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(Third Edition)
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 TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · 1
The Need for Revelation from God · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · 4
The Character of God . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
The Origin of Evil . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Mankind’s Origin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Mankind’s Purpose . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Mankind’s Destiny . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
What Does the Bible Contain? · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · 7
The Two Types of Revelation · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · 8
General (Natural) Revelation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Special (Supernatural) Revelation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
The Bible’s Claims for
its Own Inspiration· · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · 12
Universal (Naturalistic) Inspiration . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Thought (Dynamic or Concept) Inspiration. . . . . . 16
Neo-Orthodox Inspiration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Encounter Inspiration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
Dictation (Mechanical) Inspiration . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
Verbal, Plenary Inspiration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
Evidence of the Bible’s Inspiration · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · 25
The Unity of the Bible . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
The Factual Accuracy of the Bible . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
The Prophecy of the Bible . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
The Scientific Foreknowledge of the Bible. . . . . . . 44
From the Field of Astronomy . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
From the Field of Oceanography . . . . . . . . . 48
From the Field of Physics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
From the Field of Medicine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
From the Field of Biology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
From the Field of Archaeology . . . . . . . . . . . 56
Conclusion · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · 57
References · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · 61

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 DEDICATION

This volume is dedicated to Don Deffenbaugh and Bobby

Key, whose love for God’s Word has been unwavering, whose
defense of the Truth has been balanced, and whose knowl-
edge of the Bible has been a blessing to the lives of untold
thousands.
 IN DEFENSE OF THE
BIBLE’S INSPIRATION
nowledge and truth are precious commodities. As a

K body of factual information and legitimate principles,

knowledge is indispensable in human relationships.
Truth, as knowledge justifiably believed, represents a funda-
mental reality that transcends both the provincial and the
temporal. Most people are desirous of obtaining a certain
amount of knowledge that they then can put to good use in
their everyday lives. And, undoubtedly, most people prefer
not be deceived, but instead prefer to be dealt with honestly
and truthfully. One of the Ten Commandments, in fact, was
based upon just such a concept: “Thou shalt not bear false
witness against thy neighbor” (Exodus 20:16).
Truthfulness always has been the basis for the moral, legal,
and ethical codes of nations. And, an abiding respect for truth
has undergirded the legitimacy of those codes. “Buy the truth,
and sell it not,” said the Proverbs writer (23:23). He who pos-
sesses correct knowledge has within him the potential to dis-
cern, and then act upon, truth. Knowledge frees from the
shackles of ignorance; truth frees from the shackles of error.
Indeed, knowledge and truth are precious commodities.
While almost anyone you ask will admit, in theory, that
knowledge and truth are indispensable attributes of a sensi-
ble, everyday existence, in practice many people live out
that daily existence as if knowledge and truth ultimately do
not matter. Much of mankind lives according to an abstract,
confusing, and largely inconsistent system of personal be-
havior. This is a bit odd, to say the least. In most matters, a
man likely will insist upon complete objectivity. For exam-
ple, in regard to his eating habits he might say, “I will not eat
this food; it contains bacterial toxins that will kill me.” In re-
gard to matters of civil law, he might suggest, “That action is
illegal; it violates my rights.”

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 Yet when it comes to religion in general, and Christianity
in particular, subjectivity rules the day. People can be so cer-
tain about their beliefs in the physical realm, but so nebulous
about their beliefs in the spiritual realm. For example, on oc-
casion when a person who believes in God is asked if God
does, in fact, exist, he may opine: “I believe He exists,” or “I
hope He exists,” or “I think He exists.” But rarely do you
hear him say boldly, “I know He exists.” Or, if a Christian is
asked the question, “Do you know you are saved?,” the re-
sponse may go something like this: “I believe that I am,” or “I
hope that I am,” or “I think that I am.” But all too rarely do
you hear someone confidently assert, “Yes, I know that I am
saved.”
This is indeed a sad state of affairs. We now have progressed
to the point where, in matters as mundane as food choices or
legal wrangling, objectivity is an absolute requirement. Mean-
while, in the much more important area of spiritual matters,
we not only expect, but in many cases insist upon, a subjec-
tivity that we would not tolerate in any other sphere of our
lives. It is as if the pluralistic postmodernism that has affected
secular society (the “I’m OK, you’re OK”/“Who am I to
judge?” concept) finally has made its way into the spiritual
community as well. Apparently, some among us either once
knew but long since have forgotten, or never understood in
the first place, the proper concept of truth. Similarly, we ei-
ther have forgotten, or no longer care, about the damage that
an improper concept of truth can cause.
The time has come for Christians to embolden themselves
once again with the same high regard for truth that Jesus ex-
pressed when He stated: “And ye shall know the truth, and
the truth shall make you free” ( John 8:32). Christianity is not
an “I-hope-so/pie-in-the-sky-by-and-by” kind of religion
based upon some esoteric, fairy-tale-like concept. Rather, it
is rooted and grounded in the provable existence of the one
true God, and the verifiable nature of the historical facts sur-
rounding the life, death, and resurrection of His Son. When
the apostle John wrote to comfort and reassure first-century

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Christians who found themselves in the midst of numerous
trials and persecutions, he said: “These things have I written
unto you, that ye may know that ye have eternal life, even
unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God” (1 John
5:13, emp. added). Thus, according to both Jesus and John, a
person not only can know something, but he can know that
he knows it.
There are certain undeniable, critically important impli-
cations standing behind this kind of firm and confident dec-
laration. Consider the following. If a person cannot know
(with certainty) that God exists, then he cannot know (with
certainty) that the Bible is His inspired Word. If a person can-
not know that the Bible is the inspired Word of God, then he
cannot know that Jesus is God’s Son, for the Bible provides
the evidentiary basis for such a claim. If a person cannot know
that Christ is God’s Son, then he cannot know that he is saved.
Yet John specifically stated: “These things have I written unto
you, that ye may know that ye have eternal life....”
The simple fact is—Christians are not agnostics! The agnos-
tic suggests, “I cannot know whether God exists.” Christians,
on the other hand, know that God exists (cf. Psalm 46:10).
Consider the alternative. Do Christians serve a God Who
“may” or “may not” exist? Do Christians believe, and ask
others to believe, the testimony of a Bible that “may” or “may
not” be inspired? Do Christians trust, obey, and place their
faith in a Christ Who “may” or “may not” be the Son of God?
Hardly!
Even the casual reader will discern the close relationship
among these vital issues. Knowledge of God’s existence is
foundational, which is why I have marshaled the evidence
for it (Thompson, 2000, pp. 123-181). Knowledge of Christ’s
Sonship is pivotal, which is why I have documented the facts
that attend it (Thompson, 1999, pp. 19-32). Knowledge of sal-
vation is essential, which is why I have assembled the testimony
from Scripture that attests to it (Thompson, 1998a; 1998b).
But no less important is the evidence that establishes the in-
spiration of God’s Word—the topic to which I now direct your
attention.

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 THE NEED FOR REVELATION FROM GOD

With the existence of God established, it becomes reason-

able to think that such a Creator-God would wish to commu-
nicate with His creation. Mankind shows evidence of high
intelligence, kindness, goodness, justice, and many other
unique characteristics. Since it is inconceivable that the Cre-
ator could be inferior to His creation in any fashion, and
since the effect never is greater than the cause, it is inevitable
that God would exhibit infinite intelligence, kindness, good-
ness, justice, etc. Therefore, some form of personal commu-
nication between the intelligent Creator and His intelligent
creature would be expected. Else, how could mankind ever
come to know, or appreciate, certain aspects of the Creator,
or understand what the Creator might possibly require of the
beings He had created? Furthermore, some form of revela-
tion from the Creator would be essential in order to instruct
mankind in certain areas, such as the following.
The Character of God. While something of God’s es-
sence, power, and wisdom can be gleaned vaguely from the
vastness and marvelous intricacies of the creation itself, a
more concrete communication is needed to establish the ex-
act nature of His character.
The Origin of Evil. As mankind found itself adrift in a sea
of evil, pain, and suffering, the question eventually would
arise: Why? Man thus needed to be educated concerning the
exact reason(s) for his predicament.
Mankind’s Origin. Without revelation to the contrary,
men might come to the conclusion that they owe their ulti-
mate origin to “accidental forces of nature,” rather than to the
omnipotence of a divine Creator. The confusion of modern-
day evolutionary theories is evidence aplenty of this.
Mankind’s Purpose. Man—left to his own devices—never
could understand completely the ultimate purpose for his
creation at the hand of an Almighty God. With no adequately
defined role, and no immediate or future goals, he would wan-
der aimlessly, from cradle to grave, in a sea of uncertainty.

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 Mankind’s Destiny. In the absence of divine revelation,
man never would know with certainty anything about the ex-
istence of life beyond this one. He therefore might conclude
incorrectly—as many have in every generation—that this life
is all there is. The urgency of mankind having access to this
knowledge is evinced by the general despair of those who re-
ject the concept of supernatural revelation.
A revelation from God might take almost any form. God
could choose to communicate with His creation directly via
word of mouth, through messengers (e.g., angels), or through
dreams and visions. For that matter, He could choose any
means that suited the occasion. Seemingly, however, the most
appropriate medium for long-term results would be one that
ensured permanence. That is to say, it would withstand the
test of time, and could be passed faithfully from generation to
generation throughout human history. One possible way to
accomplish such a goal would be to produce the revelation in
a written form that could be duplicated and distributed as
needed, thus benefiting the whole of mankind across the
ages.
The question then becomes: Is there any evidence that
mankind possesses such a revelation? And the answer to that
question is: Yes, evidence does exist to establish the claim
that God has given mankind His revelation in the written form
known as the Bible. B.C. Goodpasture, the distinguished edi-
tor of the Gospel Advocate for almost forty years, wrote:
The nature and contents of the Bible are such that the
rank and file of its readers in all generations have rec-
ognized God as its author. Man would not have writ-
ten such a book, if he could; and could not, if he would.
It moves on a superhuman plane in design, in nature,
and in teaching. It caters not to worldly desire and
ambition. It condemns much which men in the flesh
highly prize, and commends much which they de-
spise. Its thoughts are not the thoughts of men (1970,
p. 54).
Harold Lindsell, former editor of Christianity Today, remarked:

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 Had God chosen not to reveal Himself, man could
never have known Him. And man can never know
more about God than God chooses to disclose....
Whatever knowledge of God is available exists solely
because God has chosen to make it known. This is
His self-revelation (1976, p. 28).
God’s written revelation makes it clear that in the past He
provided that “self-revelation” in a variety of ways. The Maker
of the Universe manifested His presence in the works of His
creative genius (Psalm 19:1; Romans 1:20-21). He spoke to
various men and women in a direct, word-of-mouth fashion
(Genesis 3:9-16; Numbers 12:8). He revealed Himself through
visions and dreams (Genesis 20:3; Numbers 12:6; Isaiah 29:
10-11; Ezekiel 1:3-4; Daniel 2:19; Amos 1:1). He addressed
His creation through angels (Genesis 16:10-12; 18:13-14; 22:
11ff.; 32:1-2; Acts 7:38). On unique occasions, He even made
known His presence through such media as “a still, small
voice” (1 Kings 19:12), the mouth of a donkey (Numbers
22:28), and a bright cloud (Matthew 17:5). God’s greatest
revelation of Himself, however, was in the person of His
Son, Jesus Christ ( John 3:16; 14:9; Colossians 2:9).
Lacking adequate revelation from God, we would have no
accurate way of understanding what we needed to know re-
garding God, His Son, our place in the Creation, and many
other topics of ultimate importance to humanity. We would
have no objective standard upon which to base ethics and
morals. We would know little of the ministry and message of
Jesus of Nazareth. We would have no information regarding
the theological purpose of His crucifixion and resurrection
—namely, that they were essential ingredients in God’s plan
to offer ruined man a way of escape from the devastating con-
sequences of his sin (Matthew 20:28; 26:28). We would know
nothing of how to enter that sacred body of saved souls, the
church (Ephesians 5:23; 1 Corinthians 12:13), or how, once
we had entered, to worship God correctly. Without God’s
revelation, we would know utterly nothing about these im-
portant spiritual matters that impact our eternal destiny. Per-
haps it was with such things in mind that Arthur W. Pink
wrote these beautiful words:

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 If it were announced upon reliable authority that on
a certain date in the near future an angel from heaven
would visit New York and would deliver a sermon
upon the invisible world, the future destiny of man,
or the secret deliverance from the power of sin, what
an audience he would command! There is no build-
ing in that city large enough to accommodate the
crowd which would throng to hear him. If upon the
next day, the newspapers were to give a verbatim re-
port of his discourse, how eagerly it would be read!
And yet, we have between the covers of the Bible not
merely an angelic communication, but a Divine rev-
elation. How great then is our wickedness if we un-
dervalue and despise it! And yet we do (1976, p. 103).
Truly, we should be grateful to God for providing us with a
revelation that could be retained in a permanent form, stud-
ied faithfully, and used profitably by all of mankind.

WHAT DOES THE BIBLE CONTAIN?

The fact that the Bible exists in the first place brings to
mind the question: What does the Bible contain? It contains
two things: (1) known facts; and (2) revelation. What is the
difference between the two?
When we say that the Bible contains “known facts,” we
mean that it contains information known to the people of that
time and place. For example, if the Bible mentions people
known as Hittites (Exodus 23:28), then historical records
could verify their existence. If the Bible mentions that the
Roman emperor Caesar Augustus commanded that a census
be taken at a certain time (Luke 2:1), then we could corrobo-
rate the truthfulness of such a statement.
But to say that the Bible “contains” known facts, implies
that it also contains something else. That “something else” is
revelation. By definition, revelation designates the unveiling
of facts and truths to man by God—facts and truths that man,
on his own, otherwise could not have known. Revelation has
reference to the communication of information.

