We have already seen in this course that it is wisest to get our doctrine from the Bible. But why the Bible when there are many other books to choose from, such as the Koran or the Bhagavad-Gita? Let us consider again why doctrine should be studied at all. It is important to know how the world really does operate and how we can best work within its constraints so as to be successful in what we do, both now and in eternity. We want to get doctrine from the source that has the right answers.

Some of the evidence we have that the Bible is a reliable book is as follows:

1) When the Bible describes past events, often in great detail, the details are consistent with all that is known today from archaeology about the period and place described. Titles of rulers, social customs (Genesis 23 - The Hittites), political structures of nations and regions (Daniel 4 - Belshazzar), and geographical boundaries are all verified by a wealth of extra-Biblical historical and archaeological data. Thus the Bible is at least historically reliable.

2) When prophets speaking in the name of the LORD describe events future to their time, often in great detail and far in advance, their predictions come true with one hundred percent accuracy. Such predictions include the overthrow of some cities and the prosperity of other cities (Tyre and Sidon, Thebes and Memphis); the flow of world power on an international level (Babylon to Persia to Greece to Rome, and finally to a future tyrannical one-world government); political and religious events that we can see occurring today (1 Timothy 4:1-6, Revelation 17 and 18); not to mention the details of the life, ministry, death, and resurrection of the Messiah who God promised He would send to the earth to redeem Israel.

3) When in the course of describing the nature of the world, the prophets often express a clear understanding of scientific details which were simply impossible to know of with the technology available in the prophets' day (Genesis 15:5 - number of stars). We are aware of these details today because we have finally developed the technology to examine such phenomena.

4) Wisdom on how to live healthy lives following God's Laws: health laws, laws dealing with the attitudes of the heart and relating to others.

More of the specifics of these evidences will be examined later in the course in a special class about Christian Evidences. Since it is on the basis of solid evidence that the Bible can be shown to be completely reliable in all areas where we can test it, the Bible's testimony to itself will be interesting to study.

A. THE INITIATIVE FOR WRITING THE BIBLE COMES FROM GOD, NOT MAN.

Revelation 1:11 - The Lord tells John to write in a book the vision that is to be shown to him.

Revelation 10:4 - Here John is told not to record what he has heard.

Exodus 17:14, 34:27, Jeremiah 30:2, Habbakuk 2:2 - Here are other places where the prophets are told by God to record what He has shown or told them. As judged by whose initiative caused it to be written, the Bible is God's book, not any man's.

B. THE BIBLE IS DIVINELY INSPIRED.

"All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work."

2 Timothy 3:16-17

When many people hear the word "inspired" they think of artistic inspiration. A painter sees a beautiful sunset, and is so moved by its beauty that he feels constrained to reflect his experience of it in a painting. He draws from his stimulated, but otherwise unaided, creative faculties to make the painting. He may misrepresent some of the details of the sunset as it actually was. However, the significance of the painting is not in its accuracy, but rather in the experience that it instills in its admirers. They too may share in what the painter enjoyed first-hand.

Is this what "inspired by God" means? Did some men have experiences of God which so excited them that they described it as best they could for the benefit of others? They may have made errors in their descriptions, but their value comes from the experience that these descriptions are able to impart to the reader. Let us examine what the Scriptures themselves say about the way in which God has interacted with the prophets and apostles as they wrote the Bible.

1. General.

2 Peter 1:20-21 - The Greek word that is usually translated "interpretation" here is better translated "origination." No prophecy of Scripture then, is of private origination, but men moved (literally "borne along") by the Holy Spirit spoke from God. The messages in the Bible are not ultimately the product of men's minds, but the Holy Spirit so worked in those men that what they wrote was from God.

