CHAPTER V — The Bible—God’s Revelation (1)

CHAPTER V --- The Bible—God’s Revelation (1) V. THE BIBLE—GOD’S REVELATION (1)
By Fanning Yater Tant

“And furthermore, my son, be admonished; of making books there is no end; and much study is a weariness of the flesh.” These are the words of Solomon as found in Ecclesiastes 12:12. In his day the books were made and written only by hand. Hundreds of scribes would devote all of their time to copying the books that were written, and Solomon said that of making many books there is no end. Since the introduction of printing in the year 1453, the making of books has become one of the world’s greatest industries. Every year literally millions of copies of books are made, and each year several thousands of new books are printed. In the great library of the Louvre in Paris, France, there are so many books that if a person should begin rapidly reading them at the age of fifteen, and should read only the introduction to each book, reading ten hours every day, taking out no time for Sundays or holidays, he would die of old age before he had even gone through the first alcove. In the Congres-sional Library at Washington there are almost as many books. They are of every description and on every subject imaginable. To this collection there are being added more at the rate of several hundred a year. Of all the millions of books that have been printed, how-ever, there is one book that has influenced the thought of mankind, and has shaped the history of the world, more than all the other books combined. If you could stack up in one pile every book that has ever been written on any subject by any man, and could place over beside that this one book of which I speak, I mean the Bible, you would find that the Bible has influenced the course of history more than all the other books combined. It has caused more people to suffer martyrdom; it has been the storm center of more disputes and even more wars; it has been the cause of kingdoms and empires crumbling into dust. The tremendous influence this book has had on the human race is beyond calculation. When correctly used, it has brought the greatest blessings of earth to the children of men; when misused and perverted by unscrupulous men, it has been the occasion of more sorrow and bloodshed than any book ever written. In every age there have been men who have not believed the Bible. The skeptics and infidels have always been side by side with the most ardent and zealous believers. In our day we have seen a strange phenomenon; we have seen the wave of infidelity reach the highest crest in all history, and we are now witnessing an about face on the part of thousands of those who have been a part of that great wave. Ordinarily, movements of this kind are spread out over two or three hundred years, but the tempo of our age has speeded things up, and within the last seventy-five or eighty years—since the works of Charles Darwin gained prominence in I860— we have seen infidelity sweep over land like a hurricane; within the last twenty years that hurricane seems to have completely spent its force and to be receding almost as rapidly as it arose. The greatest scientists of our day, and the men who are the deepest thinkers, are more and more coming to recognize some great creative power outside and above the universe which the scientists of a generation ago would have described as rank superstition.

Tonight I want to tell you some of the reasons for our acceptance of the Bible as an infallible, inerrant, inspired revelation from God himself. Its statements are true and accurate altogether, completely reliable and dependable. Its teachings are truth; its doctrine is holy. Our faith in this book has been builded exactly as our faith in a human being is developed—by seeing it tested in a thousand different ways, and meeting every test and every examination with unim-peachable honesty and complete victory. In no single, instance has any test revealed an error or an inaccuracy or a false statement of fact in the Biblical record. The keenest minds of two millenniums have sought in vain for contradictions and discrepancies. They are not there. In a thousand ways, unknown and unknowable to the writers of these pages, their every word and every syllable has been tested. The result has always been the same. There has always been absolute triumph for the accuracy of the inspired writing.

I. ARCHAEOLOGY
One of the fields in which the Biblical record has received its most searching test and its most glorious corroboration has been the field of archaeology. The spade of the scientist has made contact in a thousand different places with the writing of the prophet. In every meeting place identical stories have been revealed. What the prophet said, the archaeologist, working from a different angle and for a different purpose, has found to be exact truth. May I cite you to a few examples of this type of proof?

Around the southern end of the Dead Sea the pottery and the archaeological evidence reveals a very well developed civilization dating back to the third millennium before Christ. Suddenly, about 2000 years B.C., all civilization in that area came to an abrupt halt. On this the word of the archaeologist is unhesitating and unequivocal. The record of the ruins speaks with an unmistakable voice. The pottery, vessels, implements, weapons, toys, household articles all are clearly of a civilization prior to the year 2000, or thereabout; then for a space of hundreds of years there are no remains of any sort. The next articles the archaeologist can find are all of a period many hundreds of years this side of the time of Abraham. The record is there; the atheist cannot deny it. For what it is worth, that is exactly what the evidence reveals.

