Christian Publishing House Blog
Apologetic Defense of the faith, the Bible, and Christianity
The Hebrew text was like the Greek NT; it had accumulated copyist errors, a few intentional, a good number accidental, between the Malachi days of 440 BCE and Rabbi Judah ha-Nasi (135 to 217 CE). The same thing happened to the Greek New Testament from about 400 CE to 1550 CE, a period of copyist errors.
Why are there only these 66 books in the Bible? Because God is the ultimate author of the Bible, and He inspired only these 66. All Scripture is breathed out of the mouth of God (Mt 4:4; 2 Tm 3:16). What the human authors wrote did not originate with them but with God, who moved upon them (2 Sm 23:2; 1 Pt 1:20–21).
Some of the most important literature of antiquity exists in the form of letters. The correspondence of men prominent in political and literary life often throws a clear light upon the conditions of the age. The letters preserved to us in the New Testament are not less interesting than this letter of Pliny for the historical information they convey.
In creating men and women, God had something different in mind than He did for the other creatures. The latter are spoken of as having been created “according to their kinds” (Gen 1:25). Humans, however, are described as being made in the image and likeness of God (1:26–27).
Because God is truthful, we can expect His written self-revelation (in the original manuscripts) to be truthful in what it affirms. But not everything in Scripture is perfectly clear. The Apostle Peter admitted that Paul’s writings are hard to understand in places (2 Pt 3:15–16).
The Bible is the most accurately transmitted book from the ancient world. No other ancient book has as many, as early, or more accurately copied manuscripts.
Is the Bible “history”? Did the ancient biblical authors write “history” as we moderns understand it? These questions are essential elements of the debate about the trustworthiness and authority of the Bible.
Some time ago, I had the opportunity to speak to a man who had no belief whatsoever in the Scriptures as any sort of divine revelation from God. He was a writer who was articulate and well-educated. While he was well-read, he was completely ignorant of any evidences for the truthfulness of the Christian faith and the Scriptures which reveal it.
The infallibility and divine authority of the Scriptures are due to the fact that they are the word of God, and they are the word of God because the inspiration of the Holy Spirit gave them.
The Agnostic New Testament Scholar Bart D. Ehrman in his book FORGERY says that first Peter was not written by Peter, but instead was written as a forgery. Is this true?