BIBLE

Are There Errors?:

When someone makes the claim that the Bible is
full of errors your first question should be
concerned with their understanding of what an
error is. An error is not a difference in the spelling
of a word, or even a completely variant reading of
the same passage. An error is a false statement. It is something
that is simply not true. Therefore, in order to demonstrate that the
Bible has errors, one has to prove with absolute certainty that a
particular statement in the Bible is patently false. For the last 2000
years, no one has ever been able to accomplish this feat.

Has the Bible Been Accurately Handed Down?:

According to New Testament authorities, the NT
text is 98.33% pure. This means that 98.33% is in
total harmony. New Testament experts Westcott
and Hort said that only 1/60 of the variations were
of any consequence. Greek expert Ezra Abbott
said that 9/20 of the divergent readings are various rather than
rival and that another 95% of the various readings make no
difference in the sense of the passage. This puts the text of the NT
at 99.75% accurate. Finally, NT Greek scholar A.T. Robertson said
that the real concern is with a thousandth part of the entire text.
So, the reconstructed text of the New Testament is 99.99% free
from any concern. Therefore, the NT of today is the NT of 2000
years ago.
The Old Testament, for many years, was on much more
uncertain ground until the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in
1947. Prior to this discovery, the only way to check the accuracy of
the Old Testament was with the Samaritan Pentateuch (a corrupted
copy of the first five books), the Nash Papyrus (150 B.C. to 100
A.D.), and the Greek Septuagint. We now have about 200
manuscripts of OT text dating from 250 B.C. to 50 A.D.in the DSS,
plus over 10,000 medieval manuscripts. So carefully preserved are
these texts that when scholars studied the Dead Sea Scroll of Isaiah,
only three minor spelling changes (comparable to the difference
between spelling Saviour and Savior) were found in a text that
covers about 100 pages in many English translations.

BIBLE, CONTINUED
Are There Contradictions?:
When non-Christians claim that there are
contradictions in the Bible, these are actually failures
on their part to not even attempt to harmonize the texts.
This is usually due to a bias against the Bibles divine
inspiration, authority, truthfulness, etc In order to show that the
Bible has contradictory passages, one must prove that it is impossible
to reconcile and harmonize those passages, which, to date, has not
been done. In fact, almost every passage that we know of that seems at
face value to conflict with another passage is virtually always due to
either faulty translation or interpretation. It is always a good idea to be
prepared though, so pick up a copy of Dr. Norman Geislers Big Book
of Bible Difficulties.

Is the Bible Complete?:

This question refers to the canon, or standard, of
what books make up the body of Scripture. Many
people claim that books like the Gospel of Judas and
the Gospel of Thomas should be in the Bible. How
do we know what books should be in the Bible? First of all, the canon
was NOT decided by a bunch of theologians in stuffy council
chambers. The Church as a whole recognized what already clearly
bore divine authority and the councils just ratified the practice of the
Church. In the same way that a child recognizes its mother, the
Church simply identified the books that were from God. However,
God has chosen to provide some criteria to establish whether or not
someone is His spokesmanpropheticity. If an author was a prophet,
then their work had divine authority (cf. Heb. 1:1; 2 Pet. 1:19-21).
As for the reason behind the exclusion of certain books like the
Gospel of Thomas, these were excluded because of at least one of the
following 11 features:
1) Obvious tales of fiction, 2) Historical errors, 3) Chronological
errors, 4) Geographical Errors, 5) Internal Inconsistencies, 6)
Contradictions w/ Canon, 7) Pseudonymous writer, 8) No author
claiming to be a prophet, 9) No supernatural confirmation or predictive
prophecy, 10) No messianic truths, & 11) No citations in succeeding
books or by Church Fathers.

