The nature of the Bible is a main source of controversy in the world today. Society is full of people that will tell you the Bible is a myth and those that will tell you otherwise. The controversy going on in modern times started in the early 20th century, and has since wormed into civilizations across the globe. Over the years, historians and researchers have been studying this subject to find proof that the Bible is either valid or invalid. They travel across the globe, often stopping in some of the historic sites and cities that are mentioned in the Bible to guarantee the existence of these places. Also, ancient documents are searched assiduously for anything that relates to the Bible. Through their research, these historians and researchers …show more content…
For example, one of the most common “mistakes” they find is the spelling of honor. Depending on the translation, this word will be spelled H-O-N-O-U-R, whereas others will have it spelled H-O-N-O-R. This is just one of the many “errors” people find throughout the Bible, which lead them to claim that this inconsistency makes the Bible a myth.
Continuing on, another reason people believe the Bible is a myth is the apparent contradiction in Jesus’ genealogy, recorded differently in the books Matthew and Luke. This is brought up by Joseph Sommer:
“Both genealogies begin with Jesus’ father, who is identified as Joseph... But Matthew says Joseph’s father was Jacob, while Luke claims he was Heli. Matthew lists 26 generations between Jesus and King David, whereas Luke records 41. Matthew runs Jesus’ line of descent through David’s son Solomon, while Luke has it going through David’s son Nathan.”
There are many people that will confirm this belief. Genealogies are one of the main subjects researched for the validity of the Bible, so it only makes sense that they would be
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However, there are other people, including former atheists, that will tell you the Bible is true despite these “inconsistencies”. One such example is the author named Lee Strobel. Strobel, before his switch from atheism to Christianity, was a journalist for the Chicago Tribune. He went on a journey to
find evidence that would prove his assumption that the Bible was false. Despite his original plan, however, this journey helped him prove the Bible instead of disprove it (Hallowell).
The second reason people believe the Bible is a myth, the genealogy example, can be easily explained and disproved. Heli was Joseph’s father-in-law. The lines of ancestry are different because the book of Luke has that of Mary, and the book of Matthew has Joseph’s. Both are descended from David, but they come from two different sons of David (Institute for Creation Research). Not only that, but Luke, who was a doctor, recorded the events in Jesus’ lifetime with the utmost care. Well-known historians have concluded that the author, Luke, recorded the most accurate information in his book they have ever found
The Bible is read and interpreted by many people all over the world. Regardless, no one knows the absolute truth behind scripture. Walter Brueggemann, professor of Old Testament, wrote “Biblical Authority” to help people understand what he describes as six different parts that make up the foundation to ones understanding of scripture. He defines these six features as being: inherency, interpretation, imagination, ideology, inspiration, and importance. As Brueggemann explains each individual part, it is easy to see that they are all interconnected because no one can practice one facet without involuntarily practicing at least one other part.
William C. Plachers’ article, “Is the Bible True?” explores deeper into the subject of the Bible and if it content it contains is credible information. Through Plachers’ statement, “We need to understand the genre to understand a text. Reading a text literally is not always reading it faithfully,” we are able to reach the idea that the Bible is in fact true, but it all depends on how the individual interprets the text.
The “popular use of the word myth to denote something that is thought by many people to be “true,” but actually is not true can be examined through history. Today’s current understanding of myth is: “A traditional or legendary story, usually concerning some being or heroor event, with or without a determinable basis of fact or a naturalexplanation, especially one that is concerned with deities or demigodsand explains some practice, rite, or phenomenon of nature,istories or matter of this kind,iany invented story, idea, or concept,ian imaginary or fictitious thing or person,ian unproved or false collective belief that is
The most highly referenced and revered as sacred are The King James Version, considered a masterpiece of English literature, The Tanakh, or Hebrew Bible, The Aprocrypha, the books believed left out of some bibles, The Vulgate, the Latin Bible used for centuries by the Roman Catholic religion, and The Septuagint, the first ancient Greek translation of the Tanakh (Geisler and Nix 15, McCallum 4). The Bible is considered a sacred text by three major world religions, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Many believers consider it to be the literal truth. Others treat it with great respect, but believe that it was written by human beings and, thus is often contradictory in its tenets.
The topic we learned that was similar to this was the discovery of ancient copies of bibles. There has been over twenty four thousand copies of bibles found by the archeological digs, and these facts support our reliability for the historical accuracy of the bible. The copies of the bible were found in forms of papyrus, stone carvings, and etc. This discovery supported not only the historical reliability, but the accuracy of the bible itself. There was more than twenty four thousand copies found, but the errors found all together was under one percent. I thought this was a pretty good evidence to use in apologetics because there was many authors and scribes writing the bible, but what they wrote was all the same thing. There can`t be a coincidence where everyone made up something random, and it all turned out to be the same idea.
The Hebrew Bible, better known as the Old Testament, is a collection of tomes that form part of the Biblical canon. Many scholars around the world do not think that a single author wrote the books contained in the Hebrew Bible, but rather that it represents centuries of stories frequently compiled after the events they describe . The stories were created with visions for the future, in order to allow audiences insight into communities and beliefs that were common thought during their era. The stories responded to the issues and problems of their time, but also addressed contemporary climates. While the stories themselves may not be true, they convey truth without needing literal readings. For example, the creation stories in Genesis, portray God as creating the universe, and while this is considered as not ‘literally true’; the stories communicate theological truths about mankind’s relationship with God through the eyes of Hebrew writers .
