All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that all God’s people may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. 2 Timothy 3:16-17
I confess.
I am a Creationist! Yep. One of those ignorant religious nuts
who blindly believes everything written in the Bible. That's me!
Actually, I am appalled by the number of people who don't believe every single word. For me it's just so clear that His Word has proven accurate and true time after time, even after such incredible scrutiny by not only the scientific world but also by supposedly "intelligent" men and women whose single purpose seems to be trying to disprove that God is God.
A few years ago I found a great website called "Answers in Genesis" which was created by Ken Hamm.
He has a whole team of Creation Scientists who see science as supportive of the Creation story as told in the Bible. These scientists have no trouble believing that God created the universe in 6 days. Yes, that's what I said SIX days! Not "thousand year days", six 24-hour days. And they have the science to back up their beliefs.
You see, each of us start with a foundational belief. For an atheist, that foundational belief is:
"There is no God. The world came into existence all by accident - no design - it just happened."
For a believer, the foundational belief is:
"Almighty God created the universe with intentional design and purpose. There is definitely a Designer and the Designer is GOD!"
The foundational belief you begin with will color everything you learn. For the atheist, every scientific discovery that points to a designer is discredited or tweaked in such a way that the atheist can maintain his foundational belief. Of course, to be fair, the same is true of a Creationist.
The difference: Creationists have not had to "change" their original premise. Every scientific discovery points to a Divine Creator! Every discover points to the validity of God's written Word. Consider these points:
By comparing the manuscript support for the Bible with manuscript support for other ancient documents and books, it becomes overwhelmingly clear that no other ancient piece of literature can stand up to the Bible. Manuscript support for the Bible is unparalleled!
There are more [New Testament] manuscripts copied with greater accuracy and earlier dating than for any secular classic from antiquity. (over 24,000 partial and complete manuscript copies!)
Rene Pache adds, "The historical books of antiquity have a documentation infinitely less solid."
Dr. Benjamin Warfield concludes, "If we compare the present state of the text of the New Testament with that of no matter what other ancient work, we must...declare it marvelously exact."
Norman Geisler makes several key observations for our consideration:
No other book is even a close second to the Bible on either the number or early dating of the copies. The average secular work from antiquity survives on only a handful of manuscripts; the New Testament boasts thousands.
The average gap between the original composition and the earliest copy is over 1,000 years for other books.
The New Testament, however, has a fragment within one generation from its original composition, whole books within about 100 years from the time of the autograph [original manuscript], most of the New Testament in less than 200 years, and the entire New Testament within 250 years from the date of its completion.
The degree of accuracy of the copies is greater for the New Testament than for other books that can be compared. Most books do not survive with enough manuscripts that make comparison possible.
From this documentary evidence, then, it is clear that the New Testament writings are superior to comparable ancient writings. "The records for the New Testament are vastly more abundant, clearly more ancient, and considerably more accurate in their text."
(The above information is from "Reasoning from the Scriptures Ministries".)
It's interesting to note that of all books of antiquity, the Bible is the most scrutinized and challenged. Forty men over a period of 1500 years tell the same story of an incredible God who created the world and everything in it. And that great God, that amazing Creator, loves us enough to sacrifice His own Son. Everything in His Word points to the same God. The Bible is the inspired Word of God himself. No one has ever been able to disprove this Truth. No one ever will be able to do that.
Here's one of the many archaeological discoveries which points to the truth of the Bible. Read the story in Genesis describing the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah. Then read the "discovery" below. If you're a believer, I think you'll see God's hand in the demise of Sodom. But a sceptic will try to rationalize the findings so that God isn't given the glory.
Remember how beautiful and fertile Sodom and Gomorrah was before it's destruction. When his uncle Abraham gave Lot the first choice of where to settle his family, Lot chose this valley because it was perfect.
Genesis 13:10
Lot took a long look at the fertile plains of the Jordan Valley in the direction of Zoar. The whole area was well watered everywhere, like the garden of the Lord or the beautiful land of Egypt. (This was before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah.)
Genesis 19
12 Meanwhile, the angels questioned Lot. “Do you have any other relatives here in the city?” they asked. “Get them out of this place—your sons-in-law, sons, daughters, or anyone else. 13 For we are about to destroy this city completely. The outcry against this place is so great it has reached the Lord, and he has sent us to destroy it.”
