• Love God, and love one another!

    Share your heart for Christ and others in Godly Love

    https://christianforums.net/forums/god_love/

  • Want to discuss private matters, or make a few friends?

    Ask for membership to the Men's or Lady's Locker Rooms

    For access, please contact a member of staff and they can add you in!

  • Wake up and smell the coffee!

    Join us for a little humor in Joy of the Lord

    https://christianforums.net/forums/humor_and_jokes/

  • Need prayer and encouragement?

    Come share your heart's concerns in the Prayer Forum

    https://christianforums.net/forums/prayer/

  • Desire to be a vessel of honor unto the Lord Jesus Christ?

    Join Hidden in Him and For His Glory for discussions on how

    https://christianforums.net/threads/become-a-vessel-of-honor-part-2.112306/

  • Have questions about the Christian faith?

    Come ask us what's on your mind in Questions and Answers

    https://christianforums.net/forums/questions-and-answers/

  • CFN has a new look and a new theme

    "I bore you on eagle's wings, and brought you to Myself" (Exodus 19:4)

    More new themes coming in the future!

  • Read the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ?

    Read through this brief blog, and receive eternal salvation as the free gift of God

    /blog/the-gospel

  • Focus on the Family

    Strengthening families through biblical principles.

    Focus on the Family addresses the use of biblical principles in parenting and marriage to strengthen the family.

How Do We Know The Bible Is Inspired ?

Elvispelvis

Member
Joined
Jul 9, 2010
Messages
249
Reaction score
0
My teacher turned me on to the work of a famous scientist who was much smarter than most of us.

He proved beyond a shadow of a doubt the inspiration of the Bible with mathematics that
blows your mind away when you take the time to study the work of Dr. Ivan Panin an agnostic he wrote many books.

Panin was known as a firm agnostic - so well known that when he discarded his agnosticism and accepted the Christian faith, the newspapers carried headlines telling of his conversion.

It was in 1890 that Dr Panin made the discovery of the mathematical structure underlining the vocabulary of the Greek New Testament. He was casually reading the first verse of the gospel of John in the Greek: "In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with the God and the Word was God...".

Dr Panin was curious as to why the Greek word for "the"' preceeded the word "God"' in one case and not the other. In examining the text he became aware of a number relationship. This was the first of the discoveries that led to his conversion and uncovered the extensive numeric code.

Oldest manuscripts

Dr Panin found his proof in the some of the oldest and most accurate manuscripts - the Received Hebrew Text and the Westcott and Hort Text.

In the original languages of the Bible, mostly Hebrew and Greek, there are no separate symbols for numbers, letters of the alphabet are also used to indicate numbers.

The numeric value of a word is the sum total of all its letters. It was curiosity that first caused Dr Panin to begin toying with the numbers behind the texts. Sequences and patterns began to emerge. These created such a stirring in the heart of the Russian that he dedicated 50 years of his life to painstakingly comb the pages of the Bible.

The number for YHWH= 7
The number for Yahshua=8
The number for man =6

This complex system of numbering visibly and invisibly saturates every book of the scriptures emphasising certain passages and illustrating deeper or further meaning in types and shadows. The 66 books of the Bible 39 in the Old and 27 in the New were written by 33 different people.

Those authors were scattered throughout various countries of the world and from widely different backgrounds. Many of them had little or no schooling. The whole Bible was written over a period of 1500 years with a 400 year silence apart from the Apocrypha between the two testaments. Despite the handicaps the biblical books are found to be a harmonious record, each in accord with the other.

Dr Panin says the laws of probability are exceeded into the billions when we try and rationalise the authorship of the Bible as the work of man. He once said: "If human logic is worth anything at all we are simply driven to the conclusion that if my facts I have presented are true, man could never have done this.
If you have never seen this before be prepared to be amazed at the INSPIRED WORD OF YHWH.!

The Heptadic Structure

The recurrence of the number seven, or an exact multiple of seven, is found throughout the Bible and is widely recognized. The Sabbath on the seventh day, the seven years of plenty, and the seven years of famine in Egypt, the seven priests and seven trumpets marching around Jericho, and the Sabbath year of the Land are well-known examples.

Also, Solomon's building the Temple for seven years, Naaman's washing in the river seven times, and the seven churches, seven seals, seven trumpets, seven bowls, seven stars, and so on in the Book of Revelation, all show the consistent use of the number seven.

