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Studio "B" Transcripts The Bible: Fact or Myth
Dr. Mike Moss is Director of Biblical Studies at Lipscomb University in Nashville, Tennessee. Dr. Moss visited our KNLS studio "B" recently to share with our listening friends several lines of evidence that suggest the Bible is God's inspired, accurate, and complete message for mankind. His comments follow. Please note the copyright notice at the bottom of this page. You may now jump to one of the following:
What the Bible Claims For Itself Osborne: Joining us here in the studios of KNLS is Dr. Mike Moss. Dr. Moss will be joining us all of this week here on KNLS. Dr. Moss is director of Biblical Studies at Lipscomb University in Nashville, TN. He is here all of this week to discuss with us the question, 'Can the Bible be trusted? Is it really, as Christian people claim, the inspired word of God? Or, as skeptics claim, nothing more than myths and fairy tales?' Dr. Moss, we appreciate your taking time to be with us. Moss: It's good to be with you and to share with you as we talk about the word of God. Osborne: You have been very generous with your time, and we appreciate that. As I mentioned just a moment ago, Christian people claim that the Bible is divinely inspired book, but some of our listening friends may not be aware that the Bible itself actually makes this claim for itself, in addition to Christian people making that claim for the Bible, the Bible itself makes that claim. Talk to us about that for a moment. Moss: That's true. One of the themes that runs all the way thru the Bible is this message 'thus saith the Lord'. This is what the Lord says. When one moves to the New Testament, in 2 Timothy, chapter 3, verses 16ff, we get that same kind of information. 'All Scripture is inspired by God, and profitable for teaching and reproof and correction, for training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be adequately equipped for every good work.' There the apostle Paul is addressing a young man named Timothy. He's giving him some final advise, Paul expects to die shortly, and he tells Timothy he needs to see Scripture as inspired by God, literally 'God-breathed', God's stamp of approval. It gives man what he needs, it is profitable, useful for teaching and correction, and fixing problems and training people to be the people of God, and that if one understands that, he can be adequately equipped to live the Christian life, to share the message, and so forth. Again, the Bible consistently contends that God is speaking to his people, it is the revelation of God, of God's will, of his nature to the world. And I think that is important for people to see. It is not a claim again that others are sort of forcing upon the text, it's within the text, Old and New Testaments. Osborne: There are a number of different lines or avenues of reasoning that Christian people use as they try to convince others that the Bible is in fact God's inspired word. We are going to be looking at several of those lines of reasoning over the next several days here on KNLS. You might just 'billboard' for our listening friends if you would some of the topics that we'll be covering over the next few days, the lines of reasoning that we'll be looking at in support of that claim. Moss: Sure. One of the things that we see as we look at the Old and New Testaments is a unique unity that runs all the way through those books, written over 100+ years, forty different authors, and yet those books hang together and have a consistent message. That message speaks to us today, which is amazing. It was written to people in various cultures, over lots of years, and yet it speaks to us today. Despite the fact that folks have tried to destroy that Word of God over those years, it's hung in there it's still available, it's been translated into many translations and made available to people as they struggle to find God's will in their lives. It's historically accurate. Stuff that we read there really did happen, it's not fairy tales. It DID happen, and that's important for us. I think perhaps most importantly, it tells us the story of Jesus, who he is and what he did, and Jesus, his nature, I think puts a special stamp of approval on this message of God. Jesus himself is that wonderful message. You read lots of prophecies in this book, and those prophecies are fulfilled. They happen. In the Old Testament, we are told that one of the marks of a false teacher is he says things will happen and they don't, and in the New Testament and Old Testament alike, those things that have been predicted have happened. Again, that kind of consistency that runs all the way through. Everything about the book makes it unique. When one compares this book to other books that make some claims for themselves, one finds a drastic difference. Many of those are outlandish, ridiculous, just not the same caliber. One needs to read those books side by side with the Bible and see the difference in those other books. Osborne: Dr. Moss, these lines of evidence or lines of reasoning that we'll be looking at over the next several days, they are really nothing new. The Bible has undoubtedly the most discussed and researched and studied book in all of human history, and so really these counts and counterpoints are not new or unique. Moss: No, in the Old Testament, you have Israel being told, 'Look what God has done, look at what God has said. See the consistency there and that shows you that you ought to be the people of God.' In the New Testament, we have the same kind of claims, and then when one moves beyond that, early Christians immediately began to struggle with those round about them, to show the consistency and logic of seeing this as the Word of God. So they struggled to prove that to people round about them, to give them evidence that this made sense. Osborne: Let me put you one the spot just a bit and ask you if any of our listening friends had a real interest in this subject and wanted to perhaps read some material that would prove helpful, what are some of the books and authors that are commonly available that our listening friends might be able to find at local bookstores or perhaps write for? Moss: There are several books in that category. There is a book called "Know Why You Believe". Again, books don't come to mind at the moment, there are lots of books in that general category that one can easily find where folks have made those kinds of struggles, or dealt with those kinds of struggles or issues. And I think in almost any bookstore, you can find a whole grouping of those books by folks who have dealt with young people who are having those kinds of questions, who have dealt with older folks who have the questions, those are around and easy to find. Osborne: Dr. Moss, we'll look forward to having you with us all of this week here on KNLS as we continue to look at this topic.
