Premise 1: The Bible Itself Claims To Be Supernatural
Webster Dictionary defines the word “supernatural” as of or relating to an order of existence beyond the visible universe. This is exactly how the Bible often describes itself.
Man should not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes out of the mouth of God
Matthew 4:4 is a direct quote of Jesus describing how the ultimate source of the Bible is God Himself. While God’s Word comes to us is through the lips or the pens of men the God superintends the process of writing it. The apostle Paul who wrote 12 of the books in the New Testament describes how God himself superintends the process of writing it:
All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness
2 Timothy 3:16
This passage describes how a supernatural combination of the authoritative voice of God came to us through different personalities using different literary genres like history, poetry, narrative, epistles and prophecy.
in·spi·ra·tion /ˌinspəˈrāSH(ə)n/ noun Inspiration (from the Latin “inspirare” meaning “to breath into”)
God sometimes breathed His words into the human writers to be recorded much as dictation. He said to Jeremiah “Behold I have put my words in your mouth” (Jeremiah 1:9). God’s divine truth more often flowed through the minds, souls, hearts, and emotions of His chosen human instruments. Yet, by whatever means, God divinely superintended the accurate recording of His divinely breathed truth by His divinely chosen men in a supernatural way.
John MacArthur, Theologian and Pastor
The Apostle Peter also affirmed that Scripture originates and is inspired by God
But know this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture is a matter of one’s own interpretation, for no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.
The word “matter” is the Greek word “ginetai” which means “comes into being” or originates from. The phrase “moved by” means carried along like wind carries along a sailboat. Before questioning whether God inspired, moved, or superintended the writing of Holy Scripture has to be preceded by the question of if “Is this even possible?’ Christians have no issue with believing that a God who is able to create everything from atoms, trees, galaxies and the complexity of the human mind would be able to inspire divinely chosen men to write what He wanted them to write about him and his plan for earth, heaven and humanity.
Christians believe that God created mankind in His own image by giving men and women spiritual consciousness and the refined ability to contemplate existence and purpose. This coupled with the gift of language and writing distinguish man from all other creatures. Is it implausible then, for such a powerfully creative God to be able to move or “carry along” men to write what He wanted written about Himself?
Challenge Question: Is it unreasonable to believe that God is powerful enough to devise a way to communicate his words and will to divinely chosen men? Jesus said Matthew 4:4 that this is exactly how the word of God came to be written—Was he lying?
Premise 2: Prophecies Fulfilled Confirm the Divine Origin of the Bible
While God chose to use humans to write the Bible He made sure that it contained supernatural trademarks that would make His superintendence un-disputable and validate His omniscience.
om·nis·cience /ämˈniSH(ə)ns/
the state of knowing everything.
Dictionary of Oxford Languages
The Bible’s fulfilled prophecies can be used to authenticate the Bible as true.
One of the most significant tools that God has provided for us to authenticate the Scriptures original nature is predictive prophecy which simply describes a prediction of something to come. Only an omniscient all-knowing God could make hundreds and thousands of prophetic predictions with perfect accuracy.
God has revealed His power to foretell in the pages of Scripture as a witness that Scripture is divinely inspired and ordained much the same way the minutest events and details of fulfilled prophecy were also supervised by Him. God Himself claims this divine ability:
Remember the former things long past,
For I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is no one like Me,
Declaring the end from the beginning And from ancient times things which have not been done,
‘My purpose will be established, And I will accomplish all My good pleasure’
The primary way God leaves no doubt that the Bible is a “supernatural” book of divine origin is through substantiated prophecy. Thousands of times predictions about future events, people and places are made that if any single one of them fail to occur God’s credibility as God would be at stake.
The Bible is the only book that hangs its entire credibility on its ability to write history in advance without error.
Chuck Missler, Internationally Known Author
The Bible contains approximately 2,500 prophecies that foretell specific events in detail many years, sometimes centuries before they occur. Of the 2,500 detailed prophecies found on the pages of the Bible—2,000 have already been fulfilled to the letter with no errors. The remaining 500 or so are still in the future.
