With so many religions... -- LiveWire Teen Forums

Quote: from SpM at 6:17 pm on Jan. 3, 2009

Posting a couple of scientific facts that do not disprove the Bible does not demonstrate that there are no scientific facts that disprove the Bible.

You're right, but saying what you have doesn't mean that there are. The purpose of the page was to provide some of the more common ones and then provide Biblical examples of how they do not contradict it. Feel free to post scientific facts that DO disprove the Bible por favor.

So the bibliographical test basically examines the textual transmission by which ancient historical documents reach us. As Josh McDowell says, "In other words, not having the original documents, how reliable are the copies we have in regard to the number of manuscripts (MSS) and the time interval between the original and extant copy?" The history of Thucydides is connected to only eight MSS dating to almost 1,300 years after he wrote. The history of Herodotus has just as few and late MSS but as F.F. Bruce says, "No classical scholar would listen to an argument that the authenticity of Herodotus or Thucydides is in doubt because the earliest manuscripts of their works which are of use to us are over 1,300 years later than the originals." We have only five MSS and a 1,400-year gap between the date that Aristotle's poetics were written and the earliest copy we have dated. We have nine or ten MSS of Caesar's compositions of the history of the Gallic Wars, each dating at least 1,000 years after Caesar died.
Josh McDowell says, "When it comes to the manuscript authority of the New Testament, the abundance of material is almost embarrassing in contrast." This is because there are over 20,000 copies of New Testament MSS in existence today. As far as manuscript authority goes, the Illiad comes in a distant second at 643 MSS. The Dead Sea Scrolls were an enormous discovery that helped show the legitimacy and accuracy of the Bible. At least parts of manuscripts of every Old Testament book except for Esther were found and an entire manuscript of the book of Isaiah was found. These manuscripts date back 1,000 years earlier than any other Old Testament manuscript that was previously used. Studies comparing the Dead Sea Scroll manuscripts to the more recent manuscripts revealed 95% accuracy of the text. Only 13 changes were discovered in the entire book of Isaiah in the Dead Sea Scroll manuscripts and eight of them were known from other ancient sources. So basically after 1,000 years of copying down these things, no changes in meaning took place and there were nearly no changes in wording.
But wait, we have two tests left to go. Next we have the internal evidence test. Basically this examines how credible the written record is and to what extent. Any literary critic would follow Aristotle's dictum at this point. It says that "The benefit of the doubt is to be given to the document itself, and not arrogated by the critic to himself." This is summarized (aka put into English ) by John W. Montgomery: "One must listen to the claims of the document under analysis, and not assume fraud or error unless the author disqualified himself by contradictions or known factual inaccuracies." We know pretty obviously that the ability of the writer or witness to tell the truth is helpful to someone looking at the text to determine credibility (this point was also made by Dr. Louis Gottschalk, former professor of history at the University of Chicago). In order to determine the author's ability to tell the truth, we have to look at the witness's nearness both geographically and chronologically to what he recorded. Now we know that the men who recorded the life and teachings of Jesus were either eyewitnesses themselves or they related the accounts of eyewitnesses to the actual events of teachings of Jesus (I can provide examples of this if you like. I figured I wouldn't now for sake of being condensed). We do know as well that the New Testament accounts of Christ were moving around and being circulated among those that were alive with Jesus was and they could've confirmed or denied the accuracy of those accounts. We know that there were enemies of this new religious movement that was being formed (called The Way and was the early Church) and would've been happy to refute any inaccuracies presented by the authors of those eyewitness accounts. People also like to argue that maybe these guys just made everything up. Will Durant, who spent his life analyzing historical documents and records of antiquity said "Despite the prejudices and theological preconceptions of the evangelists, they record many incidents that mere inventors would have concealed�the competition of the apostles for high places in the Kingdom, their flight after Jesus' arrest, Peter's denial, the failure of Christ to work miracles in Galilee, the references of some auditors to his possible insanity, his early uncertainty as to his mission, his confessions of ignorance as to the future, his moments of bitterness, his despairing cry on the cross; no one reading these scenes can doubt the reality of the figure behind them. That a few simple men should in one generation have invented so powerful and appealing a personality, so lofty an ethic, and so inspiring a vision of human brotherhood, would be a miracle far more incredible than any recorded in the Gospels. After two centuries of Higher Criticism the outlines of the life, character, and teaching of Christ remain reasonably clear, and constitute the most fascinating feature in the history of Western man."
The third and final test is the external evidence test. This test basically examines other historical material and whether or not it confirms or denies what the text is internally claiming. As Josh McDowell states, "In other words, what sources are there, apart from the literature under analysis, that substantiate its accuracy, reliability, and authenticity?" Dr. Louis Gottschalk, who I mentioned before, says that if there is conformity or agreement with other known historical or scientific facts is often the test of evidence that proves decisive.

I left out the last bit because the author goes on to prove this with quotes taken from texts written by religious authors and I'm sure that's not what you want. Luckily, that Clarifying Christianity website I originally posted provides a couple pieces of text from secular histories that verify the existence of things recorded in the Bible.

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