My Quest for Understanding Biblical Authority

I have been trying to decide how to go about writing this. I mean, a LOT of people have written on it (and pretty much everything else I have planned on discussing), so I thinke the best way to handle it is to simply write about how I came to the conclusion that I came to.

As I mentioned previously it took many years of "asking, searching, and knocking" before I could finally accept the answer that God has placed inside all of us. Over this time period I would ask my sister questions about this or that and she was the first one I asked, "How do you know the Bible is true? How do you know it is accurate after all of those translations?" She told me, "Well. . . you have to have faith that God protected His Word." At the time I didn't think that was a very good answer. I saw her point, but I couldn't understand. But it wasn't the answer I was looking for. I needed some hard facts. Which, interestingly enough, I didn't actually get until after I became a Christian. I mean, once I became a Christian I did have the faith, so I finally understood what she meant. But I still needed facts. Not only to appease my inquisitive mind, but also so I could defend my beliefs to others.

Unfortunately the first thing I read on Biblical authority was a HUGE disappointment. As I was reading it, I kept thinking, "this is circular logic . . . this does not make a strong case . . . " Basically I interpreted what I was reading to say:
The Bible says that God says the Bible is true.
Maybe it was my immaturity as a Christian (not that I am a wise, mature, scripture-quoting Christian now, but I try to grow a little bit here and there), I don't know, all I know is that I was disappointed in this argument.

I let this rest for awhile because I was content with the fact that I had faith in God. But then, during the most recent Gospel Meeting at my church, I was confronted with something that I had most definitely been ignoring: the 6-Day creation. I was not at all ready to deal with this. The Bible says that God made everything in 6 days. But science refutes that right? right?????? This conundrum caused me some serious consternation (I hate to get all wordy, but that is the best way to describe it). While I was trying to reconcile what I knew to be the Truth with what I had been taught all of my life one of my friends at church put me in touch with somebody (Keith Camp for those of you who know him) who could answer my questions over email, which is (unfortunately) the best way for me to study right now. I will tell all 2 of you, dear readers, about what I learned about Creation another day :)

During the time that I was working on getting all of my creation questions answered, my husband and I got into a discussion about biblical authority. Unfortunately I could not back up why I thought my beliefs were better than his belief that the Bible is a guide book on how to live our lives. I mean, I know why, but again "Because God said so" is definitley not going to work with my husband (I love you dear!). So I emailed Keith again and he sent me another wonderful email giving me an excellent argument! (I still haven't been able to try it out on my husband, also, unfortunately, I am an awful debator). He also sent me a very good study by Rabbi Glenn Harris, "Can I trust the Bible?" This article is, by far, the best argument I have read. A lot of it came from Josh McDowell's book Evidence that Demands a Verdict, which is currently on my book list. This study pretty much sealed the deal for me.
One of the things that Rabbi Harris pointed out that stood out the most to me was a simple look at the Book itself (which I am sure many Christians already understand).

• There is no other book on earth that was written over such a long period of time by so many different authors.
• The authors come from a variety of backgrounds.
• They are all writing the same things over and over again, but in many different ways (poetry, legal documents, personal letters, etc)

The other thing he pointed out was some survival statistics of the Bible. The most interesting statistic is based on manuscript testimony. Which is a look at the number of surviving manuscripts, when the original was written, and the date of the earliest surviving copy. It is estimated that there are over 24,000 early copies of the New Testament. The next most well preserved text from antiquity is the Iliad, which only had 643 surviving manuscripts. Also, if you look at a comparison of the early copies of the New Testament there is only 40 lines out of 20,000 that are questionable, while in the Iliad 764 lines out of 15,600 are questionable (these numbers came from Rabbi Harris' study--I have yet to research further though, I probably well just so I am comfortable quoting these numbers, so stay tuned for that). These are just a few interesting things that the Rabbi mentioned. You can read his whole study here: http://www.gospeloutreach.net/bible.html if you want to learn more, which I hope you do :D

That is all I have for now. I think next I will tackle the 6-Day Creation! If you have any questions, comments, or concerns, I'll do my best to answer them.  Also, please forgive any typos and mis-spellings, I am really tired :p