But it turns out to be much more below the surface. Ivan Panin noted the amazing numerical properties of the Biblical text - both the Greek of the New Testament and the Hebrew of the Old Testament. These are not only intriguing to discover they also demonstrate an intricacy of design which testifies to a supernatural origin!

If we look at the first 17 verses of the New Testament (The Gospel of Matthew) which deals with a single principal subject: the genealogy of Jesus Christ, It contains 72 Greek vocabulary words in these initial 17 versus(*note; The verse divisions are man's allocation for convenience, added in the thirteenth-century A.D.). We find the following Heptadic (7) structure throughout these original Greek versus.
1 The number of words which are nouns is exactly 56, or 7 x 8.
2 The Greek word "the" occurs most frequently in the passage: exactly 56 times, or 7 x 8.
3 Also, the number of different forms in which the article "the" occurs is exactly 7.
4 There are two main sections in the passage: verse 1-11 and 12-17. In the first main section, the number of Greek vocabulary words used is 49, or 7 x 7.
5 Of these 49 words, The number of those beginning with a vowel is 28, or 7 x 4.
6 The number of words beginning with a consonant is 21, or 7 x 3.
7 The total number of letters in these 49 words is exactly 266, or 7 x 38-exactly.
8 The numbers of vowels among these 266 letters is 140, or 7 x 20.
9 The number of consonants is 126, or 7 x 18-exactly.
10 Of these 49 words, the number of words which occur more than once is 35, or 7 x 5.
11 The number of words occurring only once is 14, or 7 x2.
12 The number of words which occur in only one form is exactly 42, or 7 x 6.
13 The number of words appearing in more than one form is also 7.
14 The number of 49 Greek vocabulary words which are nouns is 42, or 7 x 6.
15 The number of words which are not nouns is 7.
16 Of the nouns, 35 are proper names, or 7 x 5.
17 These 35 nouns are used 63 times, or 7 x 9.
18 The number of male names is 28, or 7 x 4.
19 These male names occur 56 times or 7 x 8.
20 The number which are not male names is 7.
21 Three women are mentioned-Tamar, Rahab, and Ruth. The number of Greek letters in these three names is 14, or 7 x 2.
22 The number of compound nouns is 7.
23 The number of Greek letters in these 7 nouns is 49, or 7 x 7.
24 Only one city is named in this passage, Babylon, which in Greek contains exactly 7 letters.
And on and on it goes.

The old testament is full of future events, prophecy.!
Please study the old testament.
Sin cerley Craig
 
Sorry, but no. You can find these patterns in any text at all. Here is Panin's method used to find similar patterns in a quote from Edgar Allen Poe. If you pick any number and any piece of writing patience or computing power will yield dozens of occurences of that number.

Panin's methods are based on a total misunderstanding of probability. The tragedy is that, before computers, he wasted his life doing this stuff the long way.
 
Elvispelvis said:
Dr Panin was curious as to why the Greek word for "the"' preceeded the word "God"' in one case and not the other.

It's quite simple. When the New Testament was written, they didn't have lower-case letters. The word for "the" was added to differentiate between "God" and "god".

Elvispelvis said:
In the original languages of the Bible, mostly Hebrew and Greek, there are no separate symbols for numbers, letters of the alphabet are also used to indicate numbers.

The numeric value of a word is the sum total of all its letters. It was curiosity that first caused Dr Panin to begin toying with the numbers behind the texts. Sequences and patterns began to emerge. These created such a stirring in the heart of the Russian that he dedicated 50 years of his life to painstakingly comb the pages of the Bible.

The number for YHWH= 7
The number for Yahshua=8
The number for man =6

Here's a picture showing the Hebrew letters and their numerical values.

HebrewNumbers.gif


The letters in God's name in Hebrew are jod-hey-vav-hey, which have the numerical values 10-5-6-5. That's 26, not 7.

The name Yehoshua in Hebrew is spelled jod-hey-vav-shin-ayin. those letters have the numerical values 10-5-6-300-70. Using the methods I learned when I was in elementary school, that adds up to 391, not 8. The shortened form of that name is Yeshua (not Yahshuah, that name has never existed). I don't know how to spell it in Hebrew, but I know it contains the letter shin, which is 300, so I'm pretty sure it doesn't add up to 8.

