Why Is the Bible God’s Word?
Author and Authority of the Bible

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The Bible is a book of God’s word. The 66 books of the Bible were recorded by dozens of people who lived in different times and different environments for over 1,600 years from BC 1500 to AD 96. Among them, there was a king like David, a shepherd like Amos, and a fisherman like Peter. Despite that, all the words of the Bible from Genesis to Revelation are consistent and unified. This tells us that the true author of the Bible is God even though many prophets participated in writing it.

Why Is the Bible God’s Word?

What if the Bible is not God’s word but a book written by humans? It would have been impossible for dozens of prophets to record it consistently without any contradictions; because they lived in all different environments and different ages with a time gap of about 1,600 years. Because the author of the Bible is God, all the words from Genesis to Revelation are clearly connected to one another.

Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet’s own interpretation. For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. 2 Pe 1:20–21

The Bible was written by men who “spoke from God” as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. For example, a rich man asked a lawyer to make his will. If the rich man spoke of his will, and the lawyer wrote it down, the true author of the will is the rich man. It is because the will contains the thoughts of the rich man, not the lawyer.

It is the same with the Bible. Although it was written by men, the Bible contains the words of God. In other words, the author of the Bible is God. Then, how can we trust that the Bible is the word of God? The prophecy of the Bible and its fulfillment prove this.

“You may say to yourselves, ‘How can we know when a message has not been spoken by the LORD?’ If what a prophet proclaims in the name of the LORD does not take place or come true, that is a message the LORD has not spoken. That prophet has spoken presumptuously. Do not be afraid of him.” Dt 18:21–22

This means that God’s words surely take place. People cannot boast about tomorrow (Pr 27:1; Lk 12:20). However, the Bible precisely prophesied hundreds of years or thousands of years ago about God’s coming in the flesh and about the rise and fall of many countries, and all those prophecies were fulfilled exactly as the Bible had said. This proves that God, who predicts the future and fulfills the prophecies, really exists.

Authority of the Bible

The Bible has the absolute authority as the word of God. God’s word recorded in the Bible decides salvation and judgment of humankind. That is why the Bible warns that we must never add to nor subtract anything from the words of God written in this book.

I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: If anyone adds anything to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book. And if anyone takes words away from this book of prophecy, God will take away from him his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book.Rev 22:18–19

Through this warning, we can understand that God wants His words to be delivered to all people as they are written in the Bible because the words are directly connected to salvation of humankind. God does not want anyone to perish, but everyone to come to salvation (2 Pe 3:9). God will not leave the Bible to be distorted and changed; if then, no one will be saved. Therefore, we can be convinced that God Almighty has preserved the Bible not to be distorted and changed for our salvation. In other words, living God guarantees the authority and value of the Bible.

The Old Testament That Elaborately Preserves God’s Word

In the days when there was no publishing technology like today, people made books by handwriting letters one by one. As time flew, the original text was worn out. Then, someone wrote a copy of the original text, which is called its manuscript. The Bible, too, was recorded in this way and handed down.

In Israel, there were scribes who professionally wrote copies of the Bible and examined their accuracy. When a scribe made a copy of the Scripture, he would total up the number of letters not to omit a single letter of God’s word and another scribe examined it once more. They made great efforts to preserve the original text.

Some people may guess that the Bible could have been changed in the process of copying, because the Bible has been handed down for a long time through scribes. However, the accuracy in copying of the Bible was already verified through the comparison among various manuscripts which were written in different times.

The Hebrew Old Testament was recorded and preserved by the Masoretes who took the place of scribes; the earliest complete copy was dated back to approximately the 9th century. The scrolls written in 100 B.C. were discovered in Qumran Cave near the Dead Sea in 1947. They are called the Dead Sea Scrolls or Qumran Caves Scrolls. After comparing the two scrolls, they found that the two were virtually identical though there is a time difference of a thousand years.

“The oldest known existing Hebrew manuscripts of Old Testament books were made about A.D. 900. On these are based what is called the Massoretic Text of the Hebrew Old Testament . . . In these manuscripts there is so little variation that Hebrew scholars are in general agreement that our present Bible text is essentially the same as that in the original books themselves. Then, in 1947 . . . some wandering Arab Bedouins . . . searching for a lost goat . . . came upon a partially collapsed cave, in which they found a number of crushed jars from which ends of scrolls protruded. The Bedouins pulled out the scrolls, took them along, and passed them on to St. Mark’s Syrian Orthodox Convent in Jerusalem, who turned them over to the American Schools of Oriental Research.

One of these scrolls was identified as the book of Isaiah, written 2,000 years agoㅡ1,000 years older than any known manuscript of any Hebrew Old Testament book. It is a scroll, written in ancient Hebrew script on parchment. . . It was made in the 2nd century B.C. . . . the Dead Sea Scrolls of Isaiah are essentially the same as the book of Isaiah in our Bibleㅡa voice from 2,000 years ago confirming the integrity of our Bible. William F. Albright called this “the greatest manuscript discovery of modern times.” Excerpt from “Halley’s Bible Handbook” by Henry H. Halley

This shows that the Jews were extremely careful in copying the Bible, and that the Bible had not been tempered or tainted throughout the years even though it was handed down as copies for a long time.

Josephus, a Jewish historian in the 1st century AD, wrote about how the Jews regarded the Bible, in the “Against Apion” Book 1 as follows:

“For during so many ages as have already passed, no one has been so bold, as either to add anything to them; to take anything from them; or to make any change in them. But it has become natural to all Jews, immediately, and from their very birth, to esteem these books to contain divine doctrines; and to persist in them: and, if occasion be, willingly to die for them. For ’tis no new thing for our captives, many of them in number, and frequently in time, to be seen to endure wracks, and deaths of all kinds, upon the theatres; that they may not be obliged to say one word against our laws, and the records that contain them.” “Josephus Book IV” by Josephus

Josephus’ testimony, too, shows that the original text of the Bible has been preserved without any alteration.

The New Testament That Contains the Teachings of Jesus and the Apostles

The New Testament was recorded in the Apostolic Age during the 1st century. As the disciples who witnessed Jesus’ life and resurrection died one by one, it was necessary to write Jesus’ work and preserve it; that’s why the Gospels were written (Lk 1:1–2).

Church leaders, including Apostle Paul, could not frequently visit the churches established in each region. In order to build up the faith of the members, they sent letters to the churches. The members made copies of these letters and shared with other churches (2 Pe 3:15–16; Col 4:16; 1 Th 5:27; 2 Th 2:15). They were later bound together to form the New Testament of today.

The New Testament had been written by Jesus-established apostles (Matthew, John, Peter, and Paul) and by the people who worked hard for the gospel along with the apostles (Mark, Luke, James, and Jude), and it had been widely read for a long time in many churches. Churches acknowledged these books as the Bible in order to follow the teachings of Jesus and the apostles.

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