The majority of the prophecies are independent of each other making the odds of them all being fulfilled by chance without error is less than 102000 (that is1 with 2,000 zeros written after it)!
According to PhD astrophysicists and qualified American science professors, the odds of the more than 2,500 prophecies found in the Bible being fulfilled by chance are 1 with 2,000 zeros after it. According to the mathematical science of probability, if a number has more than 50 zeros after it, the odds of that happening by chance is virtually impossible. This is irrefutable proof that the Bible is inspired by God!
Yes, many believe that fulfilled prophecy in the Bible helps authenticate it as true, as it demonstrates a divine ability to foretell future events, which is seen as a sign of divine origin and inspiration
Criteria for fulfilled prophecy:
The prediction must be written before the events that it predicts
the fulfillment must correspond exactly to the prediction
What is the likelihood of a person predicting today the exact city in which the birth of a future leader would take place, well into the 22nd century?
This is indeed what the prophet Micah did 700 years before the Jesus’s birth.
But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, who are only a small village among all the people of Judah. Yet a ruler of Israel, whose origins are in the distant past, will come from you on my behalf.
Further, what is the likelihood of predicting the precise manner of death that a new unknown religious leader would experience, a thousand years from now – by a manner of death presently unknown, and to remain unknown for hundreds of years? Yet, this is what David did in 1000 B.C concerning the crucifixion of Jesus. (Psalm 22:16-18)
What is the likelihood of predicting the specific date of the appearance of some great future leader, hundreds of years in advance?
This is what Daniel did, 530 years before Christ. (Daniel 7:13)
About one-fourth of the Bible is related to predictive prophecy, or predictions which, at the time of their utterance, were still future. The Bible is filled with these unique proofs of being inspired by the Holy Spirit.
Here are just a few of the 351 messianic prophecies the Old Testament foretold centuries in advance:
The Messiah Jesus was born of a virgin (Isaiah 7:14) in Bethlehem (Micah 5:2), as a descendant of Abraham (Genesis 12:1–3), Isaac (Genesis 17:19), and Jacob (Genesis 28:14). He was betrayed by a friend (Psalm 41:9) for 30 pieces of silver that were used to purchase the potter’s field (Zechariah 11:13). Then he was mocked and ridiculed, pierced in his hands and feet, and lots were cast for his clothing (Psalm 22:7, 16, 18). He died (Daniel 9:26) as a sacrifice for our sins and was buried in a rich man’s tomb (Isaiah 53:8–10). After a short time in the grave, he lived again (Psalm 16:10; Isaiah 53:10).
The probability for any one of these prophecies having been fulfilled by chance averages less than one in ten (figured very conservatively) coupled with the fact that the prophecies are for the most part independent of one another makes the odds for all these prophecies having been fulfilled by chance without error is less than one in 102000 (that is 1 with 2,000 zeros written after it)!
Peter Stoner was a mathematician and astronomer, and professor emeritus of science at Westmont College, Santa Barbara, California. In his book “Science Speaks” he details the probability of these 8 of the 351 messianic prophecies found in the Bible being fulfilled:
Multiplying all these probabilities together produces a number (rounded off) of 1 x 1028. Dividing this number by an estimate of the number of people who have lived since the time of these prophecies (88 billion) produces a probability of all 8 prophecies being fulfilled accidentally in the life of one person. That probability is 1 in 1017, or one in one hundred quadrillion!
If you took 100 million silver dollars and lay them on the face of Texas they would cover all of the state two feet deep. Now mark one of these silver dollars and stir the whole mass thoroughly…Blindfold a man and tell him…he must pick up the marked silver dollar…What chance would he have of getting the right one? Just the same chance that the prophets would have of writing…eight prophecies and having them come true in any one man.
To declare a thing shall come to pass long before it is in being, and to bring it to pass, this or nothing is the work of God
Justin Martyr
Challenge Question: Unique among all the books ever written, the Bible accurately foretells specific events with detail many years, sometimes centuries before they occur. Approximately 2,500 prophecies appear in the pages of the Bible, about 2,000 of which already have been fulfilled to the letter—no errors. How can this be explained?