The word for "man" in Hebrew is "adam", which is spelled aleph-dalet-mem, which has the numerical value 1-4-40. That's 45, not 6.
 
Now I'm really scared, because I'm going to have to side with Bob a second time. :gah

I think efforts like this is an example of "trying too hard" to look for something. I read "The Bible Code" and was pretty amazed; amazed that someone would go that far down that path to fill a book. I agree that the Bible is Inspired, but not because of a string of seemingly significant numerical clues. I do believe someone could take any work of literature and run a program to find something that looks like a code of some sort. I didn't read any of the aforementioned author's work, but the author of The Bible Code appeared to be attempting to sell a product rather than prove a theory.
 
Hi logical bob so nice to have a scienctist like you to go over Dr Ivan Panin s life work and show us all his errors. Ha Ha The way you took the time to go into such detail how you proved he was wrong .
Or what did you say ;
Panin's methods are based on a total misunderstanding of probability.

This is such scientific proof you over, he is wrong because you say so.Ha ha

Perhaps you already know Dr Panin offered a challenge to anyone who could disprove his pages point by point. 60,000 pages of proof you dismiss.

Any one can say, but can not prove Dr Ivan Panin is wrong.

Why dont you contact the N Y Times and claim the prize for proving him wrong.


Please show me just one book written by man with the code of seven in it Just one !


Just to understand how unique these properties are try to design a genealogy-even from fiction that meets the following criteria:
Matthew 1
1 The Number of words must be divisible by 7 evenly. (In each of these constraints, it is assumed that the divisions are without remainders.)
2 The number of letters must also be divisible by 7.
3 The number of vowels and the number of consonants must be divisible by 7.
4 The number of words that begin with a vowel must be divisible by 7.
5 The number of words that begin with a consonant must be divisible by 7.
6 The number of words that occur more than once must be divisible by 7.
7 The number of words that occur in more than one form must be divisible by 7.
8 The number of words that occur in only one form shall be divisible by 7.
9 The number of nouns shall be divisible by 7.
10 Only 7 words shall not be nouns.
11 The number of names in the genealogy shall be divisible by 7.
12 Only 7 other kinds of nouns are permitted.
13 The number of male names shall be divisible by 7.
14 The number of generations shall be 21, also divisible by 7.

This is why YHWH's number is seven the Bible is written as a mathmaetical table that is astounding in complexities.

Psa 12:6 The words of the LORD [are] pure words: [as] silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times.

The words of YHWH are purified seven times.

The odds of this happening by chance 208.000.000.000.000.000. for Just one chapter.

Why Is YHWH 's number seven, not because of gemataria adding up the numbers. You dont add up the Hebrew to find Jesus number I never suggested that for a moment. When I get time I will go through
why the deity has such mathematical values.

Have you not heard the number of the Beast is 666. The number of men united against the Christ.
The number 8 is for completion .
Seven is stamped all through nature I assume everybody knows
about seven seals , seven trumpets, seven horns, seven plagues, seven vials, seven years of destruction


More to follow........ God willing
 
It seems Dr.Pavin has done his homework....

Unless we do the same we shouldn't offer any arguments
 
logical bob said:
Sorry, but no. You can find these patterns in any text at all. Here is Panin's method used to find similar patterns in a quote from Edgar Allen Poe. If you pick any number and any piece of writing patience or computing power will yield dozens of occurences of that number.

Panin's methods are based on a total misunderstanding of probability. The tragedy is that, before computers, he wasted his life doing this stuff the long way.

Agreed. Devout Christians don't need such "science" to prove the Bible was from God. It does nothing of the sort, as a person could have invented such a code in the first place when writing the Scriptures. If someone sets out to write something with a numeric code imbedded within, it is not overly difficult.

I can write poetry where the last words of each stanza rhymes, and I can write each stanza to have 7 syllabols in them. It doesn't prove that God inspired the Bible.

We must rely on the witnesses to believe the claim, not such "numerology" that a man can just as easily write.