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 Compare and contrast the following. When Moses wrote
in the book of Numbers about Israel’s wilderness wander-
ings, he did not need revelation from God to do so. He was
their leader during that period, and simply wrote what he ob-
served as an eyewitness. When Luke penned the book in the
New Testament that bears his name, he did not need revela-
tion from God to do so. He acknowledged as much when he
said: “It seemed good to me also, having traced the course
of all things accurately from the first, to write unto thee in
order, most excellent Theophilus” (Luke 1:3, emp. added).
Luke had been on certain of the missionary journeys, and
thus was able to write from firsthand experience.
On the other hand, notice Moses’ statement in Deuteron-
omy 29:29: “The secret things belong unto Jehovah our God;
but the things that are revealed belong unto us and to our
children forever, that we may do all the words of this law”
(emp. added). As an illustration of this fact, we may observe
that Moses would have had absolutely no way to know the
details of the Creation week (Genesis 1:1ff.), unless God Him-
self had revealed those details to him. Nor could the apostle
John have described in such a beautiful panorama the splen-
dors of heaven (as he did within the book of Revelation), un-
less God first described to John the splendors of heaven.
On occasion, the various Bible writers could, and did,
place in print what they saw, or what they had been told by
credible witnesses. When they penned such matters, they
had no need of revelation from God, since they wrote from
firsthand experience. At times, however, they wrote about
things they neither had experienced nor had been told by
others. When they did so, it was God’s revelation that pro-
vided them the information they needed (Amos 3:7; Daniel
2:28; Ephesians 3:3-5).

THE TWO TYPES OF REVELATION

There are two different types of revelation. General (or
natural) revelation designates the revelation that God has pro-
vided of Himself in nature (cf. Romans 1:20-21, Acts 14:17,

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Psalm 19:1, et al.). Special (or supernatural) revelation is the
name that designates the revelation that God has provided
within the Bible.
General Revelation
General revelation comes to man through nature. The
first six verses of Psalm 19 declare that God has given a reve-
lation of Himself in nature that constantly testifies of the Cre-
ator. In Romans 1: 20, Paul stated that “the invisible things of
him since the creation of the world are clearly seen, being
perceived through the things that are made, even his ev-
erlasting power and divinity; that they may be without ex-
cuse” (emp. added).
The Scriptures teach that general revelation is universal.
At no time in history has God left Himself without a witness
of Himself (Acts 14:17). General revelation is universal in
both scope and territory. God’s glory can be seen whenever
and wherever a heavenly body is observed. It can be seen in
the glistening of a gorgeous afternoon rainbow, or in the still,
sweet waters of a gently flowing brook through a rainforest.
Though men often refuse to recognize and accept God’s rev-
elation of Himself in nature, it abides nevertheless.
Just as general revelation was present before man sinned
in the Garden of Eden, so it is present after his fall. But gen-
eral revelation is not always understood as it should be, be-
cause man’s mind has become corrupt. The reason for man’s
apostasy and mental depravity is due to his initial fall from
Heaven’s favor (Genesis 3). Man was created in the image of
God, yet became a rebel who was subject to evil passions and
subsequently blinded to the spiritual values that are so im-
portant (2 Corinthians 4:3-4). His heart also became subject
to corruption (Romans 3:10-18; Ephesians 2:1ff.).
With the fall of man, not an evolution but a devolution
began. As a result of his disobedience to God’s laws, man has
become afflicted with a blindness that sometimes prevents
him from understanding God’s revelation in nature. The
noetic effects of sin have darkened his mind so that he often
does not grasp the message of the revelation of God that ap-
pears all around him on a daily basis.

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 As great as general revelation is, however, it is deficient in
and of itself. For many, nature has ceased to be a perspicuous
revelation of God. It may have been so before sin entered the
world, but even if it were, man’s nature now has become so
polluted that he steadfastly refuses to read the divine script
around him. General revelation simply is not enough. It never
was intended to be. It does not afford man the reliable knowl-
edge of God and other important spiritual matters that he
needs for salvation. It therefore is inadequate (by itself) as the
sole foundation of a person’s faith. From nature alone, man
never would be able to infer the need for a personal Savior.
Therefore, God has seen fit to give man a second type of reve-
lation.

Special Revelation
God has revealed Himself in the sixty-six books of the Bi-
ble in a most specific fashion. Speaking in general terms,
there has been only one permanent supernatural revelation,
i.e., the supernatural revelation found in the Scriptures.
Actually, however, God has disclosed Himself throughout
human history in at least three different ways: theophanies,
direct communications, and miracles.
Theophanies are appearances of God Himself. He is spo-
ken of as dwelling between the cherubim (Psalm 80:1; 99:1).
He appeared in fire, clouds, and smoke (cf. Genesis 15:17,
Exodus 3:2, 19:9, 16ff., 33:9, and Psalm 78:14; 99:7). He ap-
peared in stormy winds ( Job 38:1; 40:6; Psalm 18:10-16).
Theophany reached its highest point during the incarnation,
in which Jesus Christ became flesh and dwelt among men
(Colossians 1:19; 2:9).
God disclosed Himself in a second way through direct
communications. In doing so, He made His thoughts and
will known to men. Sometimes it was through an audible
voice (Genesis 2:16; 3:8-19; 4:6-15; 9:1,8,12; 32:26; Exodus
19:9; Deuteronomy 5:4-5; 1 Samuel 3:4). He worked through
dreams (Numbers 12:6; Deuteronomy 13:1-6; 1 Samuel 28:6;
Joel 2:28). He communicated through visions (Isaiah 6; 21:

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6ff.; Ezekiel 1-3; 8-11; Daniel 1:17; 2:19; 7-10). And lastly,
God has communicated His thoughts and will to men via the
Holy Spirit (Mark 13:11; Luke 12:12; John 14:17; 15:26; 16:
13; 20:22; Acts 6:10; 8:29; 2 Peter 1:20-21).

God also chose to reveal Himself through miracles that

not only showcased His power and presence, but also em-
phasized great truths as well. They confirmed the words of
prophecy, and stood as evidence of God’s omnipotence among
the people that He had created. The greatest of these mira-
cles was the incarnation.

Revelation is of word and fact; as such, it is historical in na-

ture. Its purposes are many, but among those purposes are
redemption and salvation. God’s revelation was progressive
and unfolding in character—dim at first, then gradually in-
creasing in light until its fullness finally arrived. As Harold
Lindsell observed:

This revelation of God of which I have been speak-

ing has become inscripturated. It has come down to
us in written form. Thus, there are two Words: the
Word of God incarnate, Jesus Christ, and the Word
of God written, the Bible. It is the Word of God writ-
ten that reveals the Word of God incarnate to man.
The Bible, then, is the Word of God and it is of this
Word we now speak. When we say the Bible is the
Word of God, it makes no difference whether the
writers of Scripture gained their information by di-
rect revelation from God as in the case of the Book of
Revelation, or whether they researched matters as
Luke did, or whether they got their knowledge from
extant sources, court records, or even by word of
mouth. The question we must now ask is whether
what they wrote, wherever they may have secured
their knowledge, can be trusted. This brings us to the
doctrine of inspiration, which is clearly taught in the
Bible itself (1976, p. 30).

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 THE BIBLE’S CLAIMS FOR
ITS OWN INSPIRATION
Imagine, if you can, that somehow you could have access
to every religious book that has ever been written. Imagine,
also, that you could run those books through some sort of a
sieve, to winnow out only those volumes that claimed to be a
creed book, by which you should pattern and live your life.
That, admittedly, would be a tough test and one that, likely,
very few books could pass. Then, imagine further that you
could take the books that passed this test, and run them through
a second sieve. This time you would winnow out only those
books that claimed to be both a creed book for regulating
your life and inspired of God. Interestingly, you could count
that number on the fingers of two hands.
The claim of inspiration at the hand of God is rare indeed.
Sadly, misguided devotees of various religions clamor about,
defending this book or that book as allegedly being “inspired
of God,” when, in fact, the books themselves do not even
make such a claim. So, the first question that should be asked
of any volume for which inspiration is touted is this: Does the
book itself claim to be inspired?
When it comes to the Bible, that question can be answered
in the affirmative. In his second letter to his coworker, Timo-
thy, Paul stated: “All scripture is given by inspiration of God,
and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for
instruction in righteousness: that the man of God may be per-
fect, throughly furnished unto all good works” (2 Timothy
3:16-17). Peter wrote: “Knowing this first, that no prophecy
of scripture is of private interpretation. For no prophecy ever
came by the will of man: but men spake from God, being
moved by the Holy Spirit” (2 Peter 1:20-21). When he wrote
his first epistle to the Christians at Corinth, Paul reminded
them:
But we received, not the spirit of the world, but the
spirit which is from God; that we might know the
things that were freely given to us of God. Which
things also we speak, not in words which man’s wis-

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 dom teacheth, but which the Spirit teacheth; com-
bining spiritual things with spiritual words (1 Corin-
thians 2:12-13).
Furthermore, statements such as “God said…” or “these
are the words of the Lord…” appear thousands of times in
both the Old and New Testaments. Moses wrote in Exodus
20:1: “And God spake all these words....” The psalmist wrote
in 119:89: “For ever, O Jehovah, Thy word is settled in heav-
en.” In Matthew 22:31, the Lord asked: “Have ye not read
that which was spoken unto you by God?” In fact, “[t]here are
2,700 such statements in the Old Testament alone, all of which
make direct claim that the Bible is the Word of God” (Ridenour,
1967, p. 2).
When the Bible claims to be “inspired,” what is meant by
that term? The English term “inspiration” derives from the
Latin inspirare, which means “to breathe upon or into some-
thing.” The five English words, “given by inspiration of God,”
in the King James Version of 1611 actually are translated
from the single Greek adjective, theopneustos, which is de-
rived from two Greek root words (theos—God, pneo—to blow
or breathe). Pneuma, meaning “spirit,” comes from the verb
pneo. Pneustos, then, might mean “spirited,” and theopneustos
would mean God-spirited, God-breathed, filled with the breath
of God, the product of the divine breath (or Spirit), or given
by God through the Spirit. The word implies an influence
from without, producing effects that are beyond natural pow-
ers. “The book that is in this sense inspired is one into which
something of another spirit or mind has been breathed; in
other words, its author has been overshadowed by a power
outside himself” (Goodpasture, 1970, p. 57, emp. in orig.). In
his book, The Battle for the Bible, Lindsell stated:
Inspiration may be defined as the inward work of the
Holy Spirit in the hearts and minds of chosen men
who then wrote the Scriptures so that God got writ-
ten what He wanted. The Bible in all of its parts con-
stitutes the written Word of God to man. This Word is
free from all error in the original autographs. It is

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 wholly trustworthy in matters of history and doc-
trine. However limited may have been their knowl-
edge, and however much they may have erred when
they were not writing sacred Scripture, the authors of
Scripture, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, were
preserved from making factual, historical, scientific,
or other errors. The Bible does not purport to be a text-
book of history, science, or mathematics; yet when
the writers of Scripture spoke of matters embraced in
these disciples, they did not indite error; they wrote
what was true.
The very nature of inspiration renders the Bible in-
fallible, which means that it cannot deceive us. It is
inerrant in that it is not false, mistaken, or defective.
Inspiration extends to all parts or the written Word of
God and it includes the guiding hand of the Holy
Spirit even in the selection of the words of Scripture.
Inspiration involved infallibility from start to finish.
God the Holy Spirit by nature cannot lie or be the au-
thor of untruth. If the Scripture is inspired at all, it
must be infallible. If any part of it is not infallible,
then that part cannot be inspired. If inspiration al-
lows for the possibility of error then inspiration ceases
to be inspiration (1976, pp. 30-31).
Theologically, then, “inspiration” is used for the condition of
being directly under divine influence. Paul’s point was
that every scripture is “God breathed.” [The word “scrip-
ture” in 2 Timothy 3:16 refers primarily to the Old Testa-
ment Scriptures. However, as the New Testament was writ-
ten, it, too, was referred to as “scripture.” Peter, for example,
referred to Paul’s epistles as authoritative “scripture” (2 Peter
3:15-16). Thus, the phrase “all scripture” refers to both testa-
ments.]
One searches in vain in the Bible for an exact statement
containing the details of how God related to the apostles and
others in the production of the words they spoke or wrote.
We know that the Spirit spoke by men, and that His word was
on their tongues (2 Samuel 23:2). We know that the Holy

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Spirit spoke by the mouth of men (Acts 1:16). We know that
the things spoken were in words taught by the Holy Spirit (1
Corinthians 2:12-13). But no one knows the exact details of
how the Spirit guided, superintended, guaranteed, and pro-
duced the end result. There are hidden details here that we
may not presume to know. Holy men of God spoke as they
were moved by the Spirit (2 Peter 1:20-21), guaranteeing that
all Scripture is inspired of God (2 Timothy 3:16-17). But one
must be content with these and similar statements. God sim-
ply has not spelled out the details of how His Spirit entered
into the minds of the writers, or how He worked with their
hands as they wrote. The point is that the work produced was
God’s Word, not man’s. As such, it bears His divine stamp.
When Peter wrote in 2 Peter 1:20-21 that “men spake from
God, being moved by the Holy Spirit,” he employed the
Greek word pheromenoi, which literally means “borne along.”
His point was that the Bible writers did not speak from them-
selves, but instead were “borne along” by God’s Holy Spirit
to write what they did. The Bible writers never credited their
words to mere human reason. Both Old and New Testament
passages bear this out. In 2 Samuel 23:2, it is written: “The
Spirit of Jehovah spake by me, And his word was upon my
tongue.” In Acts 1:16, Luke observed that “the Holy Spirit
spake before by the mouth of David....” Likely, however, the
best explanatory passage regarding inspiration would be
Paul’s commentary in 1 Corinthians 2:12-13, where he af-
firmed that the information the Bible writers received came
not from human wisdom, but rather directly from God. Fur-
ther, that wisdom was not expressed in man’s choice of words,
but via words guided by the Holy Spirit.
There are several different ideas concerning the inspira-
tion of the Bible. “Perhaps it would be more accurate to say
that different men believe in different levels of inspiration”
(Baxter, 1971, p. 171). Let us now turn our attention to some of
the various theories of inspiration.
Universal (Naturalistic) Inspiration. This theory holds
that the Bible is inspired only in the sense that writers and art-

