Lord God and loving Father, we are mindful that we live in a world that is hostile to truth, any truth, and especially Christian truth. But this is not unique to our generation. It has happened many times before. And your people have risen to the occasion and your people have proclaimed your gospel. We ask, Father, that we too would rise to the occasion and that we too would be faithful to proclaim your gospel. That we would be faithful to take those opportunities that come to us to challenge others who make false statements about your gospel. So guide our study time, our discussion time, our growing time, we ask in Jesus' name. Amen. There you go. Have some handouts. A couple of notes for the tape recorder and for the folks who are listening to this. There are printed handouts available at the church office. And if you are listening to this, you're welcome to come and get notes or see me on Sunday morning. I'll be glad to provide you with a set of handouts for the class. Very quickly, before we start discussing specific statements tonight, I want to remind you who, or I want to ask you, who is our target? Who can tell me? Who is our target? I've been saying it for three weeks and nobody remembers. Oh, you okay? Anybody? Not the smart cultist, not the Christian, but the person who might be able to engage Yes. We're not out to do battle with the cultists. There's a time for that and there's training for that. that is good in itself, but is not the point of this class. Not another true believer who has a difference of opinion, a different understanding of a passage of scripture than we do. There's time to debate theology, but that's not the point. Our target is of our the target of our challenge is those individuals who by the Statements they make and or the manner in which they make those statements present themselves to be an authority on the Bible Christianity Jesus Christ the gospel message and these are the people that we want to challenge and Very quickly again, apologetics and polemics deal with confronting false information. Evangelism deals with presenting the true information. So starting in your tonight, We're gonna start dealing with, there's 23 statements that is in your handout. Nine of these deal with scripture. And many of the encounters that you, many of the people that you encounter will, at one point or another, attack the validity of scripture. After all, it is the scripture that reveals to us the gospel message. It is the scripture that reveals to us the person and work of Jesus Christ is the scripture on which we come and learn the gospel message, learn of God's provision of salvation for us, and on which we build our Christian life. And probably the easiest thing to do is look at the table of contents that was part of your handout package tonight. And on the second page, statements. And here are a bunch of the statements we're going to deal with tonight. The Bible is just mythology. The Bible is only a book of faith, not facts. The Bible is unreliable. The Bible stories we read today are not what really happened. The Bible was written so that it would look like Jesus fulfilled prophecy. No one knows what was originally written. There are errors in the Bible. The Bible's full of contradictions. Science has proven that the Bible is a myth. Yes, those are all statements and we're going to deal with them in one sense collectively, but we will also deal with different aspects of it. When someone makes a statement and we challenge them, we do not want to say, well, now that's your stupid. Hey idiot, where'd you get that? That's not going to get your conversation off to a good start. It's not going to, probably not going to lead to a good opportunity of sharing the gospel message. That's why, as you read through these, the first two statements are the same all the way through to get this into your mind. Wow, how do you know that? Would you get that information and then? We want but the thing we want to be sensitive to is what? part of of The gospel the scripture or whatever is being attacked and then and in as much as possible Make a statement about that And our issue, again, is not, as I said before, our issue is not to memorize a bunch of, if they say this, then we say this. We want to see, what is the issue that is being addressed? And what is the foundational issue that is being addressed? And then, how do we respond? And I have a book that's I would recommend if you're interested in reading this something dealing with a worldview and Various world religions. It's the name of the book is So what's the difference? Authored by Fritz Redenauer Rid e n o u r published by Regal Press And Regal is a subsidiary of another publisher and I can't remember but Regal will get you there. But the whole purpose of this exercise is to build up our understanding of the true statements of scripture and not to memorize all the bad ones. Remember last week I made the illustration that treasury agents spend hours and hours and hours and hours studying minute detail of the real thing. And then when they encounter the false, they know it. And in fact, last Sunday afternoon, Fred Harris