Christians: Why do we put our faith into a book written by mortal men?

Question

I was raised Christian but have been thinking about the validity of the Bible. Reason why? Just thinking about how we're lied to constantly by the Media/Government etc.

Assuming the same types of systems were in place to some degree back when the Bible was written (there must have been some form of media back then - tablet newspapers or something), how can we really believe everything that's in there. How do we know that things weren't omitted/added for whatever reason? And this King James guy was supposed to be a real crook.

I'm not denouncing God at all and am very spiritual, however, I just don't know if everything in the Bible is the truth and, if it's not, why do we resort to it to justify and condemn every single thing in life.

Your thoughts?
*Please don't attack because I truly am no scholar on the matter. This is just a layman speaking.

First responder-Wasn't that exact verse written by a man, though? I get what it's saying and all, but you do get my point, right?

Answer 1

My thoughts -

If you believe that God can create the entire universe (which I do) from the biggest planet to the smallest insect...

Wouldn't that same all-powerful God be able to orchestrate a handful of people (30-something) to get His story right? The Word of God is not just writings by mortal men. It's God inspired, God breathed. The Bible says "and the Word became Flesh." It's more than just media. It's His-story.

Answer 2

First off I do not think we are to condemn every single thing in life. That would be such a headache. with out knowing particulars. there was a meeting among some Christian leaders a long time ago and the purpose was to decide what books should go together as a testament. They had certain criteria that they felt needed to be met, like the diety of Christ had to be solid in the books. The miracles and the ressurections. Each of the books were considered God inspired. The books that did not make the Bible, the gnostic text are books that for whatever reason was contrary to the criteria.

As for the validity of the new testament that has been looked at in some details in several books. I suggest reading "A Case For Christ" By Lee Strobel

Answer 3

Show me a book NOT written by mortals, and I'll follow it to the letter! (Kidding)

Here's the way I see it. You have to first assume that you believe in God. If you believe in God (let's skip all the Creation arguements) you must believe He is in control of things. Right now as I write It is a beautiful, sunny day. At this moment, the wind is blowing, trees are waving, drawing up moisture and growing. There are millions of bugs flying, crwling and wiggling around, each one of which is a clever system of minute working parts which man cannot duplicate or even maintain or regenerate. My breakfast is digesting without any help from me and my heart and lungs are still functioning. Not just me though... millions of others are still alive as well. The earth is rotating and revolving as we speak. The sun is still burning, the planets spinning, and infinity stretches out before us. Infinity also exists within us and around us. No matter how small an object science finds, there is always something smaller yet. The hydrolic cycle is still intact, we still have an atmosphere with life giving oxygen, rivers run, clouds form, rain falls, life continues EVERYWHERE and ALL AT ONCE! If God is able to control all these things without breaking a sweat, I'm pretty sure he is capable of seeing that the information which He wants us to have is delivered to us the way he wants.

Just faith, when it is all said and done, but logical faith to me.

Answer 4

If one was to read the Bible by himself, he may not understand or accept everything that is written. The Lord said that you need the Spirit to help you understand it. Let God himself guide you through his word-- the living word. The one thing that I do know about the Bible is that if you believe even a small part of it, then you must believe the entire thing. Ask God for his guidance and he will surely show you the way. At least that's what he's doing with me.

Answer 5

Well 2 thoughts:

1. the media don't even claim to be inspired by God, so a question might be whether or not those who wrote the bible truly were or not. If the answer's yes (which I believe it is), than comparisons with the media/gov. won't work.

2. King James didn't do the actual translation work, he had it done and put his name on it. There are plenty of older greek etc. manuscripts that can verify whether or not the KJV was a skewed translation.

Take care.

Answer 6

You don't have "faith" in the book itself you have faith in the message. And no, there were not newspaper services in those days, the closest thing that came to it is enscriptions on walls, for instance the Romans would draw two combatants and give their names or something to show who was fighting.