What is the meaning of that evidence? Is there any explanation for this sudden and obviously catastrophic end to a civilization? Has history any word? Has the ethnologist any explanation? Has the unbeliever any solution to the puzzle? When we turn to the Biblical record, the explanation is clear and simple. Both Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed by fire and brimstone being rained upon them from the heavens in the time of Abraham, about 1900 B.C. Furthermore, this whole region around the southern end of the Dead Sea is composed of a stratum of salt about 150 feet thick, over which there is a layer of marl and free sulphur. The earth stratum here shows a tremendous rupture, indicating that at some far time in the distant past there was an earth disturbance of unprecedented fury. The countryside for miles around shows an unbroken scene of desolation—a region of burned out oil and asphalt. Had the writer of Genesis been an eye-witness to the destruction of the Cities of the Plain, he could not have given a more accurate description of what the archaeologist declares actually happened. His word is in total agreement with the record of the rocks. Only a willful and perverted intellect would seek to deny it or evade its implications.

There is a second particular to which I will refer (among hundreds which might be cited) in this field of archaeological corroboration. That has to do with the building of the treasure cities, Pithom and Ramses. These two cities were built by the Pharaoh who had begun to oppress the Israelite slaves. His harsh and cruel measures are too well known to need repetition. Suffice it to say that as a punishment to Israel he denied them the straw with which ordinarily they were wont to make bricks, compelling them to go out into the fields and countryside and gather stubble and roots or whatever binding matter they could find. These are statements of the scripture, straightforward and without reservation. The writer of Exodus makes them without any hedging or any possibility of a double meaning. He simply writes of these things as facts which actually happened exactly as he describes them. Little could he dream that his word would ever be analyzed and subjected to the most searching scrutiny of the critic. He was not writing with any thought that his word would be tested.

When, however, the test is applied, what are the results? The ruins of Pithom were excavated in 1883 by Naville of the University of Geneva. In his book, Moses and the Monuments, Dr. Melvin Grove Kyle gives a graphic description of the ruins of Pithom: “The bricks are laid in mortar, contrary to the usual Egyptian custom, and contrary to the observations of explorers in Egypt previous to the time of Naville’s discovery of Pithom. The lower courses in at least some of the store chamber work are laid with brick filled with good chock straw; the upper courses are made of brick having in them no binding material whatever, and the middle courses are made of brick filled with stubble pulled up by the roots. The impress of the roots is as plainly marked in the brick as though cut by an engraver’s tool.” This is in full and perfect harmony with the record of the inspired writer. There is no discrepancy in any single particular; there is no departure in the archaeological record from the Biblical narrative. The two witnesses are found in perfect agreement.

II. HISTORICAL
It might be possible to explore that field almost indefinitely and certainly in much greater detail than these two brief illustrations provide, blit we want to catch a glimpse of two other types of corroborative testimony. The second that wt shall note is recorded history. If the word of archaeology recorded history. In every instance in which secular history and divine history touch on the same events, there is found to be a complete harmony between the two accounts. In certain items, at certain ages of the past, certain men have claimed that the Biblical record was in error, that authentic history varied from the narrative set forth in the Bible. But as the years have gone by, and as more searching study has been made of the facts of history, it has been found that in every instance in which there was a question raised as to the reliability of the scriptural record, that record has been vindicated always, and the formerly accepted ideas of history have been proven erroneous.

There is, however, a still more remarkable angle to this part of the test; there is a phenomenon which has utterly stumped the skeptic, and left him in dumbfounded bewilderment. Here it is: not only does the Bible agree with the established facts of history, but in innumerable instances the Bible record of that historical event was written and known hundreds of years before the event came to pass! Historical facts were recorded which were totally outside the realm of human knowledge at the time of their recording.

Let us take two examples: First, the prophecies concerning Babylon. In Isaiah 13, 14, and in Jeremiah 1, we are told that

(1) Babylon was to be overthrown as Sodom and Gomorrah,
(2) it should never be re-inhabited from,generation to generation,
(3) the Arab should not pitch his tent there, nor the shepherd make his folds there, (
4) her walls and foundations should be overthrown,
(5) she should be plundered of all the nations.

Babylon was built twenty-two hundred years before Christ. Her walls were three hundred and fifty feet high and eighty-seven feet thick. There were 100 gates with as many roads from all parts of the world leading into the city. At the time this prophecy was spoken, Babylon was at the height of her power. She showed no sign of decay, but is a full and total confirmation of the accuracy and dependability of the inspired writing, no less so is the verdict of re- one thousand years later every word of this prophecy was literally and completely fulfilled. Now many centuries have looked down upon the ruins of Babylon, and she stands there today in mouldering desolation—a mute yet powerful testimony to the divinity of this book.

