"How do we know that the Bible is the Word of God, and not the Apocrypha, the Qur’an, the Book of Mormon, etc.?"
Answer:
The question of which (if any) religious text is the true word of God is
of utmost importance. To avoid circular reasoning, the first question
we must ask is: how would we know if God communicated in the first
place? Well, God would have to communicate in a manner that people could
understand, but that also means that people could make up their own
messages and simply claim that they came from God. So, it seems
reasonable to think that if God wanted to authenticate His communication
He would have to verify it in a manner that could not be duplicated by
mere humans - in other words, by miracles. This narrows the field
considerably.
Beyond the evidence for the Bible's correctness (manuscript evidence)
and its historicity (archeological evidence), the most important
evidence is that of its inspiration. The real determination of the
Bible's claim to absolute inspired truth is in its supernatural
evidence, including prophecy. God used prophets to speak and write down
His Word and God uses miracles like fulfilled prophecy to authenticate
His messengers. For example, in Genesis 12:7,
God promises that the land of Israel was to be for Abraham and his
descendants. In 1948 Israel was returned back to the Jewish people for
the second time in history. This may not seem so astonishing until you
realize that no nation in the history of the world has been scattered
from its homeland and returned! Israel has done it twice. The book of
Daniel predicts with accuracy the coming of the four great kingdoms from
Babylon, to Medo-Persia, to Greece, to Rome centuries before some of
those kingdoms came on the scene (a time span of over 1,000 years!) with
details concerning how they would rule and be broken. This includes the
reigns of Alexander the Great and Antiochus Epiphanies.
In Ezekiel 26 we can see in astonishing detail how the city of Tyre was
to be destroyed, how it would be torn down, and how its debris would be
thrown into the sea. When Alexander the Great marched on that area, he
encountered a group of people holed up in a tower on an island off the
coast near there. He could not cross the sea, so he could not fight
those in the tower. Rather than wait them out, the proud conqueror had
his army throw stones into the sea to build a land bridge to the tower.
It worked. His army crossed the sea and overthrew the occupants of the
stronghold. But where did he get so much stone? The rocks that were used
for the land bridge were the leftover rubble from the city of Tyre . . .
its stones cast into the sea!
There are so many prophecies concerning Christ (over 270!) that it would
take more than a few screens worth of space to list them all. Further,
Jesus would have had no control over many of them such as His birthplace
or time of birth. Second, the odds of one man accidentally fulfilling
even 16 of these are 1 in 10^45. How many is that? For comparison, there
are less than 10^82 atoms in the entire universe! And Jesus, who
affirmed the Bible as the Word of God, proved His reliability and deity
by His resurrection (an historical fact not easily ignored).
Now consider the Quran - its author, Muhammad, performed no miracles to
back up his message (even when he was asked to by his followers - Sura
17:91-95; 29:47-51). Only in much later tradition (the Hadith) do any
alleged miracles even show up and these are all quite fanciful (like
Muhammad cutting the moon in half) and have zero reliable testimony to
back them up. Further, the Quran makes clear historical errors. Muslims
believe the Bible is inspired but with some errors from editing (Sura
2:136 as well as Suras 13, 16, 17, 20, 21, 23, 25). The question they
cannot adequately answer is: "When was the Bible corrupted?" If they say
before 600 A.D. then how can the Quran admonish believers to read it?
If they claim it was after 600 A.D., then they have jumped out of the
frying pan and into the fire, for we have absolutely no doubt as to the
accuracy of biblical manuscripts from at least the 3rd century forward.
Even if Christianity were false, the Quran still has an insurmountable
problem because it makes judgments against Christians for believing
things that they do not (nor have
they ever) believed. For example, the Quran teaches that Christians
believe the Trinity is the Father, the Mother (Mary), and the Son (Sura
5:73-75, 116), and the Quran also teaches that Christians believe that
God had sex with Mary to have a son (Suras 2:116; 6:100-101; 10:68;
16:57; 19:35; 23:91; 37:149-151; 43:16-19). If the Quran is really from
God, then it should at least be able to accurately report what
Christians believe.
Joseph Smith, the author of the Book of Mormon, tried to do some miracles such as prophecy (a test for a true prophet in Deuteronomy 18:21-22)
but failed several times. He foretold of Christ's second coming in
History of the Church (HC) 2:382. Joseph Smith preached that the coming
of the Lord would be in 56 years (about 1891). The second coming did not
occur in 1891, and the Mormon Church does not claim that it did. Nor
has it occurred since. He also prophesied that several cities would be
destroyed in Doctrine and Covenants (D&C) 84:114-115. New York,
Albany and Boston were to be destroyed if they rejected the gospel
according to Smith. Joseph Smith himself went to New York, Albany, and
Boston and preached there. These cities did not accept his gospel, yet
they have not been destroyed. Another famous false prophecy of Joseph
Smith was his "END OF ALL NATIONS" in D&C 87 concerning the
rebellion of South Carolina in the war between the states. The South was
supposed to call on Great Britain for aid, and as a result war would be
poured out upon all nations; slaves would revolt; the inhabitants of
the earth would mourn; famine, plague, earthquake, thunder, lightning,
and a full end of all nations would result. The South finally did revolt
in 1861, but the slaves did not rise up, war was not poured out upon
all nations, there was no worldwide famine, plague, earthquake, etc.,
and there was no resulting "end of all nations."
The collection of writings that Protestants call the Apocrypha (hidden
writings), Roman Catholics call the deuterocanonical (later or second
canon) books. These books were written between 300 B.C. and 100 A.D.,
the Intertestamental Period between the inspired writings of God's
Prophets in the Old Testament and those of the Apostles and their
contemporaries in the New Testament. These were "infallibly" accepted
into the Bible by the Roman Catholic Church in 1546 at the Council of
Trent. Now the Apocrypha would be covered under the evidence for the
Bible if these writings were truly inspired - but evidence seems to
indicate that they are not. In the Bible we find prophets of God whose
messages are ratified by miracles or prophecy that comes true, and whose
message is immediately accepted by the people (Deut 31:26; Josh. 24:26; 1 Samuel 10:25; Daniel 9:2; Col. 4:16; 2 Peter 3:15-16).
What we find in the apocrypha is just the opposite - no apocryphal
book was written by a prophet. None of these books were included in the
Hebrew Scriptures. There is no ratification of the authors of any
apocryphal book. No apocryphal book is cited as authoritative by later
Biblical writers. There is no fulfilled prophecy in any apocryphal book.
Finally, Jesus, who quoted from every section of Old Testament
Scripture, never once quoted from the apocrypha. Neither did any of His
disciples.
The Bible so far outshines every competing source for being God's
revelation that if it is not God's Word, it would seem impossible to
choose among the leftovers. If the Bible is not God's Word, then we have
been left with no clear criteria by which to know what might be.
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