If you are an atheist then you have more in common with other religious followers than you realize. All religions claim to be the only true one. All religions save Christianity deny the deity of Christ. You, as an atheist while denying all sorts of things are like the followers of the other religions; you too, deny Christ. If you are of the belief that belief in God, a greater power and being is ludicrous without solid evidence and The Bible is a manmade piece of work, please read further.
Am I going to convince you to change your ways and thinking? Probably not. If you come to realize the Holy Bible is real, it will not because of me. The Bible is in itself its own defense. God doesn’t need me to defend him. What I won’t do is use scripture initially to prove my point i.e. The Holy Bible is real and proves Christ was more than a teacher and prophet. Let’s look at it logically.
The Bible was written over a period of 1400 years. This 1400-year-period begins with the writings of Moses, the first five books of the Holy Bible. These writings include a time recorded prior to Moses' lifespan. It started out at the actual creation of the cosmos. By the time Moses completes the teachings found in Deuteronomy, we learn about the very beginning of mankind. The final writer was probably John when he was on the Isle of Patmos and wrote the book of the Revelation of Jesus Christ. Between the days of Moses and John, a time period of about 14 centuries transpired, but the Holy Bible covers over 4000 years of history. It has been nearly 2000 years since the last of the writers lived. The Old Testament remained in Hebrew until c.280-150 B.C. when it was translated into Greek at Alexandria, Egypt. This was known as the Septuagint. The next language change occurred when Jerome (c. 383-405 A.D) translated the Holy Bible into the Latin Vulgate. This was used by the clergy for nearly 1000 years.
The first English translation was completed by John Wycliffe and soon after, King James authorized the English version that has come to be known as the King James Version. This was in 1611. Before this, Nero and other tyrants attempted to eliminate all copies of scripture and references to Christ. All of these attempts failed. How is that possible for 66 books to survive so long in tact? If the Gospels were written by men that just wanted to have the Jesus legend remembered, why would all the doubters and unbelievers be mentioned? Why would opposition toward Christ be presented? This book has been translated from Hebrew to Greek to every other language known to man. The facts are these: The continuity between the timelines between the events that occurred in what we call the Old Testament and New cannot be disputed. All of the prophecies that were recorded by the prophets of old concerning the virgin birth, life, death and return of Christ came to pass as true in the new. There is no way at all in this world that all of the old prophecies could have been recorded and saved all those years just to have some come to pass as truth by coincidence.
Most people think science is in opposition with The Bible, but it isn’t. What words go along with evolution? It goes like this: The Theory of Evolution. After all these years, the concept of evolution is still regarded as theory i.e. an idea. The body is a remarkable thing. I think what, 215 or 230 bones, numerous systems, and a truly unique set up. To think we evolved from a microscopic organism or a monkey is based on theory and not proof. Science has cloned sheep and created artificial life, yes, but where did that knowledge come from? Now keeping with the no use of scripture promise, here are a few scientific discoveries and truths we know from science that The Bible speaks about before science discovered them:
I think most History books credit Columbus for proving the Earth is not flat, but The Bible spoke of a round Earth before.
In the 1900s oceanographers found the sea had many deep valleys or canyons. The deepest canyons were called trenches. The Marianas Trench in the Pacific is so deep that if Mt. Everest (29,000 feet high) was dropped into it, the peak would still be a mile below the water’s surface. There are also underwater mountains. The Atlantic Ocean contains an undersea range of mountains 10,000 miles long. The Judeo-Christian Bible spoke of the valleys and mountains of the sea thousands of years before scientists discovered them.
Dinosaurs are referred to in several Bible books. The Bible describes the circulation of the atmosphere and principles of fluid dynamics. The Bible describes biogenesis (the development of living organisms from other living organisms)and the stability of each kind of living organism. The Bible describes the chemical nature of flesh. Furthermore, The Bible has statements that are consistent with Anthropology, Hydrology, Geology and Physics. The Bible does not have mistakes in it. Its history flows consistently without error. So what about Jesus? We live in a natural world whereas The Bible is a supernatural book. There will be scripture references now to use in the mathematical equation.
Professor Emeritus of Science at Westmont College, Peter Stoner, has calculated the probability of one man fulfilling the major prophecies made concerning the Messiah. The estimates were worked out by twelve different classes representing some 600 university students.
The students carefully weighed all the factors, discussed each prophecy at length, and examined the various circumstances which might indicate that men had conspired together to fulfill a particular prophecy. They made their estimates conservative enough so that there was finally unanimous agreement even among the most skeptical students.
