Date: March 2003 Title: How we got our Bible (I)

        It is not uncommon, in modern western civilization, to have people express doubts about the Bible with questions like,

How can we trust or believe the Bible, since it has been changed so many times and translated so many different ways since it was originally written?

 How can we trust in a book that everyone interprets differently?

Although these are valid questions and both deserve serious answers, we should not forget that these same people, after refusing to trust in the inspiration and infallibility of the Bible, will quote or refer to something said by an “expert” (somebody with a “Ph.D.”) as though they were inspired and infallible.

        Those who place their hope in a piece of literature need to have some idea as to how that literature came into being, how well it accords with reality, and how to read it so that it conveys the meaning it was originally intended to have.  The Bible did not simply “fall out of the sky,” but claims to have come to us from God through selected human writers.  The purpose of this series of articles is to offer an overview of the steps by which God’s revelation came to us over the centuries and offer evidence in support of the Bible’s accurate transmission over the centuries.

        The Basics - The word "Bible" comes from the Greek word biblion, which referred to a roll of byblus/papyrus.  The Bible is a diverse library of 66 documents incorporating a number of different genres (types of literature) - law, history, poetry/wisdom, prophecy, genealogy, Gospel, letters, and Apocalyptic.  According to the conservative and traditional view, it was written between 1450 B.C. - 100 A.D. by 40 different authors, using three different languages (Hebrew, Aramaic, koine Greek).

        Six Basic Steps – One of the reasons for the difficulty some have in understanding God’s message is that there are a number of steps by which it has come down to us and each could potentially create an opportunity for problems.  It is these six steps that will become our focus over the next few months.  Briefly, these six steps are: revelation, writing, transmission, canonicity, translation, and interpretation.

Step #1: Revelation

 God, after He spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways, in these last days has spoken to us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the world.  (Hebrews 1:1,2 NAS)

         The very first step in the process of God’s message coming to us is, simply, God communicating with humanity in time and space.  Everyone has to make an initial decision about whether or not God exists, for revelation could only occur if God actually exists.  This is the “continental divide” between Theists and materialists/atheists.  The French Enlightenment assumed “nature only,” clearly denying the reality of a “supernatural realm” in which God could exist and from which He could reveal anything.  Thus, we have one of the basic reasons for the strong reaction against the Bible by 18^th-19^th century intellectuals and those down to our time that have followed their reasoning.  Upon the Enlightenment’s materialistic/naturalistic assumptions about reality, the Bible had to be a merely human product because revelation and miracles (i.e., divine intervention of any kind) were “impossible.”  However, to make this mindset work, critics had to suggest an ancient world much different than what archaeology and history have shown it to be – they assumed that no one could write in 1400 B.C., early cities and people (Genesis 10:8-14) were fiction, and the Bible writers were unknown editors producing a false and flattering picture for later Judean kings, etc.  We will deal with these issues later.

        On the other hand, if one allows for the possibility of the existence of the God described in the Bible (and there are good reasons for doing so), then Divine revelation and intervention are very possible, even “reasonable.”  It is here that our “plausibility structure” (what we are willing to believe or consider as “real”) is crucial.  Atheists and Theists both work logically from their different assumptions – if there is no God, then revelation is impossible.  But if God does exist, then revelation is very possible, if not probable.  Early in my Christian life, I read several of Francis Schaeffer’s books - The God who is there and He is there and He is not silent – and he dealt with these issues.^[1]  I am now re-reading these books with great profit and am reminded that a God who exists, but does not communicate, would be of very little good or interest to us.  Genuine and true knowledge about God would best originate from God Himself (revelation), otherwise our own philosophizing about the “Unknown God” would be the best we could do and that would probably not lead us to the God who is there (1Corinthians 1:21).  Let’s distinguish two important terms.  Revelation is what God tells us about Himself and His will, while theology is what humans conclude and speculate about God on the basis of revealed information, observing nature, cultural influences, and personal thought patterns.

        The Biblical Viewpoint – Hebrews 1:1-2 summarizes God’s revelation - God expressed Himself in providence, miraculous events, various scattered communications to numerous selected people, prophetic words/messages, poetry and songs, and finished it off through Jesus and His Apostles and Prophets (cf. Galatians 1:6-9; Jude 3).  The assertion of the writers is plain – their message is not their own, it is the message of God being relayed through them (Matthew 10:19,20; 1Thessalonians 2:13).  The message of the Bible is that “God Has Spoken” and we are not left to philosophize and theologize and create our own conception of God’s nature and will for us.  Rather, He has communicated and caused a permanent record to be made, so that all might know Him and His will.  As Francis Schaeffer said, “He is there and He is not silent.”