- 15 -
ists are “inspired” when they produce great works of litera-
ture, music, or art. Actually this is the theory that certain men
are inspired in the sense that they are exceptionally talented.
In this sense, Shakespeare, Milton, Beethoven, Browning,
Frost, and Van Gogh all were “inspired.” This theory of inspi-
ration holds that, in essence, the Bible is just like any other
book. Although God may have given the authors an unusual
ability to convey thoughts, the Bible is, after all, a human pro-
duction without supernatural guidance. But, of course, this is
not really inspiration at all. It might be called “natural ge-
nius,” but not inspiration. As Wayne Jackson pointed out in
his text, Fortify Your Faith:
This theory is to be rejected for the following rea-
sons. (a) It makes liars out of the N.T. writers who
claimed the Holy Spirit as the source of their works.
(b) The biblical documents are vastly superior to the
ablest production of men. (c) It leaves the marvelous
unity of the Bible as an inexplicable mystery. (d) If
the Scriptures were the result of natural genius, mod-
ern genius could make them obsolete; instead, the
Bible remains the world’s best-seller (1974, p. 52).
Thought (Dynamic or Concept) Inspiration. This view
asserts that the “thoughts” of the men are inspired, but not the
words. According to this idea, the important thing is that
great spiritual truths be conveyed to the reader; it really does
not matter what words are used, or even whether the words
described events that actually occurred. This theory may
sound spiritual and pious, but it has grave problems. The hu-
man authors may have understood only partially what God
was revealing to them, and in restating it in their own words,
they may have interjected considerable error. It is possible to
convey precise thoughts and ideas only by using precise words!
If the words are unimportant, then the thoughts, which come
from the words, are entirely subjective. In other words:
But what good are “infallible ideas” if channeled
through “fallible” words? The truth is, one can no
more have ideas without words than he can have a
tune without notes or a sum without figures. The very

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 idea is absurd! And I tell you honestly, it never ceases
to puzzle me how some modernists can do such mar-
velous “word studies” from the text of the Bible, at
the same time denying the “verbal” inspiration thereof.
If the words of the sacred volume are uninspired,
why the interest in them? Do scholars produce vol-
umes of “word studies” on Shakespeare? ( Jackson,
1974, p. 52).
Neo-Orthodox Inspiration. During the twentieth cen-
tury, another view of inspiration was advanced by men like
Karl Barth. L.S. Chafer, in his book, Major Bible Themes, ex-
plained.
While not necessarily denying that supernatural ele-
ments exist in the writing of Scripture, this view ac-
knowledges that there are errors in the Bible and
thus the Bible cannot be taken literally as true. Neo-
orthodoxy holds that God speaks through the Scrip-
tures and uses them as a means by which to commu-
nicate truth to us. Accordingly, the Bible becomes a
channel of divine revelation much as a beautiful flower
or a lovely sunset communicates the concept that
God is the Creator. The Bible under this theory be-
comes true only as it is comprehended and truth is
realized by the individual reader. The history of this
view demonstrates that no two of its advocates ex-
actly agree as to what the Bible actually teaches, and
like the view of partial inspiration, leaves the individ-
ual as the final authority concerning what is true and
what is false (1926, p. 19).
Speaking in support of this theory, Emil Brunner once
said that those “conservatives” who consider the Bible objec-
tively and propositionally to be the Word of God are setting
up a “paper pope” and thereby commit “bibliolatry” (see
Merideth, 1972, pp. 377-378). Such an erroneous view of in-
spiration obviously contradicts the Bible’s claims for its own
inspiration, and leaves people with little more than ethical
subjectivism as their standard.

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 Encounter Inspiration. This theory holds that the Bible
is a vehicle of revelation but is not itself a divine revelation.
It becomes “inspired” when, and only when, it “inspires” the
reader. It may well be the medium through which a person
encounters God in an act of faith, but it is a human document
nevertheless, and as such it is subject to human error through-
out. According to this particular theory, then, inspiration be-
comes entirely subjective. One must have as much faith in
his “encounter” session as the Christian has in Scripture. A
passage that may be “inspired” to one reader may be utterly
“uninspired” to someone else who reads the very same pas-
sage. Scripture therefore loses all of its evangelistic power.
Dictation (Mechanical) Inspiration. Some Bible critics
claim that God dictated the Scriptures (every word, every
punctuation mark, etc.) to men who were little more than
mechanical stenographers who dutifully copied it all down.
If God dictated the Bible, however, the style of writing and
the vocabulary of the Bible would be the same throughout.
Yet a simple reading of the Scriptures proves that the me-
chanical dictation viewpoint is without basis in fact. The per-
sonality and style of each author are evident in every book of
the Bible. In many instances, the writers displayed their own
fears and feelings, expressed their private prayers for God’s
deliverance, or in a host of other ways interjected their own
personalities into the Divine Record. God allowed each man
his own individuality and creativity, but worked through
them all to inspire His Word. While inspiration extends to
every word of Scripture, it does not rule out human personal-
ity and human personal interest. Direct dictation was not
God’s plan for inspiration.
Verbal, Plenary Inspiration. This is the correct view of
inspiration. It holds that men wrote exactly what God wanted
them to write, without errors or mistakes, yet with their own
personalities in evidence in their writings. By “verbal,” we
mean that every word in the Bible is there because God per-
mitted it by the direction of the Holy Spirit. By “plenary”

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(from the Latin, plenus—full), we mean that every part of the
Bible is inspired, with nothing having been omitted.
In other words, by employing what we today call verbal
(word-for-word), plenary (full) inspiration, God ensured that
the writings were correct and consistent with His will. This
view holds that men wrote exactly what God wanted them to
write, without errors or mistakes, yet with their own individ-
ual characteristics in evidence. While the various books of
the Bible reflect the writers’ personalities as expressed in the
human element that often is quite evident (type of language
used, fears expressed, prayers offered, etc.), it was only by
verbal, plenary inspiration that God could convey—objec-
tively and accurately—His Word to mankind.
There is compelling evidence from within the Bible itself
about the nature of its inspiration. Immediately after His
baptism, Christ went into the wilderness for a crucial con-
frontation with Satan. When the devil suggested that He con-
vert stones into bread to stay His hunger after a lengthy fast,
the Savior replied by quoting Deuteronomy 8:3: “It is writ-
ten, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word
that proceedeth out of the mouth of God’ ” (Matthew 4:4).
Twice more He stopped the devil’s mouth with “It is writ-
ten...,” citing Deuteronomy 6:13,16. In declaring, “It is writ-
ten,” Jesus employed the Greek perfect tense, denoting com-
pleted action with abiding results. He thus declared that God’s
words were written—and remain so.
Jesus endorsed the whole Old Testament at least a dozen
times, using such designations as: the Scriptures ( John 5:39);
the law ( John 10:34); the law and the prophets (Matthew 5:17);
the law, the prophets, and the psalms (Luke 24:44); or Moses
and the prophets (Luke 16:29). In addition, the Son of God
quoted, cited from, or alluded to incidents in at least eighteen
different Old Testament books. But to what degree did Christ
believe in inspiration? The following references document
beyond doubt that the Lord affirmed verbal, plenary inspi-
ration. In Matthew 5:17-18, Christ exclaimed:

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 Think not that I came to destroy the law and the proph-
ets: I came not to destroy, but to fulfill. For verily I say
unto you, Till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or
one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all
things be accomplished.
The “jot” was the smallest Hebrew letter, and the “tittle” was
the tiny projection on certain Hebrew letters. When He em-
ployed these specific terms as examples, the Lord affirmed
the minutest accuracy for the whole of the Old Testament.
In the midst of His discussion with the Sadducees about
their denial of the resurrection of the dead (Matthew 22:
23-33), Jesus referred to Exodus 3:6 wherein God said to Mo-
ses: “I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the
God of Jacob.” When God spoke these words, Abraham had
been dead almost 400 years, yet He still said, “I am the God
of Abraham.” As Jesus correctly pointed out to the Saddu-
cees, “God is not the God of the dead, but of the living” (Mat-
thew 22:32). Thus, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob must have
been living. The only way they could be living was if their
spirits continued to survive the death of their bodies. That
kind of conscious existence implies a future resurrection of
the body—the very point Christ was attempting to make. Of
interest is the fact that His entire argument rested on the tense
of the verb!
In addition to these examples from Christ, there are other
clear indications of the recognition of verbal inspiration. Da-
vid once said: “The Spirit of Jehovah spake by me, and His
word was upon my tongue” (2 Samuel 23:2). Observe that
the king did not say God’s “thoughts” or “concepts” were upon
his tongue, but that Jehovah’s word was upon his tongue. If
that is not verbal inspiration, one would be hard pressed to
know how verbal inspiration would be expressed.
In the first letter of Paul to the Corinthians, the apostle de-
clared that the things of God were revealed to men by the
Spirit. Then, concerning the divine messages, he said, “which
things we speak, not in words which man’s wisdom teacheth,
but which the Spirit teacheth; combining spiritual things

- 20 -
with spiritual words” (1 Corinthians 2:13). The words of di-
vine revelation are Spirit-directed words, not words of mere
human wisdom. That is verbal, plenary inspiration.
The same kind of reliance on a single word was expressed
by Paul (as he referred to Genesis 22:18) in Galatians 3:16:
“Now to Abraham were the promises spoken, and to his seed.
He saith not, ‘And to seeds,’ as of many; but as of one, ‘And to
thy seed, which is Christ’ ” (emp. added). The force of his ar-
gument rested on the number of the noun (singular, as op-
posed to plural). In John 8:58, Jesus said: “I say unto you, Be-
fore Abraham was born, I am.” He was attempting to im-
press upon the Jews His eternal nature, and to do so, He once
again based His entire argument on the tense of the verb.
We should note, however, that this inspiration process ap-
plied only to the original autographs of the sacred writings
(i.e., the actual document as penned initially by the writer).
While the Bible writers were inspired, the scribes, transla-
tors, and others who followed were not. This does not mean,
as some have suggested, that we do not have God’s Word in
an accurate form today. The text of the Bible we possess can
be trusted and counted as reliable. The modernistic idea
which suggests that the copying process through the ages has
destroyed the essence of inspiration is a “theological scare-
crow to frighten those who are not knowledgeable of the art
of transmission of the Bible” (Dickson, 1997, p. 319).
Whenever duplicates of the Scriptures were needed, cop-
ies had to be made by hand—a painstaking, time-consuming
task requiring extreme concentration and special working
conditions. Eventually, an elite group of scribes arose just for
this purpose. Geisler and Nix discussed these scribes—the
Masoretes—in their book, A General Introduction to the Bible.
The Masoretic period (flourished c. A.D. 500-1000)
of Old Testament copying indicates a complete re-
view of established rules, a deep reverence for the
Scriptures, and a systematic renovation of transmis-
sion techniques.... Copies were made by an official
class of sacred scribes who labored under strict rules
(1986, pp. 354,467, cf. also pp. 371,374,380).

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Anyone who has studied the exacting conditions under which
the Masoretes worked, and the lengths to which they went to
ensure fidelity in their reproductions, could attest to the fact
that their singular goal was accuracy. They were, neverthe-
less, still human. And humans are prone to mistakes, regard-
less of the care they take or the strictness of the rules under
which they labor. The copyists’ task was made all the more
difficult by the sheer complexity of the languages involved,
and by the various ways in which potential errors could be in-
troduced (even if inadvertently) into the copying process.
Yet, through the centuries, that process was so meticulous,
and the number of extant manuscripts available for compari-
son became so large, that the minute variations that do occur
are detected quite easily. Furthermore, these variations are
insignificant in nature, and do not affect points of doctrine.
Timothy, from his early years, had known the Old Testament
“sacred writings” that were able to make him “wise unto sal-
vation” (2 Timothy 3:15). Interestingly, those “sacred writ-
ings” were mere copies of the original Old Testament manu-
scripts, yet had been preserved so faithfully through the years
that the apostle Paul could affirm that their original design
—to make mankind “wise unto salvation”—remained intact.
Several other points should be clarified as well. First, there
is an important difference between revelation and inspira-
tion. Revelation represents the revealing of facts and truths
by God to humans. Inspiration is the process by which God
guided the writing down of those facts and truths. “Revela-
tion is the body of truth which God desired men to possess;
inspiration is the way in which He gave this body of truth to
men” (Woods, n.d., p. 6). The whole Bible is the result of in-
spiration, but not all inspired material was revelatory in na-
ture. Paul could quote pagan poets in Acts 17:28 and Titus
1:12 because he already had access to this information and
did not need revelation to employ it. But God inspired him to
record these sayings, and to record them accurately. Thus,
whether the Bible writer used information already available
to him, his own eyewitness accounts, or revelation from God,
inspiration guaranteed that it was placed in print in the form
that God desired.

