lying, adultery, covetousness, sexual immorality, and idolatry to name a few. The sins of our times are not unique to our times; they are, however, more rampant and championed–like the days of Noah.

Once God gave Noah the command to build the Ark, Noah knew that the time men had to repent and turn to God was limited. Scripture leads me to believe that Noah preached repentance and faith in God to save those who would listen. The people of his day decided they would mock Noah and his God and not heed the warning of impending doom.

God protected and preserved human life and animal life on the Ark in his abundant grace. God provided a way out–a wooden ark. Today, God continues to provide a way out of damnation and judgment: Jesus Christ. Just as the Ark provided the only way to survive God’s judgment of sin by water, Jesus provides the only way to salvation when we face God’s  judgment of fire. (See 1 Corinthians 3:13 for the believers, and 2 Peter 3:10 for the destruction of the earth by fire.)

For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. As for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry. (2 Timothy 4:3-5)

I believe we are living once again in the days of Noah. I believe that everything we are seeing on a national and international stage is preparing the way of the Lord as in the days of John the Baptist. That is why it is so very important for us to know the Scriptures so that we are wise unto salvation and prepared to heed the coming of the Lord Jesus. Noah’s Ark may seem archaic, or like a children’s story, but in reality it is a pivotal picture of what is to come.

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What’s the Flood Got to Do With It?

What's the Flood Got to Do With It

You most likely remember the 1984 Tina Turner hit song, What’s Love Got to Do With It? Not sure what Ms. Turner decided about love, but, for the next few posts we are going to consider a brief overview of the Noetic Flood account (Genesis 6-9) and determine, What’s the Flood Got to Do With It? (You can thank me later for planting that song in your head for the rest of the day!)  I think we will find that the world-wide flood of Noah’s time has everything to do with the world we see today, and the condition of the world we will see in the end-times prior to Jesus return.

As we begin to unfold the events of Genesis 6-9, lets commence with a few facts concerning the Noetic flood:

1. From the time God closed the door of the Ark, to the day Noah’s family and the animals departed, was 371 days.

2. The flood had to be global in scope for the following to be necessary:

  • The need for the Ark: Why not simply mass exodus with family and animals during the 120 years from God’s command to build the Ark and Noah’s family entering it?
  • The size of the Ark: The gross tonnage was about 13,960 tons placing it within the category of large metal ocean-going vessels today.
  • All the high mountains were covered. (Genesis 7:19-20) The flood would have had to be global in scope for the waters to cover even one high mountain…let alone all the high mountains. Water seeks its’ own level therefore the water would have had to cover the entire earth to cover one high mountain.

(The Genesis Flood, Whitcomb and Morris, p. 10)

3.  It is imperative that we understand the flood condensation did not come from water found in the cloud coverage. “If all the water in the earth’s atmosphere were to condense, only an average of one inch of rain would fall.” (In the Beginning, Walt Brown, p. 362) However, if we flattened the mountain ranges and lifted the ocean basins then there would be enough water to cover the earth over two miles high.

In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on that day all the fountains of the great deep burst forth, and the windows of the heavens were opened. And rain fell upon the earth forty days and forty nights. (Genesis 7:11-12)

  • “Fountains of the greet deep” refer to subterranean water chambers 10 miles underneath the earth’s surface.
  • The opening of the great deep left a permanent scar on the earth called the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. (Click here for Google Images.)
  • The scar, Mid-Atlantic Ridge,  is composed of basalt rock which is found in the interior of the earth.
  • See full explanation of Dr. Walt Brown’s Hydro-Plate Theory at www.creationscience.com.

Perhaps you, like me, didn’t give the Flood Account a second thought in reference to the scientific and geologic ramifications of such a catastrophe. Perhaps, you focused instead on the animals going in two-by-two and the picturesque rainbow scene thereafter. However, once we look at Noah’s Flood in such a way, it will change our view of the earth and the scientific information of our secular society. Additionally, our understanding of multiple texts we encounter when reading the Bible will be further enlightened and read with added meaning.