14 So Lot rushed out to tell his daughters’ fiancés, “Quick, get out of the city! The Lord is about to destroy it.” But the young men thought he was only joking.
15 At dawn the next morning the angels became insistent. “Hurry,” they said to Lot. “Take your wife and your two daughters who are here. Get out right now, or you will be swept away in the destruction of the city!”
16 When Lot still hesitated, the angels seized his hand and the hands of his wife and two daughters and rushed them to safety outside the city, for the Lord was merciful. 17 When they were safely out of the city, one of the angels ordered, “Run for your lives! And don’t look back or stop anywhere in the valley! Escape to the mountains, or you will be swept away!”
18 “Oh no, my lord!” Lot begged. 19 “You have been so gracious to me and saved my life, and you have shown such great kindness. But I cannot go to the mountains. Disaster would catch up to me there, and I would soon die. 20 See, there is a small village nearby. Please let me go there instead; don’t you see how small it is? Then my life will be saved.”
21 “All right,” the angel said, “I will grant your request. I will not destroy the little village. 22 But hurry! Escape to it, for I can do nothing until you arrive there.” (This explains why that village was known as Zoar, which means “little place.”)
23 Lot reached the village just as the sun was rising over the horizon. 24 Then the Lord rained down fire and burning sulfur from the sky on Sodom and Gomorrah. 25 He utterly destroyed them, along with the other cities and villages of the plain, wiping out all the people and every bit of vegetation. 26 But Lot’s wife looked back as she was following behind him, and she turned into a pillar of salt.
27 Abraham got up early that morning and hurried out to the place where he had stood in the Lord’s presence. 28 He looked out across the plain toward Sodom and Gomorrah and watched as columns of smoke rose from the cities like smoke from a furnace.
29 But God had listened to Abraham’s request and kept Lot safe, removing him from the disaster that engulfed the cities on the plain.
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Wednesday, December 07, 2011Sodom and Gomorrah Excavated
By far the most interesting session at the recent Society of Biblical Literature Congress in San Francisco was one I wandered into by chance. I am always curious about what is going on in biblical archeology, so one afternoon I decided to skip the dozen or so sessions dedicated to Bakhtinian Decontextualization of Identity Construction in Persian Yehud (I had to tear myself away) and go hear about the excavations at a certain site called "Tall-el-Hammam." I had no idea what I was in for. After about five minutes into the session, I realized that the archeological team assigned to this dig was convinced that they had found the biblical Sodom and Gomorrah. After another half-hour, it seemed they had most of the participants convinced as well. The sites fit the geographical and temporal context into which Sodom and Gomorrah are placed in the biblical texts. The cities at the site were suddenly and completely wiped out in the Late Bronze Age, which makes a reasonably good fit with the biblical accounts of Abraham and Lot. The entire presentation was very convincing, but never once did they deal with the "elephant in the room": what caused the sites to be suddenly abandoned? As soon as the session was over, I was the first to raise my hand. "Did you find any arrow heads? Signs of invasion? What happened to them?" The lead archaeologist paused for a moment. "I didn't want to go there," he said. Another pause. "I'm preparing material for publication." Pause. "All I want to say 'on camera' is, they appear to have been wiped out in a 'heat event'."
A "heat event"!? What?!
"If you want to know more, I'll talk after the session off the record."
I wish I could divulge what he said to a small group of us clustered around the podium after the session was over, but it would break confidence. We'll have to wait for the official peer-reviewed publications
~~~~~~~~~~~~~This article is from www.thesacredpage.com ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Sacred Page is a blog written by three Catholic Ph.D.s who are professors of Scripture and Theology: Michael Barber, Brant Pitre and John Bergsma. Here you can also find podcasts of "The Sacred Page with Michael Barber."
Why is it so hard for intelligent people to accept that God is the Creator of all things? Why is it so hard to accept what God has told us through inspired writers?
I choose to believe and accept that His Word is true.
Prove me wrong if you can.
http://youtu.be/vJdWdZv-uRA - Everlasting God - Chris Tomlin
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