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 Second, uninspired people frequently received revelation
in Bible times. The children of Israel, assembled under the
burning crags of Sinai, heard God speak in awful majesty
(Exodus 20:18-21; Hebrews 12:19), but no one would say
that they were inspired. When the martyr Stephen was being
stoned, he said: “Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the
Son of Man standing on the right hand of God” (Acts 7:56).
This was indeed revelation, but not inspiration. Thus, it is
correct to say that the Bible contains revelation from God,
because such a statement implies that it likewise contains
items that are not revelatory in nature—which it does (e.g.,
historical facts already known to the writers). But it is im-
proper to say that the Bible contains inspired writings, be-
cause such a statement implies that it likewise contains items
that are not inspired. Such a position is false, because all of
the books that comprise the Bible are inspired by the Spirit of
God. As Goodpasture rightly remarked: “What he [Paul—BT]
said is quite different from the modernistic statement: ‘The
Bible contains the word of God.’ According to Paul, the Bible
is the word of God; it is all given by inspiration” (1970, p. 55,
emp. in orig.).
Revelation assures men that they possess all the informa-
tion that God decided to make available to them; inspiration
certifies that the revelation given to men in written form is
truthful and correct. With the death of John, the last New Tes-
tament writer, all revelation ceased (simultaneously, inspira-
tion likewise ceased). Since John’s death, no new revelation
has been given. We have God’s word that the Scriptures were
“once for all delivered” ( Jude 3, emp. added).
Third, the fact that a person wrote by inspiration does not
mean that he was free from personal sin in his life. Israel’s
King David penned several Old Testament psalms. The apos-
tle Peter acknowledged that “the Holy Spirit spake before by
the mouth of David” (Acts 1:16). Yet this was the very same
king who committed adultery with Bathsheba, and had her
husband, Uriah the Hittite, slain to cover his sin. Peter him-
self presented some extremely powerful sermons (e.g., Acts
2:14ff.), and penned two New Testament epistles. Yet he played

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the hypocrite when he separated himself from the Gentiles to
seek favor with the Jews (and received a public rebuke from
Paul for it—Galatians 2:11ff.). Thus, while inspiration pre-
served the integrity of the writer’s words as he was “moved
by the Holy Spirit,” that process neither diminished his free-
dom of choice nor compelled him to live a sinless life.
Fourth, inspiration was not a twenty-four-hour-a-day pro-
cess. A few months prior to His death, the Lord informed His
disciples that He shortly would enter Jerusalem, where He
would suffer and eventually die. Peter, however, rebuked the
Lord and said: “Be it far from thee, Lord: this shall never be
unto thee” (Matthew 16:22). Obviously, that impetuous ut-
terance was not inspired. In Luke, the story is told of a group
of Samaritans who refused aid and comfort to the Lord (9:
51ff.). James and John bitterly suggested that the Lord enjoin
a “heavenly barbecue” to consume these ill-tempered Sa-
maritans. Their attempt at vengeance—for which they drew
the Lord’s ire—hardly was inspired. The truth of the matter is
that inspiration guided the writers in what they wrote and
spoke from God as they were “borne along” by God’s Spirit
—a process that was not active every minute of every day.
Fifth, inspiration extended to a variety of disparate sub-
jects. Today, it is not uncommon to hear liberal theologians,
and those sympathetic with them, suggest that the “spiritual”
sections of Scripture are inspired, but that all other portions
dealing with matters of history, science, geography, medi-
cine, and the like are not. This concept, known as the doc-
trine of “partial inspiration,” is false. Were it true, everyone
who reads the text would have the personal responsibility of
wading through the biblical documents to decide which mat-
ters are “spiritual” (thus, inspired) and which are not (thus,
uninspired). On some occasions, therefore, God would have
“breathed” truth, while on others He would have “breathed”
error. But the question must be asked: If God cannot handle
correctly trivial matters (such as geographical directions, or
the name of an individual), why would anyone think that
they could trust Him with something as critically important
as the safety of their eternal soul and expect Him to handle it

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in a more appropriate fashion? The psalmist stated: “The
sum of thy word is truth; And every one of thy righteous or-
dinances endureth for ever” (Psalm 119:160; emp. added).
The concept of partial inspiration impugns the integrity and
nature of God, conflicts with the evidences for inspiration,
and should be rejected.
Sixth, not only did the Bible writers view each others’ works
as inspired, but no Bible writer ever criticized another. To-
day, it is not at all unusual for one religious writer to take issue
with another, even when they share the same religious views,
or are members of the same religious group. But the Bible
writers do not fall into that category—even when one might
expect them to do so. For example, as mentioned above, Paul
rebuked Peter publicly for his dissimulation (Galatians 2:11ff.).
Yet Peter never avenged himself by denigrating Paul’s writ-
ings. In fact, Peter wrote:
And account that the longsuffering of our Lord is sal-
vation; even as our beloved brother Paul also, ac-
cording to the wisdom given to him, wrote unto you;
as also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these
things; wherein are some things hard to be under-
stood, which the ignorant and unstedfast wrest, as
they do also the other scriptures, unto their own de-
struction (2 Peter 3:15-16, emp. added).
Note especially that Peter referred to Paul’s writings as being
classified by the same kind of inspiration as the “other scrip-
tures.” Additionally, in defending the right of elders to re-
ceive remuneration from the church treasury for their work,
Paul quoted Deuteronomy 25:4 and Luke 10:7, classifying
them both as “scripture” (1 Timothy 5:18). It is clear that the
Bible writers considered each others’ works to be inspired—a
view we today would do well to entertain.

EVIDENCE OF THE BIBLE’S INSPIRATION

Evidence to substantiate the Bible’s claims of its own inspi-
ration can be drawn from two general sources. External evi-
dences for inspiration include such things as historical docu-

- 25 -
mentation of biblical people, places, and events, or archaeo-
logical artifacts that corroborate biblical statements or cir-
cumstances. Internal evidences are part of the warp and
woof of the actual biblical fabric itself. These are self-authen-
ticating phenomena from within the Sacred Volume that
bear singular testimony to the fact that the very existence of
the Holy Scriptures cannot be explained in any other way ex-
cept to acknowledge that they are the result of an overriding,
superintending, guiding Mind.
Critics, of course, have objected to the use of the Bible as a
witness to its own inspiration. Dickson has pointed out cor-
rectly, however, that
...this contention is really unjust. One does not have
a right to deny the authenticity of a document with-
out considering the document itself. We would not
deny Shakespeare’s authorship of the Shakespear-
ean plays without first considering their text. The Bi-
ble should at least be treated as just another book.
Nevertheless, even this right is rejected by the preju-
diced minds of some (1997, p. 328).
Clark H. Pinnock once observed:
While insisting on their right to treat the Bible “like
any other book” (vs. a book produced by man alone),
some critics proceed to treat it like no other book, by
bathing it in the acid solution of their skepticism and
historical pessimism (1972, pp. 22-23, parenthetical
item in orig.).
When the evidences for the Bible’s inspiration are allowed to
speak for themselves, however, the story they tell is totally in
accord with the Bible’s claims for its own inspiration. Con-
sider, for example, the following.
The Unity of the Bible
The Bible exhibits a unity that—on purely human terms—is
quite simply inexplicable. In order to appreciate that unity,
one first must come to terms with how The Book was put to-
gether. The Bible was written by more than forty different
men from practically every walk of life. Nehemiah was a roy-

- 26 -
al cupbearer. Peter was a fisherman. Luke was a physician.
Matthew was a tax collector. Solomon was a king. Moses was
a shepherd. Paul was a tentmaker. Furthermore, these men
wrote from almost every conceivable human condition. David
wrote from heights of joy on the rolling, grassy hills of Judea.
Paul wrote from pits of despair caused by Roman incarcera-
tion. They wrote in three languages (Hebrew, Aramaic, and
Greek) from at least two continents (Europe and Asia) over a
period of time that spanned approximately sixteen centuries
(1500 B.C. to A.D. 100). And they covered topics as diverse as
eschatology, soteriology, theology, psychology, geography,
history, medicine, and many others.
All this being true, one might expect that so diverse a group
of men, writing on so varied a group of subjects, over such a
lengthy span of time, would have produced a book that would
be a tangled mishmash of subjects more often than not marred
by an incredible number of inconsistencies, errors, and in-
congruities. Yet this hardly is the case. In fact, quite the oppo-
site is true. The Bible exhibits such astounding harmony,
such consistent flow, and such unparalleled unity that it de-
fies any purely naturalistic explanation. It is as if the Bible
were a magnificent symphony orchestrated by a single Con-
ductor. The “musicians” each may have played a different in-
strument, in a different place, at a different time. But when
the talented Maestro combined the individual efforts, the
end result was a striking masterpiece.
Consider this analogy. Suppose you assembled forty con-
temporary scholars with the highest academic training possi-
ble in a single field of study (e.g., forty academicians with ter-
minal Ph.D. degrees in world history). Suppose, further, that
you placed them in a room, and asked them to write a twenty-
page paper on a single topic—the causes of World War II.
What kind of consensus would be exhibited when all of their
treatises were completed? Likely, the forty scholars would be
unable to agree on all but a few points; their compositions
would be recognized more for the disagreements they con-
tained than for the agreements. The Bible writers, by con-
trast, generally were not contemporaries. They worked in-

- 27 -
dependently, and the majority never even met another bib-
lical writer. Most were not highly trained, and what training
they did have certainly was not in the same field of study. Nor
were they allowed to write on a single topic in which they al-
ready had an interest. Yet they produced a book that is uni-
fied from beginning to end. The books of 1 and 2 Chronicles
and 1 and 2 Kings corroborate one another in numerous his-
torical events. Joshua 1 verifies Deuteronomy 34. Judges 1:1
verifies Joshua 24:27-33. Ezra 1 verifies 2 Chronicles 36:22-
23. Daniel refers to Jeremiah (Daniel 9:2). Ezekiel refers to
Daniel (Ezekiel 28:3). And so on. This kind of unity, which is
in evidence throughout the Sacred Volume, attests to the fact
that there was a Superintending Intelligence behind it. So many
writers, over so many years, covering so many themes, sim-
ply could not have been so harmonious by mere coincidence.
Each book of the Bible complements the others in a single
unified theme. From Genesis to Revelation there is a mar-
velous unfolding of the general theme of man’s fall from his
holy estate, God’s plan for his redemption (as carefully worked
out across the centuries), the sinless life and atoning death of
Jesus Christ, and the ultimate victory of the Christian system.
In essence, the Bible is the story of one problem—sin—with
one solution, Jesus Christ. In commenting on the Bible’s re-
markable unity of theme, Wayne Jackson has noted:
The redemptive thread that runs through the Scrip-
tures is wonderfully illustrated by a comparison be-
tween Genesis and Revelation, the first and last books
of the holy canon. In Genesis the origin of the heav-
ens and Earth is revealed (1:1), while in Revelation
the consummation of earthly affairs is effected, and
the old order is replaced by a “new heaven and earth”
(i.e., heaven itself), spiritual in nature.... Man, who
was originally perfect, but who fell into sin (Genesis
3:6), is, by virtue of his obedience, granted the op-
portunity to become perfect again (Revelation 7:14;
22:14). All of this is made possible, of course, by the
seed of woman (Genesis 3:15), the offspring of David
(Revelation 22:16), who, as a consequence of his sac-

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 rifice (Genesis 4:4), became an enthroned Lamb (Rev-
elation 21:4). Thus, the sorrow of Eden (Genesis 3:
16) will be transformed into the joy of heaven (Reve-
lation 21:4), and that tree of life, from which our early
parents were separated (Genesis 3:22-24), will be
our glad possession once more (Revelation 22:14)
[1991a, 11:1].
James Orr wrote:
But the impartial mind cannot ignore the fact that in
the writings which constitute our Bible there is a unity
and progression, a guiding purpose, culminating in
Jesus Christ and His redemption, a fullness and power
of religious truth, which place them in a category,
and compel the acknowledgement, of a unique origin
answering to their unique character (1969, pp. 12- 13).
Each book of the Bible complements the others in a single,
unified plan. In Genesis, there is the record of humanity’s
pristine origin and covenant relationship with God, followed
by its tragic fall into a sinful state. But, a specific family line
(the Hebrew nation) was selected to provide a remedy for
this disaster (Genesis 12:1ff.; 22:18). Man needed to learn
precisely what sin is, thus the books of Exodus through Deu-
teronomy document the giving of the law of God to Moses.
Via a set of ordinances, sin would be defined and humanity
would be illuminated regarding the price of rebellion against
God (Romans 7:7,13; Galatians 3:19). The historical books of
the Old Testament revealed mankind’s inability to keep per-
fectly God’s law system (Galatians 3:10), and therefore un-
derscored the need for a Justifier—Someone to do for man
what he could not do for himself. The prophets of the Old
Testament heralded the arrival of that Savior (Luke 24:44);
more than 300 prophecies focus on the promised Messiah.
After four silent centuries (the “inter-biblical era”), four
Gospel writers described in great detail the arrival, and life’s
work, of the Justifier—Jesus of Nazareth. The books of Mat-
thew, Mark, Luke, and John are carefully crafted accounts of
the birth, life, death, and ultimate resurrection of the Son of
God ( John 20:30-31). Each emphasized different parts of

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Christ’s ministry in order to relate the “good news” to Jews or
Gentiles. Matthew directed his record primarily to the Jew-
ish nation. Mark stressed the works of Jesus. Luke, being the
only Gentile writer of a Bible book (except possibly the au-
thor of Job), wrote to Gentiles. John’s primary purpose in
writing was to produce faith.
The book of Acts was written to convey the means by which
mankind was to appropriate God’s saving grace. It is a histor-
ical record that instructs a person on how to become a Chris-
tian. It also teaches about how the church of Christ was estab-
lished in Jerusalem, and how that same church flourished
throughout the Roman Empire of the first century. The vari-
ous epistles that follow the book of Acts in the English Bible
were directions to individuals and churches on how to ob-
tain, and maintain, spiritual maturity. Finally, the book of
Revelation predicted (in symbolic fashion) the ultimate tri-
umph of good over evil—acknowledging that Christians would
win, and Satan would lose. To the careful reader, the unity of
both theme and plan in the Bible are apparent.
The Factual Accuracy of the Bible
The Bible claims to be the inspired Word of God. There-
fore, it should be accurate in whatever subject(s) it discusses,
since God is not the Author of confusion and contradiction (1
Corinthians 14:33), but of truth ( John 17:17). The factual ac-
curacy of the Bible proves that it is accurate. Time and again
the Bible’s facts have withstood the test. Examples abound.
Numerous passages indicate that Moses wrote the Penta-
teuch (2 Chronicles 34:14; Ezra 6:18; Nehemiah 13:1; Exo-
dus 17:14; John 5:46; Mark 12:26). Having been adopted by
the royal family of Egypt, he would have had access to the
finest schools, best tutors, and greatest libraries which that
country had to offer, thus securing for himself an impressive
education (see Acts 7:22). Yet Bible critics suggested that Mo-
ses could not have written the Pentateuch because the art of
writing was not developed until well after his death (c. 1451
B.C.). This criticism, however, has been blunted by a verita-
ble plethora of archaeological discoveries. In 1933, J.L. Starkey,

