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Why Do You Believe the Bible?Silly Christian, why do you believe what the bible says? It is ancient!
Introduction to the Bible
Yes, the Bible is ancient! So much is true. Actually the Bible is a collection of sixty-six books divided over two sections. By the year 90BC, 39 books had already been included in the Old Testament. The Old Testament books are divided in law, poetic, historical and the major and minor prophetic books.
The other 27 books of the Bible came about in the years after Jesus’ resurrection and are called the New Testament. Although I say ‘books’ you need to consider that they are mainly written as letters, biographies and revelation.
As a whole the consensus is that the books are written over a period of 1500 years and it is thought that there are totally 40 different authors, all from different backgrounds and situations.
Amazingly
Knowing the background a little better you can imagine the enormous task of bringing these books together.
You try it! Collect the writings of so many authors from so many backgrounds with for example a timespan of 500 years in between. If you tried something like this today, you will end up with a collection of contradictions and huge variety of ideas.
Not so with the Bible. Besides some minor debatable things, there are no contradictions in theme and thought. I will zoom in on the so-called contradictions next time.
Old Testament foretells the New Testament
We find many prophesies in the Old Testament. Much has been said about the future and none of these got it wrong.
Take Isaiah for example. This prophet lived about 700Bc and already talked about the Saviour Who would die by crucifixion. This while crucifixion was only invented around 300BC. Isaiah, and before him around 1000BC, king David, both described the life of the Saviour. They wrote about the way He would die, the circumstances in which this all happened. The already said the Saviour would be betrayed for 30 silver coins, that people would gamble for His clothes and that He would die between two thieves. His hands, feet and side would be pierced and no bones would be broken. Yes, he would die like a criminal but, they said, he would be buried in a rich man’s grave. They also said that He would die for the transgressions of others and would rise from the grave after three days!
Convincing Enough?
I have not been raised with the Christian faith. Heck, I didn’t even know how to look up things in the Bible. Chapters? Verses? Not a clue. Prophets? Probably some old dudes with long grey beards. This changed when I challenged some silly Christian. Give me prove that the Bible is accurate! He came to me with the prophetic words of the Old Testament. I just gave you the example of king David and the prophet Isaiah.
These predictions were so detailed and so abundantly present in the Bible, that I could not longer say that the Bible is nothing more than a fairy tale book. I recognised that it must have been God Who was in control.
The Bible is like a crime scene. Only this crime scene is not hard at all because the Author left His prints all over. Criminals try to avoid that. For God this was different. He wants to be found!
