God's Not Dead: Evidence for God in an Age of Uncertainty (21 page)

Our paths crossed again on May 15, 2008, at the
United Nations
. We both attended a small event surrounding the sixtieth anniversary of the modern State of Israel. George was excited about yet another discovery that confirmed the Bible’s historical accuracy. I felt the time had come to suggest that he connect the dots between the historical realities he was listing and the God of history who was behind it all. I paused to gather my nerves and said, “George, do you now believe?” The question seemed to hit him right between the eyes. He paused as if to say, “Let me think about that.”

Almost a month later a special delivery shipment from
George arrived at our home. Inside that carefully packed box were ancient artifacts dated between 1000 BC (the time of King David) and AD 400. We were stunned at this incredible collection of antiquities and the certificates of authenticity that he had given us. Along with the artifacts was a handwritten letter from George, dated June 20, 2008:

Dear Rice and Jody,
      In answer to your question “George, do you believe?” As Einstein believed I do believe in the Creator of the Universe. Moreover, I believe in the Creator who gave us Ethical Monotheism at Mt. Sinai to complement the gift of
Free Will
he had already given us. Now, it is in our hands to make the world a better place! I have been waiting for years to give someone—the right someone—this group of antiquities. Please enjoy them in your home and share them with others!
                                                                  Best Regards,
                                                                  George B.

He had been deeply grateful for his Jewish heritage but was
agnostic
. Looking at the facts of history and having a willingness to follow the evidence wherever it led, he found faith in God.

I recently asked him another question: “George, as a Christian, my faith is anchored in the resurrection of Christ as clear evidence for my faith. As a Jew, what anchors your faith?”

He didn’t hesitate. “The Hebrew Bible.” He went on to recount the integrity of the
Tanakh
(the Jewish name for the
Old Testament
), verified through such discoveries as the
Dead Sea Scrolls
.

It is that Bible that provides another compelling witness to the long list of evidence that points to the fact that God is not dead.

“T
HE
B
OOKS
”

That’s what
bible
literally means. It looks like one book, but it is an anthology, a collection of sixty-six books written by forty different authors over a period of sixteen hundred years. These books were copied by hand and faithfully passed down to us today. It wasn’t until 1454 that Johannes Gutenberg’s printing press rolled out the first typed Bible.

Scripture
refers to what Christians call the Old and New Testaments. The Old Testament covers the period from the beginning of the universe and creation of life to the refounding of
Israel
after the
Babylonian exile
about 400 BC. Most prominently it is the record of God’s dealings with the people of Israel. The New Testament begins with the life of Jesus in 4 BC, describes the early Christian church, and ends with an apocalyptic vision for the world in the book of Revelation.

The Old Testament books were written primarily in Hebrew. These were translated into Greek between the third and first centuries BC and became known as the
Septuagint
version or the LXX. “The name Septuagint comes from
septuaginta
, the Latin word for ‘seventy.’ ”
⁴
(This refers to the seventy-two translators who were said to have worked on this project.) This version was used by the early church as it expanded into the larger non-Jewish world.

The New Testament books were written originally in Greek.
The earliest writings—the letter to the Galatians and the other epistles—appeared about twenty years after the resurrection of Christ.
⁵
They witness the fact that Christ had been raised in complete harmony with and fulfillment of the Old Testament scriptures. The first gospel account of Jesus’ life, the book of Mark, first appeared between AD 50 and AD 70. All the New Testament books were written within the first century and were referenced in the writings of the early church fathers. That’s a key difference in distinguishing the true writings from the false and spurious: the real
Gospels
were written in the first century while the other imposters (such as the Gospels of Thomas and Judas) were written well into the second century. Most importantly, the true Gospels were recognized throughout the known world as having originated from either the apostles or close associates.

W
HAT
H
APPENED TO THE
O
RIGINALS?

The original writings of the New Testament are called the
autographs
. These were written on perishable material, which we no longer have. Does that mean we cannot know what was originally written? Of course we can know. Remember, all ancient books were copied by hand and passed down. We study those copies through the science of
textual criticism
.

Imagine you are in a classroom of one hundred students on a university campus, and the instructor puts a letter from the president of the university on the overhead projector. The entire class is asked to copy the letter and keep the copy in their records. Now suppose the original letter was lost. Could we reconstruct
the original letter from the one hundred copies the students made? Of course. What if there were mistakes in some of the copies, such as misspelled words or skipped sentences due to human error? The science of textual criticism would help you decide with a high degree of probability what was originally said. Each copy would be compared with the others, and you would assume the text found in the majority of the copies is the original wording. Even though the copies of the New Testament books were not written at the same time or in the same region, biblical scholars have several strategies that help them determine what the autographs said. Some take the numerous copies of the New Testament and reconstruct what was written by the “majority text” or what the majority of
manuscripts
would have said. Most use other, more complex and sophisticated methods than this, but comparing numerous manuscripts is a basic understanding of how the originals can be reconstructed. In fact, over five thousand manuscripts in Greek alone have been discovered, several dating before the year AD 300. With the abundance of New Testament sources, modern scholars are able to reconstruct 99 percent of the New Testament with extreme confidence.
⁶
In contrast, most reconstructions of ancient nonbiblical literature are based on only a few texts written many centuries after the original.

