In Today's post I will be going over the many reason's why I trust the bible (and especially the KJV). I believe this is a very important topic on my list of subjects because in a lot of my post i demonstrate why certain religions are wrong based on scriptural grounds, therefore I think it's necessary to show why I trust in my faith as well (1 Pe 3:15).
Why I Trust The KJV
A). Before I give my reasons as to why I trust the bible as a whole allow me to make a few statements as to why I Solely trust the KJV as the word of God in English. The first reason is because although some more modern bible translations claim that their's is more close to the "original" and that only the originals are the true, authentic, inspired words of God; I don't believe them because they are calling Jesus a liar (Matthew 24:35) because they don't have the originals and the originals have most likely passed away.
In defense of the Majority text that makes up the KJV the following is a quote from Wilbur Pickering. “100% of the MSS agree as to, say, 50% of the Text; 99% agree as to another 40%; over 95% agree as to another 4%; over 90% agree as to another 2%; over 80% agree as to another 2%; only for 2% or so of the Text do less than 80% of the MSS agree, and most of those cases occur in Revelation.
(Pickering, Wilbur N. The Identity of the New Testament Text, p. 116) the few manuscripts for the new versions are substantially different and does not testify any real agreement.
B). One of the things that KJV bible skeptics will be quick to point out is that it has been revised several times since the 1611 edition. However this isn't a problem for those who trust the KJV bible because these weren't changes in the text itself. These so-called revisions of the KJV before the 1800's were to correct typographical errors, add notes and to remove the Apocrypha out from between the testaments. This is because they knew that it wasn't scripture so that's why they placed it between the old and new testaments as a historical document. (I will also mention that a lot of these so called changes were just to update the spelling of words).
Some KJV critics will point out that the KJV translators added the italic words in their translation. The thing is those italicized words are usually needed to make the verse make sense in English, this actually show that they were honest men because they showed us that these words weren't in the copies that they used. Modern translators don't do us this favor by letting us know which words they have added. Another point that I want to mention is that nobody has the originals so no body knows for certain they aren't in there. Just look at Deuteronomy 8:3 the word "word" is in Italics, if it didn't belong in Scripture why did Jesus Quote it in Matthew 4:4.
Here are some final points that I would like to make concerning the KJV before defending the bible as a whole. Just because something is translated doesn't mean that it's inferior to the original (Colo 1:13, Heb 11:5). Aren't these examples of God preserving his word (Exodus 32:19, 34:1 and Jeremiah 36:23,28, 51:63). Next we know that God's form of government is a theocratic monarchy, the KJV was translated under the authority a king (Ecc. 8:4). James is English for Jacob (psalms 147:19), and the KJV isn't copyrighted (2 Tim 2:9).
Why You Should Trust The Bible In General
C). Now let's go over the reason's as to why we should trust the bible in general. First there is the fact that there isn't just Christian but secular extra-biblical references as well. These references date quite close to the time Christ walked the earth and this further supports the accuracy of scripture. These Include Irenaeus, Clement, The Didache, Papias, Justin Martyr, and Polycarp. Many of which have cited New testament scripture. This is just one more reason why the New Testament Gospels are reliable and historically accurate.
We could also look to secular extra biblical sources which mention various details of Jesus' life. Some of which include Josephus, Tacitus, Pliny the younger, and Thallus. Some of the things that are mentioned include the fact that James was Jesus' brother, that Christians derive their name from him, that he did many wonderful works, that he was condemned to the cross by Pilate, his rising on the 3rd day, the earthquake as well as the darkness that occurred around his time of death, the celebration of the Lord's supper, that Christians met on first day of the week, Christian's worshiped him as God and that they changed their behavior as a result of placing their faith in him.
The Talmud also mentions Jesus although it commits blasphemy by saying that he practiced Sorcery and enticed Israel to apostasy.
Now let us consider the account of the Resurrection. First who stole the body? It couldn't have been the Romans or Jews because they would have paraded the dead body all over the place to silence the Christians claim that he revived. We also know that the disciples wouldn't have done it because they knew the 10 commandments.
It doesn't make sense for the disciples to go around preaching his Resurrection if it wasn't true, especially because they were willing to be imprisoned tortured and executed for their beliefs. We also need to consider that the tomb had guards and a huge stone placed in front of it, and that the Lord was seen of more than five hundred brethren at once (1 Cor 15:6). What make the story even more reliable is that most of those brethren were still alive at the time Paul wrote to the Corinthians so they could have contested the claim that Christ was risen if they wanted to.
One way that we can know that the account of Jesus Resurrection isn't made up is that he appeared unto women first. This is because a woman's testimony isn't normally considered valid in court according to Jewish law.
D). The next thing that I would like to address is the huge number of manuscript evidence that we have for our bible. Not including the five thousand plus Greek manuscripts of the NT there are also nineteen thousand in the Syriac, Latin, Coptic, and Aramaic languages as well. Compare this to other ancient writings and we see that there are literally thousands of more copies of manuscripts in support of the NT than most other ancient secular texts.
As if that wasn't impressive enough there are a few other factors that I need to mention. First I just want to state that the internal consistency of the NT documents is approximately 99 and a half %
textually pure. Also the time that has elapsed between the original writing of the text and the copy in some cases is only a matter of a few decades or less. This is most impressive when other ancient writing have centuries or even a millennia between the original and the copy.
E). Finally I want to address briefly other numerous reasons as to why I trust the Christian Bible. One is fulfilled prophecy. There are many, many fulfilled prophecies throughout scripture. Check out my homepage sidebar for a link to hundreds of these that Jesus fulfilled.
Next there is bible scientific foreknowledge. These are areas of science that the bible touches on that weren't discovered until sometimes centuries or thousands of years later. You can find more info about this under links in my sidebar.
Skeptics may point out that they don't believe in the miracles of scripture, however don't they realize that the birth of the universe itself had to in fact be a miracle? Modern science has discovered that the universe had a beginning and thus needs a cause. This cause had to be a supernatural one because whatever made nature had to be outside of nature; in other words nature couldn't have created itself.
There are also many archaeological artifacts that lend support to the historical accuracy of scripture as well, If you want you can check out my post on that as well (under creation science). The last thing that I would like to point out as to why I trust the
bible as the infallible word of God is because although it was written by dozens of people over such a vast amount of time, it still has no contradictions. Sure they are many alleged contradictions but you can find answers for virtually all of them through the internet, or through prayer and private study. I myself answer hundreds of them on my bible contradiction page.
So in conclusion the Christian Holy bible is the most logical, trustworthy, and greatest book that you can place your faith in. Although there have been countless religions and cults that have come and gone, the one thing that you can trust to endure forever is the word of God(1 Pet 1:25).
C). This Information is derived from a book called Answering the Objections of Atheists, Agnostis, and Skeptics by Ron Rhodes pages 110, 219,132-8
E). Check out the sited places on my blog for more info
No comments:
Post a Comment