Regards
 
Elvispelvis said:
Just to understand how unique these properties are try to design a genealogy-even from fiction that meets the following criteria:
Matthew 1
1 The Number of words must be divisible by 7 evenly. (In each of these constraints, it is assumed that the divisions are without remainders.)
2 The number of letters must also be divisible by 7.
3 The number of vowels and the number of consonants must be divisible by 7.
4 The number of words that begin with a vowel must be divisible by 7.
5 The number of words that begin with a consonant must be divisible by 7.
6 The number of words that occur more than once must be divisible by 7.
7 The number of words that occur in more than one form must be divisible by 7.
8 The number of words that occur in only one form shall be divisible by 7.
9 The number of nouns shall be divisible by 7.
10 Only 7 words shall not be nouns.
11 The number of names in the genealogy shall be divisible by 7.
12 Only 7 other kinds of nouns are permitted.
13 The number of male names shall be divisible by 7.
14 The number of generations shall be 21, also divisible by 7.

Matthew originally wrote his gospel in Hebrew. Is it the Greek translation or the Hebrew original that fulfills these criteria?
 
Elvispelvis said:
The odds of this happening by chance 208.000.000.000.000.000.
That's the misunderstanding of probability right there. It's common enough to have a name - it's called the lottery fallacy.

I presume that what you're doing is finding 14 properties of the text that give you a multiple of 7, observing that each of these has a 1 in 7 chance of happening and so deducing that the chance of all of them happening together is 1 in 7 to the 14th power.

In this week's midweek lottery here in the UK the numbers were 14, 17, 22, 24, 38, 43. The odds of that happening are 1 in 13,983,816 so you could argue that something miraculous has happened. That would be wrong because no matter what numbers came up, the odds against that result would be exactly the same. Yet Panin's work is based on exactly that error.

You've given us 14 ways of finding a multiple of 7 in the text. There are a huge number of things you could count: vowels, consonents, words that begin with vowels or consonents, words with 7 letters, words that are/aren't repeated, sentences that begin/end with a vowel/consonant etc etc. Some of these give you a multiple of 7, but quite a lot don't.

Now suppose we apply Panin's method to a random piece of text with no hidden patterns in it. Each property we count will have a 1 in 7 chance of yielding a multiple of 7, so if we look at 14x7=98 candidate properties we should find 14 ways of getting a multiple of 7. We then have a list of 14 amazing facts about the text and we can say that the chances of this happening on its own is 1 in 7 to the 14th power. Despite the fact that there are actually no patterns in the text at all.

That's why Panin's method yields the same kind of results when applied to any piece of writing at all.
 
Theophilus said
Matthew originally wrote his gospel in Hebrew. Is it the Greek translation or the Hebrew original that fulfills these criteria?.............................................................

Craig ;
very astute question Theo.
The design in creation is so magnificent beyond our grasp
What God has in store for us the seven days in a week number fits in both Hebrew and Greek.


To me Dr Panin showed me God is in control down to the most minute detail beyond my comprehension.
Indeed we are told in scripture to look to nature for the proof of Gods existence.

Theo look back at the first post and I give examples from the old testament that have the same seven
number running all through.

You see if Dr Panin is correct we can take any so called book of the Bible like Enoch or Mac abees or The Gospel of Philip, etc, put them to the seven test and see if they fit.

By the way they do not fit many experts have rejected them so they are not in the Bible.

Hawkins here follows the book of Enoch. Others speak of the book of philip.

So God gave us a yard stick to test scripture with.
The angels influenced man when writing the Bible that is what inspired means.
The sevens proves it.

Whats wrong with that?

Sin cerley Craig
 
Elvispelvis said:
Theophilus said
Matthew originally wrote his gospel in Hebrew. Is it the Greek translation or the Hebrew original that fulfills these criteria?.............................................................

Craig ;
very astute question Theo.
The design in creation is so magnificent beyond our grasp
What God has in store for us the seven days in a week number fits in both Hebrew and Greek.


To me Dr Panin showed me God is in control down to the most minute detail beyond my comprehension.
Indeed we are told in scripture to look to nature for the proof of Gods existence.

Theo look back at the first post and I give examples from the old testament that have the same seven
number running all through.

You see if Dr Panin is correct we can take any so called book of the Bible like Enoch or Mac abees or The Gospel of Philip, etc, put them to the seven test and see if they fit.

By the way they do not fit many experts have rejected them so they are not in the Bible.

Hawkins here follows the book of Enoch. Others speak of the book of philip.

