However, Christianity is not a blind faith. It is the only religion that can prove itself, and a main source of that proof is the Bible. Although it is becoming less common, there are still people who tell others that they follow Christianity “because it feels right” (or use wording like that). This is unfortunate, since there is a lot of evidence supporting Christianity. The existence of all that evidence is one reason we started this site. We want people to learn about the solid evidence that supports their faith, and have a place that collected that evidence so they can show it to others.
By the way, if you would like some reference materials that are a little more portable than a computer with an Internet connection, a book we recommend is Know Why You Believe by Paul Little. This book is available in larger bookstores and most Christian bookstores. Also, the Tucson Community Church recorded a seminar called “Knowing The Facts Behind The Faith.” It is available on DVD and VHS video (NTSC format). If you are interested in purchasing a copy, you can get one directly from the church that produces them at the Tucson Community Church website. They also handle international orders.
The Proof of Science
There is a great deal of scientific evidence that supports the Bible. Enough that we have a separate page to discuss this proof alone. If you would like to see our science page, click on this sentence.
The Proof of Prophecy
One of the strongest arguments for the accuracy of the Bible is its 100% accuracy in predicting the future. These future predictions are called “prophecies.” The Old Testament was written between approximately 1450 BC and 430 BC. During that time, many predictions of the future were recorded in the Bible by God’s prophets. Of the events that were to have taken place by now, every one happened just the way they predicted it would. No other “sacred writing” has such perfectly accurate predictions of the future.
One Type—The Messianic Prophecies
Of these prophecies, the most striking examples are the predictions about an “anointed one” (“Messiah” in Hebrew) who was to arrive in the future. About 4 BC, a miraculous event occurred—a boy named Jesus was born to a virgin named Mary. You can read His story in the book of Luke. Starting at age 30, Jesus fulfilled more and more of these prophecies written about the Messiah. His fulfillment of these prophecies was very spectacular: Jesus gave sight to the blind, made the lame walk, cured those who had leprosy, gave the deaf hearing, and raised people from the dead! These miracles and others were done many times in front of thousands of witnesses for three years. About 30 AD, Jesus was crucified (a prophecy) and died (a prophecy). Three days later he rose from the dead (another prophecy), after which He was seen by over 500 witnesses. Since these prophecies were written down at least 400 years before they happened, there is no doubt that the Bible’s writers were inspired supernaturally—by God. To examine these prophecies yourself, click on the link below.
aqua ball The Messianic Prophecies
A Second Type—Fulfilled Prophecy Dealing With Nations
There are many prophecies that can be proven through archaeology, especially prophecy dealing with entire nations. Typically, when God declared judgment on a nation, He would send a prophet to announce to the citizens why He was judging them and what He was going to do to them if they continued their evil behavior. On occasion, God would also tell the citizens how He would reward them if they started doing what was right. The book of Jonah records a case where the Assyrians stopped doing what was evil as a result of Jonah’s short prophecy. This is what God wanted, and God did not punish them as a result of their change of heart. However, most often the people would jeer at God’s prophet and continue their bad behavior—later becoming recipients of the exact punishment that God threatened.
Like other prophecy recorded in the Bible, these predictions support the supernatural inspiration of the Bible. The prophecies recorded in the Bible came true in such a detailed way that they could not have been predicted by chance. Further, archaeologists have evidence that these prophecies were written down many years before they were fulfilled, proving that they were not falsified documents claiming to be prophecies that came true. (The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls stopped the majority of that talk.) Although an entire web site could be filled with this information, we will provide one example—the foretelling of the destruction of Edom and its capital city of Petra.
aqua ball Click here for an example of fulfilled prophecy dealing with nations
The Proof of Textual Evidence
Both the Old and New Testaments are strongly supported by manuscript evidence (the evidence of early hand written copies). The famous Dead Sea Scrolls are one example of the Old Testament evidence. These documents came from the “library” of a settlement founded at Qumran before 150 B.C. and abandoned about 68 A.D. Some of the manuscript copies were made during that period, and some were written earlier (third century BC) and brought to the settlement. Ignoring spelling-oriented (orthographic) changes and similar small differences, the Dead Sea Scrolls match the Hebrew text behind today’s Old Testament, in spite of the passage of over 2,000 years (where one would expect errors to creep in).
Over 20,000 known manuscripts document the New Testament text. This makes the New Testament the most reliable document of antiquity (a document written before the printing press). These manuscripts vary in size from a part of a page to an entire Bible (Old and New Testaments). The earliest New Testament manuscripts date from the second century (100-199) AD These manuscript copies were written in different languages by people of different nationalities, cultures, and backgrounds. In spite of all those differences between them, the New Testament texts all agree. (That is, those differences that we do observe between these hand written documents are occasional changes in the spelling of names or isolated cases of missing or changed words. Still, since we have so many copies, it is obvious to anyone but the hardened skeptic can that they all represent the same text.)
Note: Those minor differences that do exist between the Old and New Testament manuscripts are interesting for academic reasons. They are the topic of a future “in depth” Clarifying Christianity page. (It is currently about 10,000 words long and still under construction—stay tuned.)
The Proof of People Living at the Time of Christ
Special proof exists for the New Testament, since Christians were strongly persecuted by both the Jews and the Roman government. If the New Testament writings were false, these two groups would have produced a great deal of evidence to stop the growth of this “sect.” None exists. Further, the New Testament writings (before they were assembled into the “book” we call the New Testament) circulated during the lifetimes of thousands of people who had actually seen Jesus’ miracles and other historic events. No one ever refuted the New Testament writings as “fairy tales.”
