Skilled in the word of righteousness (Hebrews 5:13) Part 13
Written by: Yeow Chin Kiong
We come now to ascertaining the reliability and truthfulness of some key books of the Bible as sources of history (i.e. what actually happened in the distant past).
This is consistent with man’s self-awareness that he can only be in awe of all creation around him each moment of his life. By the evidence of creation he intuitively presumes the existence of an all-knowing, all-powerful and all-benevolent Designer, Creator and Sustainer to whom he gives deserved glory and thankfulness (Romans 1:18-21). Mortals are thus aware that they must submit to Deity who necessarily initiates communication with mankind,- His creation,- which man can only receive by testing the authenticity, reliability and truthfulness of the alleged communication of God’s message. From these two investigative worlds, we necessarily infer prima facie that an all-knowing, all-powerful and all-benevolent God exists who brought into existence,- and sustains the existence of,- everything. We have thereby made a prima facie case for THEISM (i.e. belief in the existence of Deity or God).
If God had chosen to remain silent or has not providentially preserved His communication to us over the centuries, we would be in the dark concerning spiritual or heavenly things, like life after death and how to obtain eternal life. Deity has to reach out to communicate such truth to humanity. This point is consistent with Jesus’ explanation in John 3:10-17 to the Pharisee Nicodemus who had a problem understanding, or even believing, the spiritual truth of man’s need to be born again to enter God’s kingdom. Jesus said in verses 11 to 15 of that passage: “11 Most assuredly, I say to you, We speak what We know and testify what We have seen, and you do not receive our witness. 12 If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things? 13 No one has ascended to heaven but He who came down from heaven, that is, the Son of Man who is in heaven. 14 And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, 15 that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life …”
Jesus’ point to Nicodemus was that only One from heaven can reveal truths about heavenly things (like the need to be born again to enter God’s kingdom) and such a One, who will speak the truth about earthly as well as of heavenly things, must be believed concerning Himself and what He says about earthly and heavenly matters as a condition of getting eternal life. Jesus thereby implies that we must believe in what He says about Himself and also believe in His teachings (including what he teaches about His miraculous works and resurrection from the dead) in order to obtain eternal life. For us today, in essence, this means that we must satisfactorily prove to ourselves that the record of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection contained in the FOUR GOSPELS and the ACTS OF THE APOSTLES are reliable as historical record and narrative of eyewitness testimony. If these five volumes of preserved scripture can be proven PRIMA FACIE to be trustworthy as bearers of truth, then and only then can Jesus be believed to be Divine and the other books of the Bible be presumed to be true as God’s word (based on Jesus’ belief that they are God’s word).
In Part 11 of this series, we saw that the Gospels of Luke and John and the book of Acts (together with some apostolic epistles) claim to bear eyewitness testimony worthy of being accepted as trustworthy. To prove this claim to be true, we put these documentary records (which have been preserved as manuscript copies of individual books of the Bible, or portions or collections of them) to the following tests-
Firstly, the BIBLIOGRAPHICAL TEST (focusing on the documents) which aims to determine whether we have today a reasonably accurate, uncorrupted copy of the original record in the original language in which it was inscripturated (or “written”). The principles of this test are (a) the closer in time the earliest extant manuscript copy is to its original, the greater its accuracy to the original, and (b) the more manuscript copies there are extant, the easier it is to locate and reconcile alleged errors and discrepencies within their contents and thus to arrive at a reasonably pure and complete text.
Secondly, the INTERNAL EVIDENCE TEST (focusing on the contents of the documents) which aims to locate and evaluate its contents on their own merits, seeking to reconcile inconsistencies and inaccuracies so as to establish a degree of credibility for all or the maximum of its contents. The principles of this test are (a) the author is innocent until proven guilty of introducing errors or discrepencies into his text and (b) the nearness of the author geographically and chronologically to an event he records is a positive measure of his credibility.
Thirdly, the EXTERNAL EVIDENCE TEST (focusing on the trustworthiness of a document’s contents as a true representation of historical reality) which aims to determine whether, and to what degree, available contemporaneous material (such as other document, artifacts, remains or geographical locations) support or substatiate the record of the document’s contents. Principles applied for this test are (a) the usefulness of confirmation by writings of other writers nearer geographically and chronologically to identical event and, (b) the usefulness of archaeological confirmation.