Why does God Allow
Evil? Click here: /Apologeticshtml/Why Does God Allow Evil 0908.htm
Should God’s existence be
proven? /Apologeticshtml/Should the Bible and God Be Proven
Fideism vs WCG.htm
Does the Bible teach blind faith? Click here: /doctrinalhtml/Gospel of John Theory of Knowledge.htm
Could the Archeological Evidence Favoring Belief in the Bible Be Fraudulent?
How do we know whether the
archeological and other evidence presented for the truth of the Bible is fake
or not? Basically, we shouldn’t worry
about such fraud because the main bias among historians and archeologists is
towards secular skepticism and agnosticism, not towards traditional
Christianity.
Let’s first briefly review a
little of the archeological evidence for the Bible. (Far more details are explained below). It’s important to realize that most archeologists are liberal
skeptics who don’t believe in the Bible.
It’s very implausible that such people wouldn’t be aware of others
planting evidence and wouldn’t challenge various fake finds’ authenticity that
supposedly proved the Bible’s historicity.
Rather instead, such people are chronically challenging everything until
basically forced to give in a little.
Furthermore, the people finding such evidence may not be believers at
all, although the specific cases would need to be documents. The case of Sir William Ramsay, noted below,
is particularly striking: He was an
atheist who was converted by archeological evidence that he found. What incentive would he have to fake anything?
Then let’s examine the
argument based upon fulfilled prophecy and whether it could be history written
after the fact. In order to lay a
foundation for this, it’s necessary to go through some of the standard arguments
first and then later I’ll explain how it would be hard to fake such historical
evidence. The writing style of the book
of Daniel is a key example: It wasn’t
written like a mid-second-century b.c. document would have been, which higher
critics will typically claim in order to escape the implications of its
detailed predictions of the future.
It also should be noted that
radiocarbon dating isn’t very important for dating many of the finds that favor
Christianity, especially from the time of Christ. In order for something to be so dated, it has to be something
that lived, such as from a person’s or animal’s bones. It isn’t useful for anything purely
inorganic, such as clay or stone. Sure,
the leather or papyrus of manuscripts could be so dated, but such tests can be
checked by others. It appears that the
main way manuscripts are dated is based upon the method and style of copying
them, the materials used, the location in which manuscripts are discovered,
etc. The controversial case of
Jericho’s walls, described below, shows how various dating methods are often
unreliable.
Down below the non-Christian
sources from the first century are described.
It’s important to realize that it’s rather extraordinary that any record
of a native who wasn’t a monarch from a backwater region of the Roman Empire
would be noticed by leading Roman writers.
Because these records of Jesus refer to him in contemptuous terms, such
as that of Tacitus, we have no reason to believe later Christians would have
made up such evidence. The specific
case of Josephus’ witness is analyzed below.
There’s good reason to believe that this one was one case in which a
somewhat hostile or skeptical witness was later doctored by a Christian scribe
to make it positive. It wasn’t just
made up by that copyist.
So let’s survey in detail
these various issues below. It will
take some time and space to review this issues and to survey the evidence
involved.
THE BIBLIOGRAPHICAL TEST APPLIED TO THE NEW TESTAMENT
By the two parts of the bibliographical test, the New
Testament is the best attested ancient historical writing. Some 24,633 known copies (including
fragments, lectionaries, etc.) exist, of which 5309 are in Greek. The Hebrew Old Testament has over 1700
copies (A more recent estimate is 6,000
copies, including fragments). By
contrast, the document with the next highest number of copies is Homer's Iliad,
with 643. Other writings by prominent
ancient historians have far fewer copies:
Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, 8; Herodotus, The
Histories, 8; Julius Caesar, Gallic Wars, 10; Livy, History from
the Founding of the City, 20; Suetonius, Lives of the Caesars,
8. Tacitus was perhaps the best Roman
historian. His Annals has at the
most 20 surviving manuscript copies, and only 1 (!) copy endured of his minor
works.
The large number of manuscripts is a reason for belief
in the New Testament, not disbelief.
Now, a skeptic could cite the 1908-12 Catholic Encyclopedia,
which says "the greatest difficulty confronting the editor of the New
Testament is the endless variety of the documents at his disposal." Are these differences good reason for
disbelief? After all, scholars
(ideally) would have to sift through all of its ancient manuscripts to figure
out what words were originally inspired to be there. In order to decide what to put into a printed version of the New
Testament, they have to reconstruct a single text out of hundreds of manuscript
witnesses. Actually, the higher
manuscript evidence mounts, the easier it becomes to catch any errors
that occurred by comparing them with one another. As F.F. Bruce observes:
Fortunately, if the great number of mss
[manuscripts] increases the number of scribal errors, it increases
proportionately the means of correcting such errors, so that the margin of doubt
left in the process of recovering the exact original wording is not so large as
might be feared. The variant readings
about which any doubt remains among textual critics of the New Testament affect
no material question of historic fact or of Christian faith and practice.[i]
Having over 5300 Greek manuscripts to work with,
detecting scribal errors in the New Testament is more certain when comparing
between its manuscripts than for the Caesar's Gallic Wars with its mere
10 copies, long a standard work of Latin teachers to use with beginning
students. The science and art of
textual criticism has an embarrassment‑‑of riches‑‑for
the New Testament.[ii]
HOW CAN YOU KNOW
WHETHER THE
NEW
TESTAMENT IS A FIRST-CENTURY DOCUMENT?
Is there any evidence for the New Testament being
written in the first century? After
all, liberal scholars, atheists, and agnostics normally have said the New
Testament was written long after the time Jesus and his disciples (students)
lived. And if the New Testament was
written around (say) the year A.D. 150, how could you trust what was in
it? Since Jesus died in the year A.D.
31, a gap of a hundred or more years would mean that all the eyewitnesses would
have died by then. You would be left
with believing in stories passed down over three or more generations. This creates major obstacles to believing in
it, as the game "whispering lane" implies. If you played this game in elementary school, you might remember
how the first kid would be told a message by the teacher. Then the rest of the class would pass the
message along from one kid to another.
The final kid to hear it rarely, if ever, correctly got the full,
original message. Does a similar
problem confront believers in the New Testament when judging whether it is an
accurate record for the life and ministry of Jesus and his disciples?
SCHOLARS MOVE
AWAY FROM A
SECOND-CENTURY
DATE FOR THE NEW TESTAMENT
Recently among scholars a move away from a
second-century composition date for the New Testament has developed. For example, Biblical archeologist William
Foxwell Albright remarks: "In my opinion,
every book of the New Testament was written by a baptized Jew [Luke presumably
would be an exception‑‑EVS] between the forties and eighties of the
first century A.D. (very probably sometime between about A.D. 50 and
75)." Elsewhere he states: "Thanks to the Qumran discoveries
[meaning, the Dead Sea Scrolls, which first were uncovered in 1947 in the West
Bank of Jordan], the New Testament proves to be in fact what it was formerly
believed to be: the teaching of Christ
and his immediate followers between cir. 25 and cir. 80 A.D." Scholar John A.T. Robertson (in Redating
the New Testament) maintains that every New Testament book was
written before 70 A.D., including even the Gospel of John and Revelation. He argues that no New Testament book mentions
the actual destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. by Rome, it must have been all
written before that date. If the New
Testament is a product of the first century, composed within one or two
generations of Jesus' crucifixion, worries about the possible inaccuracies of
oral transmission (people telling each other stories about Jesus between
generations) are unjustified. As
scholar Simon Kistemaker writes:
Normally, the accumulation of folklore among people of
primitive culture takes many generations:
it is a gradual process spread over centuries of time. But in conformity with the thinking of the
form critic [a school of higher criticism that studies how oral transmission
shaped the present organization of the New Testament], we must conclude that
the Gospel stories were produced and collected within little more than one
generation.[iii]
HOW
PEOPLE IN CULTURES MORE DEPENDENT
ON ORAL
TRADITION HAVE BETTER MEMORIES
In cultures where the written word and literacy are
scarce commodities, where very few people able to read or afford to own any
books, they develop much better memories about what they are told, unlike
people in America and other Western countries today. For example, Alex Haley (the author of Roots) was able to
travel to Africa, and hear a man in his ancestors' African tribe, whose job was
to memorize his people's past, mention his ancestor Kunta Kinte's
disappearance. In the Jewish culture in
which Jesus and His disciples moved, the students of a rabbi had to memorize
his words. Hence, Mishna, Aboth, ii,
8 reads: "A good pupil was
like a plastered cistern that loses not a drop." The present-day Uppsala school of Harald Riesenfeld and Birger
Gerhardsson analyzes Jesus' relationship with His disciples in the context of
Jewish rabbinical practices of c. 200 A.D.
Jesus, in the role of the authoritative teacher or rabbi, trained his
disciples to believe in and remember His teachings. Because their culture was so strongly oriented towards oral
transmission of knowledge, they could memorize amazing amounts of material by
today's standards. This culture's
values emphasized the need of disciples to remember their teacher's teachings
and deeds accurately, then to pass on this (now) tradition faithfully and as
unaltered as possible to new disciples they make in the future. Paul's language in I Cor. 15:3-8 reflects
this ethos, especially in verse 3:
"For I delivered to you as of first importance what I
also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures
. . ." Correspondingly,
the apostles were seen as having authority due to being eyewitness guardians of
the tradition since they knew their Teacher well (cf. the criterion for
choosing an apostle listed in Acts 1:21-22; cf. I Cor. 9:1). Furthermore, the words of Jesus were
recorded within a few decades of His death while eyewitnesses, both friendly
and hostile, still lived. These could
easily publicly challenge any inaccuracies in circulation. As scholar Laurence McGinley writes: "The fact that the whole process took
less than thirty years, and that its essential part was accomplished in a
decade and a half, finds no parallel in any [oral] tradition to which the
Synoptic Gospels [Mark, Luke, and Matthew] have been compared."