PROBLEM:

Some would use 2 Peter 1:20-21 to try to show that Christians should not attempt to study the Bible for themselves, since no prophecy of Scripture is of private interpretation. These people would then teach that only the "inspired" interpretation, which the head of their church gives, is reliable. Such an understanding of this verse is not correct for several reasons. First of all, it has already been shown that this passage addresses itself to the origin of Scripture, not to the method of studying it. Secondly, the idea that earnest people are not to study the Scriptures for themselves is contrary to clear Bible passages:

Remember in Acts 17:10-11 that the Bereans are praised for being noble-minded in that they searched the Scriptures to see whether the things Paul was teaching them were really true.

Also remember in Revelation 2:2 that the Ephesian church is praised by Christ because they had tried those who said they were apostles (and thus their teaching would be inspired), but really were not, and had found them to be liars.

So it can be seen that 2 Peter 1:20-21 does not teach that individuals cannot study the Bible for themselves; rather it teaches that individuals did not write the Bible by themselves, but that its author is ultimately God.

2. First Testament.

The Bible teaches more about itself than that the messages in it come ultimately from God: the very words used by the prophets were those of God.

Zechariah 7:12 - When the people of Israel would not listen to the prophets, they hardened themselves against, "the words which the Lord of hosts had sent by His Spirit through the former prophets." This implies that the Holy Spirit so worked in the prophets that even the very words that they used were ultimately those of God Himself.

3. New Testament.

This definition of inspiration applies to the New Testament writings of the apostles as much as it does to the First Testament prophetic writings.

John 14:26 - Jesus promises His apostles that the Holy Spirit will teach them all things and that they will remember all of His commands and teachings. The apostles are given the promise of direct revelation from God and are authorized by Jesus to be His authoritative witnesses and teachers.

John 16:13-15 - Again we see that Jesus promised His apostles that they would receive revelation from God through the Holy Spirit. Jesus authorizes them as his agents for receiving His further teachings.

Note however, that in the context of these verses Jesus is speaking only to the 11 disciples; this is not a promise that Christians throughout all time can expect to receive direct special revelation.

The apostles themselves also realized that when they wrote Scripture, it was with the full authority of the Lord.

Some examples:

2 Peter 3:1-2 - Peter says he writes to them so that they will remember the words of the prophets and "the commands of the Lord and Savior by the apostles." What the apostles taught were the commands of the Lord.

1 Corinthians 14:37-38 - Paul asserts here that what he wrote to the Corinthians was "the Lord's command." A person who was not willing to acknowledge this fact was not to be recognized as spiritual.

2 Peter 3:14-17 - Peter mentions certain untaught and unstable men who distort Paul's writings "as they do also the rest of the Scriptures." Peter recognized that what Paul wrote was Scripture, the author of which was ultimately God (2 Peter 1:20-21). He comments further that these men distort Scripture "to their own destruction." As verse 17 warns us, we do not want to fall into this same error. Rather we want to rightly acknowledge the apostolic writings as Scripture.

C. THE SCRIPTURES HAD NO ERROR IN THE ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPTS.

Our present Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek manuscripts (from which our English Bible is a translation) are not the original manuscripts penned by the prophets and apostles themselves, but are copies of those original manuscripts. In the course of being copied many times, scribal errors have crept into the manuscripts we have available today. When all of the manuscripts are compared, each family (a group of manuscripts common to a given region and circulated under one cover) of NT manuscripts teaches the same doctrines. It is important to remember that no major Christian doctrine is dependent upon a questionable passage or a variant reading. By carefully comparing manuscript with manuscript and Scripture with Scripture, we can confidently learn God's truth and proclaim it as such.

John 10:35 - In defending Himself against a charge of blasphemy, Jesus appealed to the First Testament Scriptures. Jesus then testified to the inerrancy of the Scriptures in general by saying that Scripture cannot be broken.

John 17:17 - Again Jesus testified to the complete truthfulness of Scripture when He said in His prayer to the Father, "Thy word is truth."

Proverbs 22:19-21 - The excellent things of counsels and knowledge in the Scriptures have been written to us so that we might know the certainty of the words of truth.