Besides the copies of the New Testament books and letters, there are the massive number of references that are made to these New Testament books by the writings of Christians. In fact, we could reconstruct most of the New Testament from these writings alone. Dr. Dan Wallace, one of the foremost New Testament scholars of our day, has confirmed this:

Now, if you were to destroy all those manuscripts, we would not be left without a witness. That’s because the ancient Christian leaders known as church fathers wrote commentaries on the New Testament. To date, more than one million quotations of the New Testament by the church fathers have been recorded. “If all other sources for our knowledge of the text of the New Testament were destroyed, [the patristic quotations] would be sufficient alone for the reconstruction of practically the entire New Testament.”
⁷

T
HE
S
IGNIFICANCE OF THE
D
EAD
S
EA
S
CROLLS

In 1947 a fifteen-year-old was shepherding with his cousins in
Qumran
, Palestine, near the Dead Sea. He threw a rock into a cave and heard the sound of pottery cracking. When he entered the cave to investigate the unusual sound, he found several clay jars containing writings that went back to the second century BC. Documents in this and similar caves included at least fragments of every book of the
Old Testament
, except the book of Esther. These copies were a thousand years older than any Hebrew manuscript of the Bible discovered at that time.

The scrolls gave scholars the remarkable ability to compare how much the writings had changed over the years. Some were essentially the same. In particular, the entire book of Isaiah was identified. Amazingly, the text was 95 percent identical to that in Bibles today, and most of the differences were simple spelling errors or easily identifiable slips of the pen.
⁸

W
AS
I
T
W
RITTEN BY
M
EN?

The question is often posed, was the Bible written by men? Absolutely. Many of these books have the names of the writers as their title: Isaiah, Jeremiah, Job, Mark, Jude. But that’s not the whole story. These books bear the marks of divine inspiration and, ultimately, divine authorship. That is why they are referred to as the Word of God, not just in a metaphorical sense but in a very real one. Not just inspirational but authoritative. Jesus unambiguously spoke of the Scripture as completely authoritative and trustworthy, even down to the smallest markings (Matthew 5:18). His rising from the dead confirmed that He was God, so His authentication of Scripture can be trusted.

The Bible contains commandments and laws commonly referred to as the “Thou shalt nots.” They are not just prohibitions but statements of reality that function as moral laws. Just as gravity and relativity function in the physical world, breaking these moral laws has consequences. If you’re driving down the road and see a warning sign that says “Danger Ahead! Bridge Out!” you don’t resent the sign or the person who put it there. Its purpose is to protect you, not harm you. The harm comes from ignoring the sign. In the same way, harm comes from ignoring the commandments of God.

But there are also promises. God is a promise maker and a promise keeper. “I will bless you” (Genesis 12:2), He says. “ ‘Honor your father and mother,’ which is the first commandment with a promise: ‘that it may be well with you and you may live long on the earth’ ” (Ephesians 6:2–3). There are more promises than commandments, over seven thousand in fact. There are actually promises that help us keep the commandments. “Having these
promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves of all filthiness of the flesh and spirit” (2 Corinthians 7:1). God doesn’t give commandments He knows we cannot keep, but we cannot keep them without His help.

It’s like the Apple computer I’m using to write this manuscript (the analogy applies to PC users as well). To know how it works, I must consult the instruction manual Apple gave me. I must repair it with Apple parts and use a charge cord specifically made for Apple computers. I never consider those requirements exclusive or unfair. I focus more on the amazing things the computer can do, and I see the instructions for operating it properly as helpful, not as a hardship.

In the same way, because we are designed by God, we function best with His power and truth by following His instructions. Any deviation hurts us in the way that putting water instead of gasoline in an automobile’s engine will hinder its function. God wants to empower us to live optimally in the world He made, so He gave us accurate instructions on how this happens. The Bible, in a real sense, is the instruction manual for life.

T
HE
M
OST
P
OPULAR
B
OOK IN THE
W
ORLD

There is no way to overstate the Bible’s importance in terms of how it has shaped history, given value and dignity to mankind, defined good and evil, given rights to women and
children
, and shown that everyone who fears Him is welcome in His presence (Acts 10:35). It is safe to say that you cannot understand the world we live in without understanding the Bible. From the foundations of Western civilization to the Middle East crisis, the
Bible is the key to understanding the origins of these and other events.

The
knowledge
of God that comes through creation is
general
revelation
.
There is enough evidence of God in what God has created that we are “without excuse” to reject His existence (Romans 1:20). The Scripture is God’s
special revelation
to man in that we are given greater clarity as to what God is like. Special revelation is like putting on glasses and seeing clearly what we can only see partially through general revelation.

D
O
Y
OU
R
EAD THE
B
IBLE
L
ITERALLY?

Well, first of all, it is important
literally to read it
and not just own a Bible. Having a big one on your coffee table or at your bedside won’t help you much. Many skeptics who dismiss the Bible have never really read it. Picking it up and skimming through it doesn’t help your life any more than picking up a calculus book and skimming through it would help you build a rocket ship.

There are various types of literature in the Bible: poetry, allegory, parables, history, didactic, epistolary, apocalyptic,
prophecy
, and more. To say you read the Bible literally means you take it in the sense that the author intended to communicate the written message. There are many theories that critics have put forth to diminish the weight of the Bible’s authority. Some of these arguments are sophisticated and nuanced. Others border on the absurd. On a university campus, it can get pretty funny.

A student approached me once and said, “I believe the Bible came here from outer space.” I had just finished speaking at the
University of Calgary
in Canada and was answering questions
at the campus pub where the meeting had been held. (The Christian leaders who invited me were worried that I wouldn’t be comfortable speaking at a bar, which made me laugh when I recollected my days at university, working at a local bar. It was a much easier setting than a lot of churches I’ve been in. Certainly much easier to get the folks in the bar to sing along than it has been at some of the eight o’clock Sunday services I’ve attended.)