HOW THE BOOK OF
ACTS IMPLIES THE
NEW
TESTAMENT WAS WRITTEN BEFORE C. 63 A.D.
A very straightforward argument for the date of the
New Testament can be derived from the contents of Acts. The Gospel of Luke and Acts were originally
one book, later divided into two. As a
result, Luke was necessarily written a bit earlier than Acts. In turn, Luke is traditionally seen as
having depended upon Mark over and above his own sources, so Mark was
necessarily written still earlier.
Furthermore, Matthew is normally seen as having been written after Mark
but before Luke. Hence, if a firm date
can be given to Acts, all of the Synoptic Gospels (Mark, Luke, and Matthew) had
to have been composed still earlier.
There are six good reasons to date Acts as being written by c. 63
A.D. First, Acts doesn't mention the
fall of Jerusalem in 70 A.D., despite much of its action focuses in and around
that city. Only if it was written
earlier does the omission of this incredibly disruptive event in the Holy Land
make sense. Since in his Gospel Luke
himself relates Jesus' predictions of Jerusalem's destruction in the Mount
Olivet Prophecy (chapter 21), it's hard to believe he would overlook its
fulfillment if he had written Acts after 70 A.D. Second, Nero's persecutions of the mid-60's aren't covered. Luke's general tone towards the Roman
government was peaceful and calm, which wouldn't fit if Rome had just launched
a major persecution campaign against the church. (The later book of Revelation has a very different spirit on this
score, even if it is in symbolic prophetic code, since the Beast was Rome). Third, the martyrdoms of James (61 A.D.) as
well as Paul and Peter (mid-60s A.D.) aren't mentioned in Acts. The ancient Jewish historian Josephus (c.
37-100 A.D.) does record the death of James, so this event can be easily
dated. Since these three men are
leading figures in the Book of Acts, it would be curious to omit how they died,
yet include the martyrdoms of other Christians like Stephen and James the
brother of John. Fourth, the key
conflicts and issues raised in the church that it records make sense in the
context of a mainly Jewish Messianic Church centered on Jerusalem before 70
A.D. It describes disputes over
circumcision and admitting the gentiles into the church as having God's favor,
the division between Palestinian and Hellenistic Jews (Acts 6:1), and the Holy
Spirit falling on different ethnic groups (Jews followed by gentiles). These issues had a much lower priority after
70 A.D. than before. The destruction of
Jerusalem in 70 A.D. basically wiped out Jewish Christianity as a strong
organized movement. Fifth, some of the
phrases used in Acts are primitive and very early, such as "the Son of
man," "the Servant of God" (to refer to Jesus), "the first
day of the week," and "the people" (to refer to Jews). After 70 A.D., these expressions would need
explanation, but before then they didn't in the Messianic Jewish Christian
community. Finally, of course, the
Jewish revolt against Rome starting in 66 A.D. that led to destruction of
Jerusalem in 70 A.D. isn't referred to in Acts despite its ultimately apocalyptic
effects on the Jewish Christian community.
Hence, judging from what the author included as important historically,
if Acts was written about c. 63 A.D., the Gospel of Luke would be slightly
older, and correspondingly Matthew and Mark probably should be dated to the
mid-40s to mid-50s A.D.[iv] Paul's letters have to be older than Acts as
well. This internal evidence
points to a first-century date of composition for the New Testament; There's no
need to find first-century manuscripts of the New Testament to know it was
composed then.
THE NEW
TESTAMENT WASN'T SUBJECT
TO A LONG PERIOD
OF ORAL TRADITION
Several reasons indicate that the New Testament wasn't
subject to a long period of oral tradition, of people retelling each other
stories over the generations. Let's
assume the document scholars call "Q" did exist, which they say
Matthew and Luke relied upon to write their Gospels. If "Q" can be dated to around 50 A.D. after Jesus's
death in 31 A.D., little time remains in between for distortions to creep in
due to failed memory. Furthermore, the
sayings of Jesus found in the Gospels were in an easily memorized, often poetic
form in the original Aramaic. Then,
since Paul was taken captive about 58 A.D., how he wrote to the Romans,
Corinthians, Thessalonians, and Galatians indicates that he assumed they
already had a detailed knowledge of Jesus.
He almost never quotes Jesus' words his letters (besides in I Cor.
11:24-25). Hence, as James Martin
commented:
As a matter of fact, there was no time for the Gospel
story of Jesus to have been produced by legendary accretion. The growth of legend is always a slow and
gradual thing. But in this instance the
story of Jesus was being proclaimed, substantially as the Gospels now record
it, simultaneously with the beginning of the Church.
Using the writing of the ancient Greek historian
Herodotus (c. 484-430 to 420 b.c.) as a test case, A.N. Sherwin-White, a
University of Oxford scholar in ancient Roman and Greek history, studied the
rate at which legend developed in the ancient world. Even two generations (c. 60+ years) is not enough to wipe out a
solid foundation of historical facts, he argues. J. Warwick Montgomery remarked that form criticism [a school of
higher criticism] fails because "the time interval between the writing of
the New Testament documents as we have them and the events of Jesus' life which
they record is too brief to allow for communal redaction [editing] by the
Church." Anderson adds, in a
statement that higher critics must reckon with:
What is beyond dispute is that every attempt to date
the Gospels late in the first century has now definitely failed, crushed under
the weight of convincing evidence. If
the majority of the five hundred witnesses to the resurrection were still alive
around AD 55 . . . then our Gospels must have begun to appear when
many who had seen and heard the earthly Jesus‑‑including some of
the apostles‑‑were still available to confirm or question the
traditions.[v]
Claims that the New Testament wasn't finished by c.
100 A.D. are simply untenable.
IT HAS A SHORTER
GAP BETWEEN ITS
ORIGINAL
WRITING AND OLDEST EXTANT COPIES
As shown above, scholars have in recent decades
increasingly discredited dates that make the New Testament a second-century
document. As Albright comments: "We can already say emphatically that
there is no longer any solid basis for dating any book of the New Testament
after about A.D. 80, two full generations before the date[s] between 130 and
150 given by the more radical New Testament critics of today."[vi] This development makes the time gap between
the oldest surviving copies and the first manuscript much smaller for the New
Testament than the pagan historical works cited earlier. The gap between its original copy
(autograph) and the oldest still-preserved manuscript is 90 years or less,
since most of the New Testament was first written before 70 A.D. and
first-century fragments of it have been found.
One fragment of John, dated to 125 A.D., was in the past cited as the
earliest copy known of any part of the New Testament. But in 1972, nine possible fragments of the New Testament were
found in a cave by the Dead Sea. Among
these pieces, part of Mark was dated to around 50 A.D., Luke 57 A.D., and Acts
from 66 A.D. Although this continues to
be a source of dispute, there's no question the Dead Sea Scrolls document first
century Judaism had ideas like early Christianity's. The earliest major manuscripts‑‑Vaticanus and
Sinaiticus‑‑are dated to 325-50 A.D. and 350 A.D.
respectively. By contrast, the time gap
is much larger for the pagan works mentioned above. For Homer, the gap is 500 years (900 b.c.
for the original writing, 400 b.c. for the oldest existing copy), Caesar, it's
900-1000 years (c. 100-44 b.c. to 900 A.D.), Herodotus, 1300 years (c. 480-425
b.c. to 900 A.D.) and Thucydides, 1300 years (c. 400 b.c. to 900 A.D.).[vii] Hence, the New Testament can be objectively
judged more reliable than these pagan historical works both by having a much
smaller time gap between its first writing and the oldest preserved copies, and
in the number of ancient handwritten copies.
While the earliest manuscripts have a different text type from the bulk
of later ones that have been preserved, their witness still powerfully
testified for the New Testament's accurate preservation since these variations
compose only a relatively small part of its text.
THE CASE HISTORY OF JERICHO'S DATING: HOW
ARCHEOLOGY ISN'T ALWAYS RELIABLE
Not every bit of archeological evidence as presently
interpreted by archeologists is in perfect conformity with the Bible. Some controversies remain, mainly over
dating. Archeological evidence can be
interpreted in more than one way in good faith, since it is inevitably
fragmentary and hence limited. As
Yohanan Aharoni explained: "When
it comes to historical or historio-geographical interpretation, the
archaeologist steps out of the realm of the exact sciences, and he must rely
upon value judgements and hypotheses to arrive at a comprehensive historical
picture." Furthermore, he admits
that archeologists aren't infallible when assigning dates, although today they
are better than they used to be. For a
case history of these kinds of problems, consider the date for the fall of
Jericho, the first city Joshua took when Israel invaded the Promised Land. A straightforward interpretation of I Kings
6:1, which says Solomon began to build the Temple of Jehovah in Jerusalem 480
years after Israel left Egypt, points to the Exodus occurring about the year
1445 b.c. Since Israel spent forty
years wandering in the wilderness in punishment for their sins, they must have
taken Jericho about the year 1405 b.c.