A SUBTLE, BUT SERIOUS, ERROR:

Today people are attacking the inerrancy of the Bible in places where there are no textual problems, and even many who like to call themselves "evangelicals" are in this camp. For example, Fuller Seminary teaches a theory that the Bible's teachings are true, but that not all of its facts are true. As far as Christian faith and living go, the Bible teaches no error. But in the areas of science, history, and geography, the "facts" of the Bible may contain error. This distinction between matters of faith and matters of fact is an artificial one: it is not reflected in Scripture itself.

This is what the LORD says: "Only if the heavens above can be measured and the foundations of the earth below be searched out will I reject all of the descendants of Israel because of all they have done," declares the LORD.

Jeremiah 31:37

Both of the facts stated above, that the heavens cannot be measured, and that the foundations of the earth cannot be searched out below, are true. As light travels through space, it is bent slightly by the mass in the universe, so that instead of infinitely traveling on in a single direction, it will eventually be bent back on itself, forming a huge ring. Put into more graphic terms, if a large enough telescope were built to collect the light coming in from that large a distance, the astronomer would see the back of his head.

Similarly, the center of the earth (its foundation) cannot be physically searched out. The heat and pressure in the center of the earth are so great that even diamond is easily liquefied there. Man may be able to get to the moon, but he will never be able to bodily tour the center of the earth.

The faith which the Israelites can have in the LORD's steadfastness is dependent on the truth of these scientific statements. The distinction between faith and fact is not found here; rather, the Lord presents testable facts as a basis for faith.

D. THE SCRIPTURES ARE NOT INTENDED TO BE EXHAUSTIVE.

Although all that is found in the Bible is fact, not all facts are found in the Bible. For instance, Ohm's law and a recipe for Hungarian Goulash are nowhere to be found in the Bible. Scriptural revelation is limited: God did not write the Bible to satisfy our curiosity, but to communicate to us facts about this life and the next which are not obvious from observing the world around us.

John 20:30 - Here it is explicitly stated that Jesus performed signs which are not recorded for us in John's account of Jesus' ministry. To at least this extent, the Bible teaches itself to be limited: not

in its accuracy, but in its scope.

John 21:25 - A complete revelation would be too large for even the world to contain. We would not be able to store a complete revelation, much less be able to carry it around under our arm.

E. THE SCRIPTURES ARE SUFFICIENT.

Remember 2 Timothy 3:16-17, which teaches that the Bible has all that any Christian man or woman needs to be complete and equipped for every good work. The Bible does not have what we desire; it has what we need. We should be content with what has been provided for us, considering how wonderful it is that we should be equipped at all.

No special blessings, nor supernatural powers, nor miraculous interventions are needed in a Christian's life in order to have it be full and successful for the Lord. This verse teaches that the Scriptures were given by inspiration of God with the expressed purpose that they should make the man of God thoroughly furnished unto all good works.

F. THE SCRIPTURES ARE HARMONIOUS.

Since God is the author of all Scripture, then Scripture should be treated as a harmonious book, each part agreeing with and complementing the rest of Scripture. The best way to understand Scripture is to let Scripture act as its own commentary, interpreting itself. When a difficult passage is read which has more than one possible meaning when taken by itself, its interpretation should be constrained by the clearer teachings found in the rest of the Bible.

In order to use this sound principle in serious Bible study, one would have to know where to look in the Bible in order to find passages which help to interpret the passage in question. An excellent way to get this knowledge is to read through the whole Bible regularly. Since the Bible is such a large book, rapid reading is essential in order to cover all of the Scriptures often enough to keep them in mind. A rapid reading technique is especially good for getting verses in their literary context, and for capturing the flow of a book or story or argument. Getting a contextual view of verses is ESSENTIAL for one to gain a proper understanding of them. An ignoring or stretching of context always seems to lead to a disaster in misunderstanding the Bible.