Premise 2: Jesus Christ Affirmed Scripture As God’s Word
And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up. And as was his custom, he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and he stood up to read. And the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” And he rolled up the scroll and gave it back to the attendant …today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing
The most compelling authenticationof the Bible is that Jesus read,memorized, quoted and taught from it Himself
Jesus is saying in Luke 4:16-20 that all of Scripture alludes or points to Him and God’s redemptive purpose. At least 19 of the 39 books of the Old Testament have direct prophecies foretelling important and precise details about Jesus Christ. All 39 books have foregleams or allusions to Christ.
He said this to the Jewish leaders in John 5:39:
You search the Scriptures because you believe they give you eternal life. But the Scriptures point to me!
John 5:39 New Living Translation
Jesus validated the Old Testament
During Jesus’s ministry He told people that He was the fulfillment of the numerous prophecies they had been studying for years in their Old Testament.
How foolish you are, how slow you are to believe everything the prophets said! Was it not necessary for the Messiah to suffer these things and then to enter his glory?” And Jesus explained to them what was said about himself in all the Scriptures, beginning with the books of Moses and the writings of all the prophets.
Luke 24:25-27
In every New Testament Gospel account Jesus used the phrase “It is written…” which is referencing the Old Testament directly. (7 times in Matthew, 4 times in Mark, 5 times in Luke, 1 time in John). Jesus actually quoted the Old Testament 78 times in the Gospels.
Here are sample quotes from the 16 Old Testament Books Jesus quoted from directly:
Jesus validated both the authors of Scripture as well as the events and the people introduced there. He also validated Old Testament figures and events as historically real. Most of all Jesus validated the accuracy and the supreme importance of the Bible itself.
You examine the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is those very Scriptures that testify about Me
John 5:39
The reading of Scripture was the center piece of synagogue worship where Jesus went every Sabbath. Jesus was a Jewish rabbi that preached the Scripture and the New Testament records Jesus’s ministry in the synagogue more than 10 times. The Bible is what Jesus was the actual center of, what he preached, and what he commanded to be respected as holy.
Discussion Question 2: Jesus quoted the Old Testament 78 times, and referenced the events and people contained in it as being historically accurate. How does Jesus’s high view of Scripture impact your views concerning the authority and authenticity of Scripture?
Premise 3:Consistency and Coherency Validate Scripture
The fact that 66 different authors of Bible books who were from different time periods, socio-political, and socio-economic backgrounds, different regions, and were often centuries apart could write history, biography, poetry, and prophecy with the same exact coherent theme and person at the center of the narrative is nothing short of miraculous.
The Bible although written by different authors in different centuries, it has a single theme running all the way through it, like rings in the trunk of a tree. It tells the unified, coherent story of humanity’s creation by God, humanity’s rebellion against God, and God’s redemption of his people.
The Bible cross-references itself around 65,000 times and is the only book in history to actually self authenticate itself
cross ref·er·ence
Repeated reference or accompanying information of the same subject found in a different place in a text or book. Example: “Entries were fully cross-referenced.”
In 2007, Lutheran pastor Christoph Römhild and Chris Harrison, a professor at Carnegie Mellon University, assembled what they refer to as a digital dataset of cross-references which are conceptual links between verses connecting locations, people, and phrases found in different parts of the Bible. The chart above is a visual representation of the 63,000 cross-reference dataset.
The bar chart that runs along the bottom represents all of the chapters in the Bible, starting with Genesis 1 on the left.
Books alternate in color between light and dark gray, with the first book of the Old and New Testaments in white.
The length of each bar denotes the number of verses in that chapter (for instance, the longest bar is the longest chapter in the Bible, Psalm 119).
Each of the 63,779 cross references found in the Bible are depicted by a single arc – the color corresponds to the distance between the two chapters, creating a rainbow-like effect.
In essence you have 66 different people from different centuries, cultures, and backgrounds echoing the same premises, themes, and predicted events with astounding cohesion.