Before World War II, professor John Garstang found the city of Jericho
had been wiped out and rebuilt numerous times.
For one of these times, the walls fell as if an earthquake destroyed
them, and fire totally burned up the city.
He even found that the walls fell outwards, as Joshua 6:20
implies, which is very unusual for ancient cities, whose walls normally fell inwards,
towards their buildings. Garstang
believed this event happened around 1400 b.c.‑‑just about the time
Joshua invaded Palestine. But later,
following her own excavations, the archeologist Kathleen Kenyon maintained
Jericho was destroyed about 1325 b.c., after a much earlier destruction in the
sixteenth century. She believed no
inhabited city occupied the site in the fifteenth century. Was the Bible wrong? More recently, John J. Brimson re-examined
the evidence. He maintains the
destruction Kenyon saw as happening in the sixteenth century could well have
occurred in the middle of the fifteenth.
Furthermore, Garstang's earlier investigation found only one piece of
Mycenean (early Greek and Cretan) pottery out of over 150,000 shards at the
City IV level of Jericho. Since
Mycenean pottery was exported into Palestine soon after 1400 b.c., this level
of Jericho had to have been destroyed considerably earlier than approximate
1325 b.c. date Kenyon deduced. Hence,
since the evidence concerning the date of Jericho's fall can easily be
interpreted to fit the Bible's dating of it, there's no compelling reason to
say it is wrong. (Notice the dispute concerns dating, not whether Jericho
existed or the walls fell). This case
demonstrates an important principle about the relationship of archeological
evidence and the Bible: If there are
any disagreements, reexamination and reinterpretation of existing evidence or
the discovery of new evidence may resolve them. This is hardly a procedure of blind faith, since archeology in
the past has so often has vindicated the Bible while abasing its critics (who
still never seem to give up!)[viii]
THE BOOK OF DANIEL VINDICATED ABOUT
BELSHAZZAR, THE
LAST KING OF BABYLON
At one time, skeptics claimed the book of Daniel was
wrong to say the last king of Babylon was Belshazzar instead of Nabonidus. No known ancient source mentioned him
besides the Bible. But thanks to
archeological discoveries, piecing the actual truth together proved to be like
solving a puzzle step-by-step. In 1861
on a Babylonian text, the name "Belshazzar" first appeared. Then in 1882 the Chronicle of Nabonidus appeared. It stated that Nabonidus lived in Tema while
his son stayed in Babylon itself, but failed to name him. Then in 1884, Belshazzar was said to be the
son of Nabonidus on one tablet. One
inscription first read in 1916 had an oath sworn to both, naming both Nabonidus
and Belshazzar. This obviously implied
some kind of dual monarchy existed.
Finally, in 1924, on yet another inscription, King Nabonidus
declared: "I entrusted kingship on
my son Belshazzar." The puzzle
parts, when put together, show Nabonidus chose to retire (much like Charles V
of Austria did in the sixteenth century, or Queen Wilhelmina of Holland in this
century) while leaving actual rulership to his son. This peculiar dual kingship explained why, at his final feast
after Daniel interpreted the writing on the wall for him, Belshazzar offered
and later gave the Hebrew prophet the position of being "the third
ruler in the kingdom" (Dan. 5:16, 29).
Yale professor R.P. Dougherty placed the book of Daniel above other
ancient writings, explaining: "The
Scriptural account may be interpreted as excelling because it employs the name
Belshazzar, because it attributes royal power to Belshazzar, and because it
recognizes that a dual rulership existed in the kingdom."[ix] This case shows that when the Bible
conflicts with other ancient source(s), it's unwise to automatically assume the
Bible is wrong, and the ancient pagan sources right.
LIONS IN
MESOPOTAMIA AND DOMESTICATED CAMELS:
THE
BIBLE IS RIGHT AFTER ALL
Skeptics also have declared the Bible wrong for
portraying camels as being domesticated in the time of Abraham and Isaac (c.
1820 b.c.) in Genesis 24:10. Werner
Keller, in his occasionally skeptical The Bible as History (1964),
maintained these "camels" were really donkeys. More recently, Moshe Dayan, the one-eyed
Israeli military leader and archeologist, found evidence that camels
"served as a means of transport" in patriarchal times: "An eighteenth-century BC relief found
at Byblos in Phoenicia [modern Lebanon] depicts a kneeling camel." He also added that: "Camel riders appear on cylinder seals
recently discovered in Mesopotamia belonging to the patriarchal
period." The higher critics also
claimed no lions lived in ancient Mesopotamia.
This meant the prophet Nahum's references to them when condemning
Assyria and Nineveh were wrong (see Nahum 2:11-12). It is now known lions were imported from Africa into
Assyria. Kept in captivity until the
king had them released, he hunted them down for sport. After killing them and bringing them back,
lions would be offered in the temple as a sacrifice to the gods.[x] O, how wrong these higher critics proved to
be! Yet how many believed them,
thinking their conclusions came from "the assured results of modern
science" rather than an anti-God bias?
Hasn't it been shown above that the skeptics have been proven time and
time again? Judging from their poor
track record, doesn't this show people should be wary of trusting them the next
time they read about someone claiming the Bible isn't historically
accurate? Why be automatically
skeptical of the Bible, when the skeptics themselves have been proven wrong so
often? Let's be skeptical of the
skeptics in the future!
OTHER
CONFIRMATIONS OF BIBLICAL REFERENCES
Consider other cases in which archeological evidence
confirmed Biblical references. After
invading Canaan, Joshua built an altar to God on Mount Ebal (Joshua 8:30). Excavations performed on Mount Ebal during
1982-84 uncovered an ancient altar‑‑quite possibly the one built by
Joshua. The only city Joshua burned
during his conquest of the promised land in the north was Hazor (cf. Josh.
11:11). Only excavations at this site
have found this kind of destruction for the time of Joshua's northern
campaign. Joab, the army commander for
King David, and Abner, the general for King Saul's son, fought with handpicked
men near the Pool of Gibeon (II Sam. 2:13-17).
The actual Pool of Gibeon has been discovered, positively identified by
a jar handle inscribed with "Gibeon" found in it. The prophet Amos condemned the unrighteous
for having the great luxury of ivory in their houses as Israel fell into idolatry,
crime, and sin. He especially included
the king of Israel in context by implication (Amos 3:15; see also 6:14; I Kings
22:39). Interestingly, the king's
palace is one of the few places within Israel where artifacts made of ivory
have been dug up. Good King Hezekiah of
Judah, according to II Kings 20:20, "made a pool and the conduit, and
brought water into the city [Jerusalem]."
In order to supply Jerusalem with water during a possible future siege
by the Assyrians, Hezekiah bored a tunnel 1,750 feet long through solid
rock. The American traveler Edward
Robinson and a missionary, Eli Smith, accidently discovered the tunnel in
1838. In 1880, a boy noticed an
inscription in Hebrew on its wall, which described how the work crews dug the
tunnel from each end, meeting in the middle.
Hilkiah, the high priest for King Josiah of Judah, found the book of the
law in the temple (II Kings 22:8). In
1984, in the home of an antique collector in Paris, a ring was found with this
inscription: "(Belonging) to Hanan, son (of) Hilkiah, the
priest." Clay seals (bullae) have
been uncovered with such Biblical names as Baruch, the scribe for the prophet
Jeremiah, Jerahmeel, the king's son, and Gemariah, the son of Shaphan the
scribe (Jer. 32:12, 36:12, 26).
Nebuchadnezzar's three assaults against Jerusalem (605 b.c., 598-597
b.c., and 589-586 b.c.) all have evidence from outside the Bible to confirm
their occurrence. Especially striking
is the tablet where in his seventh year "the Babylonian king" took
"the city of Judah," installed a king of his choice [i.e., Zedekiah
for Jehoiachin], and received heavy tribute (II Kings 24:10-18). On the cylinder that bears his name, King
Cyrus of Persia had his own words discovered in Babylon in 1887. Corresponding to Isaiah 45:13 for the Jews,
he proclaims the policy of allowing those captives dragged into exile by
Babylon to return home and to let them rebuild their sanctuaries. Time and again, the Bible's references do
check out‑‑so why are so many today so skeptical about it?[xi]
THE ARCHEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE FOR PONTIUS PILATE
VERSUS THE
ARGUMENT FROM SILENCE
More specifically, consider the case of Pontius Pilate
as bearing on the New Testament's trustworthiness. Some have doubted whether Pontius Pilate even lived, the Roman
Empire's Procurator of Judea who had Jesus of Nazareth crucified in 31 A.D.
(Matthew 27; John 18-19). But then in
1961 an archeological expedition from Italy overturned a stone used as a
stairway for a Roman theater in ancient Caesarea (in modern Israel). The Latin inscription on it said (here put
in English): "To the people of
Caesarea Tiberium Pontius Pilate Prefect of Judea." As Michael J. Howard remarks: "It was a fatal blow to the doubts
about Pilate's existence. . . .