So God gave us a yard stick to test scripture with.
The angels influenced man when writing the Bible that is what inspired means.
The sevens proves it.

Whats wrong with that?

Sin cerley Craig

You didn't answer my question. You mentioned a specific chapter in a specific book. You can't avoid the question by pointing to a different chapter in a different book. You stated that the number of occurances of 14 different attributes was divisible by 7 in the first chapter of Matthew. If that applies to the original Hebrew text, then there may be some substance to what you say, but if it applies to a translation of that text, then it is, in all probability, mere coincidence. So, it's important whether these things were counted in the original or in a translation. If you believe that God controlled things so that these numerical values could also be found in translations, wouldn't that include all translations? Are these things also true of, say the KJV?
 
francisdesales said;

Agreed. Devout Christians don't need such "science" to prove the Bible was from God. It does nothing of the sort, as a person could have invented such a code in the first place when writing the Scriptures. If someone sets out to write something with a numeric code imbedded within, it is not overly difficult.

Craig ;
I would certainly recommend a complete study of Dr Panins work so you could let a scientist answer these problems for anyone with questions just Google Dr Panin the pages are free.

So you are saying that Moses invented a code and he told it to king David or David heard it from someone else.? How did they pass on the code over a period of 4000 Years? 33 different authors of the bible conspired over 4,000 to write a bible code why?
That is a pretty fantastic story what is your evidence? IMO?


The Bible was not written in English.
Jesus does not speak English. The apostles do not speak English.
Jesus is a Jew. All the apostles are Jews. All the writers of the new testament are Jews.
Sevens works in Hebrew not English. Why?



You say it is not overly difficult the scientists found it would take the most modern computer over
one thousand years to write the first chapter of Genesis in the code of seven.
Thats just one chapter my friend.

Sin cerley Craig
 
Theo said;
You didn't answer my question. You mentioned a specific chapter in a specific book. You can't avoid the question by pointing to a different chapter in a different book............

Craig;
Sorry I thought I was clear enough.
Yes Matt 1 was taken from the original language so was Matt 2, chapter 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 , etc, etc,
This I stated in my first post;
Oldest manuscripts

Dr Panin found his proof in the some of the oldest and most accurate manuscripts - the Received Hebrew Text and the Westcott and Hort Text.

In the original languages of the Bible, mostly Hebrew and Greek, there are no separate symbols for numbers, letters of the alphabet are also used to indicate numbers.

I hope that answers your concerns.

By the way Dr Panin,s work appeared in the NY Times years ago, was published all over the world
not one christian has come forward to prove him wrong all these years.


Sin cerley Craig
 
Elvispelvis said:
francisdesales said;

Agreed. Devout Christians don't need such "science" to prove the Bible was from God. It does nothing of the sort, as a person could have invented such a code in the first place when writing the Scriptures. If someone sets out to write something with a numeric code imbedded within, it is not overly difficult.


So you are saying that Moses invented a code and he told it to king David or David heard it from someone else.? How did they pass on the code over a period of 4000 Years? 33 different authors of the bible conspired over 4,000 to write a bible code why?
That is a pretty fantastic story what is your evidence? IMO?[/b]

You are presuming that the final version of the Pentatuech that we have is written by the hand of Moses himself, without ANY editing involved, to include the writing of his own death???

That's a pretty fantastic story, where is your evidence?

It is clear that the Bible was subject to editing before it was "canonized". The finding of the Dead Sea Scrolls proves that there were different versions of the OT Torah and Prophets floating around before canonization (by the Pharisees, not the Essenes of Qumran) set a final translation. These editors themselves could very well have put a code in there. In addition, because Dr Panin finds a "code" doesn't mean that God put it there. As Logical Bob states, other large works have such "codes" in them.

Elvispelvis said:
The Bible was not written in English.
Jesus does not speak English. The apostles do not speak English.
Jesus is a Jew. All the apostles are Jews. All the writers of the new testament are Jews.
Sevens works in Hebrew not English. Why?

I am not sure of what your point is.

Elvispelvis said:
You say it is not overly difficult the scientists found it would take the most modern computer over
one thousand years to write the first chapter of Genesis in the code of seven.
Thats just one chapter my friend.

Sin cerley Craig

It's unlikely that we have the original of what Matthew wrote, especially if it was written in Aramaic and converted to Greek to make your numerology work.