was telling me about a friend a number of years ago who had been a bank teller for many years. And this lady could take a stack of bills and start sorting them into ones, fives, tens, twenties, and so forth. And he was watching her one day, and as she was Sorting out and talking and not even looking at the stack and she takes one and throws it to the side She says that one's counterfeit and kept going Just by the feel she knew it was counterfeit In In the book here Fritz says can you articulate your worldview of? And he says, as this book presents the difference between Christianity and other worldviews, the goal is to sharpen your perspective on your own biblical worldview, not to become centered on their worldview, but what is yours, and can you articulate it? And why is it important? Two statements he makes that I find to be very true. The claim that God clearly communicates and reveals himself to us is precisely what rubs so many people the wrong way. That's on page 11. And then On page 23, he says, to claim there are absolute truths about right and wrong is viewed as being intolerant, bigoted, or judgmental, the three great sins of our postmodern secular culture. Yes, indeed. And one of them, the last statement that we'll deal with is Christians are so intolerant so judgmental Well, so are they they just don't recognize it. But anyway Let's look at at this Statement the Bible is just mythology and it may come out in several different ways The Jesus story is just another fairy tale just like Santa Claus the tooth fairy and the Easter Bunny. I It may come out in oh That's just a bunch of old wives tales and on and on and on So what what do you think is the issue that's being addressed here? What are they really trying to say? I trying to disprove it or trying to deny it. Yeah, disprove it, to deny it. Why would they want to deny scripture? Because it's the foundation of our gospel message. Yeah. So here's one suggested question. Then how do you explain all the verifiable names of people and places and all the specific dates given in the Bible if it's just mythology? And by the way, when you're responding to someone You want to use whatever word they use. If they say mythology, you say mythology. If they're talking about age of how long ago something happened, if that happened, man, that happened millions of years ago. Well, how do you know that happened millions of years ago? Don't say, how do you know that happened last week or thousands of years ago? Whatever word or phraseology they use, use that back to them. So are you an expert on mythology and fairy tales? Well, everybody just knows it's mythology. Well, you still haven't answered my question. How do you explain names and dates and specific events that are verifiable history if it's just mythology? And here's some facts. And we're not going to go into all of them in detail for every one. But mythology does not use historical names and dates. History uses verifiable names and dates. It is not far ago and long away. Oh, missed that one up again. Long ago and far away. It never, never land. No What is it in the year of King Uzziah died 740 BC Established date in secular history In the 15th year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar dot dot dot dot dot dot And here's a quote from Josh McDonald in the book, New Evidence That Demands a Verdict. McDowell, thank you. Bibliotists, people who study ancient documents for the purpose of determining their authenticity and or authorship using the same methods that are used to test all ancient documents, religious and secular. have determined the biblical record to be historically authentic, accurate, and reliable. So no, the Bible is not mythology. It is a historical record of God redeeming mankind from sin and eternal hell. The gospel message is true. And they need to hear it. And they probably don't want to hear it. Ah, the Bible's only a book of faith, not facts. Okay, here again. Well then, how do you explain all the names and verifiable names and dates and events and so forth if they're not facts? Again, an ignorance or denial of the character of faith and of the historical validity of scripture in the gospel message is what's being attacked. Over the years, there's been a lot, a lot of accusations made against the historical and archaeological accuracy of scripture, but I am not aware of any proof that anyone who has demonstrated in context historically an inaccurate statement of scripture. On the contrary, the more and more discoveries that archaeologists and historians and others make, they continue to find evidence that collaborates statements of scripture, historical and archaeological statements of scripture. I know that there's a lot of people who will just, I don't care what the facts are. Don't confuse me with the facts. My mind's made up. There are people who, well, that's just your side of the story. Well, okay, then show me the foundation for your side of the story other than your opinion. One illustration is the Hittite nation, and you can read that in the notes here. At one point, there was nothing known about the Hittite nation apart from scripture