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Theistic Evolution, Genesis Gap, or Six Literal Days?

Origin of Man

Many differing camps within the church exists which try to squeeze millions of years into the Bible in efforts to allow for the claims of evolution. Two such theories are Theistic Evolution and the Gap Theory. We will look at a brief summary of both of them today.

Two questions we might consider together: When did the literal interpretation of the Genesis creation account come into question? How long ago did man, and/or the church, question the belief in a Creator who made all that we see?

It wasn’t until the later decades of the 18th century that scientists started to develop and pursue the idea of an older earth. Geology (the study of rocks and fossils) became its own separate field of science during the 19th century (or ~200 years ago). In the infancy of uniformitarianism (doctrine that believes change has occurred at a constant rate in the geologic record) vs. catastrophism (doctrine that physical changes in the geologic reccord can be explained by catastrophic events i.e. the Flood which happened in the past) debates, many believers embraced the newly developing theory of an old earth and immediately began squeezing millions of years into the only place possible: Genesis 1 and 2.

Namely, Thomas Chalmers (Presbyterian) in 1814 with his Gap Theory and George Stanley Faber (Anglican theologian) promoting the Day/Age view (see here).

Even the highly respected and often quoted pastor, Charles Spurgeon, of England, accepted the old-earth geological theory:

Years ago we thought the beginning of this world was when Adam came upon it; but we have discovered that thousands of years before that God was preparing chaotic matter to make it a fit abode for man, putting races of creatures upon it, who might die and leave behind the marks of his handiwork and marvelous skill, before he tried his hand on man.

I would like to question Spurgeon’s claims with my own question, “And we know this how?” Apart from an infinite Creator imparting to man the origins of time, space, and matter, we are left with presuppositions and worldview claims as to the creation (for lack of a better term) of life as we know it. This is an area we call historical science, which differs greatly from observational (testable) science.

We assume that geologists and scientists have actual facts to back up their evolutionary age of the earth claims. However, these claims are not in fact factual, but more simply, promoted as such. Christians unquestioned acceptance of such claims deteriorates the authority of God’s Word beginning with, “In the beginning, God created.” (Genesis 1:1)

Let’s look at an overview of the thoughts behind Theistic Evolution Theory and Gap Theory.

Theistic Evolution

  • God used evolution over long ages to create the universe.
  • Supports molecules to man evolution.
  • Does not believe in a historical Adam and Eve as the Scriptures teach both in the Old and New Testaments.
  • Makes God, instead of Adam and Eve, responsible for sin and death with the thought that the sedimentary, fossil bearing layers of the (man-made) geological column were laid down over long periods of time rather than during a period of days as a result of the world-wide flood. (See Genesis 6-9)

This theory purports that God set up the conditions for life and then walked away. Further, that man was not a creation of God, but that he evolved from lesser life forms over a period of perhaps millions of years. This is problematic for several reasons, one of which is that men and women would have evolved from multiple ape-like creatures all over the earth (in line with evolutionary thinking) and not from one mother-father pair. Meaning that there would not be a literal, albeit evolved, Adam and Eve by which sin would have entered the world. Jesus was the last Adam come to save his created from their sin. Apart from a literal Adam to usher in sin, there is no other reason to believe that God was therefore not the initiator of sin. Therefore, no reason for Him to redeem that which He would have created as evil in the beginning. Certainly the Bible does not support this line of teaching.

For Christians who are content to accept salvation and the gospel message of the New Testament and neglect the Old Testament, the above line of thinking should raise many questions. Questions for which there are answers to be found. (Matthew 7:7)

Gap Theory (Ruin/Reconstruction Theory)

  • God created earth and let it sit for untold millions or billions of years.
  • Lucifer and the fallen angels fell prior to the creation week and roamed the earth with spiritless “man-like” creatures and animals.
  • Sin was so rampant that God decided to flood the earth and start over—Lucifer’s flood.
  • God began again in Genesis 1:2 and proceeded with the creation week.