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The Bible's Unity and Consistency Osborne: Dr. Moss, one of the unique features of the Bible is the remarkable unity and consistency. Some contend that this is even evident of divine inspiration. After all, we are talking about a book that is constructed of writings penned over more than a thousand years, and as you mentioned yesterday, by something like 40 different authors. Moss: it is amazing that when one begins reading at Genesis and reads all the way through Revelation, there is a consistency that's there. You don't find contradictions, there are some apparent contradictions that look like contradictions on the surface, but when one gets in and understands what's going on, and understands the text, one finds out that those fade, and they are really just not there. What one reads from Paul makes sense when one reads what James has written; that James and Paul aren't at odds; that Genesis and Moses and, later on, Ezekiel, are not at odds, that they are really saying the same thing, have the same consistent message. It's one of the claims that the early Christians made for their word, for the works, for determining which ones ought to be there and which ones ought not. If it is not part of that consistent message, that's not what we expect of a God who is in charge of the universe. If he is giving his message to his people, that message ought to be a consistent message, it ought to ring true all the way through the text, and I think that is important. Again, it is amazing that you can start with a work that has, at its roots, Moses, some time in at least the 13th century BC, and move to 90AD in Revelation and have that kind of consistency. Folks with differing backgrounds, when you have men who were fishermen, to men who were theologically trained, to men who took care of sheep, you have all of those folks writing, and yet, writing in ways that indicates there is something at work there much bigger than they are. Osborne: Dr. Moss, as our listening friends read through the Bible, they are going to read all different kind of writing, there's history, there's poetry, there's religious instruction, there's even sanitary regulations in some places in the Old Testament. People who are new to the Bible, their first impression of that is likely going to be, 'My goodness, this is a real mess, this is a real hodge-podge of all different kinds of writings. How could you possibly imagine that there is anything of lasting spiritual importance here?' Moss: it is amazing when one reads through the Old and New Testaments how many different genre of literature, types of literature, one gets there. And you read each of those a bit differently. Just as you would not read a poem the same way you'd read the newspaper, or that you would read a novel differently that a comic strip. You read those differently. There is an amazing collection of works there. You do meet regulation with regards to ritual purity, and food laws and all of that, I think the thing that holds it all together though is this picture of a God, a God who cares for his people. And as you read through those Old Testament sections, which are the real struggle, you've got the numbers and all of the food laws, you still see a God who cares about his people and is trying his best to maintain their purity in a world around them that's trying to pull them down, pull them into paganism. As you get to the New Testament, that love of God gets clearer, you see it in the life of Jesus, and what Jesus has done as he goes to the cross for us. But that consistent thread that runs all the way through is important. Again, you'll struggle with some of those sections as you read them, but if you can make it through those sections, the consistency is still there. Osborne: Dr. Moss, I have heard Bible scholars make a very interesting assertion about the Bible, and that is that Jesus Christ can be found in every line of the Bible. Why is it that Bible scholars say that? Moss: I think it's because they see Jesus as the fulfillment of all God was working for from the very beginning. With the fall, with sin at the very beginning, God had to find a way to redeem his people, and so from the beginning, God has been doing that! In fact, it's interesting in the New Testament, Paul can say that Jesus is crucified before the foundation of the world, so it's as if God creates people knowing they are going to sin, because he gives them this free will, and planning to save them from the very beginning! So as we look through the Old Testament, we see all sorts of shadows, echoes of sorts, of what Jesus is going to be and do, and do for his people. We see the problem of man and the need for that redemption. Jesus is that solution that God has in mind from the beginning. He is revealing that solution bit by bit as you read through the Old Testament. We don't see it fully until we get to the New. I'm not sure that folks who read the Old Testament without knowing the story of Jesus would see those pictures back there, but those of us who see Jesus see it clearly as we see God's plan unwrapping itself. Osborne: Dr. Moss, as we continue all of this week to look for evidence that the Bible is, in fact, God's inspired word, we appreciate you sharing with us this idea of unity and consistency in the Bible.
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Osborne: Dr. Moss, I get together every Sunday evening for a Bible study with about a dozen Christian men and women, and at the moment, we are studying the New Testament book of Romans, and each new chapter we read seems to speak so clearly to concerns each of those involved in the study have hear and now, in today's time. We are talking about, as we've mentioned a couple of times, a book that was written a couple of thousand years ago, over more than a thousand years, by a whole slew of authors. It just never ceases to amaze me how a book that's so old can continue to remain relevant to each new age. Moss: I think that's important for folks to realize. One of the things I tell my students as we study 'How to Study the Bible' is that they need to realize from the start that the Bible wasn't written to us today. It was written to folks a thousand years ago, 2000 years ago, but the amazing thing is, although it wasn't written to us today, it is preserved for us today. It is the Word of God for us today. I suppose one of the reasons it remains so true is of course, it's written by a God who doesn't change. He's the same today, and yesterday, and forever. But you know, when you think about it, human beings don't change much either. The problems that folks faced 2000 years ago are not at all different from the problems we face today. They were concerned about making a living, taking care of their families, surviving; our folks are concerned about that today. They were selfish; we're selfish. They struggled with certain desires that got in the way of being what God would have them to be; we have those same kinds of struggles. The ability of that message to speak to us across the ages is a mark that these is something bigger in this text than just human production. I might write something that applies to people today, but I doubt it would have that same significance 100 years from now, 1000 years from now, 2000 years from now. When Paul talks about the struggles that husbands and wives have to make a marriage work, in 1 Corinthians 7, or Ephesians 5, that advise, despite his culture was so different from ours, is amazingly true and important and significant today. Yesterday, in a group church setting, we talked about the struggles that husbands and wives have, and it was amazing to go through 1 Corinthians 7 and Ephesians 5, and discover there that Paul gave advise that psychologists today are saying is good advise for marriages! Despite the fact that Paul was talking to a group of people who, to a large degree, put down women! He doesn't do that. He speaks in ways that make sense, because God has a hand in this message. Osborne: Dr. Moss, over the centuries, skeptics have tried to say, in fact, just the very opposite - that the Bible really isn't relevant any longer. That is kind of an on going struggle, isn't it? Moss: It really is. The Bible doesn't address drug abuse, it does not address some of those things that have been relatively recent in terms of problems. But you know, the desires that produce those things are the same, and they always have been the same. There are certain moral standards that do not change. And it's unfortunate, but there are folks today who want to argue that those moral standards, those standards of right and wrong, are different today than they were back then. The standards of right and wrong have never changed and will never change, since they are part of the nature of God, and the nature of man. Those two things don't change. Osborne: Now Dr. Moss, as I talk to people about the Bible and about their relationship with the Lord, few people seem to have trouble with the concept of there actually being a God, of belief in God, but they do seem to have a great deal of trouble with this issue of the relevance of the Bible. The question that comes back to me often is 'What is this going to do for me?' And that may seem a bit mercenary, on the surface, but I really can really understand and relate to that sentiment. Our lives are so hectic, and there are seemingly so many overwhelming problems facing us as we struggle with living our lives and maintaining our relationships that I too, am looking for just anything that will help. And so for our listening friends, as we close today, I thought it might be interesting to hear what you thought might be perhaps a couple of the more important tools that the Bible provides as a means for dealing with the daily struggles of life. Moss: I think it helps us to determine right and wrong. it gives us a sense of joy because I'm living for a God who is in control of the universe, who ultimately has in his control everything that is happening around me. That gives me a sense of hope and security. I know that this life is not all there is. That produces some joy. It makes living this life possible. I have some reasonable solutions to lots of the problems that the world faces in the text. All of that makes this word, I think, more than just something abstract. It does touch my life, and it does give me a sense of meaning. I think that's what we are struggling for, a sense of meaning.
