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Notwithstanding
The DaVinci Code,
OUR BIBLE IS
The Inspired Word of God!
June 2006
Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code
is such a cunning attack on the Christian faith in several basic
areas that it requires another issue to deal with it. Our last
issue of “The Bible for Our Times” refuted Brown’s
assault on the nature of Jesus, as the Son of God. If you have
not read that May issue, we urge you to do so. This June issue
deals with Brown’s attempt to negate our New Testament
Scriptures as the inspired Word of God.
The Apostles completed the
Divinely inspired New Testament and circulated it among the
churches. After their death, the devil flooded the 2nd
and 3rd
centuries with spurious Scripture to challenge Apostolic
Scripture. But the devil failed. The Apostles’ New Testament
together with the Old Testament completed the inspired Word of
God, the Bible.
Satan’s next strategy was to
destroy the Word of God. From the compilation of the New
Testament until our time, an incredible history of faith and
sacrifice played out. Believers raised by God to preserve the
Bible carried its message of hope and salvation forward through
the centuries.
The Scriptures were banned,
burned or ridiculed by rulers of every age—Roman Emperors,
Popes, monarchs, despotic rulers and communist tyrants of recent
times. Many who dared to read and share the Bible met appalling
deaths. Yet God’s Word could not be crushed. Satan and his
cohorts were no match for dauntless men of God—Apostles,
faithful preachers, translators, reformers, Gospel workers, and
printers dedicated to spreading the “Good News” of this
Indestructible Book.
Our “Nothing is Sacred Era”
But the Devil is relentless.
Thanks to him, we have entered what the philosophers call “The
Post-Modern Age,” which essentially means no moral absolutes.
But it is more than a time of no moral standards. Our day could
be labeled the “nothing is sacred era.”
For example, today’s media
splash every apparent finding that contradicts the Bible across
magazine covers, newspapers, airwaves, and e-waves, but ignores
the numerous findings that support the Bible. The ongoing Jesus
Seminar publicity, headline grabbing statements of “higher
critics,” the Judas manuscript of purported scripture, and “fizz
out” discoveries of science spin out “media sensationalism” that
continues to battle the mounting evidence that the Bible is
indeed the very Word of God.
Satan is especially out to
discredit the New Testament and its message of salvation through
the blood of Christ. The Da Vinci Code seems to be an
effective tool to that end. A week after the movie version of
Brown’s book, 17% of the Canadian public accepted Brown’s theory
that Jesus’ death on the cross was fake; Jesus married Mary
Magdalene and raised a family. Presto, the greatest event in the
universe—Jesus’ death on the cross—is made null and void, and
the resurrection becomes a fraud. Never mind that redemption
through Jesus’ death is the hallmark of the New Testament. Never
mind that the resurrection is the triumphant theme of the New
Testament. This presents no problem for Brown. He creates his
own New Testament.
Fiction, Fiction, Fiction
Why does anyone take these ideas
seriously? Brown’s cunning methodology. Under a heading entitled
“FACT,” Brown claims the concepts in his novel are
accurate. Many scholars have refuted his false concepts.
Brown has a way of making the
novel’s bizarre theories about Jesus and the history of early
Christianity seem credible. After all, his theories are
pontificated by the novel’s two scholars—a British Royal
Historian and a Harvard professor. A reality check is necessary!
These fictitious scholars have no parallels in real life
history. When conjectures are put in the mouths of these
fictitious scholars, an unsuspecting public comes away thinking
that these theories are actually true. But they are not!
Brown has Sir Leigh Teabing, his
Royal Historian, shrewdly observe that the Nag Hammidi texts
represent “the earliest Christian records.” These “unaltered
Gospels,” Teabing claims, tell the real story about Jesus and
early Christianity. The New Testament Gospels, he said, are a
later corrupted version of these events. The problem with
Teabing’s observation is that it is just as fictitious as
Teabing, himself. No scholar claims the Nag Hammidi documents
are “the earliest Christian records.” Every book in the New
Testament is dated earlier. All of the New Testament documents
were written in the 1st century AD. In contrast, the dates of
Nag Hammidi text range from the 2nd to the 3rd century AD.
How did the early Church decide
which books to include in the New Testament and which to reject?
When were these decisions made and by whom? According to Teabing,
“the Bible as we know it today was collated by the Roman Emperor
Constantine the Great” then submitted to and approved by the
Council of Nicea in AD 325. Again the fictitious Royal Historian
is wrong! This council had nothing to do with New Testament
canon.
New Testament Rapidly
Recognized As Divinely Inspired
Contrary to Brown and the
Catholic Church, it did not require centuries for the New
Testament to become canon. The New Testament contains the
teachings of Christ written by his Apostles and their close
associates. The early Church
began at Pentecost in AD 33 when 120 followers of Jesus received
the holy Spirit in the upper room in Jerusalem. All the books of
the New Testament were written in the 1st century. We know from
Scripture that the Apostle Paul immediately circulated copies of
his Epistles as soon as they were written. Colossian 4:15,16.