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who had studied under famed archaeologist W.M.F. Petrie,
excavated the ancient city of Lachish, which had figured
prominently in Joshua’s conquest of Canaan ( Joshua 10).
Among other things, he unearthed a pottery water pitcher
“inscribed with a dedication in eleven archaic letters, the ear-
liest ‘Hebrew’ inscription known” (Wiseman, 1974, p. 705).
Pfeiffer has noted: “The Old, or palaeo-Hebrew script is the
form of writing which is similar to that used by the Phoeni-
cians. A royal inscription of King Shaphatball of Gebal (Byblos)
in this alphabet dates from about 1600 B.C.” (1966, p. 33). In
1949, C.F.A. Schaeffer “found a tablet at Ras Shamra con-
taining the thirty letters of the Ugaritic alphabet in their proper
order. It was discovered that the sequence of the Ugaritic al-
phabet was the same as modern Hebrew, revealing that the
Hebrew alphabet goes back at least 3,500 years” ( Jackson,
1982, p. 32).
The Code of Hammurabi, (c. 2000-1700 B.C.) was discov-
ered by a French archaeological expedition under the direc-
tion of Jacques de Morgan in 1901-1902 at the ancient site of
Susa in what is now Iran. It was written on a piece of black
diorite nearly eight feet high, and contained 282 sections.
Free and Vos stated:
The Code of Hammurabi was written several hun-
dred years before the time of Moses (c. 1500-1400
B.C.).... This code, from the period 2000-1700 B.C.,
contains advanced laws similar to those in the Mo-
saic laws.... In view of this archaeological evidence,
the destructive critic can no longer insist that the laws
of Moses are too advanced for his time (1992, pp.
103,55).

The Code of Hammurabi established beyond doubt that

writing was known hundreds of years before Moses. In fact,
the renowned Jewish historian, Josephus, confirmed that
Moses authored the Pentateuch (Against Apion, 1,8), and vari-
ous non-Christian writers (Hecataeus, Manetha, Lysimachus,
Eupolemus, Tacitus, Juvenal, and Longinus, to name only a

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few), credited Moses as having authored the first five books
of the English Bible (see Rawlinson, 1877, pp. 254ff.).
In days of yore, detractors accused Isaiah of having made
a historical mistake when he wrote of Sargon as king of As-
syria (Isaiah 20:1). For years, this remained the sole historical
reference—secular or biblical—to Sargon having been linked
with the Assyrian nation. Thus, critics assumed Isaiah had
erred. But in 1843, Paul Emile Botta, the French consular
agent at Mosul, working with Austen Layard, unearthed his-
torical evidence that established Sargon as having been ex-
actly what Isaiah said he was—king of the Assyrians. At Khor-
sabad, Botta discovered Sargon’s palace. Pictures of the find
may be found in Halley’s Bible Handbook (1962, p. 289). Ap-
parently, from what scholars have been able to piece together
from archaeological and historical records, Sargon made his
capital successively at Ashur, Calah, Nineveh, and finally at
Khorsabad, where his palace was constructed in the closing
years of his reign (c. 706 B.C.). The walls of the palace were
adorned quite intricately with ornate text that described the
events of his reign. Today, an artifact from the palace—a forty-
ton stone bull (slab)—is on display at the University of Chi-
cago’s Oriental Institute (“weighty” evidence indeed of Sar-
gon’s existence!). Isaiah had been correct all along. And the
critics had been wrong—all along.
One of the most famous archaeologists of the last century
was Sir William Ramsay, who disputed the accuracy of events
recorded by Luke in the book of Acts. Ramsay believed those
events to be little more than second-century, fictitious ac-
counts. Yet after years of literally digging through the evi-
dence in Asia Minor, Ramsay concluded that Luke was an
exemplary historian. In the decades since Ramsay, other
scholars have suggested that Luke’s historical background of
the New Testament is among the best ever produced. As Wayne
Jackson noted:
In Acts, Luke mentions thirty-two countries, fifty-
four cities, and nine Mediterranean islands. He also
mentions ninety-five persons, sixty-two of which are

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 not named elsewhere in the New Testament. And his
references, where checkable, are always correct. This
is truly remarkable, in view of the fact that the politi-
cal/territorial situation of his day was in a state of al-
most constant change. Only inspiration can account
for Luke’s precision (1991b, 27[1]:2).
Other Bible critics have suggested that Luke misspoke
when he designated Sergius Paulus as proconsul of Cyprus
(Acts 13:7). Their claim was that Cyprus was governed by a
propraetor (also known as a consular legate), not a procon-
sul. Upon further examination, such a charge can be seen to
be completely vacuous, as Thomas Eaves has documented.
As we turn to the writers of history for that period,
Dia Cassius (Roman History) and Strabo (The Geogra-
phy of Strabo), we learn that there were two periods of
Cyprus’ history: first, it was an imperial province
governed by a propraetor, and later in 22 B.C., it was
made a senatorial province governed by a procon-
sul. Therefore, the historians support Luke in his
statement that Cyprus was ruled by a proconsul, for
it was between 40-50 A.D. when Paul made his first
missionary journey. If we accept secular history as
being true we must also accept Biblical history for
they are in agreement (1980, p. 234).
The science of archaeology seems to have outdone itself in
verifying the Scriptures. Famed archaeologist William F.
Albright wrote: “There can be no doubt that archaeology has
confirmed the substantial historicity of the Old Testament
tradition” (1953, p. 176). Nelson Glueck, himself a pillar within
the archaeological community, said: “It may be stated cate-
gorically that no archaeological discovery has ever contro-
verted a Biblical reference. Scores of archaeological findings
have been made which conform in clear outline or exact de-
tail historical statements in the Bible” (1959, p. 31). Such
statements, offered 30+ years ago, are as true today as the
day they were made. Jerry Moffitt observed:
Over thirty names (emperors, high priests, Roman
governors, princes, etc.) are mentioned in the New
Testament, and all but a handful have been verified.

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 In every way the Bible accounts have been found ac-
curate (though vigorously challenged). In no single
case does the Bible let us down in geographical accu-
racy. Without one mistake, the Bible lists around
forty-five countries. Each is accurately placed and
named. About the same number of cities are named
and no one mistake can be listed. Further, about thirty-
six towns are mentioned, and most have been identi-
fied. Wherever accuracy can be checked, minute de-
tail has been found correct—every time! (1993, p. 129).
The Hittites are mentioned over forty times in Scripture
(Exodus 23:28; Joshua 1:4; et al.), and were so feared that on
one occasion they caused the Syrians to flee from Israel (2
Kings 7:6). Yet critics suggested that Hittites were a figment
of the Bible writers’ imaginations, since no evidence of their
existence had been located. But in the late 1800s, A.H. Sayce
discovered inscriptions in Syria that he designated as Hittite.
Then, in 1906, Hugh Winckler excavated Boghazkoy, Tur-
key and discovered that the Hittite capital had been located
on that very site. His find was all the more powerful because
of the more than 10,000 clay tablets that were found in the an-
cient city’s library and that contained the society’s law system
—which eventually came to be known as the Hittite Code.
Thus, Ira Price wrote of the Hittites:
The lack of extra-biblical testimony to their exis-
tence led some scholars about a half-century ago to
deny their historicity. They scoffed at the idea of Is-
rael allying herself with such an unhistorical people
as the Hittites, as narrated in 2 Kings vii.6. But those
utterances have vanished into thin air (1907, pp. 75-
76).
In his classic text, Lands of the Bible, J.W. McGarvey remarked:
A fictitious narrative, located in a country with which
the writer is not personally familiar, must either avoid
local allusions or be found frequently in conflict with
the peculiarities of place and of manners and customs.
By this conflict the fictitious character of the narra-
tive is exposed (1881, p. 375).

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 McGarvey then documented numerous instances in which
the facts of the Bible can be checked, and in which it always
passes the test. Are compass references accurate? Is Antioch
of Syria actually “down” from Jerusalem, even though it lies
to the north of the holy city (Acts 15:1)? Is the way from Jeru-
salem to Gaza “south” of Samaria (Acts 8:26)? Is Egypt “down”
from Canaan (Genesis 12:10)? McGarvey went on to note
that “in not a single instance of this kind has any of the Bible
writers been found at fault” (p. 378). Further, as Jackson has
commented:
In 1790, William Paley, the celebrated Anglican
scholar, authored his famous volume, Horae Paulinae
(Hours with Paul). In this remarkable book, Paley dem-
onstrated an amazing array of “undesigned coinci-
dences” between the book of Acts and the epistles of
Paul, which argue for the credibility of the Christian
revelation. “These coincidences,” said Paley, “which
are often incorporated or intertwined in references
and allusions, in which no art can be discovered, and
no contrivance traced, furnish numerous proofs of
the truth of both these works, and consequently that
of Christianity” (1839 edition, p. xvi). In 1847, J.J.
Blunt of Cambridge University released a compan-
ion volume titled, Undesigned Coincidences in the Writ-
ings of Both the Old Testament and New Testament. Pro-
fessor Blunt argued that both Testaments contain nu-
merous examples of “consistency without contriv-
ance” which support the Scriptures’ claim of a uni-
fied origin from a supernatural source, namely God
(1884, p. vii) [1991a, pp. 2-3].
A sampling of the information within Paley’s and Blunt’s
books provides startling evidence of the fact that the writers
simply could not have “contrived” their stories. Often, the
writers were separated from one another by centuries, yet
their stories dovetail with astounding accuracy, and provide
additional proof of the Bible’s inspiration.
When Joseph was seventeen years old, he was sold into
Egyptian slavery by his brothers. While serving in the house
of an Egyptian named Potiphar, Joseph found himself the ob-

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ject of affection of Potiphar’s wife, whose advances he re-
jected. Her anger aroused, she fabricated a story that resulted
in Joseph’s being thrown into prison where the king’s cap-
tives were “bound” (Genesis 39:20). In the context of this
passage, the word “bound” is of critical importance because
hundreds of years after the fact, the psalmist would state of Jo-
seph: “His feet they hurt with fetters: He was laid in chains of
iron” (Psalm 105:18). Contrivance—or consistency?
When Pharaoh stubbornly refused to release the Israelites
from bondage, God rained down plagues on the Egyptian
monarch and his people, including a plague of hail that de-
stroyed the flax in the fields (Exodus 9:31). Eventually, the
Israelites were released, traveled to the wilderness of Sinai,
were found faithless in God’s sight, and were forced to wan-
der for four decades while everyone over the age of twenty
perished (except for the houses of Joshua and Caleb—Num-
bers 14:29-30). Finally, however, the Hebrews were allowed
to enter the promised land of Canaan. The arrival of the
younger generation was exactly forty years after Moses had
led them out of Egypt ( Joshua 4:19), and thus shortly before
the anniversary of that eighth plague which destroyed the
flax. The book of Joshua mentions that their entrance into
Canaan was near harvest time (3:15). Interestingly, when
spies were sent to investigate the city of Jericho, the Bible
notes that they were concealed by Rahab under drying stalks
of flax upon the rooftop of her house ( Joshua 2:6). Coinci-
dence—or concordance?
In Exodus 1:11, the story is related of how the Israelites
were forced to build the treasure cities of Pithom and Raamses
for the Egyptian ruler. Exodus 5 records that, initially, the
slaves made bricks containing straw, but later were forced to
use stubble because Pharaoh ordered his taskmasters not to
provide any more straw. Excavations at Pithom in 1883 by
Naville, and in 1908 by Kyle, discovered that the lower lay-
ers of the structures were made of bricks filled with good,
chopped straw. The middle layers had less straw with some
stubble. The upper layers contained bricks that were made of
pure clay, with no straw whatsoever (see Pfeiffer, 1966, p.
459). Contrivance—or correctness?