Regards
 
Elvispelvis said:
Theo said;
You didn't answer my question. You mentioned a specific chapter in a specific book. You can't avoid the question by pointing to a different chapter in a different book............

Craig;
Sorry I thought I was clear enough.
Yes Matt 1 was taken from the original language so was Matt 2, chapter 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 , etc, etc,
This I stated in my first post;
Oldest manuscripts

Dr Panin found his proof in the some of the oldest and most accurate manuscripts - the Received Hebrew Text and the Westcott and Hort Text.

In the original languages of the Bible, mostly Hebrew and Greek, there are no separate symbols for numbers, letters of the alphabet are also used to indicate numbers.

I hope that answers your concerns.

By the way Dr Panin,s work appeared in the NY Times years ago, was published all over the world
not one christian has come forward to prove him wrong all these years.


Sin cerley Craig

Thank you for that information, now I can check it out for myself. The term "received Hebrew text" refers to the Old Testament, so I assume he was working from a Greek version of Matthew. There are a few Greek versions of the NT known as "Textus Receptus" (Latin for "Received Text"). I downloaded the available and relevant modules for my Xiphos Bible program and copied and pasted the first chapter of Matthew from each into a word processor. After removing the verse numbers, I used the word count tool. here's what I found:

Textus Receptus (Stephens 1550)
Words: 444 (Not evenly divisible by 7)
Letters: 2719 (Not evenly divisible by 7)

Textus Receptus (Elzevir 1624)
Words: 444 (Not evenly divisible by 7)
Letters: 2744 (7*392)

Westcott-Hort
Words: 436 (Not evenly divisible by 7)
Letters: 2690 (Not evenly divisible by 7)

I could have gone over these texts manually to check out the other things you mentioned, but that would have taken much more time. The word and letter count was easy, so that's what I did. The results I got don't support what this man claims. Only one of the three texts returned a positive result, and it was only in one item, not both as you said it would have to be to be authentic.

Am I the first Christian in the world to prove him wrong? I find it hard to believe nobody's thought of using a word-count tool on this before now.
 
Panin used Westcott-Hort.

Here's Brendan McKay of the Australian National University.

Everyone familiar with the history of the Greek New Testament knows that there are very many editions. The primary reason for this is that they follow the decisions of editors who have different degrees of access to early manuscripts and different opinions on how discrepancies between them should be resolved. The result of this subjectivity is that, apart from intentional reprintings, all the editions differ from one another. Sometimes the differences are small, and sometimes they are large, but almost any difference is harmful to Panin's results. That is because many of Panin's patterns rely on the exact words, or even the exact letters, that appear in the text.
Panin used the edition of Westcott and Hort as the "basis" for his work, but very often made use of the many alternative readings that those authors suggested. He was prepared to pick and choose almost arbitrarily from the variations, meaning that in fact he was really working with a huge number of texts, few of them corresponding to any real manuscript. After this deliberate tweaking of the text to make his patterns work, he then calculated "probabilities" without taking that tweaking into account. Panin even published his own Greek text, carefully tweaked to provide the patterns that he most liked.

Panin believed that he was reconstructing the original text, but his logic was circular. By deliberately designing the patterns himself by tweaking the text, he eliminated his own argument that the patterns proved an original design. The very most he could logically conclude was that his attempt to produce patterns had been successful.


http://cs.anu.edu.au/~bdm/dilugim/panin_mark.html
 
.

How do we know that the Bible is inspired?

Does that mean, how do we know that the source of the Bible is God through the Spirit of God? If we consider that the source of the Bible is Divine, then it seems strange to use natural means to prove that a written document has a supernatural source.

