Shifting Perspectives - Biblical Conversations about Topics that Matter - Episode 12

welcome to shifting perspectives

biblical conversations about topics that

matter let's get to

[Music]

it hey everybody welcome back we are in

this conversation about why we believe

the Bible why is the Bible trustworthy

and and so the last couple of of these

we've really talked about what the Bible

says what are some of the faith aspects

to it um what is the Bible but we're

going to get into some really nuts and

bolts technical you know reasons for why

we can believe the Bible in in this

particular um video and so what we want

to begin to talk about is um the

manuscripts you know there's a lot of

that that debunking that you have talked

about before there are a lot of people

that want to go after the Manus scripts

and whether or not they're they're

accurate and

dependable um do you think they're

accurate so let's look at the facts I

mean what I think is you're let's look

at facts well that's kind of important

you know so let's let's get into that

for all the the type A personality

people like like I am out there let's

look at the facts I mean if you look we

take Plato's writings okay we who wrote

Plato's writings the world understands

we've got

20 original manuscripts okay of Plato's

writing who wrote Plato well we all say

PL sure yeah it's it's easy um you know

and there's some other you know there's

some other um ones that we have out

there uh that we I have no problem

attributing 50 or less manuscripts to

certain writers or certain people right

famous famous novels famous writings so

you mentioned manuscripts how many

manuscripts

do we have of the Bible and whenever I

personally deal into this I want to find

out I want to know if I want to believe

in something I want to know the basis

and the background of it so whenever you

go and you look depending on you know

the sources there's some different some

different odds in at the very minimum

number of biblical manuscripts that we

have is

13,000 right 13,000 biblical manuscripts

um you know if you take into account

some some things I'm going to delve into

here that could be as high as 25,000

right so okay we've got a large quantity

exactly we've got a large quantity

13,000 all the Dead Sea Scrolls all the

old writings you know you've got writing

from the ancient times back in the Book

of Job which is the oldest writing we

have you know all the way up into the

the New Testament and those so you've

got all of these writings okay that's

great we've got 13,000 copies and

realize when we say copies we're talking

about you know Papyrus manuscripts

Scrolls um you know built made out of

made out of a plant fiber so it wasn't

like that you know today we don't 13,000

I can run that off in 15 minutes a good

highspeed press you know they're writing

these things by hand and if we talked

about in one of our other ones

eyewitness accounts yep so if I Rite it

and and I've got 400 other people around

me that have seen it and these four

people are going to read it it better be

right exactly yep and that's where the

true magic for me comes into play is

whenever we look at these 13,000

manuscripts

they are almost 100% to be technical

about

99.5% yeah the same manuscripts across

there and the 0.05 is really comes down

to spelling and a little bit of scrip

there's nothing the theological right

nothing that would change the in the

infallibility or the inherency of

scripture that we talk about in those

things um some some different some some

minor different word uses is are and or

may be

changed um spelling differences may be

changed now when you say when we look at

those what we really talking about when

we look at those is a

comparison of them against each other

yes right so um and that's kind of

important

because there's that's the only basis um

is is comparing them against the others

to see if that

consistency has remained and um I I

would bet that you could take texts

today that we hold as truth and compare

them to other texts I mean so our our

our kids are are in school right right

and how many years uh does mcra Hill

change the history book and if you were

to look at the history book that's being

taught today would it be comparative to

the one that was taught 5 10 15 20 years

ago would you be able to say the same

thing even about texts today that we

stand on as being true correct um and

these texts anywhere from 13,000 to

25,000 written in multiple languages

languages greek latin Coptic seratic um

you know Hebrew

Aramaic and you begin to look at them

and compare them against each other and

you begin to say

99.5% accurate and Scholars agree that

that

0.5% do not change the message or the

meaning or the storyline in any

measurable way

MH I I wonder is there a book

today that you could say that about by

the way in the 20 copies of PL there are

there are more than about I think that

the differential on that was about 6% 6%

out of 20 copies we half a perent out of

13 to 25,000 wow so that is where you

know that is where for for me the this

was the place that I went through first

to to study scripture I want to know

where it came from right I want to know

that it's true you tell me it's true and

we talked about this I want to take it

on faith but you know one of those

things I always say is trust but verify

it's one of the things we use it I trust

it is but I want to verify the accuracy

in the historical documents there

exactly you know and really doubt for

scripture and we I'll toss this to you

doubt for scripture of Doubt of

scriptures Perfection really is a thing

that has occurred only in the last few

hundred years years yeah not necessarily

throughout because the farther away you

move from the writing the more the doubt

comes into play because the people at

that time all saw it they were

eyewitnesses as we've talked about they

were all the eyewitnesses to the

scripture they were all eyewitness to

the events to the teaching to the to the

to the to the things that went on the

time so they didn't doubt as much as we

doubt today going did really happen

right yeah no that's that's right it

became much more of an issue within the

last 500 years and and realis ically if

you really think about it the

intellectual time period the Industrial