until 1906 and the great discoveries of the Hittite nation. We know a lot about them today. But they weren't known up until that time. One of my favorites is a quote from the British archaeologist Sir William Ramsey, lived 1851 to 1939. And he was regarded by his peers as one of the premier archaeologists of his own time. And in the book St. Paul the Traveler and Roman Citizen, he gives the testimony of being convinced against his own presuppositions of the accuracy and the historical and archaeological details of the Book of Acts. And the testimony is quite interesting to read, where he says, I started with the assumption that it could not be true. And my own research proved it to be true. So it is legitimate for us to say that our Bible is historically and archaeologically factually accurate. of what it records. Does it record every event? No. But as we talked about, read the quote last night or last week, God's given all we need to know. Not necessarily all the minute details we want to know, but he's given us all we need to know. And he's given us historical record that can be verified and collaborated. And the Gospel message is that to receive forgiveness, there must be a response to the Gospel invitation. Any questions or comments up to this point? Okay. Have you ever heard this one before? The Bible is unreliable. It's just myth. It's a book of faith, not fact. You can't use it for anything. Here's another version of it. The Bible is unreliable because it was written many hundreds of years after Jesus lived, or was supposed to have lived. I had a young Marine tell me, it was written thousands of years ago. This was just about the time of Y2K, the turn of the millennium. And I said, OK, where are we in history now? What do you mean? Well, what year is this? Or what year is it going to be? So if the Bible was written, we're only two years past 2,000 years past the life of Christ, how could it be written? How could the Bible, New Testament, be written 3,000 or 4,000 years ago? Well, he didn't know that, but he was sure it couldn't have been written before the world began or something. Interesting conversation. But usually most people are attuned enough to say hundreds not thousands So, how could Jesus quote from a document that was already At a minimum 200 years old When he lived when he quoted from it quoting from the Septuagint and The Old Testament canon was completed around 400 B.C. The Septuagint, around 200 B.C. As Jesus quoted from the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament, how could he quote from it if it wasn't written yet? You're looking puzzled back there. Me? Yeah. No, I'm just frustrated by it. Oh, by it. Yes, okay. Timeline. This frustrates lots of people because it makes them admit to something they don't want to admit to. The Book of Acts ends with the Apostle Paul still alive in Rome. Now, it's believed, historically, secular historians, that the Apostle Paul probably died in 64 AD. So, the Book of Acts was probably completed no later than 62 and some would say as early as 60. But even using the maximum and the crucifixion took place at approximately 30 AD. Now the book of Acts is actually the second half of Luke. So that means That means the Gospel of Luke was written sometime prior to, was finished sometime prior to 64, possibly as early as 50. And there are some linguists who are convinced that the Book of Mark was a foundation for the Book of Luke. Luke tells us he investigated. So, we're talking about, folks, there's not a lot of time lapse in here, historically speaking, for the New Testament to have been written. The New Testament, the Gospel of John and the letters of John being is our understanding probably the very last books written that we have in our canon. And that was prior to, it's believed to be prior to 100 AD. No, the Bible was written concurrent with the events that were happening. The Old Testament, That are well the New Testament when it was written And the Gospels were first distributed around Jerusalem where the Jews and the Romans would have been very very very delighted to have made an issue of What was written? Now I know we have to be careful about making a an assumption from silence But I think in this case, given the glee with which the Romans and Jews would have contradicted the gospel message and the fact that there is total silence in the historical record and the literary record of such an objection speaks volumes to how accurate the gospels were understood by the people who probably heard and Jesus speak probably some may have witnessed the crucifixion themselves and Say, yeah, I was there and unfortunately, it's pretty accurate Okay Any questions comments The Bible stories we read today are not what really happened. Ah, yes. And here's another part of it. Those stories were handed down orally for many hundreds, thousands of years before they were finally compiled and written down. During this time, the actual facts were either changed or embellished or completely lost. Here's an ignorant of two things. One, history, and two, biblical transmission, textual transmission. Ask them, hey, are you an expert