How can you prove that the Bible is not an ordinary book?
Answer: Some people feel that the Bible is a book for the ignorant, or for old ladies and little children. They feel that it is a book for people with blind faith, and that to accept the teachings of the Bible is to commit intellectual suicide. There are many evidences that the Bible is no ordinary book.
1. SCIENCE: Much of the Bible was written at a time when superstition was rampant, and yet none of the stitious ideas of those times are contained in the writings of Scriptures. If you compare the writings of Moses with other writings of his day, like the Papyrus Ebers, you see a dramatic difference.
The Bible doesn't always agree with every scientific theory that evolves. That is fortunate for the Bible, because these theories change, but the Bible doesn't change. Many books on scientific theory, exploration, experiment, etc. are hopeless out of date in ten to fifteen years.
Here are four examples of how the Bible taught scientific truth centuries before human scientists discovered it.
A. A round world. (Isaiah 40:22)
B. Earth hanging upon nothing. (Job 26:7)
C. Movement of the sun. (Psalm 19:4-6) For years people had criticized the Bible for talking about the movement of the sun . In 1783, William Herschel discovered that the sun travels at 12.2 miles per second, or 43,920 miles per hour.
D. The stars cannot be numbered. (Jeremiah 33:22) Hipparchus, in his day, thought that there were a total of 5, 119 stars. Today we know that in the starfield of Auriga, with the naked eye, only one star is visible. With Galileo's telescope, 60 stars could be seen. With William Herschel's telescope 100 stars could be seen. With the telescope at Mt. Hamilton, 200 stars could be seen in that same area. With the Lake Geneva, Wisconsin 40" Yerkes, 400 stars can be seen. With the Mt. Wilson 100" telescope, which is 10,000 times more powerful than the naked eye, thousands of stars can be seen in that same area.
At the time of Jeremiah, only one star could be seen in that area. Science taught that there were some 5000 stars. Yet Jeremiah insisted that the stars is beyond counting.
2. UNITY: The writers of the Bible were not all walk of life. Moses was a political leader, Pete a fisherman, Amos a herdsman, Joshua a military general, Matthew a tax collector, Nehemiah a cup bearer, Daniel a prime minister, Luke a doctor, Solomon a king and Paul, a rabbi. All these contributed to the writing of the Bible.
They didn't all live in the same environment. Moses was in the wilderness when he wrote his books, Jeremiah in the dungeon, Daniel in the palace, Paul in jail, Luke traveling, John on the Isle of Patmos.
The forty authors of the Bible wrote in different times, (a span of 1600 years) different moods, different languages (Hebrew, Greek, Aramic), and were scattered over three continents (Asia, Africa and Europe). Yet, their writing come together in miraculous unity and harmony. This couldn't have happened by coincidence.
to be continue...
Answer: Some people feel that the Bible is a book for the ignorant, or for old ladies and little children. They feel that it is a book for people with blind faith, and that to accept the teachings of the Bible is to commit intellectual suicide. There are many evidences that the Bible is no ordinary book.
1. SCIENCE: Much of the Bible was written at a time when superstition was rampant, and yet none of the stitious ideas of those times are contained in the writings of Scriptures. If you compare the writings of Moses with other writings of his day, like the Papyrus Ebers, you see a dramatic difference.
The Bible doesn't always agree with every scientific theory that evolves. That is fortunate for the Bible, because these theories change, but the Bible doesn't change. Many books on scientific theory, exploration, experiment, etc. are hopeless out of date in ten to fifteen years.
Here are four examples of how the Bible taught scientific truth centuries before human scientists discovered it.
A. A round world. (Isaiah 40:22)
B. Earth hanging upon nothing. (Job 26:7)
C. Movement of the sun. (Psalm 19:4-6) For years people had criticized the Bible for talking about the movement of the sun . In 1783, William Herschel discovered that the sun travels at 12.2 miles per second, or 43,920 miles per hour.
D. The stars cannot be numbered. (Jeremiah 33:22) Hipparchus, in his day, thought that there were a total of 5, 119 stars. Today we know that in the starfield of Auriga, with the naked eye, only one star is visible. With Galileo's telescope, 60 stars could be seen. With William Herschel's telescope 100 stars could be seen. With the telescope at Mt. Hamilton, 200 stars could be seen in that same area. With the Lake Geneva, Wisconsin 40" Yerkes, 400 stars can be seen. With the Mt. Wilson 100" telescope, which is 10,000 times more powerful than the naked eye, thousands of stars can be seen in that same area.
At the time of Jeremiah, only one star could be seen in that area. Science taught that there were some 5000 stars. Yet Jeremiah insisted that the stars is beyond counting.
2. UNITY: The writers of the Bible were not all walk of life. Moses was a political leader, Pete a fisherman, Amos a herdsman, Joshua a military general, Matthew a tax collector, Nehemiah a cup bearer, Daniel a prime minister, Luke a doctor, Solomon a king and Paul, a rabbi. All these contributed to the writing of the Bible.
They didn't all live in the same environment. Moses was in the wilderness when he wrote his books, Jeremiah in the dungeon, Daniel in the palace, Paul in jail, Luke traveling, John on the Isle of Patmos.
The forty authors of the Bible wrote in different times, (a span of 1600 years) different moods, different languages (Hebrew, Greek, Aramic), and were scattered over three continents (Asia, Africa and Europe). Yet, their writing come together in miraculous unity and harmony. This couldn't have happened by coincidence.
to be continue...