God's Word: Fact or Fiction

***DISCLAIMER: I encourage anyone who reads my blog to fact check anything I write. First of all, I don't want to lead anyone astray. Secondly, I would appreciate knowing if I was in error so I can correct my ways. Thirdly, I am a scientist who became a Christian; I am not trained in biblical studies. The stuff I come up with is the stuff I have picked up from my church, reading the Bible, and doing random bits of research in the last year since I converted. ***
This topic has been on my mind for a couple of weeks now. My husband feels that the Bible is a guide book for us to live by and that as long as we try to live good lives we will get to heaven. He further believes that there are some parts of it that are true and some parts of it that are fiction. We recently had a discussion on this latter belief. Unfortunately I am not very good at discussing things. I have an easier time writing out why I agree or disagree with him. So the topic of this particular post is an argument for believing in the entirety of the Bible.
I will address three points brought up in mine and my husband's discussion. They are as follows:

1. We are told throughout the scriptures that they are God's inspired Word: written by men, inspired by God.
2. Many people are concerned about the Bible being corrupted (I was one such person).
3. There are clearly illustrative stories in the Bible. Jesus frequently makes use of such (parables), and for good reason. (I believe that this is going to have to be a post of it's own).

First I just want to give a little background on the Bible in general. For a newbie in Christ there were several connections that I had to make when it came to God's Word, the Bible, the Old Testament (OT), the New Testament (NT), scriptures, and Jesus. Some of these connections I am still grasping. Basically I will use God's Word interchangeably with the Bible. The Bible is made up of the OT and the NT. Scriptures make up the Bible. Jesus is also referred to as the Word (John 1:1-5). When Jesus refers to scriptures, he is referring to OT (that is probably obvious to people who were raised in the church, but not so obvious to someone who has never actually studied the Bible--or maybe just me :) ). A reference in a gospel to scriptures is going to refer to the OT, but a reference in the epistles (all the books of the NT that are not the 4 gospels or Acts) to scripture may mean OT, books of the gospels, Acts (this is a history of the start of the church and is extremely important), and the epistles that early churches authenticated as scripture (and by early I mean churches in the first and second century). Some of this is so easy to grasp, that people overlook it and I think clarity of these words is important to my effort to make my argument (not that I offered much in
the way of clarity, but at least it is all laid out :D).
Point 1: Written by Men, Inspired by God.
When my husband and I were having this discussion I forgot that I had bought a Bible study guide (Self-Study Bible Course, by Derek Prince) a while back--which I have barely started. The first topic in the study guide is on God's Word. The first memory verse it gives you is 2 Timothy 3:16, "All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness;" Obviously my point here is "ALL Scripture is inspired by God." Ok, dictionary.com defines inspired as an adjective:
1. aroused, animated, or imbued with the spirit to do something, by or as if by supernatural or divine influence: an inspired poet.

So yes, God inspired men to write the Scriptures. Peter basicaly tells us in 2 Peter 1:20-21 that humans can not interpret prophecy into Scripture, on a human moved by the Holy Spirit have spoken from God. The OT can be divided into sections. The first five books are the Law, then there are the histories, the poetical books, the major prophets, and the minor prophets. When you read a book of a prophet you are told over and over that the prophet is being told what to say (or write) to the people by God. I am not going to list actual verses because they are too numerous, but look in Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel for examples. The interesting thing about stuff the prophets told of is that their prophecies came true! (Again I can't cite these verses because they are too numerous, basically read one of the gospels, particularly the book of John). This brings us to
Point 2: Incorruptible (if God laid out a plan of salvation dontcha think he would protect it?).
A lot of people worry about the fact that men have messed with the Bible. But that is one of the interesting things about the Bible. A lot of people have messed with it, yet we still have the "originals." It is just a matter of figuring out who is right and who is wrong.
Here are a couple of interesting points that I have learned over the last year (*WARNING* if you belong to a particular denomination/religion this may upset you):
The Bible has been corrupted into other books that claim to be holy texts. However, the plan of salvation is laid out for us in the NT.
Israel broke God's covenant with them over, and over, and over (Judges is a good example of that). I am no better than the ancient Israelites;  I try, and try, and try to do what is right in the sight of the Lord. But that is the beauty of the NT--the gospel is the fulfillment of God's covenant (the old covenant, AKA the OT) with Israel and the beginning of the new covenant (i.e., NT. examples: Matthew 5:17--Jesus came to fulfill not abolish the Law or Prophets; Jeremiah 31; Jeremiah 32:40; Ezekiel 16:60--the establishment of an everlasting covenant; Hebrews 9; etc). So the Gospel, which is defined as "glad tidings" (dictionary.com #6) is that (for those who choose to believe in the Son) Israel is free from trying to gain salvation from following the Law (thanks to the Grace of God) and the rest of the world (gentiles) may also become God's people and receive God's Grace. All of us now have the opportunity to obey God's Word and join our Creator in heaven (provided we follow God's plan of salvation that is outlined for us in the NT).
With that said, why would it be necessary to add anything to the Bible? (For those of you who don't know this, the Quran and the book of Mormons are based--or perhaps "include" would be a better choice of words--on the OT/NT Bible--but please note, I have not read either of these so I can not say what is different and what is the same, I would like to be able to study these one day to strengthen my arguments, but I do not have that kind of time at this period in my life). It is also important to note that very few religious texts claim to be revelations of God. At least in the case of the Bible we have history to show us that prophecy did come true. As far as I can tell, none of the other texts that claim to be divine revelations can boast such a claim.
Now, I could continue this discussion, but it is very late (for me). So I am going to stop here, on a weak note, and pick this up again on Thursday (Lord willing!). Sorry to leave you guys hanging. May God bless you and keep you safe!