The cross-references tell us that the Bible is a beautifully rendered tapestry rather than a chaotic patchwork quilt.
The 66 books of the Bible were written over 1,400 years by writers not only separated by hundreds of years but hundreds of miles. They belonged to diverse walks of life ranging from Kings, soldiers, fishermen, priest, sheep herders, tent makers, and a physician just to name a few. The writings belong to a variety of literary types including law, history, biography, poetry, letters, memoirs, and prophecy.
Consider for a moment —What if multiple authors had each written a single page of the Bible? What if each author wrote in different genres, in different centuries and in different countries, with no “master plan” for them to consult? What is the likelihood that it would make any sense at all?
For all that, the Bible is not simply an anthology; there is a unity which binds the whole together. An anthology is compiled by an anthologist, but no anthologist compiled the Bible.
FF Bruce, Professor of Biblical Criticism, University of Manchester
It’s like flicking between 66 different stations and finding that each is advancing the same story. As well as having a single theme, the Bible has a single hero. Each of these 66 documents, even the ones written hundreds of years before Jesus’ birth, are all singing the same song. And the song, consistently, is about Jesus. As Jesus said: “These are the very Scriptures that testify about me” (John 5 v 39). What are the odds?
The Bible although written by different authors in different centuries has a single theme running all the way through it. Like the rings in the trunk of a tree—It tells the unified coherent story of humanity’s creation by God, humanity’s rebellion against God, and God’s redemption of his people.
Challenge Question: Christians believe God superintended the process of compiling the Bible. If the Bible’s development had been completely random and purposeless—How can it’s unified cohesiveness be explained?
Premise 4:The Bible includes elements that make no sense if it was made up
Compared to other “holy books,” the Bible is distinct. Not only was it written by at least 40 writers , on several continents, over a time period of 1,500 years, it is not what we would expect if it were a fabricated book.
Reality, in fact, is usually something you could not have guessed. That is one of the reasons I believe Christianity. It is a religion you could not have guessed. If it offered us just the kind of universe we had always expected, I should feel we were making it up. But, in fact, it is not the sort of thing anyone would have made up. It has just that queer twist about it that real things have. So let us leave behind all these boys’ philosophies–these over simple answers. The problem is not simple and the answer is not going to be simple either
Is is a well known that many writers, recorders, and teachers of history have done so from a biased position. In many countries, history textbooks, and religious books are sponsored by the national government and are written to put the national heritage and national heroes in the most favorable light. This is the opposite of what the Bible does.
The Old Testament was THE national book of Israel. It was revered and considered holy, and sacred. It was commanded to be memorized, and rigorously taught to children. Yet when you read the Old Testament you realize that a large portion of text contains vivid historical documentation of Israel’s repeated stubborn disobedience resulting in punishment from God.
Israel was chosen by God to be a representative nation and was often blessed and protected. However, every book in the Old Testament contains major incidents of Israel’s disobedience, and lapses in judgment. Many of these resulted in severe warnings from prophets, leaders, and God Himself.
Many writers chronicle God’s chastisement of Israel which often included being over taken and humiliated by pagan countries in order to humble, correct, and get them to return to God.
The whole book of Lamentations is primarily an outcry by the prophet Jeremiah because of the sorrow, embarrassment, and disillusionment caused by Israel’s moral failures and God’s judgment on them.
Here is how Lamentations begins:
How lonely sits the city That was full of people! She has become like a widow Who was once great among the nations! She who was a princess among the provinces Has become a forced laborer!
Lamentations 1:1
In the Old and New Testaments God inspired writers to purposely include Israel’s and the early church’s failures alongside stories of blessings and successes to show objectively the parallel effects of both.
No other religious or historical narrative has been written with such moral and objective transparency. Here are just one of many other examples from the following books of the Old Testament:
1 Kings, 2 Kings and 1 Chronicles, and 2 Chronicles are records of all the Kings and the their conduct. All four books are replete with accounts of the Kings of Israel, and Judah who were either wicked or righteous, and either brought harm or blessing to themselves and to the nation.
