There is an assumption that many people, including me, have accepted. That assumption is that the Bible is the Word of God. I call it an “assumption” because the Bible itself claims to be so, and the Church for the most part agrees; but is there anything objective that would tell us that this is true? Is the evidence enough?
There are plenty of books out there that claim to be the Word of God, and I don’t believe them. The Book of Mormon reads like someone with a middle school education was trying to copy the style of the King James Old Testament. The stories within it lack proof. The author lacks credibility. The Gospel of Nicodemas is another pretender. It is horribly written. The text is a cut-and-paste story made up of snippets from the actual Bible. It was rejected by the Council of Nicea as being a case of pseudopigrapha. That is the opposite of plagiarism. Some fraud wrote a bad fiction and put the name of a known character from the Gospel of John to gain acceptance of it. It failed. If frauds exist, why not discredit the whole of the Bible?
One might also expect the “Word of God” to be a monologue. The Quran is a monologue and claims to be the Word of God. The Bible has many different literary genres. That is a surprise, but there is no reason to assume that God would communicate with humans via a monologue. Perhaps He is more creative than that.
The claim is that God inspired the specific authors of the books of the Bible to write what they did. For instance, the Gospel of Luke is a research paper of Jesus’ life. It is the word of Luke and those Luke interviewed on one level. The idea is that God moved Luke to do this project, God insured he got it right, and God now uses it to communicate to the reader to inform, create faith, teach, transform, and inspire. The Church endorsed the Gospel of Luke, versus the Gospel of Nicodemas, because it was proven to be written by Luke a known companion of the Apostle Paul and an eye-witness of part of Jesus’ life. Furthermore, it fits together with other books that have faced the same scrutiny and God has clearly used the Gospel of Luke to communicate and move in people’s lives.
The same could be said of the other books of Bible. The books belonging to the Old Testament were recognized, perhaps well after their writing, by the Jewish nation as the inspired work of God. The New Testament collection or canon was officially recognized by the Council of Nicea in 325 AD. Did they get it right? Some were easily verified as authentic. Others took a little more research and inspired some doubt initially. The presence of pseudepigrapha complicated things. You have to admit that muddying the water with fakes was a great strategy concocted by wannabe heretics and ultimately Satan. I trust that God helped the Council get it right because of how the books impact me.
The book of Hebrews states that:
12 For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.
Hebrews 4:12 (ESV)
The claim is that the ultimate author of these words, God, interacts with you through the words of the Bible. I have found that to be true. I can read other books and gather the thoughts of the author, but the author doesn’t directly interact with me. That is not true of the Bible.
The Bible isn’t just stuff I want to be true. There are great, exciting promises, but there are also hard-hitting laws and dire warnings. That said, I would rather know the truth about myself and what happens after death than be surprised by it.
In the end, the meta-narrative of the Bible is this: God created human beings to be with Him for an eternity. He has fought to make this a reality at great cost and often disappointment for Himself. Those whom He can reach will enjoy the benefits of His love, forgiveness, creativity, and self-sacrifice. But far too many will not.
Giving Christ 