Changing Lenses

I have had a few good ideas over the 6 weeks since my last post. Unfortunately I never made the time to write them, and what is even more unfortunate is that I didn't write my ideas down. I am sorry that I have neglected this for so long. I will try to do better in the coming months.
If you are a friend on facebook you'll know that I was going to post this on Monday or Tuesday. Well I had a really great idea on Monday, but when I got home I got distracted and ended up completely forgetting my idea. Then I couldn't remember what I was all fired up to write about again until I was talking to a friend last night on the phone. We were discussing the topic that I am about to write about and I realized that was it! That was what I wanted to talk about. I promptly forgot what that was when I hung-up the phone. So now I write all of my little ideas down so I don't forget them. On my way to work I remembered this particular topic--finally--and wrote it down. I am sure by now you are wondering what could be so great . . . well I want to discuss what I have learned about changing your worldview. This is another something that I have not done any research on at all. I am sure somebody out there has already discussed these things, but I am going to tell you about it from my own observations and experiences with my conversion. This topic, in particular, is an excellent lead up to my next topic(s) which will be about my views on a young earth and 6-day creation. I think this is an important topic for any life-time Christians to understand when talking to non-believers who say that science refutes God. I am not exactly sure where this topic is going to take me, so please enjoy the ride :).
For those of you who knew me before I converted, I hope what I write here will help you understand how I have changed so dramatically. I am not the same person you knew even a year ago. For those of you who have never met me and are reading this for the first time (which I suspect is a random person here or there :D) you should know a little background on me: I am a scientist, I have a Ph.D. in a biomedical field, I have been interested in science since I was a little kid, I am a woman, I am extremely logical, my personality type is Introverted/Sensing/Thinking/Judging (which means that I like to be by myself, I like facts, I am not a "feely" type person, the type of personality that is perfect for a career in science) and I was not an English major in college (which I am sure you can gather by reading this, but I still try). One possible logical conclusion you can draw from these facts about me is that, besides being a nerd, I like things to be proven. I also like to prove things. I can't just believe what someone tells me. I need multiple sources. Et cetra. I think my point is that you would expect the person I just described to have a worldview like the stereotypical scientist. And I did—until last year.
I think it is very important to define worldview. Dictionary.com defines a worldview as follows:
1. The overall perspective from which one sees and interprets the world.
2. A collection of beliefs about life and the universe held by an individual or a group.
So a worldview can be thought of as a lens that tints the interpretation of everything you see.
As you can see, if you view the world with a stereotypical scientist lens, it is very difficult to even believe in God, let alone believe that Jesus is our Savior. However, if you look at the world through the lens of the Bible things become completely different. As a child, my worldview was completely based on what my parents told me, which is natural. When I started going to public school, my worldview was altered to accommodate what my teachers, textbooks, and peers told me. I felt that if my teachers were allowed to teach me facts from the textbooks, then everything we were learning in school was correct and there was no room for things that weren't taught in my house or school (like God, mind you, I was raised with a strong sense of morality, despite my lack of religious upbringing). As I progressed through high school I ended up taking more advanced levels of science courses. In the south, at least, we were taught that evolution was a theory. I still thought my teacher was a religious nut, because, according to my textbook, it was a proven theory, which is almost the same as a scientific law. I ignored the quiet voice inside of me whispering, "How is it possible to prove something that can not be physically observed?" That voice ended up being very persistent and probably saved my soul.
Once in college I continued on my path of becoming a scientist (at the time I didn't know exactly what I was going to do, but it was going to be science, for sure!). In cell biology I wondered how in the world lipids randomly arranged to form the first cell membrane, which also just happened to surround a DNA strand and a protein capable of tending to the DNA. In botany I wondered how a prokaryote (which is what bacteria are) "evolved" to a eukaryote (cells that make up non-bacteria living things). In biochemistry I again ran into the issue of which came first DNA or proteins. I finally had to accept the fact that there was a Creator of some kind. To me it seemed much more plausible then atoms randomly running into each other making more and more complex molecules until eventually life randomly happened. That made even less sense after I learned about thermodynamics (the study of how energy and matter exist).
The second law of thermodynamics is, basically, that everything decays. This law is unbreakable. There is no way that a group of random any things can eventually form a complex, organized item, with no outside organizer. An example of this would be if you had a bag of 100 marbles that were all exactly the same size, shape, and mass, but were different colors; it would be completely improbable that those marbles would sort themselves by color. To further this example, say the bag started off with all the marbles sorted by color, red on bottom, blue in the middle, yellow on top, and an outside source shook the bag. We all know that the marbles would separate out and eventually with enough shaking be completely mixed up. We all know that we could not, then take the bag, shake it up and eventually with even an infinite amount of shaking, would we end up with the marbles resorted. We also know that we could open the bag and resort the marbles ourselves, in fact the only way the marbles are going to be organized again, is for us to do it. This logic is what made me realize there had to be a Creator.
Once I accepted that there was a Creator made this world, understanding biochemistry, biology, and chemistry became a lot easier. Now I understand how life began. I know that our God had to put all of this together and I am no longer plagued by discrepancies in science (like the fact that it is impossible to take the "building blocks of life" and put them in a pot to try to recreate the "primordial ooze" which produced the first form of life). God did it!
I think this is a good stopping point. My next major topic will be the 6-day Creation. It will be shocking for those of you who knew me before my conversion :).
May God bless all of you.