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EDITOR'S NOTE: This is the second of a series of articles on the Authorship of the Bible. This material was presented at the 7th Annual Western Oklahoma Summer Lectures, conducted by the Northeast church of Christ in Elk City, Okla. in June, 2004. Archeological research provides tangible evidence of the Bible's accuracy in matters of historical, geographical, and societal matters. Nelson Glueck, a renowned Jewish archeologist, has written, "it may be categorically stated that no archeological discovery has ever controverted a biblical reference." Millar Burrows of Yale University says, "Archeology has in many cases refuted the views of modern critics." Gleason Archer plainly stated that the archeological discoveries of the last 100 years have antiquated the so-called "school of higher criticism" of the 19th century. Two things have been especially embarrassing to Bible critics. Bible references are plentiful about the Hittite nation. According to the Bible, the Hittites had to have been powerful, influential, and dominant in the Middle East. However, outside of the Bible there was no knowledge of the Hittites. Critics of the Bible said that surely if the Hittites had been so important a people they would have been noted in some historical record other than the Bible — surely there would have been some evidence of the Hittites somewhere. Some of the critics alleged that the Hittites were "dreamed up" by an unknown Bible writer, just to build up the story of how great Israel was. In other words, the writer falsified the historical account to glamorize the story of Israel. The skeptics finally denied that such a people as the Hittites ever existed. One day, an archeologist was digging. He planted his spade into the remains of the Hittite nation. The skeptics were wrong — again — but the Bible was shown to be correct. Incidentally, Bible critics ridiculed the Bible because it said people could read and write during the days of the patriarchs and up through Moses' time. Abraham, the patriarch of all patriarchs, bought the burial place for his wife, Sarah, from Ephron, the Hittite. When the Hittite nation was unearthed, it was found that they could not only write in their own language, but in the languages of others as well. The second embarrassment to Bible critics is one of the most important archeological finds of modern times — that of the Dead Sea Scrolls by a 15-year-old Bedouin boy. For 1900 years the scrolls had been lost and untouched. They had been carefully sealed somewhere around 68 A.D. Every book of the Old Testament, except Esther, was present when they were found. Since the earliest known manuscripts, before their discovery, dated back to only between 900 and 1,000 A.D., many modern skeptics doubted the reliability of the Old Testament. With the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, it was proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that our Old Testament has been, and is, reliable. Speaking the words God the Father gave Him (John 12:48-49) Jesus said, "Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away" (Matt. 24:35). God's word — the Bible — is indestructible. Pagans have confiscated and burned the Bible. Laws have been passed in many lands making it a crime punishable by death if one is found with a Bible in his possession. This has been true from the days of the Roman empire right on down to the present. One might expect "unbelievers" to behave this way, but history records the fact that the Roman Catholic Church also tried to take the Bible away from the people. The Synod of Toulouse in, 1229 A.D., prohibited the "laity" to possess copies of either the Old Testament or the New Testament. Just five years later, in 1234 A.D., the Synod of Taragonna ordered all versions translated in the languages of the people to be brought to the Bishop to be burned. In 1564, Pope Pius IV passed a ruling that only certain ones should have the opportunity to read a Bible, but anyone caught reading it without permission "shall not receive absolution until he has first delivered up such Bible." Skeptics have denied the Bible. It has been translated into a dead language, banned, burned, chained to Roman Catholic Pulpits, and neglected. Yet it is being produced in greater numbers each year. Bible societies say they cannot print Bibles fast enough to supply the demand. Any other book would have vanished from the face of the earth, but the Bible, God's word, "shall not pass away." Using three different languages (Aramaic, Hebrew, and Greek) about 40 men wrote the 66 books of the Bible over a period of about 1,600 years. They lived in different lands and at different times and came from different backgrounds. Moses was schooled in Egypt and became a religious and political leader. Peter was "an ignorant and unlearned" fisherman. David was a soldier. Luke was a doctor. Nehemiah was a cupbearer. Paul was a Rabbi. Solomon was a king. Matthew was a tax collector. These men and their 32 colleagues wrote on hundreds of controversial matters, yet maintained a perfect unity through their writings. While they dealt with hundreds of matters, all the writers had one main theme to which they contributed — God's Redemption of Man. Batsell Barrett Baxter wrote, "In many instances the writers had no access to the other books of the Bible dealing with events of their own time, yet they wrote in perfect unity, each complementing that which the other had written...The unity of the Scriptures could not have been achieved except that God guided the various writers." |