Ty Barho

Why Trust the Bible - Week 1

What this class is about

  • First and foremost, this class is about strengthening your faith, and your bond with God and His Word
  • We want to walk down this path together by examining an introduction into apologetics, and the historical trustworthiness of the Bible, particularly from the perspective of "Why should we trust the Gospel?"

What this class is NOT

  • This class is not a deep dive into apologetics, creation theory, deep historical study, hermeneutics, or learning how to argue someone into the Kingdom of Heaven.
  • Our hope for this class is that you will walk away...
    • Having made a deeper connection with God and His Word, from a very practical, historical perspective
    • Having deepened relationships (or created new relationships) with other people in this class (including us)
    • Having gained an understanding about the difference between Math, Logic, and History
    • With a thirst to dig deeper, do more reading and research, and develop an richer relationship with God's Word
    • Having had fun!

Intro Conversation Questions

  • If someone came up and asked you, "Hey, you seem like a reasonable person, how can you really believe that some old dude held up his staff and parted an entire sea?", what would you say?
  • How about if your teenager told you "Mom / Dad, the kids at my school are telling me the Gospel is basically just a big conspiracy theory made up in 200 AD. What am I supposed to say to them when they're making fun of me (and you) for believing it?"
  • What difficult questions have you been asked (or been asking yourself), where you didn't really feel like you have a reasonable answer?

What are apologetics?

  • 1 Peter 3:15 - Why we believe what we believe. Why what we believe is true is a reasonable, or arguable position.
  • Oxford - reasoned arguments or writings in justification of something, typically a theory or religious doctrine.
  • Apologetics is a very wide, and very deep field. MANY historians and theologians have devoted their entire lives to the study. A lot of this study has been in response to intensifying atheistic attack in the last 150 years, largely from scientific advances that gave rise to a "Modernist" anti-theology.

Why are apologetics important?

They are important for us.

Common ways people (even us, subconsciously) view the Bible:

  • It just another legend, fairy tale, or book of wisdom
  • Some of the Bible actually happened, and other parts didn't, because they are impossible
  • The Bible is a historical book, but sometime we are just interpreting what actually happened incorrectly

How many of you have felt like this, or read something in the Bible that you've questioned, and didn't know how to resolve it? How has that made you feel, or impacted your faith?

This is why apologetics (a reasoned, rational defense of what we believe) has HUGE implications for our daily lives in faith.

When we believe God's Word to our core, we live it out very differently than if we don't.

They are important for others... through our witness

  • Many believe that Christians are stupid, because they have blind faith in something unprovable.
  • Through apologetics, we can reasonably show that our faith is less blind than atheism, and more engaged than agnosticism.
  • Being able to show unbelievers, gently, and kindly that we are not stupid, and our beliefs are founded on historically relevant, accurate , is exactly what Peter meant, and has a huge impact on our witness to others.

A quick prep on History v.s. Math (& Logic)

  • It is impossible for History to be Mathematically or Logically proven; that's not it's goal
  • Do you believe Plato actually existed? Why?
  • When we try to apply Mathematical or Logical constructs to History, we eventually get to the possibility, no matter how small, that nothing actually exists, even us.
  • When we examine the Bible, it's incredibly important for us to treat it with the same respect, and the same critical eye that we would any other document purporting to be historically accurate.

What is the Bible?

FACT: It's incredibly difficult to defend the Bible, or your belief in it, without at least a basic understanding of where it came from.

According to the March 2007 edition of Time magazine, the Bible "has done more to shape literature, history, entertainment, and culture than any book ever written. Its influence on world history is unparalleled and shows no signs of abating."

How can one book have so much influence in the world and why is it that so many people trust the scripture within the Bible? Let’s start by taking a look at what the Bible actually is and the history of how it came to be.

Bible (Greek Biblia “the books”) is not a single book but actually a collection of books sacred in Christianity, Judaism, Samaritanism, Islam, and numerous other faiths. It is in the form of an anthology, a compilation of texts of a variety of forms that are all linked by the belief that they are collectively revelations of God. The texts are historical accounts, hymns and poetry, prayers, proverbs, essays, letters and prophecies. The books that are included in the Bible by a specific religious group are canonical, indicating that group views those writings as the true representation of God’s word and will.

OLD Testament

The books of the Old Testament began as songs and stories that were orally transmitted from generation to generation before being written down in a process that began sometime after 1000 BC and continued for over 1000 years into the period after Christ’s life.

Does it make us trust the scripture MORE or LESS when we understand that it is based on oral tradition? Any room to work in discussion of FACT vs TRUTH?)

What do we know about songs and stories passed down over generations and generations?

  • They are made memorable by using rhymes, patterns, and imagery, which is much of what we see in the earliest Biblical stories.

    What does generation to generation mean?

  • Many many years. We do not know for fact how many. But we can guess it was at least more than 4 or 5 thousand years.

The earliest compilation, containing the first 5 books of the Bible (Torah “law” or Pentateuch “5 books”) was accepted as Jewish canon by the 5th century BC.