Look again at the prophecy concerning Israel spoken by Moses and recorded in Deuteronomy 28. He said that

(1) God would bring against the Jews a nation from afar, whose language they could not understand;
(2) this nation should be fierce in countenance, and not caring for the person of the aged, showing
no mercy to the young;
(3) that they should besiege Jerusalem till all her walls should fall and the city be taken;
(4) that the Jews should suffer untold horrors, some of them even eating their own children;
(5) that great numbers of them should perish in the siege;
(6) that multitudes should be carried into Egypt and sold till no purchaser could be found;
(7) that the Jews should be plucked out of the land which God had given them, and should be carried
throughout the world;
(8) that they should be despoiled and oppressed of all nations. So complete was the destruction of Jerusalem, and so well known is it, that I need hardly speak of it. It took place 1500 years after Moses spoke this prophecy. 1,240,000 Jews were slain, 99,000 were carried into Egypt and sold till no purchaser could be found for them. They suffered untold horrors, some of them even eating their own children. They were taken by the Romans, a nation from afar whose language they could not understand. The cruelty and merciless quality of the Roman soldier has become proverbial. Thus every single item prophesied of them came to pass. Moses wrote that which no mortal man could know; he revealed facts of history which were not within the realm of human knowledge at the time he wrote.

III. PSYCHOLOGICAL
There is a third area in which the statements of Bible writers can be tested with considerable scientific precision. That is the area of human nature—psychology. Our outward circumstances may change from age to age, but our basic human nature remains the same. The temptations and hopes of this generation, the griefs, joys, fears, aspirations, are about the same as those of the generation of Adam, of Abraham, or Paul. Many a man today can testify with Solomon that it is still better to dwell in the garret on a desert than in a wide house with a brawling woman. Our problems today were their problems yesterday, and will be our children’s problems tomorrow. This unchanging pattern of human behavior, this constant and dependable structure of our constitution, provides a method by which we can judge of the truthfulness and inerrancy of the men of inspiration. For our modern psychiatrists have discovered a vast store of information concerning the working of our intellect and our emotions which past generations did not know, and could not know. If such ideas and truths were uttered by Biblical writers it showed an insight, a comprehension, and a knowledge utterly incredible in men of mere human stature. When we carefully search the record, that is exactly what we find. The sum of all human experiences as to the results of all human conduct, may be found better expressed in many of the earliest portions of this book than we are able to express them even now, after so many centuries of progress and observation. Whoever wrote this book knew more than we know about human nature, and knew it distinctly, whereas we know only dimly and obscurely.

Consider, for example, the present psychological phe-nomenon of a “split personality,” or schizophrenia. It is a truth which has been recognized only within the last few decades that a man may so completely lose contact with reality that his whole life is divided into two antagonistic and irreconcilable parts, the one warring against the other. He is one individual, but the principle that unifies his life and holds him together has been lost. This type of mental derangement is well recognized and is not uncommon in our mental institutions.

Now turn to the words of Christ, “No man can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will hold to the one and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and Mammon” (Matthew 6:24). Or read again that perfect description Paul gave of the inner struggle of which he was conscious between his better self and his baser self. That seventh chapter of Romans might well have come right out of the case history of a twentieth century practicing psychiatrist. “For that which I do I know not; for not what I would, that do I practice; but what I hate, that I do ... to will is present with me, but to do that which is good is not. For the good which I would do not; but the evil which I would not, that I practice. . . .For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: But I see a different law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity under the law of sin which is in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me out of the body of this death?” (Romans 7:15-24). When modern medical science and ancient apostolic preaching touch on the same subject, they are found to teach identical truth. There is a harmony and a concord between them that can be accounted for in no other way than that “men spake from God.” In an area where there can be little room for equivocal or ambiguous phraseology, we have a definite statement from an inspired man. Nearly two millenniums later we have this same truth “discovered” by scientists working independently of the Bible, and often even in ignorance of its contents. The verdict of the ages has not been mistaken. Millions of men, learned and ignorant, have believed this record is a revelation from God. The stamp of divinity is on its every page. Regardless of where the test may be made, in archaeology, in history, in psychology, or in any one of a score of other fields, the result is always the same—an overwhelming corroboration of the statements of inspired men, an undeniable confirmation of their pronouncement. Thus our faith, like the faith of the race, is established and strengthened. In areas where they could never know the test would be made, we have found these men speaking truth. Are we not justified then, in believing that they spoke truth always—that in still further areas where it is impossible for tests to be made, and where human limitations will make confirmation forever impossible, absolute confidence can be placed in their words? They have never been found in error; they have shown themselves reliable and dependable; in no instance have they been found untrustworthy; truth, and only truth, has been the substance of all they wrote. On this a man can build his life; on this a man can venture his eternal destiny; here is solid ground, unshaken and unshakeable. Heaven and earth may pass away; the word of God endures forever.