The 14 books of the prophets from Isaiah to Malachi that contain contain numerous prophecies of judgements that were to befall on the nation if they didn’t repent. Many contain precise accounts of these negative prophecies being fulfilled. Here is an example of a severe rebuke and warning against priests and prophets in the book of Isaiah that is hard to imagine being there if the Bible was made up:
These also reel with wine and stagger with strong drink; the priest and the prophet reel with strong drink, they are swallowed by[c] wine, they stagger with strong drink, they reel in vision, they stumble in giving judgment. 8 For all tables are full of filthy vomit, with no space left.
It’s impossible to give an exact numerical answer to “how many” judgments and warnings against Israel and Judah there are in the Old Testament, as they are spread throughout numerous books and prophetic messages. However, these themes are very prominent and numerous, often linked to the Israelites’ disobedience and unfaithfulness to God.
The Bible repeatedly affirms how the 12 tribes of Israel were chosen to be a ambassador nation represent Him to the world to encourage other nations to abandon false Gods and choose the real God. Why would the Biblical writers include so much biographical detail of their own idolatry if it were pure fiction?
Challenge Question: If Biblical authors wanted to create a religion and instill confidence and respect for it’s historical tribes, kings, and cultural dignity among nations would it include such damning accounts of infidelity and treachery?
Premise 5: Why would the disciples invent a God whose holiness terrified them?
22 Immediately he made the disciples get into the boat and go before him to the other side, while he dismissed the crowds. 23 And after he had dismissed the crowds, he went up on the mountain by himself to pray. When evening came, he was there alone, 24 but the boat by this time was a long way from the land, beaten by the waves, for the wind was against them. 25 And in the fourth watch of the night[c] he came to them, walking on the sea. 26 But when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were terrified, and said, “It is a ghost!” and they cried out in fear
Wind and waves on the sea of Galilee in a small boatBecause the Sea of Galilee is relatively shallow, it is especially susceptible to the strength of these winds, which cause dangerous climatic conditions to develop quickly and without warning. Winds from the east can whip up waves that, in extreme cases, can grow up to 10 feet high.
What is most amazing about this story is that the disciple’s fear of Jesus was far greater than their fear of the huge waves and strong wind. The storm made them afraid—but Jesus revealing His deity in being able to control nature and walk on water made them afraid of something even more than nature itself: His Holiness and divinity.
Sigmund Freud believed that people invent religion out of a fear of nature. That the human instinct is to invent a God to bring comfort and mitigate distress caused by nature. In seeing Jesus walk on water in the middle of the wind and waves the disciples met something more frightening than they had ever met in nature.
Why would the disciples invent a God whose holiness was more terrifying than the forces of nature that provoked them to invent a God in the first place?
R.C. Sproul The Holiness of God
Moses who led the Exodus and wrote 5 books of the Old Testament alludes to the overwhelming Holiness of God who had decided to punish him and not let him cross the Jordan with the Israelites in Deuteronomy 4:21-24
Furthermore, the Lord was angry with me because of you, and he swore that I should not cross the Jordan, and that I should not enter the good land that the Lord your God is giving you for an inheritance. 22 For I must die in this land; I must not go over the Jordan. But you shall go over and take possession of that good land. 23 Take care, lest you forget the covenant of the Lord your God, which he made with you, and make a carved image, the form of anything that the Lord your God has forbidden you. 24 For the Lord your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God.
The apostle Paul restates verse 24 of this passage to New Testament believers warning them that while God is gracious He is a Holy God of infinite magnitude. Sigmund Freud and other skeptics of Christianity often accuse Christians of making up a God to be a father figure and protector. The Bible’s central theme is God’s perfect Holiness and righteousness requires a substitute to die for mankind’s sinfulness to avoid His judgment.
For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord
Most religions teach that if your good actions outweigh your bad actions in this life you will escape judgment. Christianity emphasizes that because God is infinitely holy all sin is infinitely offensive to Him which is the opposite of most modern religions.