Revolution the time of enlightening

where people began to to gain knowledge

in other sources they began to doubt

whether or not Supernatural sources and

the Bible is a supernatural work very

much so it is not you know we say it's

historical documents and we have

25,000 manuscripts of historical

documents but it is a

supernatural world work yes you could

not have the congruency and the

consistency across three continents

across 40 authors across 1500 years

without it being Supernatural and that's

one of the things that a Christian hangs

their hat on in 2 Timothy

2 Timothy 3:16

3:16 it says that the word of God is in

our English translation says inspired um

uh it's it's a Greek word Theos means

god breathed but inspired really isn't

the best way to think about the Bible it

would be better be said to say spired

and and what do we mean by that uh in

Jeremiah chapter 1 as an example it says

Jeremiah 1 · chapter mention

it says that God put his words in

Jeremiah's mouth and by the way Jeremiah

is one of those eyewitness writings here

and so inspired doesn't mean well you

know I was kind of moved to to to say

this or do this we could say that a TED

Talk was inspiring right right it's not

inspired it's actually inspired it is

the word of God put in the mouth or the

pen of men and that's Supernatural

That's Supernatural how do you get

25,000 that can can be that that much

close together if it's not a

supernatural work yeah and that's where

as you look at that it's you know one of

the common mythes well they just kept

writing books and referencing back to

the old books and that was that was how

it became but but whenever again going

back to what are the facts let's go a

feelings what are the facts the fact are

the fact is that Old Testament books

reveal things that happen in the future

again well documented after their

writing yeah you know the Book of Daniel

talks about so much and and you know all

the Prophecies of the coming Messiah of

Christ you know the 360 plus prophecies

that said he will check all these all

these

boxes we went into that very deep in in

one of our other other sessions so yes

it Christ references back to the Old

Testament adding validity to the Old

Testament the Old Testament also reveals

the New Testament as it's as it's coming

to pass and we can see those things that

only happens if you've got something

that's outside the timeline being so

cohesive because you and I probably

couldn't write two books on the same

subject sitting here at the table and

they be that cohesive let alone 1500

years uh you know 44 writers or whatever

the number is so um all these writers

all these things and then they blend

together seamlessly to as we talked

about last session the most uh

scrutinized book that's ever been

written more time energy effort has been

taken to debunk this than any other

thing that was ever written y we're fine

with ploh with 20 copies but we're not

fine with the Bible with 13 15 20,000 uh

copies um it just it doesn't make sense

so you have to start there and say is it

true yes it's true yeah and so that man

that manuscript quantity and that number

of um different references over

different languages Hebrew Aramaic Greek

Greek uh Latin Coptic sertic all of

these different manuscripts that are all

saying the same thing because here's one

of the arguments one of the arguments is

is that it's a m madeup story and

somebody sat

down and made them congruent by

rewriting them so that they told one

story well here's the problem with

that I I I I write a lot and I read a

lot but can you imagine having to have a

person or a group of people that

coordinates a particular storyline

together and then sits down and rewrites

so that they can cover these 25,000

manuscripts 13 to 25,000 depending on

the number that you have so that they

all look and read the same way it's it's

an absolute impossibility right that's

almost more of a supernatural event than

having right and then you begin to say

well okay well if they had if they did

that to make it true you know they

wouldn't just you know cuz this is this

is 1500 years they would have to to

cover EXA uh 40 different authors

different writing styles three different

continents but now you begin to say but

there's early church writings there's

that remember eyewitness of eyewitnesses

there's guys like plyy the younger holy

cow who What parents named their kid

plyy um is't that

awful you never know you might just you

might like that one of these days Carl

yeah you know uh but but but this fell

wrote as eyewitness not a believer of

the eyewitness accounts that we find

here you'd have to change his story

you'd have to change tacus Roman

historian story you'd have to change

fius josephus's story you'd have to

teach you'd have to change the early

Church Father stories those those uh

anti-an and post Nan uh early church

leaders um you'd have to change

everybody's because they all point back

to the the validity of this word and

that's really something that would be

completely impossible right and and

that's where I think whenever you look

at when you look at what we're talking

about we talk about the Bible But

realize and again we touched on this

some of some of our other conversations

so I encourage if you haven't listened

to all of them please go listen to them

but the Bible is supported by tremendous

amounts of secular writing and secular

secular documentation that has nothing

to do with Bible nothing to do with this

but the events are coordinated with them

from the outside saying these are true

and these are TR these are accurate

absolutely and so so you have this

manuscript evidence and and we and we

apply then some tests to those

manuscripts and and I think um for for

this next session that we're going to go

into um let's talk about some of the

tests how how did we test these how how

is it that we that we are able to say um

yeah I believe that's accurate besides

the congruency test which is a big one

right A big one um you know the

congruency of the Bible talked with the

congruency of all the manuscripts is is

absolutely huge um in its believability

and so we'll stop there and um we'll

jump into this again next week with a

little bit more on why the Bible is

believable youall have a great week have

a good week