For the first time there was contemporary epigraphic [writing in stone]
evidence of the life of the man who ordered the crucifixion of Christ.[xii] This case illustrates a fallacious argument
that disbelievers in the Bible use again and again. They argue from silence, and say that because the Bible records
something mentioned nowhere else, it can't be true (or certainly true). Archeological discoveries have repeatedly
refuted their claims after being made, as shown above in the section dealing
with the Old Testament. The New and Old
Testaments have shown themselves trustworthy so often in what can be
checked, it's proper to infer or extrapolate that the rest of what can't be
checked is also reliable. This is not
a procedure of blind faith.
LUKE'S RELIABILITY
AS A HISTORIAN PERSUADES
AN ATHEIST
TO BECOME A
BELIEVER
What archeological evidence is there for the New
Testament's reliability generally, and Luke's in particular? The English archeologist Sir William Ramsay
(professor of humanity at Aberdeen University in Scotland, 1886-1911) had been
totally skeptical about the accuracy of the New Testament, especially the
writings of Luke. Indeed, he was an
atheist, raised by parents who were atheists.
After going to what is now Turkey, and doing a topographical study, he
totally changed his mind. This man, who
had studied archeology in order to refute the Bible, instead discovered
hundreds of historical facts that confirmed it. Later, he wrote that Luke "should be placed along with the
very greatest of historians." He
had believed, as per nineteenth-century German higher criticism, that Acts was
written in the second century. But he
found it must have been written earlier, because it reflected conditions
typical of the second half of the first century. He explained why he changed his mind thus:
I may fairly claim to have entered on this
investigation without prejudice in favour of the conclusion which I shall now
seek to justify to the reader. On the
contrary, I began with a mind unfavourable to it, for the ingenuity and
apparent completeness of the Tubingen [higher critic] theory had at one time
quite convinced me. It did not then lie
in my line of life to investigate the subject minutely; but more recently I found
myself brought into contact with the Book of Acts as an authority for the
topography, antiquities and society of Asia Minor. It was gradually borne upon me that in various details the
narrative [of Luke in Acts] showed marvelous truth. In fact, beginning with a fixed idea that the work was
essentially a second century composition, and never relying on its evidence as
trustworthy for first century conditions, I gradually came to find it a useful
ally in some obscure and difficult investigations.
SPECIFIC EXAMPLES
SHOWING LUKE WAS RIGHT AFTER ALL
Let's examine some cases where Luke was called wrong,
but later vindicated. For example, Luke
was said to imply incorrectly that the cities of Lystra and Derbe were in
Lycaonia but Iconium wasn't (Luke 14:6), according to what the Roman politician
and orator Cicero (106-43 b.c.) and others had written anciently. But in 1910, Ramsay found a monument that
showed Iconium was in Phyrgia, not Lycaonia‑‑a discovery since corroborated
by further evidence. When Luke said
Lysanias was the Tetrarch of Abilene (Luke 3:1), this was said to be erroneous,
since the only Lysanias known to ancient historians had died in 36 b.c. But later an inscription, dated between A.D.
14 and 29, was discovered near Damascus, Syria that said "Freedman of
Lysanias the Tetrarch." The
textual critic F.J.A. Fort maintained Luke was wrong to use the Greek word meris
to mean "district" when referring to Philippi as part of
Macedonia. Later archeological
discoveries have found that Luke was right‑‑this very word meris
was employed to describe this district's divisions. Luke called Publius of Malta the "first man of the
island" (Acts 28:7); inscriptions have been found that refer to him as
"first man." Luke wrote of a
riot in Ephesus that took place in its theater. Having room for 25,000 people, this theater has been dug up. Paul's preaching here provoked a riot
because silversmiths feared their trade in objects related to the Temple of
Artemis (one of the Seven Wonders of the ancient world) would collapse if he
was believed. Correspondingly, one
unearthed inscription said the silver statues of Artemis were to be placed in
the "theater during a full session of the Ecclesia
[assembly]." Luke once described
Paul nearly being killed by a riot provoked by the rumor he had brought a
gentile into the Temple (Acts 21:27-31).
Helping confirm this account, archeologists have found inscriptions that
read in Latin and Greek: "No
foreigner may enter within the barrier which surrounds the temple and
enclosure. Anyone who is caught doing
so will be personally responsible for his ensuing death."[xiii] Evidence favoring Luke's reliability as a
historian, and thus the New Testament's, could be easily extended.
HOW THE BIBLE CAN RATIONALLY BE PROVEN TO BE THE WORD
OF GOD
Let’s step back and look at the big picture
overall: The Bible has the answers‑‑but
how do you know whether these are the right ones? Suppose you were raised knowing nothing about the Bible, Old
Testament or New Testament, like some tribe in the jungles of New Guinea or
along the Amazon in Brazil. One day, a
missionary comes along, and drops on you a copy of the Bible. Suppose it was in your own language and you
are literate enough to read it. How
could you judge whether its contents are true?
Suppose a competing religion's missionary left a Quran (Koran)
behind. How could you judge whether
that book was reliable? To be rational
in our religious beliefs, instead of just blindly following what our parents
believe, we need to apply reason and not just emotion to figuring out what our
religious beliefs should be. Later on
in this booklet, evidence for the historical reliability of the Bible is
presented. But first, fulfilled
prophecy is presented as the ultimate proof for the Bible's inspiration. Historical accuracy merely is a necessary
condition for inspiration, not a sufficient one. A book could be perfectly accurate historically, such as one on
the life of Abraham Lincoln, yet not be inspired by God or hold any authority
over our lives. Historical accuracy
merely keeps the Bible from being ruled out as the Word of God, but by itself
doesn't present much of a positive case for its inspiration. But it's another story to explain how the
Bible could predict the future in advance accurately centuries after its
prophets died. Rationally, this
requires belief that its authors received supernatural guidance. Below prophecies that were fulfilled after
some part of the Bible was written but before the twentieth century are
examined. Predictions of events yet to
happen, such as judgment day, the second coming, the resurrection of the dead,
etc. aren't examined here, because they have yet to happen. Hence, although the Quran may predict
repeatedly a day of judgment, that does little to prove God inspired it since
that event hasn't happened yet! So
let's explore the evidence that the Bible successfully predicted the future,
which leads us to infer that its authors received supernatural help.
PART I: THE OLD TESTAMENT SUCCESSFULLY
PREDICTS THE
FUTURE: BABYLON'S FATE
The great Hebrew prophet Isaiah prophesied in the
general period c. 740-700 b.c. Long
before the King of Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar, destroyed Jerusalem, Judah's
capital, in 586 b.c., Isaiah predicted the destruction of the city of Babylon
itself. Note Isaiah 13:19-20: "And Babylon, the beauty of the
kingdoms, the glory of the Chaldeans' pride, will be as when God overthrew
Sodom and Gomorrah. It will never be
inhabited or lived in from generation to generation . . ." This vast city had (if the ancient Greek
historian Herodotus is trusted) a 56-mile circumference and 14-mile long sides,
with walls 311 feet high and 87 feet wide.
These figures appear exaggerated:
Archeological digs indicate the inner city had double inner walls of
twelve and twenty feet wide and double outer walls twenty-four and twenty-six
feet wide. Nevertheless, since
sometimes dirt was put into the area between the double walls such that four
horses' spans would fit, Herodotus's figures on the width of the walls weren't
that far off. Occupying some 196 square
miles (including protected farmland within the outer walls), it was one of the
ancient world's greatest cities. In
modern terms, Isaiah's prophesy would be the equivalent of predicting the
complete devastation and permanent desolation of New York, London, or
Tokyo. Situated on the Euphrates River
in what is now Iraq, Babylon had been a great center of Middle Eastern culture
for some 2000 years. Additionally,
predicting the site wouldn't be rebuilt upon again was very bold, since this
commonly happened after a city's destruction in the ancient Middle East. After the Greek geographer and historian
Strabo visited the site of Babylon during the reign of the Roman Emperor Augustus
(27 b.c.-17 A.D.), he commented jokingly:
"The great city is a great desert." It hasn't been rebuilt since either!
THE
DESTRUCTION OF NINEVEH PREDICTED,
ONCE THE
CAPITAL OF THE ASSYRIAN EMPIRE
Nineveh, the capital of the Assyrian Empire, was a
great city on the Tigris River in what is now Iraq (ancient Mesopotamia). Willingly burning cities, the Assyrians's
cruelty inspired hatred from those they conquered. Sample punishments they inflicted included skinning people alive,
burning children, impaling enemies on stakes, and chopping off hands and
heads. Writing around 627 b.c., the
prophet Zephaniah predicted Nineveh's destruction along with the Assyrian
Empire's: "And He [God] will
stretch out His hand against the north and destroy Assyria, and He will make
Nineveh a desolation" (Zeph. 2:13).
Writing between 661 and 612 b.c., the prophet Nahum predicted Nineveh's
destruction (Nahum 2:10; 3:19), with the help of a flood (Nahum 2:6) and fire
(Nahum 3:13), during which many of its people would be drunk (Nahum 1:10). Like Babylon, Nineveh was one of the ancient
world's greatest cities. Its inner wall
was 100 feet tall and 50 feet thick, complete with a 150-foot-wide moat. It boasted a 7-mile circumference. But all this couldn't save it! As predicted (Nahum 3:12), the city fell
easily, after a mere three-month siege, to the combined forces of the Medes,
Scythians, and Babylonians under Nabopolassar in 612 b.c. Showing this wasn't all mere coincidence,
guess work, or hopeful wishing, all of Nahum's specific predictions
about how Nineveh would fall were fulfilled.