The Gap Theory is weak in that the fossil record from Lucifer’s flood would have been replaced with the fossil record from Noah’s flood and would have erased all the “evidence” of an old earth and Lucifer’s flood. Most importantly, once again, where do we see this accounted for in Scripture? Finally, is it necessary? Why do we need to insert more information into the Creation Account that is not found within the Scriptures? Is it merely in an effort justify the Biblical account with the claims of an evolutionary worldview? A worldview which secular society promotes as truth, and additionally, which exists only as a necessity to explain the world apart from a deity’s involvement. If so, then we need to question evolution to determine if the claims of evolution are supported with scientific data.

If this post has peeked your interest in the origins of man and creation, then I would refer you to this post (click here) for a list of recommended resources. Thank you for seeking for the Truth with me today.

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A Day is Like A Thousand Years?

A Look at the DayAge Theory

 

Within the Christian community, there are many differing theories concerning the origin of man and the age of the earth. One such theory is the Day/Age Theory. George Stanley Faber, an Anglican theologian first promoted the Day/Age view. Here is a brief description of the beliefs behind this theory:

  • Each of the Creation days was a long period of indefinite time.
  • God created certain animals millions of years ago and then they died out.
  • Thereafter, God created more animals and eventually He decided to create humans.
  • Acceptance of millions of years of death, disease, and suffering before Adam and Eve’s sin and the subsequent curse on the earth.

Some problems with this theory are as follows:

  • The Hebrew word for day is yom. In order for yom to be a 24 hour period it must have qualifiers with it. These qualifiers include: morning, evening, number and/or day. The Creation account documented in Genesis 1 specifically lists each day as follows: And there was evening, and there was morning, the first day…second day… and so forth. All qualifiers are included…almost redundantly.
  • Another point that must be considered is the death and decay prior to Adam and Eve’s sin that would have cast judgment on the earth.
  • This would not have been the “very good” creation that God declared it to be in Genesis 1 and 2. (See also Romans 8:20-22)

Often Day/Age proponents will refer to the verse in 2 Peter 3:8:

One day is with the Lord as a thousand years.

First, we must consider the context the verse is located within. The third chapter of 2 Peter is specifically speaking about the second coming of Christ. Peter is conveying the patience of the Lord in Christ’s second coming so that more people will be led to repentance and salvation. Next, Peter is conveying that the Lord is outside of time. He specifically uses a comparative article—as or like—which is not found in Genesis 1. This verse reiterates that God is outside of time or that time is nothing to God.  It is not referring to the creation of time, space, and matter as Genesis 1 and 2 are.

On Friday we will take a look at the theories of Theistic Evolution and the Gap Theory.

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Creation, Dinosaurs, and the Flood

To those of you new here to This Temporary Home from this morning’s apologetics class, welcome! I have compiled a brief list of resources that I would recommend you utilize to aid in your search for the truth of man’s origins, dinosaurs, creation, and the flood. I look forward to sharing more posts with you in the future.

Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. (Matthew 7:7, ESV)

If you are seeking in depth teaching and scientific data this is a textbook by Dr. Walt Brown which can also be accessed free on his website at www.creationscience.com (here).

The New Answers Book series is reader friendly and packed full of answers to today’s questions in the field of creation science. Highly recommended for its ease of reading and information-packed content.

If you are curious about the implications of dismissing the first eleven chapters of the book of Genesis, Six Days, by Ken Ham is a wonderful resource for consideration. Ken Ham presents a comprehensive look at the church’s departure from reading Genesis 1-3 as a historical record and hammers home the mission and message behind the ministry of Answers in Genesis (here). Additionally, I highly recommend subscribing to the Answers Magazine.

For a comprehensive look at the different worldviews prevalent today, as well as a defense for creation, and an overview of the shift from loving God with our heart, soul, strength, and minds to the heart only in church history, you will be hard pressed to find a better resource than Nancy Pearcey’s book, Total Truth.

