How Was the Bible Written—Part 3

(continued from last week)

(excerpted from

When Skeptics Ask, by Dr. Norman Geisler)

Can The Bible Be Wrong? (Continued from last week)

The neo-evangelicals respond by saying that Jesus was only accommodating the

popular views of the day so that they would understand His main point without being dis-
tracted by the new knowledge that God used evolution and that some of the miracles never
occurred. There are two serious problems with this idea. First, it is not like Jesus to ac-
commodate popular opinion. He never hesitated to confront false beliefs head-on (Matt.
5:21-22, 27-28, 31-32; 15:1-9; 22:29; 23:1ff; John 2:13ff; 3:10). That is why He was always
arguing with the Pharisees and the Sadducees. Second, and more important, this would
amount to moral deception on Jesus’ part. As God, He knew that what He was telling them
was not true, but He told them anyway.

Philosophically, the infallibility position is unsatisfying. To say that truth is in the pur-

pose or intention does not fit with what most people call truth. We expect truth to corre-
spond to the reality that it talks about. If truth was only a matter of intention, then we could
never know whether a statement was true or false because we can’t know the intent in the
mind of the one who spoke it. The same goes for meaning. If we can’t tell what a person
means by what he says, how can we know what his intended meaning was? Even if he
tells us his intention to clarify it, he is still using language, and we can’t be sure that he has
expressed his true intention about his intention. Meaning and truth both become impos-
sible. Also, it is self-defeating to say that language cannot express anything about God,
because it just did—it expressed the idea that nothing could be expressed. Certainly there
are limits to what our language can express about the infinite, but that doesn’t mean we
have to give up altogether. There are some things we can say in human language about
God. If there weren’t, how could the neo-evangelicals say that the Bible teaches truth
about spiritual matters?

The view of most evangelicals is that the Bible teaches truth about both spiritual and

scientific/historical matters. The passages which were used in reference to inspiration
seem to suggest that this is what the Bible claims for itself and the way Jesus understood
it. Examination of the evidence suggests that the Bible is extremely reliable in historical
and scientific matters, and its critics have been proven wrong over and over again. More
fundamentally, if the Bible is the Word of God and God can only speak truth, then there is
no way to avoid the conclusion that the Bible contains no errors. Inspiration guarantees
inerrancy. Just look at the way what the Bible says and what God says are equated.
Jesus said that God said, “For this cause a man shall leave his father and mother,” but a
close examination of Genesis 2:24 shows these were Moses’ words. Likewise, Paul at-
tributes a direct quote from God to “Scripture.” Where the Bible speaks, God speaks and
God cannot lie.

This does not mean that the

way we understand the Bible is perfectly true; it means

that the Bible is true when understood rightly. Nor does it mean that everything in the
Scriptures must be understood literally. There are figures of speech on almost every page,
but there is a big difference between telling truth in a metaphor and telling tales with a
myth. Further, inerrancy does not mean that everything that is

recorded in the Bible is true,

but that what is

affirmed as true is true. Cain said, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” implying

that he was not. The Bible records that he said it, but it does not endorse his attitude.
After all, this came from a man who just killed his brother! The teaching of the passage is
that we

are responsible for the well-being of others.

Finally, there is an analogy between the written Word of God and the Living Word.

While neo-evangelicals say that error is due to the introduction of human thought and
human language, they must somehow account for the fact that Jesus Christ was both fully
human and fully divine, yet without sin. In both cases the human and divine are wedded,
yet the human aspects have no imperfections. This suggests that sin and error are not
necessary consequences of humanity; they are only accidental. God can produce both a
Person and a Book that are without error.

How was the Bible Put Together?

How do we know that the sixty-six books of the Bible are the only writings that should

be included in Scripture? What about the Apocrypha, or the Gnostic gospels? Why
shouldn’t they be included? The answer lies in the idea of canonicity. Canon comes from
Greek and Hebrew words that mean a measuring rod, and it signifies a standard that all
scriptural books must meet. Several inadequate views of what that standard should be
have been offered, such as age, agreement with the Torah if it was written in Hebrew,
religious value, and Christian usage. But each of these makes a common mistake; they
confuse God’s

determination of what is Scripture with man’s recognition of those writings.

The bottom line is that whatever God inspired is Scripture and what He did not inspire is
not. When the Holy Spirit moved a man of God to write, that writing became, not only
inspired, but inscripturated. God has already decided what should be included; our prob-
lem is knowing how to discover what writings God has inspired.

There are five questions that have been asked by the church in accepting and reject-

ing books as canonical. The first is the most basic:
1. Was it written by a prophet of God? Deuteronomy 18:18 tells us that only a prophet of

God will speak the Word of God. This is the way that God reveals Himself (Heb. 1:1).
Second Peter 1:20-21 assures us that Scripture is only written by men of God.

2. Was he confirmed by an act of God? Hebrews 2:3-4 gives us the idea that we should

expect some miraculous confirmation of those who speak for God. Moses had his rod
that turned into a serpent, Jesus had the Resurrection, and the apostles continued
Jesus’ miracles, all to confirm that their message was from God. Many of the prophets
had prophecies fulfilled shortly after they were made to confirm their authority.

3. Does it tell the truth about God? “But even though we, or an angel from heaven, should

preach to you a gospel contrary to that which we have preached to you, let him be ac-
cursed” (Gal. 1:8). Agreement with all earlier revelation is essential. This dictum also
rules out false prophecies made in the name of God (Deut. 18:22).

4. Does it have the power of God? Any writing that does not exhibit the transforming power

of God in the lives of its readers is not from God, “For the Word of God is living and
active and sharper than any two-edged sword” (Heb. 4:12).

5. Was it accepted by the people of God? Paul thanked the Thessalonians for receiving

the apostles’ message as the Word of God (1 Thes. 2:13). It is the norm that God’s
people, that is, the majority of them and not simply a faction, will initially receive God’s
Word as such. Moses’ scrolls were placed immediately into the ark of the covenant
(Deut. 31:24-26) and Joshua’s writings were added in the same fashion (Josh. 24:26), as
were Samuel’s (1 Sam. 10:25). Jeremiah is known as the plagiarizing prophet because

he quoted so many of the other prophets who had written only a few years before him,
which shows that their writings had been readily accepted. Daniel is seen studying the
Book of Jeremiah within fifty years after it was written (Dan. 9:2). The New Testament
also shows similar acceptance in that Peter calls Paul’s writings Scripture (2 Peter 3:16)
and Paul quotes Luke alongside a passage from the Law (1 Tim. 5:18). We also are
aware that Paul’s letters were circulated among the churches (Col. 4:16; 1 Thes. 5:27).
This may have been the beginning of the collection of books for the New Testament
canon. Though some books were later disputed, their original acceptance speaks
strongly in favor of their inclusion.

But what about the books that were left out? This question has the wrong perspective

on the issue. No other books were ever accepted and there is no reason to believe that
most of them were even in the running. For both the Old and New Testaments, there are
certain books that were accepted by everyone, some books that were later disputed, and
some that were rejected by all. There is no category of books initially accepted and later
thrown out. There are, however, two groups of books that many are saying should have
been included. These are the Apocrypha and the Gnostic gospels.

(We will look at these in the next article.)

3TDGeisler999