The Amazing Book that stands Alone - The Bible : End of Times: Recognizing the Signs
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The Amazing Book that stands Alone - The Bible

by Roy Burger on 05/16/13

 

What separates us from other type of religion, is our prayer? Muslims pray 7 times a day. Is it our witnessing? I constantly running off Mormons and Jehovah Witnesses approaching my door. What set us apart from any other religion is what we call the Bible.  Let us start with perished Religions.

Perished religions.

As I read about the Egyptians god Ra, the Greek gods Zeus, Apollos, the Roman Gods, Jupiter, Juno just an example of a few names of many types of gods from their culture and other cultures that the gods have died out with their cultures. We learn about them through studying history. We see how people in ancient days when they didn’t understand about what causes the four season, spring, summer, autumn and winter, or how the earth was created, they would explain it with a God of some sort.  You read how their beliefs system dies when their culture dies off. There was one exception, the Jewish God. You read how the Israelites journey with their God through the Old Testament. How Jesus came on the scene and had many followers. How he taught the New Covenant to his people the Israelites. How they rejected his teaching and had the Romans Crucify him.  Roman Emperor Nero, because a quarter of Rome had burnt down was blaming the Christians. He was executing Christians. He also executed Apostle Peter and Apostle Paul around the year 66 AD. He committed suicide, Vespasian became emperor and while he was becoming emperor, he sent his son Titus 4 years later to destroyed Jerusalem.  Titus destroyed Jerusalem and scattered Jews abroad around 70 AD dispersing Christianity and Judaism.  If the Jewish God was like the other dead gods, this should have made Christianity become extinct, but we know it didn’t.  Almost 300 years later in 303 A.D., Emperor Diocletian ordered a decree to kill all Christians and destroyed all scriptures relating to the Jewish God in the Roman Empire. He was considered the most powerful man at his time and he reigned for 25 years to follow out his decree. At the end of his reign, he passed away. The Emperor Constantine who replaced Diocletian believed in the Jewish God despite Diocletian decree and power. This shows that Christianity swept among the Romans even with the decree of Killing all Christians and destroying all scriptures.  Romans went from polytheistic views to monotheistic views under Emperor Constantine. Emperor Constant had the Bible canonized, had the Roman empire pay to publish fifty Bibles and gave up all their other gods for the Jewish God.

      It states in Ephesians 2: That at that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world. So, the Romans (gentiles) believed in a Jewish God. They believe in a Bible that carried Jewish traditions and Jewish Covenants they had no part in. So, the Romans (gentiles) had no reason to promote the Jewish God and the Bible other than believing in the true living God. Emperor Constantine head of the Roman Empire made Christianity their dominant religion and after 2000 years later, the percentage of Christians throughout the world is been estimated from 25% to 33% or 1.5 Billion to 2.2 Billion people which majority are gentiles. The Jewish God is now in the hearts of about one third of the worlds' population (1.5-2.2 Billion people).

 

The Influences of the Bible

This book has influence more nations and country than any book in history. We are in the year 2018 AD regardless of the change from AD to CE. They just changed name. The abbreviation AD stands for Anno Domini. Anno Domini in Latin translates “the Year of our Lord”. This is the Year that they figured Jesus Christ was born. So, it is 2018 years after the birth of Christ. BC stand for “before Christ.” In the New Testament, Jesus is referred to as the son of David. One can visit Florence Italy or Caesar Palace, Las Vegas Nevada and see the statue of David. David reigned as king over Israel about 3000 years ago, yet today his Statue represents to Italy as our Statue of Liberty represent the United States. Protestant churches, Catholic churches all influences of the Bible. United States was founded on the belief of the Bible. The United States had based the Government from the Book of Deuteronomy. Our Declarations of Independence has many inserts of sermons from the early churches here in America. We have the Ten Commandants in our Court houses. The Ten Commandments that was given to Moses over 3500 years ago, but we still have them in our courthouses. Easter: the celebration of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Christmas: the story of the birth of Jesus Christ. In God we trust on the dollar bill. There are so many more things, but I would be here for quite a while to write them all down.