SCIENCE
Doesnt Evolution Prove Christianity is False?:
As a matter of fact, it is highly likely that evolution in
the macro sense is totally bogus. It is very common
in the discipline of science to find that new theories
dont refine older ones, but, rather, they tend to
replace them. In this case, it seems that the theory of
intelligent design is still gaining momentum and has the potential to
oust evolution as the prevailing paradigm. The major tenets of ID
are:
1. Living things possess extremely complex, improbable, and
specific patterns that cannot be accounted for by natural laws or
chance (think of Mt. Rushmore vs. a rock slide).
2. All organisms are so complex that it would be impossible to
gradually build an organism. All of the parts must be present at
the same time or life couldnt be.
3. At the source of all life is DNA, which is an information
bearing molecule similar to blueprints for a house. Information
science has as a central tenet that information only comes from
minds.
4. The fossil record shows a completely different history than
what evolution requires. Evolution requires organisms to move
from simple to complex, but the earliest fossils are highly
complex.
5. Evolution requires transitions from one species to another. Dr.
David Berlinski calculated that to go from an archaeopteryx to
a common bird of today would require at least 10,000 different
transitions, all of which do not exist in the fossil record.
6. Finally, there are certain conditions or requirements that must
be satisfied in this universe in order for life to exist. All of
these conditions must be present simultaneously and cannot be
tweaked even in the slightest or life is not possible. This is
called the fine-tuning of the universe (the magnetic field,
plate tectonics, distance of the earth from the sun, etc).
Michael Turner, a famous astrophysicist from the University of
Chicago stated this argument like this: The precision (of the
fine-tuning) is as if one could throw a dart across the entire
universe and hit a bulls-eye one millimeter in diameter on the
other side.

CHRISTIAN CHARACTER
Christians Are!:
Intolerant:
There is a difference between tolerance and truth.
The culture says tolerance is accepting all beliefs
as true, or at least being flexible concerning your
beliefs, but that isnt what tolerance is. Tolerance
is putting up with stuff you dont like. Those who
criticize Christians for being intolerant are being intolerant by doing
so.

Judgmental:
The problem with this objection is that an
unbeliever, again, cannot escape their own
criticism. Are they judging Christians for
judging others? If not, why attempt to correct the
problem? If so, then, they are wrong for addressing it. Either way,
the criticism fails.

Hypocritical:
Again, this is just like the above two
accusations. No one is free from hypocrisy.
So, again, when they judge Christians for being
hypocrites, they judge themselves. Further, this
is often a smoke screen. There is a saying that
one must be smaller than what one hides behind. Most likely, just
like all objections, this is an excuse to avoid belief. They are hiding
behind the hypocrisy of others to avoid being accountable. Matt
Slick puts it like this: People dont counterfeit pennies. Why do
you think there are hypocrites? Because Christianity is valuable.
Besides, Jesus doesnt ask us to follow others. He asks us to follow
Him.

Exclusive:
Again, the accusation cannot stand, for once it is
spoken it accuses itself. One must be exclusive to
say that something is bad because it is excluded
from being good the moment it is called bad. So,
either being exclusive is good, or the accusation is
self-defeating.

THE PROBLEM OF EVIL

This is the most often used argument against Christianity and there
are multiple ways to address this objection. The objection goes
something like this:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.

God is all powerful

God is all-good
An all-good God would want to destroy evil
An all-powerful God could destroy evil
But evil exists
Thus, an all-good, all-powerful God does not exist.

Most people would never state it like this, which makes it easier to
address. Here are a few ways I would look at any claim that the
Christian God doesnt exist because evil does.
1. God gave mankind a good ability called free-will. Mankind
abused this ability. God is responsible for the fact of mans
free-will, but not for the acts of mans free-will. Further,
Gods omnipotence is not an ability to do anything, but only to
do that which is possible. It is actually not possible for God to
force man to do something if man has free-will. Forced
freedom is a contradiction. So it does not limit Gods
sovereignty to be unable to force mans actions because it is a
real impossibility just like creating a rock that He cant lift.
2. It is possible that in every possible universe, if man had
freedom, he would sin. Therefore, it is at least possible that
God is actually unable to create a world without evil if man has
free-will. Thus, God has created the best possible world in
which the most people are saved and the most good is achieved
in light of the depravity of free men.

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Knowing God and Making Him Known

3. God may have certain goals that justify allowing evil. For
example, higher virtues (those that overcome evil) are not
possible in a world without evil. It is not possible to forgive
someone, to be courageous in the face of fear, to give to those
who use you, or to be long-suffering unless evil exists.
Tyrone A. Myers
Director of Evangelism
(541) 519-1765
tyronemyers@live.com