The Proof of Historians
Secular history supports the Bible. For example, in The Antiquities of the Jews, book 18, chapter 3, paragraph 3 the famous historian Flavius Josephus writes:
“Now, there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man, for he was a doer of wonderful works—a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews, and many of the Gentiles. He was [the] Christ; and when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him, for he appeared to them alive again the third day, as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him; and the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day.”
In 115 AD, P. Cornelius Tacitus wrote the following passage that refers to Jesus (called “Christus,” which means “The Messiah”) in book 15, chapter 44 of The Annals:
“Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judaea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre and become popular. Accordingly, an arrest was first made of all who pleaded guilty; then, upon their information, an immense multitude was convicted, not so much of the crime of firing the city, as of hatred against mankind. Mockery of every sort was added to their deaths. Covered with the skins of beasts, they were torn by dogs and perished, or were nailed to crosses, or were doomed to the flames and burnt, to serve as a nightly illumination, when daylight had expired.”Atheists and Infidels--can you refute these? These proves the truth of Bible.?
(yawn)...sorry, what did you say?
more like Bibleman the Boring
Better find another place to advertise, huh?
Report Abuse
Atheists and Infidels--can you refute these? These proves the truth of Bible.?Don't believe everything you read.
Report Abuse
you really are a crackpot, aren't you?Atheists and Infidels--can you refute these? These proves the truth of Bible.?
uhh.. I think jesus said pretty clearly that you shouldn't look for evidence that god exists... It looks like christians doubt the existence of god and therefore look for "evidence". Why look for evidence if you already believe? If you're trying to get other people to believe through this "evidence", then I suggest you and every other christian out there get at least a B.S. in paleoanthropology and ancient cultures, and if still persistant, than at least a good argument will be present.
Go preach somewhere else you mindless whore.
There is absolutely no verifiable and valid proof that anything in the bible is more than a fairy tale.
You should get yourself a blog. This is a question and answer forum.
too much to read
http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com
that website debunks everything you just wrote.
go back to the celebrity fit club you freak
a, yea
i got to the point where it said the main proof of god is the bible. the bible is historically been proved to be edited and chapters in the "original" book withheld, BY THE CHURCH. try googling it look at some facts for a change.
dude really... you gatta calm down...
No one's gonna read all that bulls#!t.
blah blah blah
bullshit bullshit bullshit
you know what i think is funny? how you validate your bible with science - "There is a great deal of scientific evidence that supports the Bible."
it's hilarious that you are using something that you are condemning as a basis for your beliefs.
You expect us to actually read that? Delusion runs rife.
After spending a considerable amount of time reading this drival I will cut right to the chase....... Your not carrying a full deck
What's the question ?
blah blah blah.... Did anybody actually read this? is the real question.....Who is stupid enough to read very long rantings?
oooooooh not a question
hey i kno bible man hahahah i used to watch your show @ church,well do watch ya do and im pretty sure this article u wrote is resonable
Loser, hey!!!! Loser, I reported you for this long winded advertisement, Shut up and sit down.
Was this a statement or a question? It looks more like a novel. You have WAY too much time on your hands.
Can we get the Cliff Notes for that question?
If there was even the slightest chance that I'd find a question in here if I read this, then I would do it, really I would. But I know the odds are 0. Copying and pasting entire pages from websites and trying to pass it off as a question has to be a "sin" somehow, right? False witness? Something?
its people like you who give christians a bad name and turn people away
I believe there is far more specific evidence against your case.
http://www.godisimaginary.com
so what the hell is your question? you state that atheists only believe in something they can prove and that one should have faith and then you go on to argue how you can prove Christian beliefs.... hmmm
"Christianity is not a blind faith. It is the only religion that can prove itself"
im sure its not.
meanwhile, i could be wrong since i didnt bother reading your essay long question.
good luck with that
so what your saying in part is in all the translations of the bible from when it was first written to now that not one person has made a mistake when they translated it from one language to another?
How is this possible when the only perfect person to ever live was Jesus?
Proof? No. All you have is faith. All anyone has is faith in anything. Nothing is 100% proven. Not even that we actually exist. Only the faith that after death we will be proven correct. Save your absolutes, you aren't 100% all knowing this is the truth, you only hope it is, you only have a great faith it is. And the only thing wrong with that is when you demean others and think that means they will see your side of the issue. Just be a good, non-judgmental person and things will fall into place.
"Science" is not what you choose it to be. The word has
a real definition that is used by people of multiple religions.
The biggest element of science within the last 100 years
is "repeatability". That is, if something is true, you ought to
be able to create an experiment that demonstrates its truth
or falsehood - and your results should be repeatable. If
you get unexpected results, you have to change your theory
or understand how your experiment is flawed.
That is, science attempts to predict what will happen when
leading events happen. Christianity does the exact opposite -
it excuses the unpredictable by saying it is God's will.
Again, I go back to the theory "You are all part of my dream"
as being far more consistant than Christianity. It doesn't
attempt to predict anything - but then, neither does Christianity.
Christianity is a fine religion for providing spiritual guidance
but it is fundamentally useless for predicting ANYTHING.
Okay, so you just copied a bunch of text from clarifyingchristianity.com, without citing your sources. You also didn't ask a real question -- you are starting an argument for the sake of starting one. It's painfully obvious that you aren't going to change your mind regardless of what answer you receive, because you've already cemented an answer for yourself.
So you are just spamming. If you think you can get more people to support your cause that way, you are sadly mistaken.
No comments:
Post a Comment