A warm-hearted, earnest student of the Bible (hopefully all Christians) should read for a long enough time each day to facilitate finishing the Bible quickly and to facilitate heart-molding. At least half an hour a day has been suggested as a good length of time for these purposes. Since God has given us the Bible, it is foolish to not want to read and study it as much as we can.

G. THE SCRIPTURES ARE THE SOURCE OF THE KNOWLEDGE THAT IMPARTS ETERNAL LIFE.

John 20:31 - John states the purpose for writing his gospel account: so that men might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and thus have eternal life in His name.

2 Timothy 3:15 - The Scriptures are plainly said here to impart the knowledge that enables a person to know that salvation is through faith in Jesus Christ.

John 5:38-40 - Jesus berates the Jews who search the Scriptures in order to find eternal life. He berates them not for their search, but for their refusal to come to Him for eternal life, since the Scriptures testify of Him. Again we see the teaching that the Scriptures inform a person that salvation is through Jesus Christ. The Jews' refusal to come to Jesus for eternal life is illustrative of the insufficiency of a mere intellectual assent to the facts in the Bible. Unless knowledge of the Scriptures is coupled with a change of heart to trust in Jesus' atonement for sins, such knowledge is of no value for its possessor before the Lord. (See James 2:19).

H. THE SCRIPTURES ARE AUTHORITATIVE.

The Scriptures speak of themselves as the only authority, the absolute standard against which all other claims to knowledge are measured:

Isaiah 8:20 - Anyone who suggests seeking truth anywhere but in the Bible has no understanding at all.

1 John 5:9 - The witness of God is greater than the witness of men. God's word is to be listened to above men's words: It is the only authority.

If the Bible taught that where a person goes for truth does not matter as long as the person is sincere, then we would have little reason to study the Bible. But the Bible attests itself to be the unique revelation from God to man, worthy to be heard above all other contestants. Such a claim is worth looking into: if it is true, then we have a treasury of real knowledge in the Bible. The possibility of such gain is worth the work it takes to investigate such a claim.

For more indepth study on this subject click Are The Bibles In Our Possession Inspired? Two Studies On The Inspiredness Of The Apographs

I. FULL OF INTERNAL EVIDENCE.

If one were to ask a Hindu why he believes in Hinduism, he would reply that it is philosophically appealing and that his experiences in meditation are so pure and so lovely that they must be true. If one were to ask a Mormon why he believes that Mormonism is true, he would reply that he has prayed to God to ask Him if Mormonism is true and that God has shown him that it is. Both of these people are trusting in their ability to make a qualitative judgment of their experiences to decide about the truth of a religion. As Christians we need not do that. In the Bible there is much evidence that supports its claim to Divine authority. What follows is only a brief selection of some of the shorter evidences. The full range of Christian evidences in the Bible is so large and varied that it is a fascinating area of study to be pursued and enjoyed, probably for the rest of our lives, as it is needed to support our faith and to strengthen our ministry.

Mark 2:1-12 - Jesus heals a man to prove to those present that He has authority to forgive sins. Jesus offered testable evidence (His ability to heal the man) to prove His (currently) untestable claim that He has the power to forgive sin. To genuinely seek for facts to base our faith on is Biblical. The Lord does not upbraid John the Baptist for doubting Him (see Luke 7:19-22), but reminds John of the evidence that He indeed is the Messiah.

But what about the "simple faith of a child?" "Children have a reason for trusting their parents based on their past experience. Nowhere does the Bible call us to have a "blind faith" in God.

1) FULFILLED PROPHECY.

Isaiah 44:6-8, 46:8-10 - Here God calls on the other gods to foretell the future. It is a challenge made in the context of the Lord's assertion that He alone is God. How does the Lord know what will happen in the future? Because He has planned it, and He will surely do it. He is the only One with enough power to bring his announced plans into reality all of the time.

Deuteronomy 13:1-5 - This is one of the tests that the Lord gives to us so that we may check on someone who claims to be a prophet. Here we see that if what a person teaches does not agree with what has been taught previously by God, then that person is not from God, even if he should do great signs, or have foretold an event and it happened to come true.