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Osborne: Each day we are looking at a different line of evidence that supports our contention that the Bible really is God's message to man. Today we look at a line of reasoning that many of our listening friends, I know, are not going to be comfortable with. We are going to suggest that fulfilled prophecy is just one of those lines of reasoning to suggest or to believe that the Bible is God's inspired word, but prophecy is just something that alot of people have trouble getting their hands around. Moss: I suppose it's prophecy and miracles that most trouble the 20th century mind because those are issues that are far beyond natural. And we want things that fit into our natural and scientific reasoning. They are marks that something bigger than man is involved in all of these events. I think the prophecy that most amazes me is one in the book of Ezekiel. In the book of Ezekiel, there is a city that's on the sea coast that is a major plague to Israel, the city of Tyre. The prediction is that the city is going to fall, and that it will not be rebuilt. What's amazing is that that's not going to happen for 100's of years! It's not one of those things that somebody will read their crystal ball, it's probably going to happen tomorrow, it looks like politically it's going to happen. It won't happen until the time of Alexander, the Great. It says that the land will be pushed into the sea. That's exactly what Alexander, the Great does. In fact, the city is not rebuilt, it is rebuilt on an island off the shore, not where it once was. That's not the kind of thing that one could have just sort of foreseen by natural events. Yet, it did happen just as it was predicted. I suppose the prophecies that most interest us are those that predict the coming of some special Messiah, a Deliverer, fulfilled in Jesus. As we read those in the Old Testament, we're really amazed because, again, it's the kind of thing that you don't expect - a suffering servant? Who would expect this wonderful Messiah King to be who is led as a lamb dumb before its shearer. That's not the sort of thing one would expect. And yet, that happens with Jesus. He becomes exactly what is predicted. The book of Deuteronomy warns us that one of the marks of a true prophet of God, of something that really is from God, is when somebody says something will happen - it happens! And as we read the Bible, that does happen. Prophecy is bigger than we are, and it is bigger than our world view, I think. We don't have much room for that. We are doubtful when we hear all of the supposed psychics today, predicting those things. They predict things almost anybody could have foreseen, or make them so ambiguous that anything could happen and it would be fulfilled. That's not the kind of prophecies we get in the Old Testament. They are very specific, and they happen just as they said they would. People have done their best to get around them. Modern skeptics have a habit of saying, 'Well, it was predicted after it happened.' But that is not the case. Again, that Ezekiel prophecy is one that happens hundreds of years before the event. It's not one that you can get around. Osborne: As you have alluded to a couple of times already, there actually are a pretty well-defined set of rules for prophecy, and there also seems to be a pretty clear intent. I mean the prophecy is not a random event, or on random subjects. Talk about that for just a moment. Moss: It is important. Prophecies and miracles that one meets in the Bible are not just magic tricks designed to amaze people, to tell somebody what is going to happen 200 years in the future just so they will say, 'Wow, isn't that neat!' it's designed to indicate that God is at work in these events. He is in charge of history. He knows what is going to happen. It's as if God is standing on top of a tall building and looks down and he sees people coming around the corner, and he knows they are going to collide, because he sees history spread out in front of him. We can't do that. He can. And so God is at work there. Those prophecies are designed to do that. They also are designed to help the people of God see that God is at work in their lives, in their history, and that he is going to redeem them, that he is going to fix the problems that this world has. And I think that's important for us to see, again, it's not just some sort of 'helter-skelter predict something', there's a purpose involved. Osborne: Clearly, the largest single group of prophecies as found in Scripture have to do with a particular individual, as recorded in Scripture, and again, going back in Scripture, this idea that we mentioned earlier in our discussions, that every line of the Bible, in some way or another, seems to reflect the life and purpose of Jesus Christ. Talk about specifically that group of prophecies that deal with Jesus Christ as Messiah. Moss: it's amazing. There are, I think, two categories of prophecies that deal with Jesus, There are those that predict Jesus, and that's all. They are predicting the coming Messiah. It's the suffering servant that one meets in the book of Isaiah 52, 53, and so forth. Those predict that kind of person that can only be seen in Jesus. Then there are these other prophecies where God, in charge of history, gives a prophecy that makes sense in their culture, but doesn't make full sense until Jesus comes. You're reading Isaiah 7, and in Isaiah 7 is this prophecy of a young lady that's going to have a baby who will be called Emmanuel, and before the baby gets old enough to choose between good and evil, he will be eating curds, cottage cheese, and honey, and the kings they fear most will fall, and you have this wonderful prophecy that comes to Ahab, and he just doesn't want to even see the prophecy. Isaiah says it's going to happen. One day the king see a little boy running across the street, and momma calls him Emmanuel, and the kings says, 'Uh-o, it's happening!' But that same text is quoted in Matthew, where Matthew says it's fulfilled, or filled full of meaning, in Jesus, because there is a virgin who has a child, his name is Jesus, but in a very real way, he's Emmanuel. He's 'God with us.' And so, it's as if again, God working in history gives that text a special meaning that is even bigger than the original meaning of the text. But it's God again in charge of history, working in history, guiding the prophets. You see a different kind of fulfillment there. You have prophecies that are predictive and predicting this only that are fulfilled in Jesus. And then you have prophecies that are predicting something earlier that are 'typologically' fulfilled, 'type' fulfilled in Jesus as well. Because again, God is working in history. It's amazing when one reads that and sees Jesus underneath an Old Testament event. Osborne: I think one of the things that I have found really very intriguing about prophecy is that, quite often, on many occasions, the prophecy is delivered by someone who is either completely hostile to the message, or indifference to the message. Moss: One of my favorites, I think is Caiphus. Caiphus is high priest at the time, trying to get Jesus killed. He says to the Sanhedrin, 'It is better for one man to die than for the whole nation to perish.' Now he meant it's better to kill Jesus and keep our nation and our jobs and all of that, but John says he spoke alot deeper than he realized. When he said that, he was indeed right, because it was better for Jesus to die, because we survive, we live, we have forgiveness because of that. He didn't understand the significance of that. The text says God was kind of using him at the time. What he said made perfect sense to him, but it made even more sense to those who read it and to believers later on. Osborne: Another thing