 

The Bible a Myth – Josh McDowell

They certainly knew the difference between myth, legend and reality. A professor of a world literature class in which I was speaking asked the question, "What do you think of Greek mythology"? I answered with another question, "Do you mean, were the events of the life of Jesus, the resurrection, virgin birth, etc., just myth?" He said, "Yes". I replied that there is one obvious difference between these things applied to Christ and these things applied to Greek mythology that is usually overlooked. The similar events, such as the resurrection, etc, of Greek mythology were not applied to real, flesh and blood individuals, but rather to mythological characters. But, when it comes to Christianity, these events are attached to a person the writers knew in time-space dimension history, the historic Jesus of Nazareth whom they knew personally. The professor replied, "You're right, I never realized that before". "A myth may be defined as 'a pre-scientific and imaginative attempt to explain some phenomenon, real or supposed, which excites the curiosity of the mythmaker, or perhaps more accurately as an effort to reach a feeling of satisfaction in place of bewilderment concerning such phenomena. It often appeals to the emotions rather than the reason, and indeed, in its most typical forms, seems to date from an age when rational explanations were not called for.' "

 

 

UNIQUE IN ITS CONTINUITY.

Here is a book: Written over a 1,500-year span. The Bible was written over 40 generations. The Bible was written by 40 authors from every walk of life including kings, peasants, philosophers, fishermen, poets, statesmen, scholars, etc.: Moses, a political leader, trained in the universities of Egypt, Peter, a fisherman, Amos, a herdsman, Joshua, a military general, Nehemiah, a cupbearer, Daniel, a prime minister, Luke, a doctor, Solomon, a king, Matthew, a tax-collector, Paul, a rabbi. The Bible was written in different places: Moses in the wilderness, Jeremiah in a dungeon, Daniel on a hillside and in a palace, Paul inside prison walls, Luke while traveling, John on the isle of Patmos, Others in the rigors of a military campaign. The Bible was written at different times: David in times of war, Solomon in times of peace. The Bible was written during different moods: Some writing from the heights of joy and others writing from the depths of sorrow and despair.  The Bible was written on three continents: Asia, Africa and Europe. The Bible was written in three languages: Hebrew: Was the language of the Old Testament. In II Kings 18:26-28 called "the language of Judah". In Isaiah 19:18 called "the language of Canaan" which is known as Aramaic. Aramaic was the "common language" of the Near East until the time of Alexander the Great (6th century BC - 4th century BC) which was Greek. Greek was used in the New Testament language. Greek was the international language at the time of Christ.  Its subject matter includes hundreds of controversial subjects. A controversial subject is one which would create opposing opinions when mentioned or discussed. Biblical authors spoke on hundreds of controversial subjects with harmony and continuity from Genesis to Revelation. There is one unfolding story: "GOD's redemption of man". Geisler and Nix put it this way: "The 'Paradise Lost' of the Genesis becomes the 'Paradise Regained' of Revelation. Whereas the gate to the tree of life is closed in Genesis, it is opened forevermore in Revelation". F.F. Bruce observes: "Any part of the human body can only be properly explained in reference to the whole body. And any part of the Bible can only be properly explained in reference to the whole Bible".

 

Validity of the Bible

There are over 66,000 manuscripts that we have today that validate the Bible. The Dead Sea scrolls were written about 300 BC which are part of the manuscripts. The Old Testament that was found in the Dead Sea Scrolls was written 400 to 200 BC. So, the prophecies concerning Jesus were written before the Life of Jesus here on earth. The Bible is a book with prophecies being fulfilled like no other book in history. Ezekiel chapter 37, Ezekiel is transported to a large pile of bones. God breaths life back into the bones and tells Ezekiel that Israel will become a nation again. The Holocaust during World War II we have images of millions of Jews in big heaps of bones. After World War II, after the Holocaust, Israel became a nation in 1948. This is one of many prophecies within the Bible that has been fulfilled. Ezekiel wrote the Book of Ezekiel about 570 B.C. but the prophecy was fulfilled in 1948 AD. Daniel and Isaiah, Psalms just to name a few of the books in the Old Testament make prophecies about the coming messiah. There are approximately 2500 prophecies which about 2000 have been fulfilled. There is no other book that has prophecies being fulfilled.