Deuteronomy 18:20-22 - This is a second test of a prophet. If a person speaks in the name of the Lord and foretells an event that does not come true, then he has not been sent by the Lord. Moreover, the Lord says that he has spoken presumptuously. In other words, he did not make an honest mistake, but knew that he was not speaking authoritatively in the name of the Lord. His presumption to speak in the name of the LORD is a crime worthy of death. A ninety percent accurate record is not good enough: the first time a prophet makes a mistake in his predictions, he is shown to have been speaking presumptuously all along and has not been sent by the Lord.

Seeking a good excuse to kill the true prophets of God, apostate Israel would watch them closely hoping to catch them in some tiny mistake, but the LORD always upheld His true prophets (Jeremiah 20:10-11, 1 Samuel 3:19-20).

Suggested Reading:

Click to read some short papers:Finding Truth in Religion   Prophecy: Fulfilled Prophecy as Miracle   
Messianic Prophecy  The Time of the Messiah

The Wonders of Prophecy, by John Urquhart

Evidence That Demands a Verdict, by Josh McDowell

John W. Montgomery, ed. Evidence for Faith: Deciding the God Question. Probe Books/ Word Publishing, 1991. Evidence from science, prophecy and history.

Robert C. Newman ed. The Evidence of Prophecy, (Hatfield, PA: Interdisciplinary Biblical Research Institute, 1994)

Peter W. Stoner & Robert C. Newman, Science Speaks, 4th ed. (Moody, 1976)

The Prophet Motive. Kenny Barfield (Gospel Advocate Company 1995.)

2) PRESCIENCE.

When prophets would describe the world, occasionally they would make a statement about a subject that falls in the area of a present day science. In the day of the prophet, the technological advances had not been made which would have enabled them to understand many facts which we have discovered recently. These statements are good evidence that these prophets were being informed by the One who created all of the physical realm. Perhaps God put into Scripture hints that would come to be recognized later when our understanding of nature had advanced, thus providing evidence that the Bible is not merely the work of ancient peoples.

a) ASTRONOMY.

Job 38:31 - Job speaks of the Pleiades and Orion as having bands and cords. Of the hundred or so visible constellations, only a few of them are bound together by gravitational forces. In the other constellations, the stars appear to be clustered together in the sky, but there are no physical forces holding them together. Two of the few constellations which are held together by gravitation are the Pleiades and Orion. The Pleiades is a gravitationally bound cluster and Orion is a loosely bound cluster

10 Astronomical Evidences

What are the chances that an intelligent person of the time would get it right?

1. The laws of heaven and earth are fixed. 1:10

-Jeremiah 33:25-26 "This is what the LORD says: 'If I have not established my covenant with day and night and the fixed laws of heaven and earth, then I will reject the descendants of Jacob and David my servant and will not choose one of his sons to rule over the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. For I will restore their fortunes and have compassion on them.'"

2. Earth is hung on nothing. 1:10

-Job 26:7 "He hangs the earth upon nothing."

3. The number of stars & the number of grains of sand on a typical seashore are comparably innumerable. 1:25

-Jeremiah 33:22 "As the host of heaven cannot be numbered, and the sands of the sea cannot be measured, so I will Multiply the descendants of David my servant, and the Levitical priests who minister to me."

-Genesis 22:17 "...I will indeed bless you, and I will multiply your descendants as the stars of heaven and as the sand which is on the seashore..."

4 &5. The earth is round and the heavens are expanding. 1:100

-Job 26:10 "He has described a circle upon the face of the waters at the boundary between light and darkness."

-Isaiah 40:22 "He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth, and its people are like grasshoppers. He stretches out the heavens like a canopy, and spreads them out like a tent to live in."