that I've always found intriguing is something that you eluded to a moment ago in mentioning the suffering Savior is that prophecies can be very difficult to get a proper meaning on. The people in Jesus' time certainly, to an overwhelming extend, did not realize just how completely he was fulfilling prophecy. Moss: That's true, it's amazing as one reads the gospels how often you'll read how the disciples themselves didn't understand until it had happened, and then all of a sudden, those passages rang true to them. They didn't see it at the time. Even later on, you find the Ethiopian eunuch riding along in a chariot reading from Isaiah and reading about this suffering servant, and he says, 'I can't understand this.' And Philip says, 'Do you understand what you are reading?' And he says, 'I cant, unless somebody explains it.' And Philip goes on to tell about Jesus. It all makes sense to the man. He immediately has them stop the chariot, and wants to be baptized, he wants to become a believer, he wants to be a Christian, and he does. But again, the text took some help. He had to understand and see Jesus before the lights came on. Osborne: Those points seem to refute the idea that some skeptics have had that the disciples and others actually worked at seeing to it that each of the Old Testament prophecies were fulfilled, when in fact, quite often these people were hostile to the prophecies or indifferent to them or just totally oblivious to the possibilities. Moss: Even when Jesus would quote one of those Old Testament texts, they often didn't understand it, and then you'll read along in John or one of the gospels, later on, we caught on, we understood. But it took them a long time to figure it out. Osborne: Well, a fascinating discussion about prophecy. I appreciate your sharing your thoughts with us. 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Osborne: Dr. Moss, today we are going to talk about a topic that I guess I really wasn't fully aware of until just recently, and that's just how many times over the centuries the Bible has been singled out for destruction and yet today, the Bible is available in hundreds of languages and just countless versions. At least here in the states, you just walk in a Christian bookstore, a bookstore of any kind, and there's just row after row of various versions of the Bible. How is it that a book that has been so singled out for destruction has managed to survive for so long? Moss: I think it's because folks see in it the Word of God. They see God at work in it, and so preserve it at all costs. Beyond that, because it is the Word of God, God's had a hand, I think, in its being delivered and preserved for us as well. In the Old Testament, you'll notice that people tend to lose the Word of God at times. They've lost track of it. They have not been practicing it, and sure enough, it shows up again, and they come to the truth of it. What's amazed me in particular are the attempts that have been made in past years to keep the Word of God from being translated into the language of the people. We have seen it in particular in English, with the real struggles back as recently as 1200 AD to keep the Word of God from being translated into English. People try to keep it from being done, and folks did their best to keep translating it, despite persecution, and despite hardships. They did everything to get the Word of God into the language of the people. One of those early translators, a man named Tyndale, said that he was going to do his best to make sure that the ploughboy knew more of the text than the religious leaders of his day, who were trying to keep it from the hands of the people. At one time I counted the number of translations done, major translations done since 1950, and there were 150 at the time I counted. Major translations done into English since 1950! Now we are getting the Bible translated into every language one can imagine. Why do people go to all of that effort to get it into all of those languages? Because they see it as the Word of God, evidence of God's revelation of himself to his people of his will for his people. And so folks go to all sorts of difficult struggles to get the Word of God into every language that's out there, so that everybody can read the Word of God in their own language. It is amazing, you can go to communist countries where there have been those real efforts to stamp out the Word of God, and yet, it's there today. We discovered that folks had horded those Bibles over the years. I heard a wonderful story of a man in one of the sections of the former Soviet Union. Folks had gone to deliver Bibles, and they were delivering Bibles as best they could in the language of the people. They were running out of those. Someone said, 'I know where some are.' They were stored away during the Communist era, stashed away in some storehouse, and so they hired people to go there and get those old Bibles, and pass those old Bibles out to people. One of the young men who was hired was not a believer, he was just doing it for the money, the American money came in handy. He started passing out those Bibles, those old Bibles, and one of the Bibles he passed out belonged to his great-great grandmother! All of a sudden, he began to look at it differently, and to think, my goodness, she was doing all of this to preserve it, and somebody took her Bible away! He read it, he became a believer. But there is something amazing about that story. As folks see the merit, and as that word survives despite all of those efforts to put it down, to keep it from being translated into the language the people can understand. Early on, it was - keep it in Latin, which nobody spoke. Now there are attempts to minimize its significance, and keep it out of the hands of the people. But it manages to get there anyway. Osborne: Dr. Moss, one of the tragedies of this particular question of the Bible's indestructibility, and something the Christian community really needs to come to grips with, it that most of these attempts to suppress the Bible have actually originated from inside the religious community. Moss: That is true. Within the religious community, there were folks who contended that giving the Bible to the people in their own language is a little like giving a child a sharp knife or a loaded gun. You don't do that. But I think it is important to see that the Word of God was written for the average person, not just for the scholar. it was written to the average church, so that the church could read. The church at Colossi is having a problem. Paul writes a letter to them that is designed for them to read, not for their preachers to read. It's unfortunate to think that the people who kept the Bible out of the hands of the people are religious authorities. The Bible can be understood. It's not always easy. It does take some effort. It does mean that I must understand a bit about its nature, and I have to struggle a bit to get it into my own language, but it is for the average person to read, and if we can get the Bible in the hands of people. it's amazing what it will do! To those who have doubts, to those who have problems, it helps folks. And they see it for what it is when they begin to read it. Osborne" Dr. Moss, another aspect of indestructibility that we might touch on for just a moment as our time comes to an end today is the idea that the Bible is the same book today that was compiled thousands of years ago, that's another aspect of indestructibility that I'd like for you to address for just a moment. Alot of people, and especially with all of these versions, as the number of these versions multiplies, some people become very nervous about whether of not the book that they hold in their hands is actually accurate and relevant. Moss: I think that's important. We have about 5500 manuscripts of the Greek New Testament alone. Now that's not counting Old Testament. 