SWITCHING THE
NAMES OF THE CITIES
IN THE
PROPHECIES WOULD MAKE THEM FALSE
Now let's examine more closely the fate of Babylon and
Nineveh, which were by no means fully identical. Since both cities were capitals of nations that were major
enemies of Israel, Israel's prophets easily could have switched the names of
these cities. Then they would have
predicted wrongly, if they had not been inspired by God. Although both cities suffered destruction,
Babylon was clearly predicted to never be inhabited again, but this was never
prophesied for Nineveh. Today, the site
of Babylon is totally uninhabited. The
Euphrates River, which still flows through the site, has eroded the ruins on
its west side, turning them into a swamp.
On its east side, the ruins are mere low hills of debris. Isaiah predicted wild animals would inhabit
the ruins. No shepherd would remain
there, or stay to rest their flocks (Isa. 13:20-22). As Floyd Hamilton relates, this has literally happened: "Travelers [to Babylon] report that the
city is absolutely uninhabited, even [by] Bedouins [Arab nomads]. There are various superstitions current
among the Arabs that prevent them from pitching their tents there, while the
character of the soil prevents the growth of vegetation suitable for the
pasturage of flocks." By contrast,
even when the nineteenth-century archeologist Austen Henry Layard investigated
the site, a small village sat upon the ruins of Nineveh, nowadays near the
outskirts of Mosul, Iraq. Unlike
Babylon, the plains around Nineveh's mound are farmed, and animals can graze on
it during seasonal rains.
Significantly, the site's largest mound has an Arabic name meaning
"many sheep." Clearly, if
Isaiah had condemned Nineveh instead of Babylon, which would have made sense
when he wrote since Assyria was much the greater threat to Israel and Judah in
the eighth century b.c., his specific predictions about site of its
ruins would have been wrong. The
skeptic can't argue that it's easy to predict the destruction of ancient
cities, thinking in time all cities eventually will be destroyed. The Bible also predicts specifically how
these cities would cease to exist, so these predictions can't be called mere
lucky guesses. Furthermore, many
ancient cities of the Middle East are still inhabited today, such as Damascus,
Jerusalem, Sidon, Aleppo, etc.[xiv] Why was Babylon's fate different, its site
now having been desolate for centuries after being a center of Mesopotamian
civilization for centuries, a city dwelled in for perhaps over two thousand
years? Because the God of the Bible yet
lives, He intervenes in the affairs of men!
THE
ANCIENT PHOENICIAN CITY OF TYRE
PROPHESIED TO
BECOME "A BARE ROCK"
The seacoast of what is now Lebanon once was the
center of the ancient maritime
civilization of the Phoenicians. Two of
their leading cities were Tyre and Sidon.
Colonists sent out from Tyre settled in and established the city of
Carthage in what today is Tunisia in north Africa, which later fought (and
lost) the three Punic Wars against the Roman Republic in the period 246-146
b.c.. Tyre was most unusual, since one
part was built on the mainland opposite the remainder occupying an island about
a half mile off the coast. God through
the prophet Ezekiel condemned Tyre, predicting its complete demise:
Thus says the Lord God, 'Behold, I am against you, O
Tyre, and I will bring up many nations against you, as the sea brings up its
waves. And they will destroy the walls
of Tyre and break down her towers; and I will scrape her debris from her and
make her a bare rock. She will be a
place for the spreading of nets in the midst of the sea, for I have spoken
. . . and she will become spoil for the nations.' (Ezekiel 26:3-5)
This prophecy initially was fulfilled in several
steps. First, as Ezekiel 26:7-11; 29:18
described in advance, the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar besieged the part of
Tyre that was on the mainland for some thirteen years (585-573 b.c.). He was robbed of the fruits of victory: After his army broke down its walls and
occupied it, he found most of the people (and their transportable wealth) had
departed for the island city off the coast.
Since Tyre had a strong navy, he couldn't attack it without a
fleet. When Tyre made peace, it only
admitted to Babylon's suzerainty (limited overlordship). Nevertheless, by destroying the mainland
part of the city, Nebuchadnezzar fulfilled part of Ezekiel's predictions.
ALEXANDER THE
GREAT ATTACKS TYRE,
FULFILLS MORE OF
THE PROPHECY AGAINST IT
Significantly, Ezekiel uses "he" to refer to
Nebuchadnezzar in verses 8-11, but switches over to a more anonymous
"they" for verse 12:
"Also they will make a spoil of your riches and a prey of your
merchandise, break down your walls and destroy your pleasant houses, and throw
your stones and your timbers and your debris into the water." Surely this wasn't the normal fate for an
ancient city's rubble, since usually when ancient cities were rebuilt, the new
buildings were conveniently placed on top of the old ones' remnants. What could possibly cause anyone to
go through this much bother, to throw a city's ruins into the sea? The main part of the "they" was
the next major actor in the drama of Tyre's fate, Alexander the Great (356-323
b.c.). During his campaign of conquest
against Persia, he attacked Tyre (332 b.c.) after it denied him permission to
sacrifice to the Tyrian god Heracles. He
insisted on making the offering in the temple dedicated to Heracles on the island
off the coast, not the one in the mainland part of Tyre. (The mainland city had been partially
rebuilt after the destruction wrought by Nebuchadnezzar over two centuries
earlier). In a remarkable operation,
Alexander besieged the island city by taking the rubble of the old mainland
city and throwing it into the Mediterranean to build a causeway out to it. After building this land bridge, his army
intended to place siege engines up against the island city's strong walls,
which seemingly jutted up right out of sea.
The siege lasted seven months‑‑once Alexander gained naval
supremacy, the city's conquest followed in short order. He punished Tyre by executing 2,000 of it
leading citizens and selling 30,000 of those left alive into slavery. Ezekiel prophesied that Tyre's walls and
towers would be broken down, and that God "will scrape her debris from her
and make her a bare rock." It
happened! In order to build the 200
foot wide causeway into the sea about a half mile, Alexander's army left no
visible ruins behind. Is this all mere
coincidence?
IS THE
PROPHECY AGAINST TYRE
TOTALLY FULFILLED?
Ezekiel 26:14 predicted: "'And I will make you a bare rock; you will be a place for
the spreading of nets. You will be
built no more, for I the Lord have spoken,' declares the Lord God." Have these predictions been fulfilled? Clearly, the part concerning the spreading
of fishing nets was. After visiting the
site of Tyre in recent years, Nina Nelson noted "Pale turquoise fishing
nets were drying on the shore."
The mainland city became a bare rock due to Alexander's actions in
building the causeway, but what about the island city off the coast? Although it never recovered its former great
power, it was rebuilt, becoming a major port in the time of Christ during the
first century. But after the Muslim
Mamelukes captured it from the Crusaders during the Middle Ages, they
completely wiped it out in 1291. They
wished to ensure some future possible counterattack wouldn't recapture its fort
and use it against them again. Today, a
small fishing town of about 12,000 sits on the site of ancient Tyre, due to the
Metualis reoccupying the island city site in 1766. The mainland city site remains abandoned, despite it has large
natural freshwater springs. Since the
town of Sur occupies part of the island city site today, was Ezekiel
wrong? Remember, the mainland site is
indeed "a bare rock," and no city has ever been rebuilt there. Furthermore, the switch in Ezekiel's
language from "he" (Nebuchadnezzar) to "they" (Alexander
and the Muslims mainly) to "I" may imply the last part of Tyre's
drama will be played out when God directly intervenes during the Second Coming
and beyond. By this understanding, this
prophecy isn't totally fulfilled yet.
Even as it is, the town of Sur has no organic and direct tie to ancient
Tyre, since hundreds of years lie between Tyre's destruction by the Muslims in
the thirteenth century and the resettlers of the eighteen century. For example, no buildings of old Tyre
survived to be used by the present inhabitants of Sur‑‑unlike the
case for Jerusalem. Furthermore, some
fishermen must be living nearby to supply the nets to be dried on the rocks of
Tyre‑‑they aren't going to sail miles out of their way to do that![xv] The witness of the mainland site's
desolation should be enough to convince skeptics.
THE CITY OF
SIDON, TYRE'S RIVAL IN PHOENICIA
Twenty-two miles up the Lebanese coast, Sidon was the
mother city of Tyre. Although mentioned
together often in the Bible, Sidon's fate was to be quite different.
Thus says the Lord God, "Behold, I am against
you, O Sidon . . . For I shall send pestilence to her and blood to her
streets, and the wounded will fall in her midst by the sword upon her on every
side; Then they will know that I am the Lord.