To begin, before a person can debate the validity of anything, they must first understand the topic they are debating. So is the case here. A person must first understand the Bible and its origins before they can try and prove or disprove it. The Bible itself is composed of 66 books divided int...
correspond to the stories we learn in religion class. In fact, many critics believe the
From the Webster’s dictionary the real meaning of the word myth is, “a story or legend” that was created as oral traditions that were told from generation to generation. Often as individuals told the stories, they were changed slightly in context or meaning. One cannot be certain, however, that historically based myths are not historically correct. Exaggeration due to personal vendetta was often the cause for discrepancies of factual or not factual information included in dialect from a mythical standpoint. An instance where this fact was the case is seen in the Old Testament. Even, the Old Testament can be looked upon as being mythical. From a religious perception, the Old Testament may be viewed as the history of Judaism and believed to be completely factual and true, but from a mythical standpoint that selection may be fictitious in context. Mythology suggests that due to the fact that events w...
The birth narrative of Matthew begins with a long genealogy of Jesus, which basically shows how Jesus is son of Abraham who is the father of the nation of Israel, and David the King of the Jews. This may not seem important but this genealogy shows how Jesus is connected to the Davidic line. Then we have Mary, who just found out she was pregnant and Joseph decides it is best to divorce her because he wanted to break his union with someone who is pregnant, by someone else. But behold the angel comes down and reassures Joseph that Mary was pregnant by the Holy Spirit and that he should take her back into his house. The angel also said to name the child Emmanuel. When Jesus was born in Bethlehem, and King Herod heard of this new newborn king of the Jews and he ordered that all boys under the age of 2 be killed. The magi gave Jesus the gifts and left. In a dream, the angel of the lord told Joseph to take the child and go to Egypt and hide, Herod then died, and Jesus was safe.
The article focused on the question “How well do children fare in remarried families” (Anderson & Greene, 2013, p. 120). Most of the studies compared children in stepfamilies to children living with first-marriage parents. A lot of the research using that approach is criticized for two reasons. This approach pretty much states that first-marriage families are the ideal, perfect family. That idea is not necessarily true. The second reason is because comparing first-marriage families to stepfamilies is not appropriate. This is because children in stepfamilies experience effects on themselves from their parents’ divorce and remarriage. First-marriage family children do not experience these changes. Researchers state that children can be categorized into four groups which include “married, two biological parents; unmarried single mother; married stepparent; unmarried cohabitating” (Anderson & Greene, 2013, p. 120). Studies proved that children living in married-stepfather families were worse off academically than children first-marriage parents. The study also stated that children whom belonged to married-stepparent families were better off academically than unmarried cohabitating stepparents. The type of studies that should be conducted to answer the overall question of children being affected negatively by stepfamilies should study children before and after a remarriage. This type of study is very rare though. Studies proved that children in stepfamilies had no effect on academics, such as reading and math. Research that is conducted on families has three main components: “sampling, measurement, and design” (Anderson & Greene, 2013, p. 121). The two types of studies that are conducted are representative surveys and longitudinal s...
In common usage, myth means a story that is the figment of someone (or some group's) imagination and that communicates a message that is only vaguely reliable at best. There is no shortage of commentators who look at the early parts of the Book of Genesis (and indeed many other parts of the Bible) in this way. Such people are often intent on taking the Bible apart and showing how it is not to be trusted. It is most unlikely that this was what your pastor had in mind and it is probable that he did not express himself adequately. However, I can tell you that the biblical texts in question are not "just a myth" or "all just someone's imagination." At the other end of the spectrum from the Bible-as-myth school of thought is the Bible-as-literal way of thinking. This is found among fundamentalists. In the case of the early chapters of Genesis, the approach here is called "creationism." Fundamentalist and literalist school of thought hold that everything in the Bible is strict history and is to be taken exactly as it appears -- like a newspaper account. Creationists hold that God created the world in six days as we know them and that all creation unfolded just as it appears in the biblical texts. Thus they would rule out the notion of evolution or the understanding that the six days of creation may have been
The contents of the Bible have dealt with controversy in regards to its inerrancy since publication, and will surely continue to. Historians progress to learn more about biblical stories in order to provide evidence for the reliability of information. Many believers today understand that not everything in the Bible has been factually proven. An outstanding topic many scholars pay attention to lies within the four gospels. The three synoptic gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, replay essentially the same story with minor inconsistencies, while John portrays Jesus in an entirely different way. The differences in each gospel are due to how each gospel entertains different portrayals of the life and understanding of Jesus himself, in order to persuade
The historical reliability of the Bible is the first matter that needs to be discussed. There are three criteria that the military historian C. Sanders lists as principles for documentary historical proof: the bibliographical test, internal evidence test, and the external evidence test (McDowell 43). The bibliographical test is the examination of text from the documents that have reached us. The reliability of the copies of the New Testament is tested by the number of manuscripts (MSS) and the time intervals between the time in which the piece of literature was written and our earliest copy. There are more than 5,300 Greek manuscripts of the New Testament and 10,000 Latin vulgate manuscripts, not to mention the other various translations.
More specifically, the Bible can't be trusted because of this fact alone. As Christians, we believe that God wrote the Bible though men, they did not write it on their own. That assertion aside, to make a claim that the Bible can't be trusted because it was written by man would mean that we could not trust anything that was ever written. You also have pointed out to me that man is prone to make errors and these errors are proof that the Bible is fallible. While it is true that people make errors, it is not true that people always make errors.