5500 manuscripts. I have heard folks come and say, 'Now your Bible is not very reliable because there are 200,00 copying errors in that New Testament. And that troubles alot of folks. One scholar went thru and looked at those 200,000 copying errors and discovered that it wasn't such a big deal, because only about 400 of those make a difference in the way you translate the text. And of those 400, only 50 make a very significant difference. And of those 50, doctrine, a teaching doesn't hang on any of them, which says that they really did a pretty good job of copying. it was amazing when the Dead Sea scrolls were found. The oldest copy that we had of the Old Testament before the find of the Dead Sea scrolls dated from about 900 AD. And you know it was written here completed 400 BC, much of it written earlier than that. And you wonder how good a job did they do copying it? When the Dead Sea scrolls were found, we found copies of the book of Isaiah dated 100 BC, a 1000 years earlier than our earliest copy. By looking at those, there are about 13 minor differences that scholars found, and they didn't make a difference in what the text said. It was just one of those minor differences; if you leave out an 'and', or you put in an 'and', or you spell a word differently, but it's still the same word. it says that there was real care taken in copying that text. The translations that we have, if you get a major translation done by a committee, where one man's prejudices don't rule, those major translations are in agreement 99% of the time. There is very little difference. And again, documents don't usually hang on their translation. it is amazing how the truth hangs true, no matter who does the translating, as long as you have got groups of people working and struggling with the meaning of the text. Osborne: That kind of reliability and accuracy is certainly something that gives me a great deal of confidence and I know will to our listening friends as well. Would you like to return to the top of the page?
The Bible Is Historically Accurate Osborne: We are going to talk today about history. Even though the Bible isn't a book of history, it does refer quite often in passing to a number of very important, very significant historical events. Tell us, has the Bible proven to be historically accurate? Moss: Indeed it has. It is a history of God dealing with his people. There are a couple of events that in particular I think point to this historisity. Back about the turn of the century, if you were to read some of the historical books that were out there, they were arguing that indeed the Bible was full of lots of myths. There were those skeptics out there. they contended, for example, that the Hittites were a group of people that the Jews just made up. They didn't exist. We had no evidence of any people called Hittites in 1901 or so. And so one could contend that the Jews made up this huge nation of people so they could beat up on them, at least in the book, although they didn't really exist! Then it was just shortly after that time that they discovered a Hittite library. A whole Hittite library of books with their own history! Indeed they were a people, a big nation, a huge nation. Today one can go to the University of Pennsylvania and study either Hittite literature or Hittite history, take your pick! But they are both out there. In 1900, folks were contending that this wasn't the case. Another story that is a favorite of mine is about a man named William Ramsey. Ramsey was a doubter, a skeptic. He didn't believe the Bible was accurate, and he decided that he was going to prove its inaccuracy. I suppose of all of the New Testament authors who claimed to have done historical research, the one who comes to mind is always Luke. He says that 'I sorted out all of these facts', and at the beginning of his gospel, he talks about other folks writing accounts. He wanted to make sure he put it in an orderly fashion, made sense out of it all, determine what really did happen of Jesus. Ramsey thought that perhaps he could prove the inaccuracy of the Bible. So what he did was make the travel, to go to the places that Paul had visited. He was amazed. Hoe would go and discover that people in those places called their rulers the very names that are used in the book of Acts. Polytarchs, a name used for rulers in Thessalonica, that's the name they used for their rulers! he found out that geographically, it all made sense. It all fit together. It was exactly like Luke had said. Ramsey comes out a believer, he starts a skeptic, but he decides that he can't prove it wrong, and again, that transition is important. We do meet lots of historical characters. And everything we know about archaeology has confirmed the message. Now archaeology won't prove that the Bible is the Word of God. That is not the purpose of it. It does make those events make sense. We read about Asargon in the Old Testament. And sure enough, we find some of his inscriptions. We read about the nature of some Egyptians, and sure enough, they are there, they really do happen. Those events make sense, they do fit into the historical timeline at the appropriate places. I wish we knew everything. There are those still historical questions that we don't have the answers to. Like the Hittites we didn't know about in 1901, there are others ones that we still don't quite have a grasp on today, but every time something unfolds itself, we discover that what we do know matches what we read in the Bible. Osborne: Let's go to the other end of this discussion for a moment. There are a number of people over the centuries, skeptics, who have doubted the historical facts as recorded in the Bible, and those people have invariably been frustrated by the later discoveries. On the other end, there are alot of people who look at the Bible and say, 'Why aren't there more of historical details here? Why isn't there a fuller account of a given event? It would be so helpful to me if I knew a little bit more about the circumstances surrounding a particular Bible text.' Address that for just a moment. Moss: I think there are two issues at hand. One is that you have got to remember that in the Old Testament times, they didn't have a nice chronology dating period, and say in 1997, this happened. They didn't have those kinds of dating capabilities back then. The major issue, I think, at hand is this is not designed to tell you every event that happened. It is designed to show you the work of God. These are theological documents, and their design is to show you something and to teach you something theologically. When one gets to the New Testament, you are reading the story of Jesus, the design of the gospels is not to give you a biography of Jesus. In fact, it's really interesting because you have almost nothing for the first 30 years, and then you have a minimal amount for the next three years, and then you have a huge amount for 7 days. So it indicates, I thin, something of the importance of those last 7 days of the life of Jesus for our authors. John will tells us that, 'Many other things did Jesus, in the presence of his disciples, but these are written that you might believe. he picked the stories that would address the needs of his audience. They are theological, they do make sense, they are historical. Jesus did really live. There were folks who were arguing that Jesus was never a real historical character. Nobody believes that anymore. Even those who are not believers will agree that there was a Jesus, and that the stories of the Jesus we get are, to a large degree, true. Even though they don't believe in miracles, they believe those events are true. But the ones we have are very much picked for a specific purpose.