(Eze. 28:22-23)
Notice how the prediction prophesies a war torn future
for Sidon, but nothing about her total destruction, complete abandonment, or
never being inhabited again. Even
today, Sidon remains a Lebanese port of some significance, although the capital
of Beirut (to the north) is presently more important. After rebelling against the Persian Empire in 351 b.c., the city
beat off the initial Persian attempts to quell her. Following betrayal by her king, 40,000 of Sidon's citizens chose
to set fire to their own homes and die rather than let the conquering Persians
torture them. Three times it changed
hands between the Crusaders and Muslims during the Middle Ages. Even in modern times, it has been the scene
of conflicts between the Druzes and Turks, the Turks and the French. In 1840, the fleets of France, England, and
Turkey bombarded Sidon. Clearly, blood
has been spilled in her streets‑‑but each time after being
destroyed or damaged, Sidon was quickly rebuilt. Even when the city revolted against Assyrian rule in 677 b.c. and
got destroyed in retaliation, the Assyrians created a new provincial capital
called "Fort Esarhaddon" on or near the site of the old city. Now, if Ezekiel had switched Tyre's name for
Sidon's, wouldn't his prophecies have been proven wrong?[xvi] Nobody came along to toss Sidon's
ruins into the sea! How did he know so
far in advance that Tyre's fate would be so much worse than Sidon's? How was he able to get the specific
details correct? Both cities'
ancient inhabitants worshipped false gods using idols, something which Jehovah,
the God of Israel, condemned time and time again through His prophets. Rationally speaking, is it plausible Ezekiel
just blindly guessed correctly the different destinies of these two cities,
although both were similarly sinful in his God's sight?
ALEXANDER THE GREAT'S SUCCESSFUL
INVASION OF
PERSIA PREDICTED LONG IN ADVANCE
The prophet Daniel, writing during the period 605-536
b.c., predicted Greece would destroy the Persian Empire. Using a goat to stand for Greece, and a ram
to symbolize Persia, he wrote:
While I was observing [in a prophetic vision], behold,
a male goat was coming from the west over the surface of the whole earth
without touching the ground; and the goat had a conspicuous horn between his
eyes. And he came up to the ram that
had the two horns, which I had seen standing in front of the canal, and rushed
at him in his mighty wrath. . . .
So he [the goat] hurled him [the ram] to the ground and trampled on him,
and there was none to rescue the ram from his power. . . . The ram which you saw with two horns
represented the kings of Media and Persia.
And the shaggy goat represented the kingdom of Greece, and the large
horn that is between his eyes is the first king. (Dan. 8:5-7, 20-21; cf. Dan.
11:2-4).
Over two hundred years after Daniel's death, his
inspired predictions came true.
Alexander the Great invaded and conquered Persia during the years
334-330 b.c.
DANIEL
PREDICTS THE DIVISION OF ALEXANDER'S EMPIRE
Daniel also foresaw the division of Alexander's empire
into four parts, after the Macedonian conqueror's death:
“Then the male goat magnified
himself exceedingly. But as soon as he
was mighty, the large horn was broken; and in its place there came up four
conspicuous horns towards the four winds of heaven. . . . the large
horn that is between his eyes is the first king. And the broken horn and the four horns that arose in its place
represent four kingdoms which will arise from his nation, although not with his
power" (Dan. 8:8, 21-22).
Following Alexander the Great's sudden and early
death, four of his generals divided up his empire. Ptolemy (Soter) took Egypt and Judea, Lysimachus controlled Asia
Minor (modern Turkey), Cassander got Greece and Macedonia, and Seleucus
(Nicator) grabbed what is now Iraq and Syria on into Iran. This prophecy was fulfilled to the letter,
since these kingdoms never reached the size or power of Alexander's empire, and
Alexander died soon after conquering Persia at age 33. This was hardly a lucky guess. Daniel just as easily could have written that
the Greek king's empire would be split up into a different number of parts, be
defeated by Persia, or that Alexander would reign long.[xvii]
BUT WAS HISTORY
MASQUERADING AS PROPHECY?
At this point, skeptics may argue that fulfilled
prophecy is merely history in disguise.
To avoid the ominous implications for their spiritual lives that these
Hebrew prophets predicted the future accurately, they will postdate their books
to some time after the events they predicted happened. (Of course, this concession admits the Bible
isn't myths or fairy tales, but historically accurate in these cases). This argument suffers from some major
objections. It assumes ahead of the
fact (a priori) what it wishes to prove: Implicitly claiming there is no God and/or that He doesn't
intervene in history, it asserts all fulfilled prophecies are actually history
pretending to be prophecy. Therefore,
the books of Isaiah, Ezekiel, Jeremiah, Daniel, etc. were written centuries
after their putative authors lived.
This reasoning is actually circular, and ignores any contrary
archeological or historical evidence raised against it. For example, because Daniel accurately describes
in advance important events in Middle Eastern history down into the second
century b.c., many higher critics conclude it had to be written in or finished
by that century. Now about half of
Daniel was written in the language of Aramaic.
Since Aramaic changed over the centuries, much like English has since
the time of Chaucer or even Shakespeare, documents written in it can be roughly
dated. The skeptics ignore how its
style, in vocabulary, structure, and syntax, doesn't fit the second century
b.c. Consider the implications of the
Elephantine Papyri of the fifth century b.c.
The structure of their Aramaic more closely matches Daniel than the
Aramaic of the Maccabean period of the second century. As Old Testament scholar Gleason L. Archer
comments: "Hence these chapters
[Dan. 2-7] could not have been composed as late as the second century or the
third century, but rather‑‑based on purely philological [language
structure] grounds‑‑they have to be dated in the fifth or late
sixth century . . ."
WAS EZEKIEL WRITTEN IN THE EARLY SIXTH CENTURY B.C.?
Then consider the book of Ezekiel, which has been
frequently cited above. Did Ezekiel
write it and prophesy between about 597 b.c. and 570 b.c.? To claim someone else wrote this book
ignores how, unlike other Biblical books, the personal pronoun "I" is
used throughout. It contains commonly
used catch phrases, such as: "Then they will know that I am the
Lord" (over 50 times), "As I live, says the Lord God" (13
times), "my sabbaths" (12 times), "countries" (24 times),
"idols" (around 40 times), and "walking in my statutes" (11
times). Commonly, higher critics assert
authors always keep the same literary style no matter what subject or time they
write something. (If this kind of
reasoning was always true, the English poet John Milton (1608-74) couldn't have
written the poem "Paradise Lost," the poem "L'Allegro," and
his political tracts). But here this
kind of reasoning undermines their own arguments against the unity (single
authorship) of Ezekiel. Although the
authenticity of Ezekiel has been attacked for dating events by some year
"of king Jehoiachin's captivity," more recently this has become an
excellent argument for dating it to early in the sixth century b.c. During much of the time Ezekiel prophesied
Zedekiah was king in Jerusalem. But the
people of Judah considered Zedekiah (the uncle of Jehoiachin) as only a regent
for Jehoiachin, who had been taken into captivity earlier by Nebuchadnezzar
during an earlier assault on Judah. The
archeological discovery of seal impressions on three jar handles that referred
to "Eliakim steward of Jehoiachin" implies that Jehoiachin still had
property in Judah despite being in exile.
Ultimately, the only reason to believe Ezekiel didn't write Ezekiel are
the assumptions of liberal skeptics who automatically disbelieve any book of
the Bible was composed when it said it was:
It would challenge their presuppositions that God doesn't exist and/or
doesn't intervene in history.
THE
HEBREW PROPHETS' PROPHECIES WERE CLEAR
AND
FULFILLED INDEPENDENTLY
The prophecies of the Hebrew prophets outlined above
clearly are not ambiguous statements that can be interpreted in myriads of
ways. They avoid (say) the deliberately
obscure predictions of astrologers which allow for many widely varying events
to "fulfill" them. Similarly,
consider their differences from the ancient Greeks' Oracle at Delphi. At this shrine to the god Apollo, Croesus,
the king of Lydia, asked the "prophetess" whether he should attack
Persia, the empire next door. She
replied: "If Croesus should make
war on the Persians, he would destroy a mighty empire." This prediction encouraged Croesus to attack
Persia‑‑and he did indeed destroy a "mighty empire"--his
own! In another case, Athenians argued
over how to interpret one prediction by the prophetess at Delphi as the Persian
king Xerxes's invading army threatened Greece.
She predicted: "Yet Zeus
the all-seeing grants to Athene's prayer that the wooden wall only shall not
fall, but help you and your children."
The Athenians then debated whether the "wooden wall" referred
to their navy protecting them or to the thorn-hedge that surrounded the
Acropolis where the Parthenon stands today.
Thanks to Themistocles, they opted for the former interpretation. They went on to win the naval battle of
Salamis as a result (480 b.c.) In
contrast, when Isaiah predicts Babylon would be destroyed and not inhabited
again forever, no ambiguity exists:
Either Babylon is or isn't destroyed.
Either Babylon is or isn't inhabited again. Furthermore, Daniel, Ezekiel, and Isaiah were in no position to
make sure their prophecies were fulfilled.
The cities and empires listed as destroyed or humbled above were
finished off centuries later by non-Jewish nations in most cases, especially
Greece, Rome, or the Arabs and Muslims.
The prophecies were not self-fulfilling, but accomplished independently
of any actions by the prophets themselves.
The nation of Judah was unable to fulfill these for them. Since Judah lacked significant military
power, it was prey for the great empires of the Middle East except when Yahweh
intervened for it.[xviii]
FULFILLED PROPHECY AS GOD'S CHALLENGE TO THE SKEPTIC
Other prophecies could be related to the reader. Christ's prediction of the destruction of
Jerusalem (Luke 21:20-24; Matt. 24:1-2) comes to mind. The longest single prophecy in the Bible,
Daniel 11, is a remarkably detailed summary of centuries of struggles between
the Selucid and Ptolemic dynasties after Alexander the Great's conquest of
Persia and beyond. These predictions
all confirm God's challenge to the skeptic:
"Present your case," the Lord says. "Bring forward your strong
arguments," the King of Jacob says.