6 & 7. The dimensions of the universe are unmeasurable (by humans), earth's' core unexplorable. 1:100

-Jeremiah 31:37 "...If the heavens above can be measured, and the foundations of the earth below can be explored, then I will cast off all the descendants of Israel for all that they have done, says the LORD."

8. He made the universe out of invisible material - - now known to be hydrogen, and beyond that, energy. 1:100

-Hebrews 11:3 "By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God's command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible."

9. Visible-to-the-eye stars the Pleiades is a gravitationally bound cluster and Orion is a loosely bound cluster 1:1000

-Job 38:31 "Can you bind the chains of the Pleiades, or loose the cords of Orion?"

10. There is a circle on the surface of oceans at the boundary between light and darkness [the terminator]. 1:10,000

-Job 26:10 "He has described a circle upon the face of the waters at the boundary between light and darkness."

1:10 x 1:10 x 1:25 x1:100 x 1:100 x 1:100 x 1:1000 x 1:10,000 = 2.5 x 1016

THE HEAVENS SPEAK!

-Psalm 19:1 "The heavens are telling the glory of God: and the firmament proclaims his handiwork."

ASTRONOMY IN THE BIBLE

Introduction

Is religion, like music or food, a matter of taste?

Each religion claims to tell us how things really are.

Christianity, more than any other religion, offers much evidence to support claims.

Here we compare Biblical statements in 4 areas of astronomy with those of ancients and modern science

The Size of the Universe

Bible:

Ps 8:3-4: amazing to Psalmist that God cares about man

Jer 31:37: heavens immeasurable

Qur'an:

Sura 2: earth a bed, sky a dome

Sura 22: holds sky from falling down

Sura 34: let a part fall

Ancient Greek Science:

Anaximander, About Nature: sun most distant object,

about 28x size of earth away

Modern Science:

objects apparently 10 billion light years away (1 light year = 6 trillion miles); no end in sight

The Number of Stars

Bible:

Gen 15:5: large number, able to count them?

Jer 33:22, Gen 22:17: uncountable, like sand

Greek Science:

Hipparchus, Ptolemy: anc. catalogues, about 1000 stars

(only about 6000 visible without telescope)

Democritus: speculated an infinite no. of worlds

Modern Science:

100s of billions of stars/galaxy, billions of galaxies Sir James Jeans, The Stars in Their Courses, 137: no. of stars like no. of grains of sand on earth

The Earth's Support

Bible:

Job 26:7: earth hangs on nothing

Hindu Vedas:

earth flat & triangular; 7 stages: honey, sugar, butter, wine, etc.; supported by elephants

Greek mythology:

Atlas holds up the earth

Greek philosophers:

water (Thales)

air (Anaxagoras);

nothing (Anaximander, contra Aristotle)

Modern Science:

support is non-material, balance of gravity & inertia

The Earth's Shape

Bible:

Job 26:10: boundary between light and darkness on earth's surface is a circle

Luke 17:34-36: different times in different places

Greek philosophers:

flat (Hecataios)

pillar-shaped (Anaximander)

round (Pythagoras)

Need very lucky guesses to avoid Biblical evidence

Contrast ancient Jewish attempts to write Scripture (outside-the-Bible):

1 Enoch 72:3-7: sun's chariot, gates, winds

3 Baruch 3:6-8: bore through heaven's dome

Suggested Reading in this area

Campbell, William. The Qur'an and the Bible in the Light of History and Science. Middle East Resources, 1992.

Morton, Jean S. Science in the Bible. Moody, 1980.

Genesis 1 - When the observational statements in Genesis 1 are compared to astrophysical data, there is a multi-faceted fit between the Biblical statements concerning the formation of the earth and the physical data that has been collected concerning the formation of planets.

Suggested Reading in this area:

Genesis One and the Origin of the Earth, by Robert Newman and H. J. Eckelmann

CORRELATION OF GENESIS ONE & SCIENTIFIC THEORY
viewed from an earth bound person

b) HYGIENE AND MEDICINE.