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The Bible Is Scientifically Accurate Osborne: Dr. Moss, yesterday we promised our listening friends that today we would talk about the Bible's record with regard to science. Neither one of us is a scientist, and certainly would make no claims to be such, but there has been alot of work in this field, alot of people who are scientists and are knowledgeable in these various areas have done these studies, and I know that you are familiar with that work. has the Bible proven to be scientifically accurate? Moss: I think one of the things we need to understand at the outset is that there are a great number of scientists who are believers. If the Bible were a 'fly in the face', completely against science, it would be impossible for the scientist to be a believer. Many folks with PhD's in science are faithful Christians, and I think that, itself, indicates something of the nature of what we are looking at. it is true that the Bible is not a book of science, and you shouldn't read it like a book of science. I think that is part of the difficulty we have, people who want to read it and want to look for the theory of relativity. They are not going to find the theory of relativity as such in the text. it does indicate something that scientists are discovering though. Scientists are discovering things just didn't happen by chance. Something out there bigger than we are happened. For things to just have evolved from a single cell, by chance, even most of the critics are going to argue that there is something at work here that is bigger than all of that. As one reads the book of Genesis, and you shouldn't read it like a book of science, the main point in the book of Genesis is that nothing would have been if God has not been. Folks are looking to some force, some greater force, to something out there to try to explain how all of this fits together. I don't know how one explains the nature itself without God in the picture. And I think that is the purpose of the book. Folks have misread the Bible often, and I think that is what people are responding to when they find it scientifically inaccurate. Folks have misread language like 'the four corners of the earth' to get a flat earth. We still talk about the four corners of the earth, or the four winds, it's out there. We find it all of the time. There are folks who thought they saw a flat earth, and come down hard upon those who first proclaimed that the earth was round. Or proclaimed that the sun was rotating around the earth, rather than the earth around the sun. Again, what they were reading was figurative language, used to describe the phenomena that folks saw. it is not a book of science, however it's not as if folks who read this book were particularly naive. One of the things that bothers folks in particular, when we talk about science, are the miracles in the Bible. The miracles in the Bible sort of fly in the face of modern science. Want to explain everything by natural happenings. And we think that folks who wrote the Bible, read the Bible, were just particularly naive. I have a suspicion that Joseph wasn't anymore naive than folks today. When his fiancé comes up pregnant, he says, 'it doesn't happen that way, guys. Something else must be at work here.' He was no more naive that we. He knew what the normal happenstance was, and so he is trying to explain that. in the Old Testament we get all sorts of health laws that God gives. It's amazing that you get these health laws regarding leprosy. Now, again, the word 'leprosy' back in the Old Testament, in Leviticus, isn't our modern day leprosy, which is called Hansen's disease. it was used of any kind of skin disease. But remember, back then, they didn't have the scientific wherewithal to determine whether a disease was contagious or not. They get a disease, and if it has a certain color, and has certain colors of hair coming out of it, it's declared leprosy. And that person has to stay apart from the community. He might spread the disease. He lives outside of the community, he declares himself unclean, proclaims that to anyone who approaches. If your house has mold growing on it, we think at least it was mold, it's declared to have leprosy. You have to cleanse it of the leprosy, if it goes away, fine, if it comes back three times, you tear down your house and start all over again, because it wasn't healthy for the person. That is not what one would expect in the culture of their day. It was something bigger than that, and scientifically, that probably made sense for their era. It is, again, important, that one does not try to force modern day scientific language on the Bible. You are not going to find that. But again, whether you talk about a 'big band' theory that folks are talking about today or not, you are arguing that something big, catastrophic, bigger that the norm, had to happen to get things to start. Well, out 'big band' is God. He's the one who starts it all. He creates it. Scientists become believers. This is not just contrary to the text. Osborne: A good example of that is someone I know who both of us know is a dear man named John Clayton, who started life as an atheist, was raised in an atheist family. He is perfect proof of just what you said. Here is an individual who spent a large part of his early life actually reacting negatively, not to the Bible, but to his perception of the Bible, based on what other people said about it, and then he got to a place where he read the book for himself, and was actually very angry that he couldn't find any more scientific mistakes in it than he was able to do. Moss: This man is a science teacher, a high school science teacher who was convinced that the Bible was wrong, he really set out to prove it so, and now travels all over the world sharing with folks what he has learned about the Bible, and science. He says you can be a scientist and read the Bible and find no inconsistencies. He has brought alot of folks to faith by doing just that. Osborne: My wife and I just returned from a trip to California, and the whole purpose was to visit the big trees in California, the sequoias and the redwoods, and I must tell you, that certainly was brought home again - God's remarkable power and awesome ability to create - when you stand in the presence of these huge, the oldest living things on earth, the largest and tallest living things, it just really touches you and it's just difficult to imagine how anyone can look at evidences like that and doubt the Bible's scientific accuracy. Moss: I think that's true. Our struggles, of course, are to explain things like dinosaurs and fossils and all of that, but again, the Bible just doesn't address those issues. It's not that the Bible contradicts it, and there have been some rather naive readings of the Bible that make the earth very, very young - 4004 BC - but there is no real dating of that. We really don't get dateable events in the Bible until we get to about the time of Abraham, who may have been 2400 BC or so. The events before that are not dated, so one really doesn't have those answers, they are never dealt with, because the purpose of the Bible is to deal with people, not to deal with dinosaurs. When they stopped existing, what happen, what caused it all? Folks have wanted to find that in the Bible, and because they don't find it, have declared it historically inaccurate. It's not a part of the purpose of the Bible, it's not its goal, it doesn't address those issues, and I think that is a whole different issue than arguing that it is inaccurate. It's just not there. Osborne: Well then, good advice for people who have those very legitimate concerns is, go to the source. Read the Bible and let the Bible address your concerns rather than relying on what other people say about that book. Moss: I think that's so true. Again, John Clayton discovered that the people who had led him astray were people who hadn't read the text! And when he started reading the Bible for himself, it changed everything for him. Would you like to return to the top of the page?