Let them bring forth and declare to us what is going to take place; as
for the former events, declare what they were, that we may consider them, and
know their outcome; or announce to us what is coming. Declare the things that are going to come afterward, that we may
know that you are gods. (Isaiah
41:21-23)
Compare this to how successful today's supermarket
tabloid psychics are. You will find
they are normally wrong. (Just save a
few pages of predictions out of one of these newspapers for a couple of years,
and check them out against what actually happens). Remarkably, a minor nation's seers were routinely correct about
the downfall and desolation of much more powerful enemies who worshipped (they
believed) false gods. As McDowell describes:
There were many centers of religious worship in the
ancient world: Memphis-Thebes, Babylon,
Nineveh, and Jerusalem were among them.
The pagan deities which men said claimed an equal footing with the
One-God, Yahweh, never did last, especially after Jesus Christ. Yet Yahweh refused to even consider Himself
on equal terms with these pagan gods, and even went further by condemning the
cities in which these gods flourished.
It is one thing to issue threats, but the point here is to look at
history. Which city out of the above
listed has remained?[xix]
To say these specific predictions are all just lucky
guesses is a self-deluding rationalization.
THE
PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS OF FULFILLED PROPHECY
The sufficient criterion for the Bible's inspiration
is fulfilled prophecy, since attributing successful long-term prophecies to
guesswork is preposterous. This means
the Bible's moral standards, such as on sexual morality, can't be lightly
dismissed: The God who destroyed Sodom
and Gomorrah, Babylon and Nineveh, is very much alive and well. When facing what God has done to so many in
the past who defied Him by worshipping false gods, we should consider putting
our own lives in order. We Americans
shouldn't delude ourselves into thinking we don't worship false gods. We don't worship Zeus, Apollo, Dagon, Baal,
Asarte, Chemosh, Apis, Amon-Re, or Bel, but instead we worship money, power,
sex without commitment, and the endless distractions produced by Western
materialism and consumerism. If we
don't repent, we'll meet the same fate.
Furthermore, many of the end-time prophecies of the Bible found in the
books of Daniel and Revelation could happen in our lifetimes. These books describe catastrophic disasters,
as does Christ's Olivet prophecy (Matt. 24; Luke 21; Mark 13), that make the
Second World War look like a firecracker by comparison, such as the great
tribulation and the Day of the Lord. In
the light of the above, they should not be scoffed at. The God who decreed doom in the past to
Babylon, Nineveh, and Thebes could well do so today against London, Paris, New
York, or Tokyo. Although Christ warns
against setting dates (Matt. 24:36, 42), He said there would be general
indications that His Second Coming was near:
Now learn the parable from the fig tree: when its branch has already become tender,
and puts forth its leaves, you know that summer is near; even so you too, when
you see all these things, recognize that He is near, right at the door. Truly I say to you, this generation will not
pass away until all these things take place.
(Matt. 24:32-34)
Although the world today laughs at the thought of a
wrathful God who punishes nations for their sins, the ruins of cities scattered
throughout the Middle East bear witness that this is no laughing matter. The God of the Bible is a God of love (I
John 4:16), as shown by His sacrifice by His Son's life for us (I John 3:16). But this same God hates sin. He demands that we repent from breaking His
holy law (II Peter 3:9; Romans 6:12-16; 8:4).
As the book of Revelation shows, the unrepentant during the Second
Coming will meet the same fate as ancient Babylon, Assyria, and Egypt.
EARLY PAGAN REFERENCES TO JESUS OUTSIDE THE NEW TESTAMENT
What non-Christian sources refer to Jesus soon after
his death? The Roman historian
Tacitus's (c. 56-120 A.D.) statement about Jesus leads among the external
evidence outside the New Testament for His life. Showing this couldn't be a pro-Christian monk's inserted
interpolation, Tacitus wrote skeptically of Jesus and Christianity:
Therefore, to scotch the rumour, Nero [(r. 54-68
A.D.), who was blamed for the great fire that broke out in Rome under his rule‑‑EVS]
substituted as culprits, and punished with the utmost refinements of cruelty, a
class of men, loathed for their vices, whom the crowd styled Christians. Christus, the found of the name, had
undergone the death penalty in the reign of Tiberius, by sentence of the
procurator Pontius Pilate, and the pernicious superstition was checked for a
moment, only to break out once more, not merely in Judaea, the home of the
disease, but the capital itself, where all things horrible or shameful in the
world collect and find a vogue.[xx]
Other early incidental mentions of Jesus and/or the
Christians by non-Christian writers have survived. The Greek writer and satirist, Lucian of Samosata (c. 120-190
A.D.) once wrote of Jesus as:
the man who was crucified in Palestine because he
introduced this new cult into the world. . . . Furthermore, their first lawgiver persuaded
them that they were all brothers one of another after they have transgressed
once for all by denying the Greek gods and by worshipping that crucified
sophist himself and living under his laws.
The Roman historian and biographer Suetonius (c.
69-after 122 A.D.) remarked: "As the Jews were making constant
disturbances at the instigation of Chrestus, he [the Emperor Claudius, in 50
A.D.‑‑cf. Acts 18:2, where Luke mentions this event independently]
expelled them from Rome."
Obviously inaccurate, this statement appears to place Christ personally
in Rome, instead of saying teaching about Christ had agitated the Jews into
rioting. Still, it does mention
Christ's existence. Pliny the Younger,
the governor of Bithynia in Asia Minor (112 A.D.), wrote to the Emperor Trajan
about how to treat the Christians. He
had been putting many to death. He
asked whether if all of them should be or just certain ones. He says of them:
They affirmed, however, that the whole of their guilt,
or their error, was, that they were in the habit of meeting on a certain fixed
day before it was light, when they sang in alternate verse a hymn to Christ as
to a god, and bound themselves to a solemn oath, not to any wicked deeds, but
never to commit any fraud, theft, adultery, never to falsify their word, not to
deny a trust when they should be called upon to deliver it up.
Some other ancient writers, such as Thallus, Phlegon,
and Mara Bar-Serapion also wrote of Christ, but their references are preserved
only as fragments in the writings of Christians, making their testimony more
problematic as independent evidence.[xxi]
JOSEPHUS AS
INDEPENDENT TESTIMONY
FOR THE NEW
TESTAMENT AND JESUS' LIFE
The ancient Jewish historian Josephus (c. 37-100 A.D.)
mentioned Jesus twice. Providing
independent support for the New Testament's account, Josephus also described
John the Baptist, his ministry, and his execution by Herod.[xxii] Once he briefly alludes to Jesus in a
noncommittal or even hostile manner.
This supports its authenticity since a committed Christian is an
unlikely candidate to write such an interpolation about his Savior. Ananus, the high priest, "convened the
judges of the Sanhedrin and brought before them a man named James, the
brother of Jesus who was called the Christ, and certain others. He accused them of having transgressed the law
and delivered them up to be stoned."[xxiii] Being a Jew, Josephus correspondingly and
significantly is aware that "Christ" was a title, not a surname
originally. Christians increasingly
treated it as the latter as a standard practice. More problematic is this famous passage:
About this time there lived Jesus, a wise man, if
indeed one ought to call him a man. For
he was one who wrought surprising feats and was a teacher of such people as
accept the truth gladly. He won over
many Jews and many of the Greeks. He
was the Messiah. When Pilate, upon
hearing him accused by men of the highest standing amongst us, had condemned
him to be crucified, those who had come to love him did not give up their
affection for him. On the third day he
appeared to them restored to life, for the prophets of God had prophesied these
and countless other marvelous things about him. And the tribe of Christians, so called after him, has still to
this day not disappeared.
WHY
JOSEPHUS' TESTIMONY HAS SOME VALIDITY
Clearly, Josephus could not have written all
of the longer passage, or else he would have been a Christian, since he calls
Jesus the Messiah and believes in His resurrection. On the other hand, it shouldn't be seen as an interpolation
created whole cloth, since favorable evidence exists for its (partial)
authenticity as well. Since all the
handwritten manuscript copies of Josephus contain it, there is good textual
evidence for it. Eusebius (c. 260-339
A.D.), the Catholic Church historian, cited it as well. As for internal evidence, consider that Josephus
called Jesus a "wise man." A
committed Christian would not say something so limited, since Jesus is his God
and Savior, but it is like what Josephus said of Solomon and Daniel. Calling His miracles "surprising
feats" or "astonishing deeds" isn't how a Christian would
usually describe Jesus' miracles, but Josephus uses the same language to
describe Elisha's miracles. Labeling
Christians a "tribe" is never done in early Christian literature, but
it fits Josephus's tendency to use this term for the Jews and other national
and communal groups. This passage
blames Pontius Pilate heavily for the crucifixion, which certainly swam against
the prevailing anti-Semitic Christian tides of the second and third centuries. Since Catholic Church father Origen (c. 185-254?
A.D.) said that Josephus denied Jesus as the Messiah, he couldn't have known it
in this form. Hence, this passage
curiously combines Josephus's literary style with some unknown Christian
scribe's adulteration of it. Instead of
tossing it out completely, conjecturally reconstructing an original text is
more justifiable. Consider F.F. Bruce's
stab at this, which assumes Josephus displayed a hostile tone towards
Christianity:
Now there arose about this time a source of further
trouble in one Jesus, a wise man who performed surprising works, a teacher of
men who gladly welcome strange things.