I trust there was no editing because the oldest New Testament manuscript dates to 90 AD and it is from John's gospel, and that is over 200 years before Constantine rose to power, and since John has always been considered the last one to write his gospel we know that the Christians had 200+ years to soak in all the New Testament writings. There were imposters, for instance in the epistle of Jude (right before Revelation) we read that some people were claiming the Christians were free to do whatever they wanted, but the Christians did not accept these people or these messages, and so if anything was omitted it was things that were considered by false Christians or imposters. The first epistle of John clearly states that he is writing things he has seen and heard for himself. In the gospel of Luke he states he carefully investigated everything he wrote about to make sure it was accurate. So the early Christians were truly concerned about credibility. And I know the Bible did not receive editing because they would have edited the small differences, like one gospel says Jesus was wrapped in red garmets, another says in scarlet robes (although really close to the same color, an editor would have made it one or the other). Also the notice on the sign when he is crucified, one says "King of the Jews" another says "This is Jesus, king of the Jews" and another "This is Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews". An editor would have made this exactly in sync. However this goes to prove that the New Testament was written by different people, and not just written by Constantine or King James.

Hmmm there was one more thing.....

Oh. The writing itself is very different. For instance John is said to be a fishermen, and his writing is very elementary school Greek, it is very easy to translate (the kind of writing you'd expect from a fisherman). However Paul, who was extremely well educated, is consequently extremely difficult to translate and he uses like 10 letter words, and the hardest forms of them, foreign language puns, and so on. You can tell John's gospel was from a rather plain man but Paul's epistles are from the PhD of the day. Frankly I do not think Constantine or any of his pals could write as well as Paul.

If you are really curious, I would suggest you learn Greek. That way you wont have to worry about King James translating it wrong. (I don't like the KJV anyway). It only took me three weeks to be able to translate the entire New Testament by myself, Greek is a very easy language. I thought I would find tons of errors in the English translations, but in truth I found out the Bible was more solid and irrefutable than I could ever have imagined. I don't know of any book more accurate or historical than the Bible.

Answer 7

we believe that the Bible is divinely inspired. this does not mean everything written is word for word historical fact. I am no theologian either, so i cannot be sure.

but did you know this: there are indeed books that have been removed from the Bible. today in the Catholic Bible, there are a set of books called the Apocrypha(i think 7 OT books) that were not included in the protestant Bible when they split from the church. There are two reasons(that i know of): one is because the Jews originally removed them from their Bible after the burning of their temple(when i do not know) and the subsequent split between the Jews and the Christians (they both originally worshiped together as two different sects of Judaism before the burning of the temple as stated above). the other is because of doctrinal conflicts(not bashing any protestants here!!!).

as for condemning everything in life, that is the fallibility of man and his construing it for his purposes and not the Bible itself. LOVE is the greatest commandment (love the Lord your God with all your heart, your soul, and your strength; and love your neighbor as yourself [notice any specifics?])

Answer 8

God tells us that the bible is inspired by God, not men. I always look at the material and I know it is indeed inspired of God because it is good. He does not tell us to murder people and then we'll get 72 virgins in heaven (like muslims). He does not tell us to lie to people to get our way and even small white lies are okay. Everything is good and honest, as a God should be. He tells us things that we can recognize would do us good, help us, lead us down a better path. When we have the holy spirit in us, we can read His word and know that it is inspired of God. When I was young and wanted to question the word, it was because I wanted God to let me have my way. Now that I am older, I can see how much He loves me, and just wants to help me.

Answer 9

more then 60 authors
written over more then 2,000 years
1 message without fail.
How?? It was the word of God released through those people. Not their words but His.

Go to a Christian book store and look at all the different books. Some of them are really good, but how many are scripture? None. God could be talking to people today but all stuff written needs to be compared to scripture. How do we know if something is true? We compare it to scripture. Jesus quoted scripture.

Answer 10

God gave us the Holy Ghost to lead us and teach us all truth.

The Holy Ghost confirms that the Bible is the Word of God.

We may not understand every thing in the Bible, but that does not mean it is not true (Do you understand every thing in a chemistry book? Does that mean that chemistry in not true?)