Exodus 15:26, Deut 7:12, 15- Here the Lord promised the Israelites that if they would obey Him by keeping the laws which He had given them, then they will be blessed in whatever they do and none of the diseases which were commonly found in Egypt would bother them. When the Mosaic dietary, health, and medical laws are examined in light of recent medical discoveries, the laws are seen to be centuries their time.

Quarantine. Lev. 13:46. McMillen, p. 21ff; Barfield, ch. 3-5.

Sanitation. Deut. 23:12-13.

Washing after touching unclean things, diseased and dead bodies and separating from the community. Lev. 11ff, Num. 5:2, 19:16-18.

Dietary Laws. Lev 11, Deu. 14.

Eighth-Day Circumcision. Genesis 17, McMillen, p. 92.

Psychological Well-being. Prov. 14:30, Prov. 15:30, Prov. 16:24, Prov. 17:22, Eph. 4:22-32, Philip. 4:4-9. Most of McMillen.

Contrast medical beliefs of surrounding cultures: Sorcery, amulets, "sewage pharmacology."

Ebers Papyrus - "a medical book written in Egypt about 1552 B. C. . . . To embedded splinters they applied worms' blood and asses' dung. Since dung is loaded with tetanus spores, it is little wonder that lockjaw took a heavy toll of splinter cases.", McMillen, p. 19.

Babylonian medical texts have "no modern medical significance at all." (Roderick E. McGrew, "Medicine in Mesopotamia," Encyclopedia of Medical History [1985], p. 186; Barfield p.189)

c) AGRICULTURE.

Fallow fields for curbing crop disease (Lev. 25:1-6; 7th year sabbatical cycle). Cairney, in Evidence for Faith, p. 133f.

Problems in using internal evidence.

a. The Bible carries historical baggage from "traditional wording" associated with translations made in pre-scientific eras.

Firmament => solid sky. Follows the Greek LXX.

Hebrew raqia is better translated as "expanse."

b. Poetic wording was/is misunderstood to have scientific content. For example:

Foundations of the earth cannot be moved (Ps. 93:1, 96:10)

=> geocentric universe.

Talking about justice and the "world order".

The wicked say "I shall not be moved" Ps. 10:6.

"Foundations" are that which support the land masses. Earth cannot be moved from its orbit (foundation).

Translating and understanding a given passage have a subjective element. Use cautiously, evaluate criticism.

Suggested Reading in this area:

Barfield, Kenny. Why the Bible is Number 1: The World's Sacred Writings in the Light of Science. Baker, 1988.

S. I. McMillen, and David E. Stern, None Of These Diseases. 2nd ed. Revell, 1984. science and medicine

3) ARCHAEOLOGY.

When the historical accounts of both Old and New Testaments are compared with the archaeological findings of the same time and place as those Biblical accounts, the fit, down to the fine details, shows the accuracy of the Biblical historical accounts.

Suggested Reading:

The Biblical Narratives of Easter Week: Are They Trustworthy  by Dr. R. C. Newman

The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable? by F. F. Bruce

History and Christianity, by John Montgomery

John W. Montgomery, ed. Evidence for Faith: Deciding the God Question. Probe Books/ Word Publishing, 1991. Evidence from science, prophecy and history.

Evidence That Demands a Verdict (Vol. 1 and 2), by Josh McDowell

Biblical Archaeology, by A. A. MacRae

The Stones and the Scriptures. Edwin Yamauchi

J. CONCLUSION:

We find that there is one book that claims to be the product of Divine authorship which also gives evidence to back up that claim. In trying to decide whether or not the Bible is reliable, this very important objective material is not subject to the whims and flows of emotions and feelings. This evidence is objective support to the Bible's claim that what Scripture teaches does correspond to objective reality in the universe in which we live. This evidence supports the Bible's assertion that as it is studied, learned, taken to heart, and obeyed, great blessings are bestowed from the Lord both in this life and forever.