This is a wonderful picture book packed with quick facts on creation topics for the whole family to enjoy from Institute for Creation Research (ICR) (here). ICR also produces a magazine that you can receive via e-mail or automatically after purchasing one of their products from the website. iPhone apps are available from ICR as well that have a daily devotional.

Here are links to the news articles that I referenced during class this morning. Please consider the worldview that these articles are written from and try to discern the facts from the desired truths. Remember having the childlike faith doesn’t mean we don’t ask questions; but that we have faith there are answers to our questions. 

  • China’s Dinosaur Hunter: The Ground Breaker  (here)
  • Warm or Cold? Dinosaurs Had In Between Blood (here)
  • Tannin article from Answers in Genesis (here)
  • Birds Did Not Evolve from Dinosaurs, Say Evolutionists (here)
  • No Animals Were Harmed in the Making of This Fossil (here)

Thanks again for stopping by!

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*The links are Amazon Affiliate links meaning that I can receive a portion of the proceeds from any purchases you make. However, this service primarily provides me an easy and aesthetically pleasing way to provide you with a list of resources. I encourage you to check Amazon in addition to your local library or favorite used book store to obtain these resources. Thrifted books are my favorite. Happy studying!

 

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All Hands on Deck

studying post

This Sunday I have the awesome honor and great responsibility of teaching my first church-wide apologetics class.

I can’t make that sound as daunting and wonderful to you as I would like to. In world importance it is trifle, but in personal and perhaps lasting change it is big. First off, it is a wonderful opportunity to share some of the creation science apologetics that I have studied for 3-5 years. (Really, anytime you or I have the chance to teach it is a culmination of all that God has taught us up to that particular point in life.)  It could prompt lasting change if it encourages even one person to study in order to  enable them to defend their faith better and give a reason for the hope that they have.

Conversely, it is daunting because there is soooooo much information to choose from and therefore a great deal that I aim to communicate accurately. Additionally, our church is very blessed to have a pastor on our staff with a doctorate in apologetics. He is a great teacher who sets the bar high and I have learned a great deal from him. In other words, this isn’t the class’s first rodeo and they will spot a weakling. (Smile.)

That being the case, I had decided a month ago that for VBS I would choose a behind the scenes, low responsibility type job as it starts the Monday directly after my Sunday class. Well, as it turns out, VBS was short on Bible teachers and I changed my volunteer status to teach four-year-old Bible. Part of the responsibilities of the Bible teacher is room decoration. Also, I still needed a co-teacher as volunteers were sparse. I turned to my community group and sought out help. Wouldn’t you know that a co-teacher committed out of my group as well as three ladies to decorate the room?!

Needless to say, these are full weeks for me and I want to give a public praise to God for providing opportunities and the means to meet the demands of these opportunities.  It is remarkable that even though the three ladies decorating the four-year-old Bible room have week-day jobs and can’t volunteer for the face to face VBS time, they are able to contribute to make the classroom environment fun.

What about you? What ministry opportunities are coming your way? How can you enlist the help of friends and sisters/brothers in Christ to help meet Kingdom needs?

I am so grateful that when God calls us He also provides the means to meet the tasks.

This weekend I will post a list of apologetic resources for the participants of Sunday’s class to access. They are for you as well! The resources are geared to further equip us to answer questions about creation, dinosaurs, and the Flood. Be on the lookout for the list and for upcoming posts that will cover the teaching time.

Thanks, as always, for taking time to stop by This Temporary Home. Please read this post with grace as I am certain I have mixed tenses throughout…and yet, I am leaving it that way. Yikes! 🙂

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Suffering Servant, Resurrected Lamb

Jesus Messiah

The Redeemer came to reunify the created to the Creator. Like the Good Shepherd that goes after the one lost lamb, He came so that all the lost have freedom to choose life. Life not given at first breath, but by means of faith in the One who died in our place.

But is there proof for our belief that Jesus is the Messiah and that he was resurrected from the dead?

Today, I hope to strengthen the minds of those of you who answered yes, and guide those who would answer no to the question above. We will look at one aspect of the proof of Jesus being the Messiah via the Old Testament prophecies and another for the proof of His resurrection from an eyewitness account.