Challenge Question: If Freud was right and man invented God to be a paternal comforter to help them deal with the natural tragedies of life—why would Biblical writers invent a God who promised to withhold protection from disasters if they did not turn from their natural inclination to sin?
Final Thoughts
The Bible was written for us, by people like us, about people like us
Written over 40 generations, by over 40 authors from every walk of life including kings, peasants, philosophers, fishermen, poets, statesmen, scholars, even a doctor.
Tax collectors, blacksmiths, senior citizens with special needs, tent makers, prostitutes, textile workers, jewelers…people from all walks of life play prominent roles in the Bible
It is a book about both the sublime and the unspeakable, it is a book also about life the way it really is. It is a book about people who at one and the same time can be both believing and unbelieving, innocent and guilty, crusaders and crooks, full of hope and full of despair. In other words it is a book about us.
Frederick Buechner, Wishful Thinking
The Bible is not just human history…it is His Story
Every book of the Bible either alludes to, testifies of, or phrophesies about Jesus Christ.
While it is true that a man can know the “what” about creative wisdom through observation of the physical world and its inner workings, but man cannot know the “who” or the “why” or the without the Bible. The “Who” chose to reveal Himself and His purpose and plan for the mankind and the world through Scripture.
It is Christ Himself, not the Bible, who is the true word of God. The Bible, read in the right spirit and with the guidance of good teachers, will bring us to him.
C.S. Lewis
The Bible is “No Ordinary Book” because it has changed the most lives
All other myths of gods had indestructible gods out of reach of people. What made up religious book would have it’s God send His Son to earth to be born a in a barn, make furniture for a living, then at the age of only 33 years old be maligned, tortured and killed like a common criminal for the the salvation of mankind? With the Bible the phrase “You Can’t Make This Stuff Up” takes on new meaning
This story and the book it’s contained in is the most read book of all time and no other is even close. (Over 5 billion Bibles to 800 million for second closest ) According to Guinness World Records the Bible is both the bestselling book every year and of all time.
TIME magazine recorded the number one event of the last 1,000 years was the Gutenberg printing of the Bible which made this book available in mass form to all people.
Why has the Bible had such an enormous impact in the world? It is because it has changed lives. Since the 1st century when it was written governments have banned it, burned it, shunned it, and forbid it’s teaching yet it’s message of hope, purpose, and eternal life still spreads like wildfire.
And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent…I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world
A Barna Research study conducted in 2018 showed that six in ten americans (58%) believe the message of the Bible has transformed their life. Surprisingly, of the remaining 42% who say it has not transformed their life, only 18% of them had actually read any of the New Testament.
Have you ever been misrepresented by a person or group and said to yourself “How can they say these things about me, they have never even gotten to know me?”
How will you or I know if the Bible can be trusted, or if it has the power to change lives if we don’t read it? Skepticism without investigation is like saying a food taste bad without actually tasting it. Skepticism is actually the opposite of searching.
It is possible to be a terrible believer in things, but it is equally possible to be a terrible unbeliever in things.
Augustine of Hippo was always brilliant (IQ 180) , but not always a Christian. In fact he was an renowned skeptic, humanistic philosopher, and famous teacher of rhetoric. He couldn’t find truth in Christianity because he saw it as a religion for the simple-minded. At the age of 31 he heard a small child’s voice chanting a song “Take up and read, take up and read”
I arose, interpreting it to be no other than a command from God to open the book, and read the first chapter I should find. I seized, opened, and in silence read that section on which my eyes first fell: “Not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying; but put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, in concupiscence.” No further would I read; nor needed I: for instantly at the end of this sentence, by a light as it were of serenity infused into my heart, all the darkness of doubt vanished away.
Saint Augustine
Augustine is now known as a “Theological Father” by protestants and a Saint by Catholics. He is just one of millions and millions of previous skeptics over the centuries who when they finally made a point of reading the Scriptures and were never the same again.
ThinkCube Truth Veracity Grid
Have I considered the issue carefully and honestly with an open mind?
Does what I think conform to the rules of logic and avoid contradiction?