Canon definition: a collection or list of sacred books accepted as genuine.

A second collection of narrative history and prophecy (Nevi’im “prophets”) was canonized in the 3rd century BC.

A third collection containing psalms, proverbs and narrative history (Katuvim “writings”) was canonized between the 2nd century BC and 2nd century AD. Taken together, these form the Hebrew Bible or TaNaKh (Torah + Nevi’im + Katuvim).

The Old Testament, as used in the Christian Bible today, is derived from the expanded Greek translation of the TaNaKh, known as the Septuagint. According to historical legend, this translation came about when 72 Greek-speaking Jewish scholars in Alexandria were asked by Ptolemy II Philadelphus to translate the Torah into Greek for inclusion in the Library of Alexandria. However, there are some writings in the Septuagint that Protestant Christians do not include in their canon, while Catholic and Eastern Orthadox Christians do. These are often referred to as the Apocrypha (Greek “to hide away”). The Septuagint has four parts: law, history, poetry, and prophets. This is generally how we, as Protestant Christians, describe the Old Testament today.

NEW Testament

During the rise of Christianity in the 1st century AD, new scriptures were written about the life and teachings of Jesus Christ, the Messiah prophesied in the books of the Old Testament. Two collections of these scriptures were accepted as canon by the end of the 2nd century AD.

  • The Gospels
  • The Pauline epistles

There were 4 criteria for accepting these (New Testament) writings as canon.

  1. The Apostolicity (Apostolic Origin) - Written by an apostle or close friend / companion of an apostle
  2. Antiquity – Must have been written close to the time of the events (I.e. Before 100 AD, while the apostles were still alive)
  3. Orthodoxy – Must have been in agreement with the standard of Truth handed down from Jesus himself
  4. Universality – Christians in every part of the known world used and valued the book

The book we will be reading in this class will focus on New Testament history and authenticity and will look more deeply at the issues surrounding New Testament canonization.

Mass Dissemination of the Bible

Between 385 and 405 AD, the early Christian church translated the Old Testament and New Testament canon into Vulgar Latin, (the commonly spoken Latin of ordinary people) which became known as the Vulgate. The Vulgate was established as the official Latin translation of the Bible used by the Catholic Church by the Council of Trent in the mid 16th century.

The Protestant church established the King James Version of the Bible in the 17th century, which may still be the most prevalent English Bible of all time.

Many of us in the room today are probably using CSB, ESV, NIV or a similar modern translation thanks to today’s technology. Regardless of translation though, as Protestant Christians today, our Bible will consist of 66 books (39 OT, 27 NT) written by 40 different authors.

I will say this one thing about the Bibles we are reading today. Regardless of the translation, they all agree on this:

  • There is ONE true God and He alone is the creator of everything
  • The Gospel of Jesus Christ does not change. God sent him to die for our sins. He was resurrected from the dead for the salvation of all who call on His name. This was God’s plan for man from the time of the original sin.

Studying the Bible and Trustworthiness of Interpretation

When studying the Bible, it is so important to understand that…

The Bible CANNOT mean today what it did not mean when it was written.

This is where Hermeneutics and Exegesis come into play.

The primary purpose of Hermeneutics is to determine and understand the meaning of Biblical text by bridging the gap between our minds in the present world and the minds of the Biblical writers at the time of their authorship through a thorough knowledge of the original languages, ancient history and the comparison of Scripture with Scripture.

Exegesis is used to study and interpret Biblical text. This is commonly what we do when we study the Bible using inductive methods, making observations of the scripture we are reading and then drawing conclusions based on those observations.

One thing we have to be aware of when studying scripture, is using Eisegesis, which means reading scripture with a preconceived notion such as a cultural lens that didn’t exist when the scripture was originally written. A common example of eisegesis happens in the reading and interpretation of Rev 3:15-16, John’s letter to the church in Laodicea.

“I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm – neither hot nor cold – I am about to spit you out of my mouth.”

Many people use modern understanding of the terms hot, cold and lukewarm to assume it is meant to describe believers as either being hot for Christ (religiously zealous), cold to Christ (not committed) or lukewarm in their faith (wishy washy).

But by using Hermeneutics and Exegesis to understand the geography and culture of Laodicea, as well as the original language of the scripture (Greek), one learns that Laodocia was a very wealthy city with an embarrassing water situation. The hot water from neighboring Hierapolis and the cold water of neighboring Colossae were brought into Laodicea through aqueducts. By the time the water got to the city, it was lukewarm and had no purpose like the hot healing water and the cold refreshing water.

Therefore, after a thorough study of the scripture through the lens of a 1st century writer to 1st century Laodocians we can see that while the Laodocians were content to be blessed, they weren’t being good witnesses for Christ and weren’t fulfilling any purposes on behalf of His kingdom, which caused John to write angrily to them.

Understanding different methods of the study and interpretation of the Bible are critical when discussing the Bible’s trustworthiness.

We need to understand that certain people’s (and sometimes our own) interpretation of scripture may not be accurate.

But that DOES NOT mean the scripture is wrong, just our interpretation of it.