UNIQUE IN ITS TRANSLATION the Bible was one of the first major books translated (Septuagint: Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament, ca. 250 BC). The Bible has been translated and retranslated and paraphrased more than any other book in existence. Encyclopedia Britannica says that "by 1966 the whole Bible had appeared...in 240 languages and dialects...one or more whole books of the Bible in 739 additional ones, a total of publication of 1,280 languages".  3,000 Bible translators between 1950-1960 were at work translating the Scriptures. The Bible factually stands unique ("one of a kind") in its translation. Survival through time Being written on material that perishes, having to be copied and recopied for hundreds of years before the invention of the printing press, did not diminish its style, correctness nor existence. The Bible, compared with other ancient writings, has more manuscript evidence than any 10 pieces of classical literature combined. John Warwick Montgomery says that "to be skeptical of the resultant text of the New Testament books is to allow all of classical antiquity to slip into obscurity, for no documents of the ancient period are as well attested bibliographically as the New Testament". Bernard Ramm speaks of the accuracy and number of biblical manuscripts: "Jews preserved it as no other manuscript has ever been preserved. With their massora (parva, magna, and finalis) they kept tabs on every letter, syllable, word and paragraph. They had special classes of men within their culture whose sole duty was to preserve and transmit these documents with practically perfect fidelity - scribes, lawyers, massoretes. Whoever counted the letters and syllables and words of Plato or Aristotle? Cicero of Seneca?"  John Lea in The Greatest Book in the World compared the Bible with Shakespeare's writings: "In an article in the North American Review, a writer made some interesting comparisons between the writings of Shakespeare and the Scriptures, which show that much greater care must have been bestowed upon the biblical manuscripts than upon other writings, even when there was so much more opportunity of preserving the correct text by means of printed copies than when all the copies had to be made by hand. He said: "It seems strange that the text of Shakespeare, which has been in existence less than two hundred and sixteen years, should be far more uncertain and corrupt than that of the New Testament, now over eighteen centuries old, during nearly fifteen of which it existed only in manuscript... With perhaps a dozen or twenty exceptions, the text of every verse in the New Testament may be said to be so far settled by general consent of scholars, that any dispute as to its readings must relate rather to the interpretation of the words than to any doubts respecting the words themselves. But in every one of Shakespeare's thirty-seven plays there are probably a hundred readings still in dispute, a large portion of which materially affects the meaning of the passages in which they occur". Authors make a percentage of money off his or hers book no matter where the books sales. This gives incentive for authors to sell as many copies as possible. The last author of the Bible died about 2000 years ago so there is no residual per say for anyone to collect but the Bible is the number one selling book ever and has been translated into more languages than any other book in history.