He led away many Jews, and also many of the Gentiles. He was the so-called Christ. When Pilate, acting on information supplied
by the chief men among us, condemned him to the cross, those who had attached
themselves to him at first did not cease to cause trouble, and the tribe of
Christians, which has taken this name from him, is not extinct even today.[xxiv]
Even with the self-evident Christian changes to this
passage removed, it still attests that Jesus did miracles, that some called Him
the Messiah, that Pontius Pilate executed Him, and that His teachings began a
religious movement. So more can be
known about Jesus outside the New Testament than just His bare existence and
crucifixion. Some independent testimony
for His life appears in non-Christian sources within a century and a half of
his death.
So I hope that this evidence
has been helpful to you. Please notice
that much more can be written on these subjects. I have just scratched the surface above, even if many standard
arguments are repeated above.
Furthermore, God expects His people to have some level of faith, but
it’s not a blind faith. Evidence
exists, but not enough to overcome all skeptical doubts. After all, we could run all sorts of
arguments to doubt the existence of Julius Caesar if we wished.
Eric Snow
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[i].Josh McDowell, More than a Carpenter (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 1986), pp. 47-59; McDowell, Evidence that Demands a Verdict, vol. 1, pp. 39-43; F.F. Bruce, The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable?, fifth ed. (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1960), pp. 19-20.
[ii].This may be implicitly building upon average people's skepticism of ancient texts, ignoring the reality that textual criticism has its scientific aspects. Textual criticism is also used in analyzing documents that aren't sacred in origin. See C.S. Lewis, God in the Dock: Essays on Theology and Ethics, ed., Walter Hooper (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1970), p. 95.
[iii].William Foxwell Albright, Christianity Today, Jan. 18, 1963; William Foxwell Albright, From the Stone Age to Christianity (Baltimore: John Hopkins Press, 1946), p. 23; John A. Robinson, Redating the New Testament (London: SCM Press, 1976), all as cited in McDowell, Evidence that Demands a Verdict, pp. 62-63; R.T. France, The Evidence for Jesus (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1986), pp. 119-20; Simon Kistemaker, The Gospels in Current Study (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1972), pp. 48 and/or 49, as cited by Josh McDowell, More Evidence that Demands a Verdict (San Bernardino, CA: Here's Life Publishers, 1981), p. 210.
[iv].J.P. Moreland, Scaling the Secular City: A Defense of Christianity (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1987), pp. 152-54.
[v].Laurence J. McGinley, Form Criticism of the Synoptic Healing Narratives (Woodstock, MD: Woodstock College Press, 1944), p. 25; James Martin, The Reliability of the Gospels (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1959), p. 103-104; John Warwick Montgomery, History and Christianity (Downers Grove, IL: Inter-Varsity Press, 1964, p. 37, all as cited by McDowell, More Evidence, pp. 211-13; Moreland, Scaling the Secular City, pp. 142-44, 156; Norman Anderson, Jesus Christ: The Witness of History (Leicester, England: Inter-Varsity Press, 1985), p. 31.
[vi].William F. Albright, Recent Discoveries in Bible Lands (New York: Funk and Wagnalls, 1955), p. 136, as cited by McDowell, Evidence that Demands a Verdict, vol. 1, pp. 62-63.
[vii].See Robert A. Morey, The New Atheism and the Erosion of Freedom (Minneapolis: Bethany House Publishers, 1986), p. 112. He cites in turn David Estrada and William White Jr., The First New Testament (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1978). James C. VanderKam sounds a skeptical note in The Dead Sea Scrolls After Forty Years (Washington, DC: Biblical Archeology Society, 1991), p. 35; McDowell, Evidence that Demands a Verdict, vol. 1, pp. 42-43.
[viii].The Bible: God's Word or Man's? (New York: Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York, 1989), pp. 49-53; Archer, Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties, pp. 191, 195-96; John Garstang, The Foundations of Bible History; Joshua, Judges (London: Constable, 1931), p. 146, the last as noted in McDowell, Evidence that Demands a Verdict, vol. 1, p. 69.
[ix].Raymond Philip Dougherty, Nabonidus and Belshazzar (1929), p. 200 as cited in Life‑‑How Did It Get Here?, p. 211; Berg, Treasures in the Sand, p. 205.
[x].Life‑‑How Did It Get Here?, pp. 210-11; Berg, Treasures in the Sand, pp. 192, 205.
[xi].Berg, Treasures in the Sand, pp. 131-33, 142, 157, 181, 195-200, 205-7; Lockyer, ed., Nelson's Illustrated Bible Dictionary, p. 992.
[xii].Michael J. Howard, "Unearthing Pontius Pilate," Baltimore Sun, March 24, 1980, pp. B1, B2; as found in Life‑‑How Did It Get Here?, pp. 211-12.
[xiii].McDowell, Evidence that Demands a Verdict, vol. 1, pp. 70-73; D. James Kennedy, Why I Believe (1980), p. 28, as cited by Mario Seiglie, "How to Understand the Bible," Good News, Sept./Oct. 1997, p. E2; see also Morey, New Atheism, p. 128.
[xiv].Floyd E. Hamilton, The Basis of the Christian Faith (New York: George H. Doran Co., 1927), p. 310, as cited in Josh McDowell, Evidence that Demands a Verdict (San Bernardino, CA: Here's Life Publishers, 1979), vol. 1, pp. 296-309; John A. Bloom, "Truth Via Prophecy," in John Warwick Montgomery, ed., Evidence for Faith: Deciding the God Question (Dallas: Probe Books, 1991), pp. 184-86; Orley Berg, Treasures in the Sand (Boise, ID: Pacific Press Publishing Association, 1993), p. 203.
[xv].Herman L. Hoeh, "A New Look at Ezekiel's Prophecy on Tyre," The Authority of the Bible (Pasadena, CA: Worldwide Church of God, 1980), pp. 8-10; McDowell, Evidence that Demands a Verdict, vol. 1, pp. 272-80; Bloom, "Truth Via Prophecy," Montgomery, ed., Evidence for Faith, pp. 181-83; Aid to Bible Understanding (New York: Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York, Inc., 1971), p. 1622.
[xvi].McDowell, Evidence that Demands a Verdict, vol. 1, pp. 280-81; Bloom, "Truth Via Prophecy," Montgomery, ed., Evidence for Faith, p. 183; Geoffrey W. Bromiley, gen. ed., International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (ISBN) (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1988), vol. 4, p. 501.
[xvii].Herbert W. Armstrong, The Middle East in Prophecy (Pasadena, CA: Worldwide Church of God, 1972), pp. 2-3.
[xviii].Gleason Archer, Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1982), p. 283; Berg, Treasures in the Sand, p. 210; McDowell, Evidence that Demands a Verdict, vol. 1, pp. 270-72; Lockyer, ed., Nelson's Illustrated Bible Dictionary, p. 368; Herodotus, The Histories, trans. Aubrey de Selincourt (London: Penguin Books, 1954), pp. 488-89; Bloom, "Truth Via Prophecy," Montgomery, ed., Evidence for Faith, pp. 176-77; The Bible: God's Word or Man's? (New York: Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York, Inc., 1989), pp. 40-41.
[xx].Annals, Loeb edition, 15, 44; as cited in McDowell and Wilson, He Walked Among Us, p. 49. They make a detailed defense of the authenticity of this statement, including a reasonable argument that Tacitus based his statement on public records, not just hearsay from Christians in Rome. Both Justin Martyr and Tertullian challenged readers to look up such records about certain details of Jesus' life. (See pp. 48-51).
[xxi].Lucian, The Passing Peregrinus; Suetonius, Life of Claudius, 25, 4; Pliny the Younger, Epistles, X, 96, all as cited in McDowell, Evidence that Demands a Verdict, vol. 1, pp. 82-85.
[xxii].See Antiquities, book 18, chapter 5, section 2, cited in McDowell and Wilson, He Walked Among Us, pp. 37-38.
[xxiii].Antiquities, book 20, chapter 9, section 1; as cited in McDowell and Wilson, He Walked Among Us, pp. 38-39. Interestingly, in Evidence that Demands a Verdict, vol. 1, p. 83, McDowell cites a more skeptical translation of Josephus in this passage: "the brother of Jesus the so-called Christ, whose name was James." The Greek reads "ho legomenos Christos," which Josephus at least once elsewhere uses in a dismissive tone, such as when he refers to Alexandria as Apion's alleged birthplace. Although the New Testament uses it non-skeptically in Matt. 1:16, it's necessary to determine how Josephus uses this term, not how the New Testament does to judge what Josephus meant. By this rendering, it's completely impossible that it was a Christian scribe's fabricated interpolation. Even the less skeptical version is still a very weak affirmation for a Christian scribe bent on perverting Josephus into a supporter of Christianity. See France, Evidence for Jesus, p. 27, 171 (fn. 12).
[xxiv].France, Evidence for Jesus, pp. 29-31; McDowell and Wilson, He Walked Among Us, pp. 41-45. An Arabic text of this same passage of Josephus has been found in a tenth century manuscript. This may contain something closer to the original, assuming a Muslim scribe hadn't toned down the doctored up "Christianized" version!