The Bible is Morally and Ethically Sound Osborne: Today we are going to ask another of those questions that I thing our listening friends will find interesting, and that has to do with the purity and ethics of the Bible. If the Bible really is God's word for man, then we should reasonably be able to expect it to be morally and ethically pure in every respect. That's a pretty stringent test for any ancient writing. How do you think the Bible measures up in that regard? Moss: I think it's interesting to notice how many of the nations base most of their laws on something that was very, very ancient - the Ten Commandments. It's amazing to see those basic, ethical claims that God makes for his people, in terms of what matters and how they relate to one another. That last half of those Ten Commandments are those ethical issues: How do I relate to my parents? How do I relate to the people who live around me? Do I take their property? Do I take their lives? Do I tell the truth? Those are ethical issues that are at the heart of most of the law of most of the nations. Those ethics are amazing. Now again, we have some ethical struggles in the Bible. You want to know about why does God have all of those foreigners killed in certain places. There is something else at work there. You've got to realize God is trying to preserve a people through whom he can provide a savior, and he's concerned about what is going to happen if those nations that are so pagan are allowed to survive, because Israel is not very strong and not very good about remaining faithful and true. But that ethics is amazing as we read the text. What becomes even more amazing, as you get to the New Testament, is you see the ethical demands of the Bible fulfilled in a single person who lives them out and models them. In the Old Testament, the primary demands, we're told, are to love God and to love your neighbor as yourself. As you get to the New Testament, we learn a bit more able that. That is rather abstract. I can say, 'Oh yeah, love him.' But what does that mean? By the time I get to the New Testament, Jesus, in John 13, says, 'I'm giving you a new commandment.' It's really an old one, but it's new, in fact, John in 1 John uses that very language. It's new, but it's old. It's old (Leviticus 2:19) 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' It's new, 'Love as I have loved.' Jesus becomes the model of how I live that out. We have heard folks who want to call for a kind of situation ethics, that is, whatever seems best at the time, you do. But these ethical demands are often beyond us. As we read the Bible, we get instructions as to how to make those decisions. Sometimes I don't know what's best. And it's important to read the text, and to discover the ethics that we get there. It's noble ethics, it's the reason for our having hospitals, our having the moral claims and concerns for poor people. All of that really is rooted in the text of the Old and New Testaments. Taking care of widows and orphans...one finds those ethical demands in the text and one sees that work itself out in the Judeo-Christian world and world view. Osborne: Dr. Moss, I haven't lived that many years, about 40, and even in that short period of time, and really just basing my observations strictly on my own culture, the American culture, I have seen a number of trends come and go in that short time where people, our society very much wants to leave the Bible behind with regard to a certain issue and go and do something, in many cases, just the opposite, and in very short order, seem to learn a lesson, and come back to just what the Bible had said in the first place, and then we go off and try something else, and it's as if we say, 'Well, I'm not going to take the Bible's advice, let's go try this on our own', and it just seems like over and over again, our experience brings us back to these words of wisdom. Moss: It's interesting, because we are not unusual in that regard. Look at the history of the Jewish people, they did the same thing. They do it for awhile, and then lose it. Historically, the folks that call themselves Christians have done that. They decided, 'Well, maybe the Bible is naive, even from an Old World view, and the things that they declare ethically wrong are not really ethically wrong.' We are really facing that in our culture today, especially in America where folks are trying to say, 'That's just old time, and that doesn't make sense today. It's naive,' But there is something beyond that. God knows man, he created man. He knows what's best for man. He know how man is supposed to operate, how he is to relate to others, how he is to relate sexually, how he is to relate socially. All of those are part of the way man is created. We are created in the image of God, and God has a goal in mind for his people. Those goals, those ethics, make sense. Always have, always will make sense. Probably sooner or later, people will come to their senses and say, 'We were wrong.' The ethics of the Bible make sense. Osborne: I was especially intrigued by your comment as we began that so much, especially of western law and jurisprudence is based on these very ancient ideas. That's a thought I'm going to have to take home with me and think about for awhile. Even more remarkable, when you think about the fact that this is actually an Eastern set of ethics that have come to the west and made such an impact on our culture and history in laws. Moss: It's really interesting because the laws one meets in the Old Testament are different from the laws that were typical in the East in their days. We have some law codes from the same period, from Muhammarabi and others. Interestingly enough, most of their laws, were 'if...then laws'. If this...then this. The laws that we meet in the Old Testament are often, 'thou shalt' laws, because God is this kind of God, and man is this kind of man, this is right and this is wrong. One doesn't meet that in the Near East, the ancient Near East, except in the Biblical text. And you're right, it's come from the ancient Near East, and yet it's affected the whole world. It's an amazing set of ethics at work! Would you like to return to the top of the page?