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 The Tell-el-Armarna Tablets (c. 1450 B.C.) record the cus-
tom of bowing down seven times when meeting a superior.
Thus the statement in Genesis 33:3—“And he [ Jacob] himself
passed over before them, and bowed himself to the ground
seven times, until he came near to his brother [Esau]”—is
confirmed as an act of respect. Coincidence—or consistency?
In at least two places, the Old Testament speaks of the
Horites (Genesis 14:6; 36:21). Until approximately 1925, no
one ever had heard of the Horites. Once again, however, ar-
chaeology revealed the factual accuracy of the Bible. Around
1925, archaeological discoveries helped explain the exis-
tence of this formerly unknown nation. Free and Vos have
commented that “Horite” derives from the Egyptian Hurru,
which is “...a general term the Egyptians applied to southern
Transjordan...,” and that “...the Hebrews adopted it from the
Egyptians” (1992, p. 66). Thus, both Egyptian and Hebrew
cultures were intertwined with the Horites. Contrivance—or
concordance?
On one occasion during His earthly ministry, Jesus mirac-
ulously provided a meal for more than 5,000 people. Mark
records that the Lord seated the people upon the “green grass”
(6:39). Such a statement agrees completely with John’s refer-
ence to the fact that this event occurred near the time of the
Passover (6:44), which occurs in the spring—exactly the time
in Palestine when the grass should be green. Coincidence—or
correctness?
In Acts 28:20, Luke described Paul’s Roman imprison-
ment, and quoted the apostle as proclaiming: “...because of
the hope of Israel I am bound with this chain.” During this in-
carceration, Paul penned four important letters (Ephesians,
Philippians, Colossians, and Philemon). In his epistle to the
Ephesians, Paul alluded to his “chain” (6:20). In Philippians
he referred to his “bonds” (1:7,13-14,17). Similarly, see the
references to his “bonds” in Colossians 4:3 and Philemon
1:13. Coincidence—or consistency?
In his second letter to Timothy, Paul admonished the young
man by stating that “...from a babe thou hast known the sa-
cred writings which are able to make thee wise unto salvation

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through faith which is in Christ Jesus” (2 Timothy 3:15). The
reference to the “sacred writings” is an allusion to the Old
Testament. Since Timothy had known those writings from
his earliest days, certainly it would be safe to suggest that his
background was Jewish. As a matter of fact, the book of Acts
states Timothy was “the son of a Jewess that believed, but his
father was a Greek” (Acts 16:1). Of further interest is the fact
that when Paul commended Timothy for his strong faith (2
Timothy 1:5), he alluded to the spirituality of both the young
man’s mother and grandmother, yet made no mention of
Timothy’s father. Coincidence—or concordance?
When Jesus died, His disciples desired to prepare His body
for burial by embalming it. In his Gospel, John declared that
the Jewish ruler, Nicodemus, brought a hundred pounds of
spices (myrrh and aloes) for this purpose (19:39). It would be
safe to conclude, therefore, that large quantities of these kinds
of spices would be required for the embalming process. It is
an undisputed fact of secular history that the Egyptians were
experts in embalming. When Jacob died, the physicians of
Egypt embalmed him (Genesis 50:2). Likewise, Joseph was
embalmed upon his demise (50:26). The Egyptians required
vast quantities of spices—like myrrh—for their embalming
purposes. Not surprisingly, then, the Old Testament teaches
that myrrh was imported by camel caravans into Egypt (Gen-
esis 37:24). Contrivance—or inspiration?
In their book, A General Introduction to the Bible, Geisler and
Nix wrote: “Confirmation of the Bible’s accuracy in factual
matters lends credibility to its claims when speaking on other
subjects” (1986, p. 195). Indeed it does! After previewing
many of the above facts, and others of a similar nature, Wayne
Jackson concluded:
The Bible critic is likely to trivialize these examples
as they are isolated from one another. When, how-
ever, literally hundreds and hundreds of these inci-
dental details are observed to perfectly mesh, one
begins to suspect that what have been called “unde-
signed coincidences” (from the human vantage point)

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 become very obvious cases of divinely designed har-
mony—tiny footprints that lead only to the conclu-
sion that God was the guiding Force behind the com-
position of the Sacred Scriptures (1991a, 11:3).

The Prophecy of the Bible

One of the most impressive internal proofs of the Bible’s in-
spiration is its prophetic utterances. Rex A. Turner Sr. sug-
gested:
Predictive prophecy is the highest evidence of di-
vine revelation. The one thing that mortal man can-
not do is to know and report future events in the ab-
sence of a train of circumstances that naturally sug-
gest certain possibilities... (1989, p. 12).
If the Bible is inspired of God, then it should contain valid,
predictive prophecy. In fact, the Bible’s prophecy—com-
pletely foretold to the minutest detail, and painstakingly ful-
filled with the greatest precision—has confounded its critics
for generations. The Bible contains prophecies about indi-
viduals, lands, nations, and even the predicted Messiah.
Thomas Horne defined predictive prophecy as “a miracle
of knowledge, a declaration or representation of something
future, beyond the power of human sagacity to discern or to
calculate” (1970, 1:272). The Bible confirms that definition:
But the prophet, that shall speak a word presumptu-
ously in my name, which I have not commanded
him to speak, or that shall speak in the name of other
gods, that same prophet shall die. And if thou say in
thy heart, “How shall we know the word which Jeho-
vah hath not spoken?,” when a prophet speaketh in
the name of Jehovah, if the thing follow not, nor come
to pass, that is the thing which Jehovah hath not spo-
ken: the prophet hath spoken it presumptuously,
thou shalt not be afraid of him (Deuteronomy 18:20-
22).
The prophet Isaiah based the credibility of his message on
prophecy. To the promoters of idolatry in his day, he issued
the following challenge: “Let them bring forth, and declare

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unto us what shall happen: declare ye the former things, what
they are, that we may consider them, and know the latter end
of them; or show us things to come” (Isaiah 41:22). His point
was this: It is one thing to make the prediction; it is entirely
another to see that prediction actually come true and be cor-
roborated by subsequent history.
In order for a prophecy to be valid, it must meet certain
criteria. First, it must be a specific, detailed declaration, as op-
posed to being nebulous, vague, or general in nature. Arthur
Pierson wrote: “The particulars of the prophecy should be so
many and minute that there shall be no possibility of ac-
counting by shrewd guesswork for the accuracy of the fulfill-
ment” (1913, pp. 75-76). Bernard Ramm has suggested: “The
prophecy must be more than a good guess or a conjecture. It
must possess sufficient precision as to be capable of verifica-
tion by means of the fulfillment” (1971, p. 82).
Second, there must be a sufficient amount of time between
the prophetic statement and its fulfillment. Suggestions about
what “might” happen in the future do not qualify as prophetic
pronouncements. Rather, the prophecy must precede the ful-
fillment in a significant fashion, and there must be no chance
whatsoever of the prophet having the ability to influence the
outcome.
Third, the prophecy must be stated in clear, understand-
able terms. Roger Dickson has noted: “Prophecies must be
sufficiently clear in order for the observer to be able to link
pronouncement with fulfillment. If a prophecy is not under-
standable enough so as to allow the observer to depict its ful-
fillment, then what good would the prophecy be?” (1997, p.
346).
Fourth, the prophecy must not have historical overtones.
In other words, true prophecy should not be based on past (or
current) societal or economic conditions. Pierson amplified
this point by stating: “There should have been nothing in pre-
vious history which makes it possible to forecast a like event
in the future” (1913, p. 75). Fifth, a clear, understandable, exact
prophecy must have a clear, understandable, exact fulfill-

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ment. It is not enough to suggest that a certain event came true
with a “high degree of probability.” The fulfillment must be
unmistakable, and must match the prophecy in every detail.
Two questions, then, are in order: (1) does the Bible em-
ploy predictive prophecy; and (2) if it does, can the predic-
tive prophecy be proven true? The answer to both questions
is a resounding, “Yes!” Further, the Bible’s prophecy fits the
above standards perfectly—each and every time. Consider
just a few brief examples.
Within the Sacred Volume, numerous prophecies are pre-
sented regarding the rise, decline, and eventual fall of kings,
cities, and even nations. (1) The Bible foretells the destruc-
tion of the city of Tyre with miraculous precision. Ezekiel
predicted that Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, would de-
stroy the city (Ezekiel 26:7-8). Many nations were to come up
against Tyre (26:3). The city would be leveled and scraped
clean like a bare rock (26:4). The city’s stones, timbers, and
soil would be cast into the sea (26:12). The surrounding area
would become a place for the spreading of fishermen’s nets
(26:5). And, finally, the city never would be rebuilt to its for-
mer glory (26:14).
History records that each of these predictions came true.
Tyre, a coastal city from ancient times, had a somewhat un-
usual arrangement. In addition to the inland city, there was
an island about three-fourth’s of a mile offshore. Nebuchad-
nezzar besieged the mainland city in 586 B.C., but when he fi-
nally was able to inhabit the city in about 573 B.C., his victory
was hollow. Unbeknownst to him, the inhabitants had va-
cated the city and moved to the island—a situation that re-
mained virtually unchanged for the next 241 years. Then, in
332 B.C., Alexander the Great conquered the city—but not
with ease. To get to the island, he literally had his army “scrape
clean” the inland city of its debris, and he then used those ma-
terials (soil, stones, and timbers) to build a causeway to the is-
land. While Alexander inflicted severe damage on the city, it
still remained intact. In fact, it waxed and waned for the next
1,600 years until finally, in A.D. 1291, the Muslims thoroughly
crushed Tyre.

- 41 -
 The city never regained its once-famous position of wealth
and power. The prophet Ezekiel looked 1,900 years into the
future and predicted that Tyre would be a bald rock where
fishermen gathered to open their nets. And that is exactly what
history records as having happened (see Bromling, 1994, 14:
96; Major, 1996, 16:93-95).
(2) During a time in the history of Israel in which God’s
people had delved deeply into idolatry, the prophet Isaiah
foretold that God would raise up the Assyrians as His “rod of
anger” in order to punish the disobedient Hebrews (Isaiah
10:5-6). But, Isaiah noted, after that had been accomplished,
God would see to it that the Assyrians themselves were pun-
ished for their own wicked deeds (Isaiah 10:12,24-25).
Archaeology has revealed some impressive facts regarding
this prophecy. Assyrian records, discovered in recent years,
discuss the fact that in the reign of Hosea, king of Israel, Shal-
manesar, ruler of Assyria, assaulted Samaria, the capital city
of Israel. However, he died before completing the assault,
which was taken up by his successor, Sargon, who captured
the city (cf. 2 Kings 18:10). An Assyrian clay prism comments
on the fact that 27,290 Israelite captives were taken in the
conflict. Almost twenty-five years later, the Assyrian king Sen-
nacherib once again invaded Palestine (2 Kings 18:13ff.). Ar-
chaeological records report that 46 Judean cities were seized
and that 200,150 Israelites were captured. Jerusalem, how-
ever, was not conquered—a fact that is noteworthy since 2
Kings 19:32-34 predicted that Sennacherib would be unable
to take the holy city.
The Taylor Cylinder, discovered at Nineveh in 1830, pre-
sents the history of the Assyrians’ assault, and states that king
Hezekiah of Judah was “shut up like a bird in a cage.” But was
Jerusalem itself spared? It was. And were the wicked Assyrians
punished? They were. The account in 2 Kings 19:35 indi-
cates that in one night God annihilated 185,000 Assyrian sol-
diers who had encircled Jerusalem. In addition, the proph-
ecy stated that Sennacherib would return to his home and
there fall by the sword (2 Kings 19:7). Some twenty years

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later, he was assassinated by his own sons, who smote him
with the sword while he was worshiping pagan deities (Isaiah
37:37-38).
(3) King Josiah had his life’s work foretold (his name even
being provided within the prophetic utterance) more than
three hundred years before he was born (1 Kings 13:2).
(4) But Josiah was not the only king who was called by
name prior to birth. Cyrus, the man who would be the future
king of Persia, likewise was called by name more than a cen-
tury and a half prior to his birth (Isaiah 44:28; 45:1), and
some of his activities as king were even foretold. As always,
the prophecies of the biblical record came true in exacting
detail.
(5) The Old Testament contains more than three hundred
messianic prophecies. As Hugo McCord has said, “Testi-
mony about Jesus was the chief purpose of prophecy. To him
all the prophets gave witness (Acts 10:43)” (1979, p. 332). The
Prophesied One would be born of a woman (Genesis 3:15;
Galatians 4:4), of the seed of Abraham (Genesis 22:18; Luke
3:34), of the tribe of Judah (Genesis 49:10; Hebrews 7:14), of
the royal lineage of David (2 Samuel 7:12; Luke 1:32), in
Bethlehem (Micah 5:2; Matthew 2:1), to the virgin Mary
(Isaiah 7:14; Matthew 1:22), in order to bruise the head of Sa-
tan (Genesis 3:15; Galatians 4:4; Hebrews 2:12-14).
His Galilean ministry was foretold (Isaiah 9:1-2), and it
was prophesied that a forerunner would announce His ar-
rival (Isaiah 40:3; Matthew 3:1-3). He would appear during
the days of the Roman reign (Daniel 2:44; Luke 2:1), while
Judah still possessed her own king (Genesis 49:10; Matthew
2:22). He would be killed some 490 years after the command
to restore Jerusalem at the end of the Babylonian captivity
(457 B.C.), i.e., A.D. 30 (Daniel 9:24ff.). He was to be both hu-
man and divine; though born, He was eternal (Micah 5:2;
John 1:1,14); though a man, He was Jehovah’s “fellow” (Zecha-
riah 13:7; John 10:30; Philippians 2:6). He was to be gentle
and compassionate in His dealings with mankind (Isaiah 42:
1-4; Matthew 12:15-21). He would submit perfectly to His
heavenly Father (Psalm 40:8; Isaiah 53:11; John 8:29; 2 Co-
rinthians 5:21; 1 Peter 2:22).