on ancient languages? Well, no. Then how do you Do you understand the process of textual transmission? Well, they weren't written down. And in fact, it was very popular for a number of years to claim that none of the Old Testament could have been written before the time of David. And then archaeologists proved them wrong. Well, they were handed down So many years before they got written down. No. We have Egyptian and Babylonian and Syrian documents from the same time period as we have the beginning of our scripture. And it's amazing. They say some of the same things. They record some of the same things. So the scribes of antiquity recorded stuff as it happened. Now, was it passed down orally through some of the masses? Yes. Just like today. Somebody hears something, reads something on the internet, or hears it on TV, and they tell somebody, and they tell somebody, and they tell somebody. But it started out as a written record somewhere, or now a video record. But there was an original document of some form somewhere. And archaeologists have demonstrated that in many ways, some of the ancient civilizations were more advanced than we are today. We may have lots of technology, but we have lost a lot in the way of culture today. We really have. So no the New Testament was being written was written shortly after the events The Old Testament the original Documents were being recorded Contemporary with the events, one of the things that I find so fascinating is the textual evidence that demonstrates that the Pentateuch, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy were written from someone educated in the Egyptian culture rather than the Hebrew culture. Isn't that amazing? Moses spent 40 years being being groomed as Pharaoh's successor and then 40 years out in the desert Being a shepherd and 40 years leading the people out of Egypt Round and round and round Mount Sinai Ah, the Bible was just written so it would look like Jesus fulfilled prophecy. Now, Jesus, depending on what textbook you're reading, Jesus fulfilled some 300 Old Testament prophecies just by being born. And so many more and so many more and so many more. And these people say, well, yeah, this fable grew up and so they wrote this record after the fact to make it look like that he really did all these things, but he didn't do it. Well, how do you know that? Were you there? How do you know that? What's the basis of your information? Are you telling me that the New Testament writers were liars? Because every one of them went to a violent death rather than deny the resurrection. Now people will die for something they lie if they think it's the truth. If they're convinced it's the truth, even if it is a lie, they'll give their life for that. But I don't know anybody who will give their life for something that they know is a lie. And the New Testament writers would not recant, would not deny, and met violent deaths. They were not frauds. His message was not a fabrication, but an accurate report of what Jesus said and did, as testified to by the lives and deaths of the apostles and many Christians in Rome. Questions or comments so far? No one knows now what was originally written down. Now, the folks who make this statement Some of them really believe this based on an ignorance or a denial of the history of textual transmission, not just the Bible, but of ancient textual transmission of ancient documents as a whole, but especially of the Bible. And It's built on a false assumption that the Bible was translated from this language to this language, and then from this language to this language, and then from this language to this language. And it had to get messed up in the translation. And the assumption is that we have no Documents are no modern translations of scripture that are transmitted Translated directly from the ancient text Well, how do you know that the English Bible that we have today is is not Translated translated directly from the English Bible or Spanish Bible or or whatever. How do you know? It's not translated directly from the ancient text Well, everybody just knows it's not. No, no. Don't go there. Everybody doesn't know. In fact, there's a lot of people who know that, yes, it was transmitted, translated, and transmitted, translated from the ancient documents going way back. Another version of this is there are errors in the Bible. And the implication is we can't trust it. It's a fabrication. See how all these dovetail together one way or another? Yes, when we're answering their question, or challenging their question, we want to, in as much as possible, speak to the issue that they're saying, the words that they're using. But when all else fails, just say, how do you know that? Where'd you get your information? Start there. Well, there's errors in the Bible. They just had to be errors as it was copied over the years. Again, as I said, there's an ignorance or a denial of the history of textual transmission. But ask them, hey, do you trust the translations of the Egyptian documents, the Babylonian documents, the Syrian documents, the Assyrian documents, and so forth. Do you trust the translations from