The Life Of Jesus Suggests Biblical Inspiration Osborne: Dr. Moss, we appreciate the remarkable way you have brought all of the evidence together for us. Today, we kind of put a cap on all of that, by addressing an issue that, I think, will take alot of our listening friends by surprise. That is looking at the life of Jesus Christ as evidence that the Bible is God's inspired word. That, I think, is going to be a line of reasoning, an argument in favor of the Bible being the inspired word of God that will take alot of our listeners by surprise. Moss: It may well be that, but in reality, it is the heart of the Bible. We have talked about it on several occasions in our discussion over the last week or so. Jesus is the heart of the Bible. I a very real way, he is the fulfillment of all the Bible. And so, you would expect Jesus to become, I think, the hallmark of the evidence that this thing is really so. He is what everything has been pointing to. With the fall, in Genesis 2, sin in the first place, and God's attempt to redeem people, God's had a plan at work. And that plan is Jesus, and if there weren't Jesus at the end, then the whole book wouldn't make any sense. He becomes the evidence that is necessary. It amazes me that many folks, when they read the story of Jesus, become convinced that there is something special at work here. It is Jesus the man, what he does, what he says. Again, there were folks, a century ago, who were arguing this Jesus didn't exist. Nobody argues that anymore. We find Jesus from historical events. One can't explain the whole of Christendom if there was no Jesus. He had to be there. He had to be more than just a man. You either have to contend that Jesus was just a man, and if he was just a man, then he was either deluded, or a very big hypocrite, or that he is God in the flesh. You really don't have alot of choice there. The only solution that makes sense is God in the flesh. One of the things I really enjoy doing is traveling to Eastern Europe, and sharing with folks in Eastern Europe. We really go to teach English using the Bible as text. We use Luke's gospel. We don't push the gospel message, don't push Jesus, we just let folks read, in English, the story of Jesus. It's amazing how many of those folks, reading the story of Jesus, become convinced that there is historical accuracy, that there is really truth to this word, that the Bible is true, and that Jesus is the Son of God. They don't come believing that to start with, but as they just read without any pressure, they come to those conclusions. I think that's the case as folks read the story of Jesus. We are what we are in Judeo-Christian culture because of the man, Jesus. Osborne: Dr. Moss, let me play the skeptic for just a moment. Let me be the devil's advocate, if I could for just a moment and let you address this from a little bit of a different viewpoint. Let me say to you, as a skeptic, that we are talking about a single individual who lived 200 or more years ago, born into an extremely poor family, raised as a carpenter, who was actually involved in the public eye or one the public scene for probably less that four years, maybe as little as 3 years, never traveled more that a few hundred kilometers from the place that he was born, had no formal education, and yet you are suggesting to me that this individual could actually be the Son of God, and that his story is related accurately in this book that we call the Bible. That's really a remarkable story, and something that alot of people have a very hard time getting a handle on. Moss: But I think the words you've used yourself are the words that declare something special at work here. How can you explain the son of a carpenter, born to a poor family, changing the whole world? It's very difficult to explain how, under normal circumstances, that man could do that. Here Jesus goes, as we read the gospel accounts, into the synagogues, folks who have been hearing the great religiously trained men, who have that theological education, and along comes Jesus and they say, 'Never has a man taught as this man teaches! He has authority and we can't explain it.' Now, they didn't know exactly where it was coming from, but there was something special at work there. The other folks would teach by saying, 'Rabbi so and so says...we think it means this.' Jesus said, 'God means this.' Something amazed them. Jesus gave messages that astounded people. Again, he does not have the kind of training one would expect. He doesn't come from a particularly important part of the world. He doesn't have any of the things, any of the kind of connections or training one would expect for a man who is going to turn the world upside down. And yet, he has done that. Makes no difference whether you are a believer or not when you look at the world around us, look at how many folks are Christians, look at how many parts of the world have been shaped, how many hospitals we have, how many missionaries we have, how many all of those things, one has difficulty explaining that with a mere man. Something special is at work here. One sees the events of the resurrection. The resurrection, to me, becomes the strongest proof of who he is. I read a wonderful book called, 'Who Moved the Stone?'. It's still out there and available for folks. The man who wrote it was a skeptic, his name was Morris. He started looking at those stories about the resurrection, and comes out of it a believer. He doesn't know what to do with that resurrection story, and he things maybe they made it up. There are too many things that just don't match. Somebody making up the story - somebody had to move that rock. That body was gone - who stole it? Surely not a bunch of disciples who were afraid to even be around. And if it were Jews who stole that body, why didn't they parade it around when Christians started declaring this wonderful message? The resurrection must have happened. You can't explain the courage and power of those early disciples - fishermen - who had the courage to stand before world leaders and take beatings, and be killed, go to martyrdom, if there wasn't a Jesus. They wouldn't have done it for this empty kind of...we've imagined it...we've put it together...we've made up the story. The story makes sense. Jesus becomes the evidence that becomes the capstone of it all. Osborne: You mentioned a moment ago that, in your various mission journeys, that one of the things that you found very effective is just to simply to have people read that story, so let's leave our listeners with that. If you were going to suggest some places in Scripture that they might begin that study, and that they might read even that story, where would you ask them to go first? Moss: It's interesting. We usually use Luke's gospel, and we take them through those Luke passages and let them just read Luke. Luke claims to have been a man who was doing historical research. He wants to know the truth. So we often take them through Luke's gospel. I really like taking them through John's gospel, though. John is a gospel that is designed to bring folks to faith and to increase faith in those who are struggling. I would recommend reading one of those gospels. Just sit down, read it leisurely, don't rush through it, pick a translation that is easy for you to read, one that may be different from one you've read earlier. Just pick it, read it simply, and let the word sort of soak in. I think they'll be amazed at what they'll feel and what they'll understand by just reading that gospel story. Would you like to return to the top of the page? The New Life Station is pleased to provide transcripts online for a number of KNLS programs. Please note that all scripts are the property of World Christian Broadcasting and/or SeedSower Productions. They are provided here for your personal enjoyment only and may not be disseminated in any fashion without prior written permission.
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