Survival through persecution

The Bible has withstood vicious attacks of its enemies as no other book. Many have tried to burn it, ban it and "outlaw it from the days of Roman emperors to present-day Communist-dominated countries". Sidney Collett in All About the Bible says, "Voltaire, the noted French infidel who died in 1778, said that in one hundred years from his time Christianity would be swept from existence and passed into history. But what has happened? Voltaire has passed into history, while the circulation of the Bible continues to increase in almost all parts of the world, carrying blessing wherever it goes. For example, the English Cathedral in Zanzibar is built on the site of the Old Slave Market, and the Communion Table stands on the very spot where the whipping-post once stood! The world abounds with such instances...As one has truly said, 'We might as well put our shoulder to the burning wheel of the sun, and try to stop it on its flaming course, as attempt to stop the circulation of the Bible.' Concerning the boast of Voltaire on the extinction of Christianity and the Bible in 100 years, Geisler and Nix point out that "only fifty years after his death the Geneva Bible Society used his press and house to produce stacks of Bibles". In AD 303, Diocletian issued an edict (Cambridge History of the Bible, Cambridge University Press, 1963) to stop Christians from worshipping and to destroy their Scriptures: "...an imperial letter was everywhere promulgated, ordering the razing of the churches to the ground and the destruction by fire of the Scriptures, and proclaiming that those who held high positions would lost all civil rights, while those in households, if they persisted in their profession of Christianity, would be deprived of their liberty". The historic irony of the above edict to destroy the Bible is that Eusebius records the edict given 25 years later by Constantine, the emperor following Diocletian, that 50 copies of the Scriptures should be prepared at the expense of the government. "Infidels for eighteen hundred years have been refuting and overthrowing this book, and yet it stands today as solid as a rock. Its circulation increases, and it is more loved and cherished and read today than ever before. Infidels, with all their assaults, make about as much impression on this book as a man with a tack hammer would on the Pyramids of Egypt. When the French monarch proposed the persecution of the Christians in his dominion, an old statesman and warrior said to him, 'Sire, the Church of GOD is an anvil that has worn out many hammers'. So, the hammers of infidels have been pecking away at this book for ages, but the hammers are worn out, and the anvil still endures. If this book had not been the book of GOD, men would have destroyed it long ago. Emperors and popes, kings and priests, princes and rulers have all tried their hand at it; they died, and the book still lives". "No other book has been so chopped, knived, sifted, scrutinized, and vilified. What book on philosophy or religion or psychology or belles lettres of classical or modern times has been subject to such a mass attack as the Bible? with such venom and skepticism? with such thoroughness and erudition? upon every chapter, line and tenet? "The Bible is still loved by millions, read by millions, and studied by millions". "Mohammedanism cannot point to any prophecies of the coming of Mohammed uttered hundreds of years before his birth. Neither can the founders of any cult in this country rightly identify any ancient text specifically foretelling their appearance". Wilbur Smith, who compiled a personal library of 25,000 volumes, concludes that "whatever one may think of the authority of and the message presented in the book we call the Bible, there is world-wide agreement that in more ways than one it is the most remarkable volume that has ever been produced in these some five thousand years of writing on the part of the human race. "Hebrew national tradition excels all others in its clear picture of tribal and family origins. In Egypt and Babylonia, in Assyria and Phoenicia, in Greece and Rome, we look in vain for anything comparable. There is nothing like it in the tradition of the Germanic peoples. Neither India nor China can produce anything similar, since their earliest historical memories are literary depostis of distorted dynastic tradition, with no trace of the herdsman or peasant behind the demigod or king with whom their records begin. Neither in the oldest Indic historical writings (the Puranas) nor in the earliest Greek historians is there a hint of the fact that both Indo-Aryans and Hellenes were once nomads who immigrated into their later abodes from the north. The Assyrians, to be sure, remembered vaguely that their earliest rulers, whose names they recalled without any details about their deed, were tent dwellers, but whence they came had long been forgotten". "It stands absolutely alone in ancient literature without a remote parallel even among the Greeks...'The Table of Nations' remains an astonishingly accurate document...(It) shows such remarkably 'modern' understanding of the ethnic and linguistic situation in the modern world, in spite of all its complexity, that scholars never fail to be impressed with the author's knowledge of the subject".

 

"This Jesus of Nazareth, without money and arms, conquered more millions than Alexander, Caesar, Mohammed, and Napoleon; without science and learning. He shed more light on things human and divine than all philosophers and scholars combined; without the eloquence of schools. He spoke such words of life as were never spoken before or since and produced effects which lie beyond the reach of orator or poet; without writing a single line, He set more pens in motion, and furnished themes for more sermons, orations, discussions, learned volumes, works of art, and songs of praise than the whole army of great men of ancient and modern times".

 

Bernard Ramm adds:

"There are complexities of bibliographical studies that are unparalleled in any other science or department of human knowledge. From the Apostolic Fathers dating from AD 95 to the modern times is one great literary river inspired by the Bible - Bible dictionaries, Bible encyclopedias, Bible lexicons, Bible atlases, and Bible geographies. These may be taken as a starter. Then at random, we may mention the vast bibliographies around theology, religious education, hymnology, missions, the biblical languages, church history, religious biography, devotional works, commentaries, philosophy of religion, evidences, apologetics, and on and on. There seems to be an endless number." Kenneth Scott Latourette, former Yale historian, says: "It is evidence of his importance, of the effect that he has had upon history and presumably, of the baffling mystery of his being that no other life ever lived on this planet has evoked so huge a volume of literature among so many peoples and languages, and that, far from ebbing, the flood continues to mount". It is also one of the (if not the) most expensive books. Gutenberg's Latin Vulgate Bible sells for over $100,000. The Russians sold the Codex Sinaiticus (an early copy of the Bible) to England for $510,000. And finally, the longest telegram in the world was the Revised Version New Testament sent from New York to Chicago.

 

 

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