- 43 -
 The prophecy was that He would be rejected and know
grief (Isaiah 53:3), and be betrayed by a friend (Psalm 41:9)
for thirty pieces of silver (Zechariah 11:12). He was ( John
13:18; Matthew 26:15). He would be spit upon, and beaten
(Isaiah 50:6; 53:5), and in death both His hands and His feet
were to be pierced (Psalm 22:16). This is exactly what hap-
pened (Matthew 27:30; Luke 24:39). The Scriptures foretold
that He would be numbered among criminals (Isaiah 53:12),
which He was (Matthew 27:38). He would be mocked, not
only with scornful words (Psalm 22:7-8), but with bitter wine
(Psalm 69:21). And so He was (Matthew 27:48). Although He
would die and be placed in a rich man’s tomb (Isaiah 53: 9;
Matthew 27:57), His bones would not be broken (Psalm 34:
20; John 19:33), and His flesh would not see corruption, be-
cause He would be raised from the dead (Psalm 16:10; Acts 2:
22ff.), and eventually ascend into heaven (Psalm 110: 1-3; 45:
6; Acts 1:9-10).
Time and again, biblical prophecies are presented and ful-
filled with exacting detail. Jeremiah wrote: “When the word
of the prophet shall come to pass, then shall the prophet be
known, that Jehovah hath truly sent him” (28:9). Horne was
absolutely correct when he wrote:
The book which contains these predictions is stamped
with the seal of heaven: a rich vein of evidence runs
through the volume of the Old Testament; the Bible
is true; infidelity is confounded forever; and we may
address its patrons in the language of Saint Paul, “Be-
hold, ye despisers, and wonder and perish!” (1970,
1:291).
The Scientific Foreknowledge of the Bible
Among the many intriguing proofs of the Bible’s inspira-
tion is its unique scientific foreknowledge. From anthropol-
ogy to zoology, the Bible presents astonishingly accurate sci-
entific information that the writers, on their own, simply
could not have known. Henry Morris has suggested: “One of
the most arresting evidences of the inspiration of the Bible is
the great number of scientific truths that have lain hidden

- 44 -
within its pages for thirty centuries or more, only to be dis-
covered by man’s enterprise within the last few centuries or
even years” (1969, p. 5). In her book, Science in the Bible, Jean
S. Morton commented:
Many scientific facts, which prove the infallibility of
Scripture, are tucked away in its pages. These proofs
are given in nonscientific language; nevertheless, they
substantiate the claims of authenticity of the Holy
Scriptures.... In some cases, scientific concepts have
been known through the ages, but these concepts are
mentioned in a unique manner in Scripture. In other
cases, scientific topics have been mentioned hun-
dreds or even thousands of years before man discov-
ered them (1978, p. 10).
Space limitations prohibit an in-depth examination of the
Bible’s scientific foreknowledge, but I would like to mention
a few of the more prominent examples.
From the Field of Astronomy
1. Isaiah, in speaking of God, stated (40:22): “It is he who
sitteth upon the circle of the earth.” The Hebrew word Isaiah
used for “circle” is the word khug, which means literally some-
thing with “roundness,” a “sphere.” But, of course, the people
of Isaiah’s day thought the Earth was flat. And that was the
concept of the many generations of people who followed Isa-
iah. Later, it was discovered that the Earth was not flat; rather
it was a khug (circle). Isaiah had been correct all along, even
when the people of his day emphatically stated the opposite.
How did Isaiah know the Earth to be a sphere? A lucky guess?
[NOTE: In recent years, some have suggested that Isaiah’s
statement contains no foreknowledge, since in chapter 40 he
was dealing solely with the subject of God’s sovereignty, and
therefore it was not his intent to teach “scientific truths” (cf.
England, 1983, pp. 135ff.). I repudiate such a claim. There is
no doubt that Isaiah’s treatise is dealing with the sovereign
nature of the Israelite God. Chapter 40 is, in fact, one of the
most beautiful and stirring passages in the Bible dealing with
that very subject. At the same time, however, Isaiah did set

- 45 -
forth a “scientific truth” while acknowledging an important
“spiritual truth.” One does not preclude the other. Isaiah
made two points: (1) God is sovereign; and (2) the Earth is a
sphere (khug). How could Isaiah have known either, unless
God had revealed them both?]
2. Psalm 19:5-6 contains several interesting scientific facts.
In speaking of the Sun, the psalmist suggested that “his going
forth is from the end of the heaven, and his circuit unto the
ends of it; and there is nothing hid from the heat thereof.” For
years, Bible critics scoffed at Bible believers, stating that this
verse taught the false concept of geocentricity (i.e., the Sun
revolves around the Earth). Then it was discovered that the
Sun, not the Earth, was the center of our solar system. People
subsequently felt that the Sun was stationary, with the Earth
revolving around it.
Only fairly recently has it been discovered that rather than
being fixed in space, the Sun actually is in an orbit of its own.
In fact, it is estimated to be moving through space at the rate
of 600,000 miles per hour, in an orbit so large it would take
approximately 220,000,000 years to complete just one orbit.
How did the psalmist portray such accurate statements—when
people of this day, and for years afterward, taught that just the
opposite was true? And, by the way, there is another gem
packed away in these two verses. The psalmist hinted at the
fact that the Sun is the source of energy for the Earth (“and
there is nothing hid from the heat thereof”). An amazing
statement, is it not, considering when it was written, and by
whom?
3. Concerning light and darkness, the Lord asked Job:
“Where is the way to the dwelling of the light? And as for
darkness, where is the place thereof?” (38:19). Light is said to
travel in a “way” (Hebrew, derek), which is literally a traveled
path or road (cf. Genesis 16:7), whereas darkness is said to be
a “place” (Hebrew, maxim) which means a place, a spot, as
standing (cf. Genesis 1:9; 28:11). Until the seventeenth cen-
tury, it was believed that light was transmitted instantaneously.
Then Sir Isaac Newton suggested that light is composed of

- 46 -
small particles that travel in a straight line. Christian Huygens
proposed the wave theory of light, and Olaus Roemer mea-
sured the velocity of light as evinced by its delay while travel-
ing through space. Scientists now know that light is a form of
energy called radiant energy, and that it travels in electro-
magnetic waves in a straight line at the speed of over 186,000
miles per second (660 million miles per hour). For example,
it takes about eight minutes for light to travel its “path” from
the Sun to the Earth.
Scientists use the speed of light to measure distances in our
vast Universe. Our solar system is said to be about 26,000
light-years from the edge of the Milky Way Galaxy. [A light
year is the distance that light travels in a vacuum in one year
(approximately 5.88 trillion miles). Distances expressed in
light-years represent the time that light would take to cross
that distance. For example, it would take 26,000 years, trav-
eling at the speed of light, to go from the edge of the Milky
Way Galaxy to our solar system.] Some evolutionists, who
deny the chronological data found in the Bible, have suggested
that light, which spans the distances from stars to us, proves
the Universe is billions of years old. But in so doing, they
have overlooked the fact that God created the heavenly lights
already in place (Genesis 1:14-16) to serve as a “witness” of
His infinite power and for man’s benefit (Psalm 19:1). God, in
making His perfect, mature Universe, formed the stars so
that their light could be seen on Earth.
Jehovah also inquired of Job? “By what way is light parted?”
(38:24). The word “parted” is from the Hebrew halaq, mean-
ing to divide, allot, apportion (cf. Numbers 26:53). Though
the Lord simply may have been asking the patriarch if he
knew how light is distributed on Earth, nonetheless it is an
amazing scientific fact that light literally can be parted. When
a narrow beam of sunlight passes at a slant into a triangular,
transparent prism, the sunlight is broken into a band of seven
colored lights called a spectrum. Sir Isaac Newton eventually
discovered this, yet the writer of the book of Job knew it first.

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 From the Field of Oceanography

1. Long ago, Solomon wrote, “All the rivers run into the
sea, yet the sea is not full; unto the place whither the rivers go,
thither they go again” (Ecclesiastes 1:7). This statement, con-
sidered by itself, may not seem profound at first glance. But
when considered with additional evidence and other biblical
passages, it becomes all the more remarkable. For example,
the Mississippi River, when moving at normal speed, dumps
approximately 6,052,500 gallons of water per second into
the Gulf of Mexico. And that is just one river! Where, pray
tell, does all that water go? The answer, of course, lies in the
hydrologic cycle so well illustrated in the Bible. Ecclesiastes
11:3a states that “if the clouds be full of rain, they empty
themselves upon the earth.” Amos 9:6b tells us that “He...
calleth for the waters of the sea, and poureth them out upon
the face of the earth; the Lord is His name.” The idea of a
complete water cycle was not fully understood or accepted
until the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The first sub-
stantial evidence came from the experiments of Pierre Perrault
and Edme Mariotte. These scientists demonstrated that the
flow of the Seine River could be accounted for by precipita-
tion. Astronomer Edmund Halley also contributed valuable
data to the concept of a complete water cycle. More than
2,000 years prior to their work, however, the Scriptures had
indicated a water cycle. How?
2. Job was asked by God (38:16), “Hast thou entered into
the springs of the sea? Or hast thou walked in the recesses of
the deep?” The Hebrew word for “recesses” (or “trenches”)
refers to that which is “hidden, and known only by investiga-
tion.” What were these “recesses of the deep” (the Hebrew
word for “deep” is the word for seas or oceans)? Man, in pre-
vious centuries, considered the seashore as nothing but a
shallow, sandy extension that moved gently from one conti-
nent to another. Then, in 1873 a team of British scientists
working in the Pacific Ocean found a “recess” 5½ miles deep.
Later, another team of researchers discovered another trench
35,800 feet deep (over 6 miles down). Trenches now are known

- 48 -
to exist in all three major oceans, but the Pacific Ocean is
unique in that it has a semi-continuous peripheral belt of
trenches and deep-sea troughs. Extensive scientific studies
have been conducted on the Marianas Trench off the coast of
Guam. One bathyscaph, the Trieste, has traveled down al-
most seven miles into that trench. The best-known trench is
likely the one off the coast of Puerto Rico, with its deepest
point known as the Milwaukee Depth. How did Job know
about these “recesses in the deep,” when we did not discover
them for millennia? A lucky guess?
3. God told Noah (Genesis 6:15) to build an ark that mea-
sured 300 cubits in length, 50 cubits in width, and 30 cubits in
height—which is a ratio of 30 to 5 to 3, length to breadth to
height. Until around 1858, the ark was the largest seagoing
vessel of which we have any written record. Using the most
conservative estimate available for a cubit (approximately
17½ to 18 inches), the ark would have been roughly 450 feet
long (one-and-a-half football fields) and would have con-
tained approximately 1.5 million cubic feet of space. In 1844,
when Isambard K. Brunnel built his giant ship the Great Brit-
ain, he constructed it to almost the exact dimensions of the
ark —30:5:3. As it turns out, these dimensions are the perfect
ratio for a huge boat built for seaworthiness and not for speed.
Obviously the ark was not built for speed; it had nowhere to
go! In fact, shipbuilders during World War II used that 30:5:3
ratio to build the boat (the S.S. Jeremiah O’Brien) that eventu-
ally was nicknamed “the ugly duckling”—a huge, barge-like
boat (with the same ratio as the ark) built to carry tremendous
amounts of cargo. How did Noah know the perfect seagoing
ratio to use in building the ark? Upon whose knowledge did
he draw? Brunnel and others like him had many generations
of shipbuilding knowledge upon which to draw, but Noah’s
craft literally was the first of its kind.
From the Field of Physics
1. Moses (Genesis 2:1) stated: “And the heavens and the
earth were finished, and all the host of them.” This is an ex-
tremely interesting assessment of the situation, because Mo-

- 49 -
ses chose the Hebrew past definite tense for the verb “fin-
ished,” indicating an action completed in the past, not re-oc-
curring in the future. Moses stated that the creation was “fin-
ished”—once and for all. That is exactly what the First Law of
Thermodynamics states. This law (often referred to as the
Law of Conservation of Energy/Matter) states that neither
matter nor energy can be created or destroyed. It was be-
cause of this law that Fred Hoyle’s “Steady State” (or “Con-
tinuous Creation”) Theory was discarded several years ago.
Hoyle stated that at points in the Universe called “irtrons,”
matter was being created constantly. But the First Law states
just the opposite. The Bible says that God “ended His work
which He had made” (Genesis 2:2). As Henry Morris has sug-
gested: “This is the most universal and certain of all scientific
principles, and it states conclusively that, so far as empirical
observation has shown, there is nothing now being created
anywhere in the known universe” (1974, p. 235, emp. in orig.).
It is because God has finished His creation that nothing
now is being created. But, as a corollary to that, why is it that
nothing is being destroyed? This is the second half of the state-
ment of the law. Matter and/or energy may change form, but
in the end the total amount of energy in the Universe remains
the same. Nothing is being destroyed, even though its form
may change. Once again, the answer can be found in the sci-
ence of the Bible. Nehemiah provided a portion of the an-
swer when he stated: “Thou hast made heaven, the heaven of
heavens, with all their host, the earth, and all things that are
therein, the seas, and all that is therein, and thou preservest
them all” (9:6). Hebrews 1:3 points out that God “upholds all
things by the word of His power.” If God is upholding it, then
man will not destroy it. Other verses make that clear in this
regard (cf. Isaiah 40:26, Ecclesiastes 3:14, and 2 Peter 3:7).
Thus, we see that the biblical writers penned accurate scien-
tific statements long before such statements were even known
to be scientific. How? Just a lucky guess?
2. In three different places in the Bible (Hebrews 1:11; Isa-
iah 51:6; Psalm 102:26) the indication is given that the Earth,
like a garment, is wearing out. This, of course, is exactly what

- 50 -
the Second Law of Thermodynamics states. This law, also
known as the Law of Increasing Entropy, governs all pro-
cesses; there is not a single known exception. The law states
that as time progresses, entropy increases. Entropy is the sci-
entific word which simply means that things become more
disorderly, more random, more unstructured. In other words,
a flower blooms, fades, and dies. A child grows into adoles-
cence, adulthood, senility, and dies. The house we build to-
day, in 250 years will be a heap of junk. The car we buy today,
given 30 or 40 years, will rust and fall apart. Everything is
running down. Everything is wearing out. Energy is becom-
ing less available for work. Eventually then (theoretically
speaking) the Universe, left to itself, will experience a “heat
death”—i.e., a time when no more energy is available for use.
We did not discover these things until fairly recently, yet the
Bible writers portrayed them accurately thousands of years
ago. What was the source of their knowledge?

From the Field of Medicine

1. Moses told the Israelites (Leviticus 17:11-14) that “the
life of the flesh is in the blood.” He was correct. Because the
red blood cells can carry oxygen (due to hemoglobin in the
cells), life is made possible. In fact, the human red blood cells
carry approximately 270,000,000 molecules of hemoglobin
per cell (see Perutz, 1964, pp. 64-65). If there were any less,
there would not be enough residual oxygen to sustain life af-
ter, say, a hard sneeze or a hefty pat on the back.
We know today that the “life of the flesh is in the blood.”
Unfortunately, we did not know that in George Washington’s
day. How did the “father of our country” die? We bled him to
death (see Havron, 1981, p. 62). People believed that the blood
was where evil “vapors” were found, and that getting rid of
the blood would make a person well again. Today, of course,
we know that is not true. Think of how often blood transfu-
sions have made life possible for those who otherwise would
have died. Today we know the truth of the matter. But how did
the biblical writer know it?