If the proving that the Bible is inspired by God is through natural means, then the Catholics have already solved that problem. They claim that the Bible was compiled by the Church and they claim that they are the Church. Hence, by the authority of the Church, the Bible is inspired by God. Now the only thing the Catholics need to prove to their own satisfaction is whether the Catholic claim to be the Church is true. Protestants, of course, do not agree with the Catholic claims. They disagree that the Catholic Church is “the Churchâ€. And they disagree that the Bible has its source, even if only its compilation source, in the Catholic Church. But the Protestants still feel compelled to need a natural reason to believe in the inspiration of the Bible. So they feel the need to prove that the Bible is from God through all kinds of ways that seem reasonable to their own minds. The numbers game of Panin is becoming popular among some today. But prophetic fulfillment and the inner consistency of Biblical teaching continue to be the two favorites. Yet whatever the proof used, they are determined by means of human interpretation. If the interpretations are correct, then the Bible is proven to be inspired. Because of their interpretations of the inspired Bible. And for the circular reasoning fans out there, that is pretty much circular reasoning. And so also is the Catholic way wherein the Apostles began the Church that compiled the Bible that is the source of the Apostles teaching that started the Church. But I am probably the only one that will agree that a logical fallacy is being employed here.

I could easier prove that the Bible is not inspired through natural means, than that it is inspired. Start with the obvious discrepancies in the Bible. Differences in the Old Testament histories are the easiest to see. An Atheist named MacKenzie took it upon himself to show where most of the discrepancies are. But he missed a few that I have discovered on my own. Then move on to how the Bible has to be compiled, translated, and explained interpretively in order to be understood “properlyâ€. Whenever there is a passage that doesn’t seem to fit with the reality that is currently known through secular means, the Christians just change the meaning through interpretation to fit what is known, such as Genesis chapters 1 and 2. And since interpretation is a human mental action, oneness in interpretation can only be achieved in one of two ways, human organization or human compromise. Both of which are practiced in Judaism and Christianity with the compromise being the part of the individuals as they compromise as they conform to the varied teachings of the various organizations. And the fact that the Bible claims inspiration throughout its pages means nothing, except to those who already believe it to be true.

To the natural mind, the Bible has more the feel of humanity than of Divinity. And consequently, Christians who use their human minds more than their human spirit tend to use human means in relation to the Bible. The current practice of textual criticism is the prime example of that.

There is only one way to know with certainty whether or not the Bible is inspired. And that is if it is revealed to be inspired by the one who inspired it. If the source of the Bible says that it is inspired, then it is inspired. If there is no such revelation, then the Bible is composed of writings by a bunch of dead humans who wrote on a common theme. Which would account, with the help of interpretation, for seemingly internally consistent teaching. Those who must of necessity use natural means to prove or disprove the inspiration of the Bible, will find natural means to believe it or discount it. And those who are not connected in some way to the one who inspired the Bible must of necessity use natural means to prove to their own satisfaction one way or the other.

I can only encourage those who are truly in Christ to walk according to the Spirit and to hear what the Spirit is saying. Not so that we can dictate to others what to believe. But so we can be an ambassador for the God who is always contemporary and continues to speak through the Spirit through the Bible to us today through our human spirit.

If we have to question whether or not the Bible is inspired, what does that say to those who don’t believe that it is? If we who are supposed to believe that the Bible is inspired believe it so little that we need natural corroboration to believe that it is so, then maybe we really don’t believe that it is inspired any more than the those who already with certainty do not believe that the Bible is inspired. And if that is true, why should they even think to consider whether or not there may be something to a supernatural realm that even the ones who are supposed to believe in its existence…in a practical sense…do not?

JamesG
 
I believe that the Bibles we have now are only based off the original. Things have been lost in translation, and twisted by men. I live off of the gist of the Bible we have now. There are some verses in the Bible that destroy the God i know such as "no authority exists without Gods approval" <--- That verse almost made me lose my faith recently.
 
JamesG said:
.


If we have to question whether or not the Bible is inspired, what does that say to those who don’t believe that it is?

Your answer to them, that "God told me so", isn't exactly convincing to the agnostic.

Nor is it convincing to many Christians, as you have an already-canonized version in your hands without worrying about whether some were left out or some inadvertently placed within. One cannot remove the Scriptures from the community that recognizes them and calls them the "The Word of God". The "Spirit" is confirming what the Church has already heard from the Spirit nearly 2000 years ago. The Spirit is not re-inventing the wheel with each new believer.

It is not a circular argument to have a Church (community) vouch for Sacred Scriptures if we first consider that the Scriptures are merely historical works and listen to the witnesses that vouch for it, who operated as a Church instituted divinely well before the New Testament was "Scriptures" to begin with. This Church precedes the writings of the New Testament.

Thus, Christians can legitimately appeal to the early Church and Tradition to know what the contents of Scriptures are.

Regards
 
Back
Top