However Professor Stoner then took their estimates, and made them even more conservative. He also encouraged other skeptics or scientists to make their own estimates to see if his conclusions were more than fair. Finally, he submitted his figures for review to a committee of the American Scientific Affiliation. Upon examination, they verified that his calculations were dependable and accurate in regard to the scientific material presented (Peter Stoner, Science Speaks, Chicago: Moody Press, 1969, 4).
For example, concerning Micah 5:2, where it states the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem Ephrathah, Stoner and his students determined the average population of BETHLEHEM from the time of Micah to the present; then they divided it by the average population of the earth during the same period. They concluded that the chance of one man being born in Bethlehem was one in 300,000, (or one in 2.8 x 10^5 - rounded),
After examining only eight different prophecies (Idem, 106), they conservatively estimated that the chance of one man fulfilling all eight prophecies was one in 10^17.
Stoner gave this illustration
If you mark one of ten tickets, and place all the tickets in a hat, and thoroughly stir them, and then ask a blindfolded man to draw one, his chance of getting the right ticket is one in ten. Suppose that we take 10^17 silver dollars and lay them on the face of Texas. They'll cover all of the state two feet deep. Now mark one of these silver dollars and stir the whole mass thoroughly, all over the state. Blindfold a man and tell him that he can travel as far as he wishes, but he must pick up one silver dollar and say that this is the right one. What chance would he have of getting the right one? Just the same chance that the prophets would've had of writing these eight prophecies and having them all come true in any one man, from their day to the present time, providing they wrote them in their own wisdom (Idem, 106-107).
In financial terms, is there anyone who would not invest in a financial venture if the chance of failure were only one in 10^17? This is the kind of sure investment we're offered by god for faith in His Messiah.
From these figures, Professor Stoner, concludes the fulfillment of these eight prophecies alone proves that God inspired the writing of the prophecies (Idem, 107) - the likelihood of mere chance is only one in 10^17!
Another way of saying this is that any person who minimizes or ignores the significance of the biblical identifying signs concerning the Messiah would be foolish. But, of course, there are many more than eight prophecies. In another calculation, Stoner used 48 prophecies (Idem, 109) (even though he could have used Edersheim's 456), and arrived at the extremely conservative estimate that the probability of 48 prophecies being fulfilled in one person is the incredible number 10^157. In fact, if anybody can find someone, living or dead, other than Jesus, who can fulfill only half of the predictions concerning the Messiah given in the book "Messiah in Both Testaments" by Fred J. Meldau, the Christian Victory Publishing Company is ready to give a ONE thousand dollar reward! As apologist Josh McDowell says, "There are a lot of men in the universities that could use some extra cash!" (Josh McDowell, Evidence that Demands a Verdict, California: Campus Crusade for Christ, 175).
How large is the number one in 10^157? 10^157 contains 157 zeros! Stoner gives an illustration of this number using electrons. Electrons are very small objects. They're smaller than atoms. It would take 2.5 TIMES 10^15 of them, lain side by side, to make one inch. Even if we counted 250 of these electrons each minute, and counted day and night, it would still take 19 million years just to count a line of electrons one-inch long (Stoner, op. cit, 109).
With this introduction, let's go back to our chance of one in 10^157. Let's suppose that we're taking this number of electrons, marking one, and thoroughly stirring it into the whole mass, then blindfolding a man and letting him try to find the right one. What chance has he of finding the right one? What kind of a pile will this number of electrons make? They make an inconceivably large volume.
This is the result from considering a mere 48 prophecies. Obviously, the probability that 456 prophecies would be fulfilled in one man by chance is vastly smaller. According to Emile Borel, once one goes past one chance in 10^50, the probabilities are so small that it is impossible to think that they will ever occur (Ankerberg et. al., op. cit., 21).
As Stoner concludes, 'Any man who rejects Christ as the Son of God is rejecting a fact, proved perhaps more absolutely than any other fact in the world.
Ask yourself, what happens if you die within the next few breaths? If you are right, Jesus’ death really meant nothing and two thousand years' worth of believers have also died some very violent deaths for a lie. If you are right, there’s nothing. When you die, the maggots feast on your flesh, and no more. Yet, what if everything I’ve written about is true? Do you truly have enough confidence in your own knowledge to deny the existence of Jesus Christ, as the Savior of all mankind? Historically, mathematically, and scientifically, The Holy Bible has withstood the test of time and outlasted all its critics.
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