First, in Isaiah 53, the prophet, Isaiah, prophesied about Jesus, the Messiah, 700 years before His birth and 733 years before His cruel death on the cross.

But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. (Isaiah 53:5-6)

Today, the response to Isaiah 53 for the Jewish and rabbinical theologians is that the Suffering Servant described in Isaiah 53 was not referring to the coming Messiah, but to the nation of Israel.  The first Jew to propose that Isaiah 53 is referring to the nation of Israel was Shlomo Yitzchaki, more familiarly known as Rashi (c. 1040-1105). According to Norman L. Geisler and Frank Turek in their book, I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist (2004),  there are at least three reasons why Isaiah 53 cannot be referring to the nation of Israel:

  • First, unlike Israel, the Servant is sinless. (53:9) If Israel is sinless, then why did God give the Jews a sacrificial system? Why did they have a Day of Atonement? Why did they constantly need prophets to warn them to stop sinning and to come back to God?
  • Second, unlike Israel, the Suffering Servant is a lamb who submits without any resistance whatsoever (53:7) History show us that Israel certainly is not a lamb–she lies down for no one.
  • Third, unlike Israel, the Suffering Servant dies as a substitutionary atonement for the sins of others (53:4-6, 8, 10-12) But Israel has not died, nor is she paying for the sins of others. No one is redeemed on account of what the nation of Israel does. Nations, and the individuals that comprise them, are punished for their own sins.

(Geisler and Turek, 2004, pp. 333-334)

Who alone in all of human history can match the description of the Suffering Servant in Isaiah 53? None but Christ alone.

Secondly, as we consider the claims of the disciples and apostles that Christ indeed rose from the dead, let us look at Paul. Paul is one of the primary proofs of the resurrection of Jesus. Let’s consider Paul’s conversion on the road to Damascus. Acts 9.

 Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? (Acts 9:4)

It is imperative that we distinguish this is Jesus addressing Paul for two reasons (verse 5). 

First, this is pertinent in the revelation that when a Christ-follower is suffering, Christ Himself suffers too. What is done to the Body of Christ, the church, is done unto Jesus Himself. The Bible clearly tells us that persecution of Christ-followers is to be expected and that we should rejoice in our suffering. Saul of Tarsus, later called Paul, was a persecutor of the early church “breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord.” (Acts 9:1)

Secondly, it is imperative that we note this is in fact Jesus talking with Paul because he is another eyewitness of the risen Savior. More specifically, an eyewitness by a professing enemy of the gospel following the ascension of Jesus into heaven. (See Acts 26) Paul’s conversion is significant in this fact as he was a primary witness of Jesus. Paul did not come to be a Christ-follower from a secondary retelling of the gospel; rather, he encountered the risen Savior himself.

The Old Testament prepares the way, and the New Testament documents the prophecies fulfilled. Now we who remain are looking to the clouds and eagerly awaiting His second coming.

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Reliability of the Scriptures Part III

 Archaeological

What have archaeologists discovered that would lead us to believe in the historical claims of the New Testament? Thankfully, the answer to this question is, archaeology has unearthed a great deal of support for the historical accounts of the Bible. Today I will provide a springboard for further studies of the wealth of archaeological support.

  • “There are at least thirty characters in the NT who have been confirmed as historical by archaeology or non-Christian sources.” (Geisler, Norman L. and Turek, Frank, 2004)
  • The John Rylands Papyrus, discovered by Grenfeld in Egypt in 1920, provides the oldest known fragment of a New Testament Manuscript. The small scrap from John’s Gospel chapter nineteen verses thirty-one to thirty-three, and thirty-seven to thirty-eight, was one specific finding that helped to fix a date to the gospel of John. Papyrologists dated the scrap to 125 A.D., “but since it was so far south into Egypt, it successfully put an end to the then-popular attempt to late-date John’s Gospel to the second century rather than to the traditional first century date of A.D. 85–90.” (Walter C. Kaiser, 2007; Walter C. Kaiser, 2007)
  • The well-known, well-referenced Dead Sea Scrolls were found in 1948 in caves at Qumran in the Judean Desert, near the northwest end of the Dead Sea. This archaeological find provided around eight-hundred manuscripts of every book (in part or the whole) of the OT except for Esther. “Prior to that, the earliest Hebrew texts dated to around A.D. 1000, but the scrolls at Qumran are generally more than one thousand years older! These Hebrew texts illustrate that a thousand years of copying had provided us with an amazingly pure text, with one of the best examples being the book of Isaiah where only three words had slight modifications. (Walter C. Kaiser, 2007)