those documents? Well, sure. They're historical documents. Well, guess what? So is the Bible. And it talks about some of the same stuff talked about in these other ancient documents. So we're forced into a corner. We either have to deny all of ancient documents, all of antiquity, or If we say these are valid, we have to say so's the Bible. It's that simple. Now, do they want to hear that? No. But that's what it is. Because Assyrian, Babylonian, Egyptian, and other ancient texts from the same time periods record many of the same names and events recorded in the Hebrew scriptures. One must either accept the validity and accuracy of all of the Hebrew manuscripts, or one must deny the validity and accuracy of all ancient manuscripts from all origins. And note in there about the Dead Sea Scrolls and how they have, they added to our understanding of textual transmission. I love this one. The Bible's full of contradictions. I'm sorry. I was going to say, there's like, you can read studies and books and stuff of like textual I can't spit the word out. But even like the there's I don't think we have really a lot of writings from the original writings from even like the secular philosophers that people hold so dear and true to there's more trans translations from Old Testament documents that are that we have more of those things in the accuracy of just like you said the Dead Sea Scrolls we found the Dead Sea when they found the Dead Sea Scrolls the way that just kind of solidified so much of the Old Testament writings and New Testament that are accurate. Yes, yes. Thank you for bringing that up. And even when they study down to the details, there's no contradictions of doctrinal things. It's all like a thee and a thou and a... Spelling and whatever, yeah. Spellings and, you know, yeah. Yes, we actually have more textual documentation for the Old Testament than we do for the writings of Socrates and Plato. And they'll say, well, yeah, this is an accurate translation of what Plato said. Well, wait a minute. It's only built on, what is it, 36 documents or something like that? I've forgotten now. Whereas- A small number, a huge, huge amount of numbers Like something like, it wasn't something like from. 10 to like several thousand. I don't know, but Josh McDowell in his book, New Evidence that Demands a Verdict, devotes a whole chapter, well actually a whole division of some hundred and something pages dealing with document text. I said that's a hard book to read. Oh, well, it's a lot easier than the original one. Yes. But the Bible's full of contradictions. Oh, I love this. Simply, show me one. Show me one. Now, I admit that That there if you read some passages Either out of context or just aren't paying attention to the text or Whatever You can come up with say wait a minute here. It says this and here it says this Were they in Egypt 400 or 430 years? Yes 400 years exact to the day, according to the text, 400 years round figure. We do it all the time. And nobody says, no, wait a minute, which is it? Are you going to be there at 2 o'clock, or are you going to be there at 10 minutes till 2 o'clock? Yes. We do that all the time, and nobody has heartburn over it. But because one place in scripture it gives an exact date and another place in scripture in context it is understood to be a rounded figure that get all bananas, go all bananas, go berserk. Did Saul kill himself or did he have the Amalekite? Amalekite? That doesn't sound right. Anyway, this other foreigner finished killing him because Saul wasn't successful on his own. The answer is yes. 1 Kings, the end of 1 Kings records Saul taking his life. The beginning of 2 Samuel records the young man claiming to have have killed Saul. Why would he do that? Well, 2 Samuel 4, 10, David said that he came expecting a reward. I gave him a reward, but not what he was looking for. How dare you raise your hand against God's anointed? Many, many others like that. And that there are very legitimate explanations for them. And we do the same thing in English today, and nobody gets upset. But, oh, it's in the Bible, so it must be a contradiction. No. The science has proven that the Bible's a myth. Science has proven that the Earth is millions, billions of years old. Science has proven that the creation story's a myth. Again, we want to use the same words that they use. How do you know that? Where'd you get your information? Are you aware that there's a lot of Earth scientists who are not Christians, some of them atheists, but they do not accept what they call an old earth. No, the earth is not billions and trillions and zillions of years old. We can only go back so far legitimately. and they hold their position based on true science, scientific research and not religious convictions. One of the things I've talked about in the past is people have made a philosophical and a religious commitment to some form of of evolution or some other theory of the beginning of the earth simply because they realize, they're honest enough with themselves to admit that if they accept the biblical record of the creation, they have to accept the biblical record of the crucifixion