- 51 -
 2. Genesis 3:15 teaches plainly that both the male and the
female possess the “seed of life.” This was not the commonly
held position in Moses’ day, however. Nor was it the commonly
held position just a few centuries ago. Several writers of days
gone by, including some of Moses’ day, felt that only the
male possessed the seed of life, and that a woman actually
was little more than a “glorified incubator.” One writer even
went so far as to suggest that the male seed could be depos-
ited in warm mud, and the end result would be the same as
placing it in a woman’s womb. But Moses spewed forth no
such nonsense. Rather, he stated the truth of the matter. But
how did he know? Upon whose knowledge of such facts did
he draw?
3. Leviticus 17:15 teaches that an animal that has died nat-
urally is not to be eaten. Moses obviously was highly trained
in public health procedures, for he certainly knew that of
which he spoke. Today, it is against local, state, and federal
public health laws to take an animal that has died naturally to
a slaughterhouse in order to be prepared for human con-
sumption. What if the animal had died of rabies, anthrax,
brucellosis, or a similar disease? Obviously, it would not be
suitable for human consumption because if the animal died,
something was wrong. Even today this practice is one of our
most basic public health standards. But how did Moses pos-
sess such knowledge?
4. While the Old Testament placed no restrictions on the
eating of fruits and vegetables, it did set strict limitations on
the eating of certain meats. Among land animals, only those
that had a split hoof and chewed the cud were approved as
edible (Leviticus 11:3). Of the water-living animals, only
those with fins and scales were acceptable (Leviticus 11:9; of
interest is the fact that poisonous fish have no scales). Birds of
prey were prohibited, as were almost all insects. But perhaps
the best known among these biblical injunctions was eating
the meat of a pig. To the Jew, pork was considered unclean,
and thus was inedible.
Today, we know there is good scientific reasoning behind
such a prohibition. The pig is a scavenger, and will eat almost

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anything. In so doing, on occasion it ingests a parasite, Trichi-
nella spiralis, which is the cause of trichinosis in humans. Left
untreated, this disease can be debilitating and even deadly.
Pigs also are known carriers (as intermediate hosts) of the tape-
worm Taenia solium, and of the parasite Echinococcus granulosis,
which causes tumors in the liver, lungs, and other parts of the
body. Raw or undercooked pork can be quite dangerous when
consumed by humans. Pigs can provide safe meat if they are
fed properly and if the muscle tissue is cooked correctly. But
such conditions often did not prevail in ancient times.
Were the Israelites “ahead of their times” in regard to their
extensive public health and personal hygiene laws? Archae-
ologists admit that they have yet to find civilizations as an-
cient as the Israelites with rules and regulations that could ri-
val those of the Jewish people in regard to complexity and
scientific accuracy. The Egyptians, for example, were bril-
liant in many respects when it came to their medical technol-
ogy. Yet the Jews had access to this kind of information (and
much more) that not even the Egyptians possessed. Interest-
ingly, even today in some countries (like Germany) raw pork
is considered a delicacy—in spite of the knowledge we pos-
sess about the potential dangers of eating it.
5. In Deuteronomy 23:12-14, Moses instructed the Israel-
ites always to bury human waste products. Today, of course,
with centuries of experience behind us, we know that this is
an excellent hygienic practice. But the common course of ac-
tion in Moses’ day, and for centuries to follow, was to dump
waste products in any convenient place. History has recorded
the folly of this kind of action.
In Europe during the Middle Ages, “black plague” swept
over the continent on two different occasions, slaughtering
more than 13 million people in the process. [Philip Ziegler’s
fascinating book, The Black Death (1997), recounts in excruci-
ating detail the horror of the two epidemics.] Europeans rou-
tinely dumped waste of all kinds out their windows and into
the public streets where decomposition took place and mi-
croorganisms flourished.

- 53 -
 One of those microorganisms—the one we know today as
Yersinia pestis—grew in the waste products and contaminated
the fleas associated with those waste products. The fleas, us-
ing rats as their hosts, subsequently traveled into the people’s
houses. Once inside a dwelling, the fleas then jumped from
the rats onto the humans, biting them and infecting them
with the plague organism. As this cycle was repeated over
and over, millions perished. Yet if the people simply had
obeyed God’s injunction, as given by Moses to the Israelites,
all of the death and horror of not one, but two separate epi-
demics could have been avoided. How did Moses know to
instruct the Israelites regarding such public health hygiene
laws, when none of the nations surrounding God’s people
enlisted such practices—and would not for centuries?
6. In Genesis 17:12, God commanded Abraham to cir-
cumcise newborn males on the eighth day. But why day
eight? In humans, blood clotting is dependent upon three
factors: (a) platelets; (b) vitamin K; and (c) prothrombin. In
1935, professor H. Dam proposed the name “vitamin K” for
the factor that helped prevent hemorrhaging in chicks. We
now realize that vitamin K is responsible for the production
(by the liver) of prothrombin. If the quantity of vitamin K is
deficient, there will be a prothrombin deficiency and hemor-
rhaging may occur.
Interestingly, it is only on the fifth to seventh days of a new-
born’s life that vitamin K (produced by the action of bacteria
in the intestinal tract) is present in adequate quantities. Vita-
min K—coupled with prothrombin—causes blood coagula-
tion, which is important in any surgical procedure. One clas-
sic medical text, Holt Pediatrics, corroborates the fact that a
newborn infant has
...peculiar susceptibility to bleeding between the sec-
ond and fifth days of life.... Hemorrhages at this time,
though often inconsequential, are sometimes exten-
sive; they may produce serious damage to internal
organs, especially to the brain, and cause death from
shock and exsanguination (1953, pp. 125-126).

- 54 -
Obviously, then, if vitamin K is not produced in sufficient
quantities until days five through seven, it would be wise to
postpone any surgery until sometime after that. But why did
God specify day eight?
On the eighth day, the amount of prothrombin present ac-
tually is elevated above 100 percent of normal. In fact,
day eight is the only day in the male’s life in which this will be
the case under normal conditions. If surgery is to be performed,
day eight is the perfect day to do it.

120

100
Prothrombin (% of normal)

bin
80 m
ro
oth
pr
e
60 bl
la
ai
av
ncentration
ombin co
40 prothr

20

0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Days

S.I. McMillen, the renowned medical doctor who wrote

None of These Diseases, stated concerning this information:
...as we congratulate medical science for this recent
finding, we can almost hear the leaves of the Bible
rustling. They would like to remind us that four thou-
sand years ago, when God initiated circumcision
with Abraham, He said “And he that is eight days old
shall be circumcised....” Abraham did not pick the
eighth day after many centuries of trial-and-error ex-
periments. Neither he nor any of his company from
the ancient city of Ur in the Chaldees had ever been
circumcised. It was a day picked by the Creator of vi-
tamin K (1963, p. 21, emp. in orig.).
The medical information employed by Abraham, and con-
firmed by Moses, was accurate scientifically then, and remains
so to this very day. No culture around the Israelites possessed
such scientific acumen, which, by the way, was years ahead

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of its time. How, then, did Abraham and Moses come to know
the best time for circumcision, unless, of course, this particu-
lar fact was revealed to them by God, and recorded in His
Word through inspiration?
From the Field of Biology
1. Moses stated (Genesis 1:11,12,21,24) that things repro-
duce “after their kind.” This, of course, is no surprise to us to-
day because we understand genetics and the laws of heredity
which ensure that things do indeed reproduce “after their
kind.” If a farmer plants corn seed, he knows full well that he
will not be harvesting wheat. If he breeds a bull to a heifer, he
knows that the end result will not be a baby colt. Corn pro-
duces corn; cows produce cows. Why is this the case? It is be-
cause all living things reproduce “after their kind.” Even to-
day, in nature these things hold true. But how did Moses know
that—long years before the science of genetics (which came
into existence only around 1900) was discovered?
2. Paul stated that it is God who giveth all life (Acts 17:25).
For centuries, men have been trying to “create life” through
processes of spontaneous generation. Even though scientists
such as Spallanzani, Redi, Pasteur, and hundreds of others
have proven time and again that spontaneous generation is
impossible, evolutionists still keep on trying. To date, how-
ever, no one has “created” life. They do well, in fact, even to
get one of the elementary “building blocks”—amino acids.
Yet Paul knew long ago that it was God who gives life. Just a
lucky guess?
3. Paul also stated that there are four fleshes—those of men,
beasts, birds and fishes (1 Corinthians 15:39). Today even
evolutionists accept this fact of science. These fleshes are in-
deed different in their biochemical make-up. But how did
Paul, an itinerant preacher of the first century A.D., know
this?
From the Field of Archaeology
1. The Moabite Stone, discovered in 1868 by a German
missionary, was cut in 850 B.C., in the reign of Mosha, king of
Moab. It tells of his being subjected to the Israelites. It also

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mentions that Omri, the captain of the Israelite host, was made
king in that day. The Scriptures speak of that very event in 1
Kings 16:16. With every scoop of dirt that the spade over-
turns, archaeology proves biblical statements to be factual.
2. The Bible plainly speaks of a king by the name of Bel-
shazzar (Daniel 5:22; 7:1; 8:1). It was common practice for
Bible critics to ridicule the Bible regarding its references con-
cerning Belshazzar, because secular records never had been
found that substantiated what the Bible said. Then, in 1876,
Sir Henry Rawlinson discovered more than 2,000 tablets
concerning Babylon. They disclosed records of a man named
Belshazzar who, in the absence of his father Nabonidus, be-
came king. The Bible had been right all along.
The incredible accuracy of the Bible’s science is yet an-
other example of God’s superintending guidance, and one
that provides an impressive proof of its inspiration.

CONCLUSION
Those who have set their face against God have railed
against the Bible for generations. King Jehoiakim took a pen-
knife, slashed the Old Testament Scriptures to pieces, and
then tossed them into an open fire ( Jeremiah 36:22-23). Dur-
ing the Middle Ages, attempts were made to keep the Bible
from the common man. In fact, those caught translating or
distributing the Scriptures frequently were subjected to im-
prisonment, torture, and even death. Centuries later, the
French skeptic Voltaire boasted that “within fifty years, the
Bible no longer will be discussed among educated people.”
His braggadocio notwithstanding, the Bible still is being dis-
cussed among educated people, while the name of Voltaire
languishes in relative obscurity.
Like the blacksmith’s anvil—which wears out many ham-
mers but itself remains unaffected—the Bible wears out the
skeptics’ innocuous charges, all the while remaining un-
scathed. John Clifford (1836-1923), a Baptist minister and
social reformer, wrote:

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 Last eve I passed beside a blacksmith’s door,
And heard the anvil ring the vesper chime;
Then looking, I saw upon the floor,
Old hammers, worn with beating years of time.
“How many anvils have you had,” said I,
“To wear and batter all these hammers so?”
“Just one,” said he, and then with twinkling eye;
“The anvil wears the hammers out, ye know.”
And so, thought I, the anvil of God’s Word,
For ages skeptic blows have beat upon;
Yet though the noise of falling blows was heard
The anvil is unharmed…the hammers gone.
Governments come and go. Nations rise and fall. People
live and die. Jesus warned that “heaven and earth shall pass
away” (Matthew 24:35), but went on to note that “my words
shall not pass away.” Isaiah wrote: “The grass withereth, the
flower fadeth; but the word of our God shall stand forever”
(40:8). I believe it is fitting that we close this study with these
words from Kenny Barfield’s book, Why the Bible is Number 1:
We have seen how the biblical materials are unique.
They are no run-of-the-mill religious writings, but—
quite the contrary—reveal a remarkable understand-
ing of the universe.... How did the biblical writers
manage to avoid the erroneous world views of their
contemporaries? What made these men capable of
producing painstakingly accurate scientific statements
far in advance of their actual discovery? We want an-
swers to those important questions....
One answer has been suggested by the biblical writ-
ers themselves. If their materials are so radically dif-
ferent from other sources, surely we must listen to
their explanation. Rather than finding confusion or
uncertainty in their ranks, we find calm unanimity.
They refused to be called geniuses and scorned per-
sonal glory. Even more significant, they denied hav-
ing figured it out for themselves. In fact, there is rea-
son to believe that they never really understood the
far-reaching implications of the words they wrote.

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Humbly, without a dissenting voice, these writers
gave credit to a superior being. One of their favorite
phrases was: “This is the Word of God.” They sensed
a far-greater intelligence behind this universe than
that of any mortal. They stood in awe before that wis-
dom and power. They even wrote words on their pa-
pyri and scrolls that made little earthly sense. “All
Scripture is given by inspiration of God.” It was the
only answer they ever gave.
It is the thesis of this study that one must simply look
at the trademark, the signature of authorship.... Un-
less we can devise a more suitable explanation, it
seems reasonable to believe that the seemingly in-
congruous wisdom was placed in the Bible by an in-
telligence far greater than that of man. That intelli-
gence is God’s alone (1988, pp. 182,184-185).

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Zondervan).

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Havron, Dean (1981), “Curious Cure-Alls” Science Digest,
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land, TX: Portland Church of Christ).

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Morris, Henry M. (1969), The Bible and Modern Science (Chi-
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son, 1995, for Part III.]

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Thompson, Bert (1997), “In Defense Of...Christ’s Deity,”
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ety).

[AUTHOR’S NOTE: I would like to thank my friend and col-

league, Wayne Jackson, for graciously allowing me to use
freely in the preparation of this manuscript materials he has
authored on the inspiration of the Bible.]

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