Given the number of manuscript copies (here), the agreement between manuscripts (here), and the archaeological support of Biblical, historical characters and events, we can say with confidence that the Bible is a historically reliable text. Further, that it is the most historically reliable text of all of ancient documents.

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The Reliability of the Scriptures Part II

Textual Variants

We’ve seen how the number of manuscripts for the New Testament exceeds all other ancient texts by thousands; as well as observed the fact that the New Testament books were well referenced in historical documents outside of the NT.

Now let’s look at the variants within the manuscripts. It should be noted that the more manuscript copies available, the more variants.

A textual variant is any time the New Testament manuscripts have alternative wordings…By far the most significant category of variants is spelling differences. Spelling differences account for roughly 75 percent of all variants.(McDowell, 2005)

Spelling variants, followed by pronoun and synonym differences account for the variants we see within the manuscripts. In fact, three scholars: NT scholar Bruce Metzger, Greek scholar A. T. Robertson, and Sir Frederick Kenyon all agree that the New Testament we have today is 99.9% accurate and by far the most accurate of any known ancient text. (Geisler, 2007)

We know that the manuscripts far outnumber all other ancient documents and are accurate according to the academic and historical tests of scholars, but how did the New Testament Cannon come to be? How do we know that the books included in the Bible are meant to be there? Three criteria were deemed necessary. Meeting these criteria, the entirety of the Old Testament and the New Testament were first agreed upon at the Council of Laodicea in 363 A. D. followed by the Council of Hippo (393 A.D.) and the Council of Carthage (397 A.D.):

  1. The books must have apostolic authority—either they were written by eyewitness apostles or by followers of apostles.
  2. Conformity to the rule of faith. Was the document congruent with the basic Christian tradition that the church recognized as normative?
  3. Did the document have continuous acceptance and usage by the church at large?

(Strobel, 1998)

In 2005, former evangelical and present New Testament professor at the Universtiy of North Carolina Chapel Hill, Bart Erhman, broke from the faith and published the New York Times Bestseller, Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why. As recently as March of 2014, Erhman continues to lead people astray with his claims that Jesus was given deity postmortem by his disciples in his latest book, How Jesus Became God.

In speeches and writings, Erhman points out the differences in the gospel accounts of Jesus’ final words on the cross in the books of Mark and Luke. Additionally, he makes bogus claims that Jesus’ was not buried and further that the eyewitnesses of Jesus following his resurrection were merely hallucinations. As Lee Strobel conveys in his book, The Case for Christ, Dr. Gary Collins, a psychologist, explains, “Hallucinations are individual occurrences. By their very nature only one person can see a given hallucination at a time. They certainly aren’t’ something which can be seen by a group of people.” (Strobel, 1998)

Erhman’s claims can be rebutted.

These divergent, eyewitness accounts within the gospels are not barriers to our faith but are important in proving the authenticity of the texts.

Complete harmonization would indicate the accounts were all from a single source or editor. Each author of the gospels includes early and unique material that eyewitnesses can provide. (Norman L.Geisler and Frank Turek, 2004)

Further, the New Testament writers include embarrassing details, carefully distinguished between their own words and those of Christ, and refer to facts that readers of their day could either verify or repudiate. Finally, after imprisonment, beatings, and martyrdom none of the disciples recanted the gospel. The disciples either died for the truth or a known lie. As many can attest, “liars make poor martyrs.” (Habermas, 2004)

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