and resurrection. And they're not willing to do that. Here again, we come to the issue of the distinction between raw evidence and interpretation of evidence. And yes, I'm aware that there are people, godly people I'm going to share heaven with, who have trouble accepting Genesis 1 through 11, especially 1 through 3, as being a detailed statement instead of a description. Well, a statement that's made a lot. Science tells us how it happened. The Bible tells us who made it happen or who did it. The science tells us how God did it. No. Theistic evolution is a slap in the face at both evolution and creationism. You can't go down the middle of the road, folks. Theistic evolution is a contradiction in terms. Hearing a note in your in your handout remember the supposed conflict between the Bible and true science centers upon the interpretation of the historical and our scientific evidence Bone rock whatever and not the raw data itself Okay, I I was anticipating that we could have more interaction, then I realized how much interaction can you have when we're dealing with issues here, trying to fill in the blanks. But any questions or comments that you want to deal with or want me to deal with? I have one. Yes, ma'am. If someone comes up to you and says, well, there's the Mormon business, there's the Jehovah Witnesses, there's the Catholics, there's the, you know, how do you know which one is true? OK, the question is, somebody says, well, here's all these different all these different groups. How do you know which one's the true one? And that is a legitimate question. And that's one of the problems that we have in in trying to preach the gospel is, OK, whose gospel are you? Are you totent today? They don't usually say it quite that way, but that's the implication. And you simply have to come back to the issue of it's not the denomination that's the issue. It's the validity of the gospel message that's the issue. Well, they'll say their gospel message is this and their gospel message is this. And you say, yeah, but what's the Bible's gospel message? And remember last week we talked about the gospel message in five sentences. Christ died for our sins according to the Scripture. He was buried. He was raised on the third day according to Scripture. He was seen alive. Go check it out. That's the basic Gospel message. And you keep bringing them back to that. And the issue usually is they'll hide behind any fence they can to keep from admitting the need for a personal relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. I find that sometimes you have to define words that you use and what they mean. So when you say the same words, you are correct yes in the statements made that that sometimes we have to ask for definitions and and we will we will talk about that in a couple of a couple of pages over but not tonight, but next week. Give me your definition of this. Give me your definition of this. Give me your definition of this. They're experts at using our words with their definitions. And I haven't even found that throughout the years inside the church. I have to do that. Yeah, even sometimes within the same congregation. Yeah, it's kind of like that commercial on TV. Do you give frog protection? Yes, we give frog protection. Frog protection? Fraud protection? I don't think we're on the same page. Of course we're on the same page, yes. And no, your hop-toed frog is not fraud, somebody running off with your credit card. Yes. So yes, definitions are very much a part of it. But ultimately, to bring him back to the basis of the Gospel, Jesus Christ died for our sins according to the Scripture. He was buried. He rose again according to scripture. It wasn't something that just, oh, wow, isn't this amazing? No, it had been talked about. Isaiah writes, Isaiah 6 that we quote so often or reference so often was written 700 years before Advent. 700 years. So it should not have been a surprise. Next week we will start dealing with the resurrection. The resurrection is a myth. Jesus never died on the cross. Jesus had a spiritual resurrection. Oh, that's a fun one. Spiritual resurrection is an oxymoron. Contradiction in terms. No, He wasn't resurrected. He was reincarnated. And He never claimed to be God. So that's some of what we'll deal with next week. And you're welcome to take your notes home and read ahead for next week. And I see our time is up. Lord God, again we ask Give us hearing ears to hear and understanding minds to comprehend what people say to us and in our presence that are at odds with the truth of your Gospel. Please enable us to speak with boldness and yet with gentleness, to speak in a manner that will not be confrontational, even though we are confronting. Enable us to be that spokesman for you, to gain that entrance for the Gospel message, to gain that entrance for the ministry of your Spirit. Again, we are very aware that no matter how versed we are in our argument and counterpoint, that apart from the minister of your spirit, we are only involved in an academic exercise. But may we be prepared for those encounters, and may we be bold when we come to those encounters, we ask. Amen.