The Apostle Peter in 2 Pet.
3:15,16 observed that his readers were well acquainted with
“all” of Paul’s Epistles. Peter also mentions “other
scriptures”—evidently referring to the four Gospels and Book of
James. Probably Jude and John’s three Epistles were not yet
written. Of course, the Revelation of John was yet future.
Following Paul and Peter’s precedent, no doubt these later books
were copied and immediately circulated, as soon as written, to
all the churches during the 1st century.
The fact that New Testament
Scripture was being copied and circulated as soon as it was
written is verified by the Apostle Paul in 2 Tim. 3:15-17. “All
scripture given by inspiration of God is profitable…that the man
of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good
works.” Some feel the “scripture” mentioned here only
applied to the Old Testament because the New Testament was not
yet completed.
Verse 15 shows the Old Testament
is included. But in no way can the Old Testament alone make the
Christian perfect. Only through the blood of Christ is the
Christian justified—reckoned perfect. In no way could the Old
Testament thoroughly furnish or sanctify the Christian to every
good work. Only by New Testament scriptures like the four
Gospels and the writings of Apostles Peter and Paul and later
the remainder of the New Testament could Christians be justified
and sanctified. The phrase “all scripture” would make it
incumbent on the Apostles to have copies of all the books of the
New Testament put into circulation as soon as they were written.
Why New Testament Was
Accepted As Inspired?
Each generation of Christians
would inform the next generation of the twenty-seven books of
the inspired New Testament. But there was an additional problem.
As noted, Satan flooded the 2nd and 3rd centuries with pseudo
New Testament books. With so many pseudo books circulating, how
would Christians recognize the valid twenty-seven books of
Scripture?
Anyone hungering for truth and
righteousness would recognize Jesus in the four Gospels as the
“bread of life” that would satisfy their hunger. If any were
feeling after God, divine providence would bring His Word, the
Bible, to their attention. Like the Thessalonians they would
recognize it not as “the word of man” but as “the Word of God.”
2 Thess. 2:3. Like the Thessalonians the “gospel” would come to
them “not in word only, but in power, and in the holy spirit,
and in much assurance.” 1 Thess.1:5. Any who had the wrong heart
condition would be duped by the pseudo scriptures of Satan.
Church History
William F. Albright, the dean of
Biblical archaeologists, affirmed: "There is no longer any solid
basis for dating any book of the New Testament after about A.D.
80.” Even heretics like Valentinus furnished proof that the New
Testament had been written long before AD 150, and had already
attained a place of authority in the Church. His heretical
Gnostic writings (about 130-150) quoted extensively from the New
Testament. (F.F. Bruce, New Testament Documents, p. 19.)
However, the Roman Catholic
Church claims that it was not until the Synod of Hippo in AD 393
and the Synod of Carthage in AD 397 that the Catholic Church
canonized the twenty-seven books of the New Testament. They
assert that no one could know what the Divinely authorized books
of the New Testament were until the Roman Catholic Church as
God’s spokesman issued this decree. This claim is not accurate.
These synods merely stated that the twenty-seven books
already recognized by the churches formed the New Testament
canon.
It is absurd to think that the
faithful Christians during this approximately 300 years between
the death of the Apostles and the Synod of Hippo in AD 393 did
not even know which New Testament was the inspired Word of God.
This would mean they were not certain Jesus died for their sins.
Remember the history of the developing “worldly church” which
included many of the so-called Church Fathers that evolved into
the Roman Catholic Church did not reflect the history of the
true church during those first four centuries.
Our Day
We live in a multi-religious
culture—Christian, Islamic, Hindu, Buddhist, etc. Each religion
has a “holy book” or bible which they believe is inspired by
their God. Like the Christians of the first four centuries, we
are faced with the problem—which Bible is really the inspired
Word of the true God? However, we the benefit of archaeology.
Once a skeptic, himself, Dr.
William F. Albright wrote: "The excessive skepticism shown
toward the Bible has been progressively discredited. Discovery
after discovery has established the accuracy of numerous
details." (W.F. Albright, The Archaeology of Palestine and
the Bible p. 127) As an agnostic, Sir William Ramsay became
an Archaeologist to discredit the New Testament. But in his
extensive archaeological digs and research he found overwhelming
evidence that compelled faith in the New Testament. He became
its strongest defender. (Sir William Ramsay, Archaeologist
and New Testament Scholar, p. 28.)
Send for the free booklet “Do We
All Worship the Same God?” It contains scientific, prophetic and
historic evidence that the Christian Bible is indeed the
inspired Word of God. Additionally, a free folder on archaeology
and a four-colored chart will be included that uses recognized
criteria to prove the New Testament has greater validity of
authenticity than the other ancient documents that are accepted
as genuine such as Plato and Homer. |
