Issues

Bible Think Basics
Jesus Christ Reliability
Inspiration Issues

Bible Think

The Purpose of this part of the website is to address individual issues in evidence for the Bible which are not addressed anywhere else in the site. It is hoped that in time this page will become a home page for such issues. In the mean time it provides links to downloads on the areas covered.

The New Testament Apocrypha

One line of argument against Real Christianity is the claim that the New Testament is no more reliable than the teachings of the Apocryphal Gospels and particularly the Gnostic Gospels. In reality these apocryphal works were written long after the New Testament was complete, contain errors of fact which can easily be seen when they are compared with Archaeology, contain linguistic elements which indicate a second century (or later) date, contain no fulfilled prophecy and are frequently at odds with the teaching of the rest of scripture. Because of this it is relatively easy to detect the counterfeit in the apocrypnal gospels and they can thus be ignored.

Bible Ethics - Is the Bible an immoral document:?

Modern atheists sometimes pour scorn on the Bible because it is not politically correct. They assert that the Bible condones slavery, encourages genocide and is discriminatory. This shows a lack of understanding of the Bible and of the background against which the moral precepts of the Bible are given. Slavery in the Old Testament was nothing like modern slavery, while in the New Testament period Christians were expected to avoid any position of political power where they might abolish slavery. Similar understanding of the situation for the other points shows that the Bible takes a higher moral line than its critics.

A major point which follows this is how one knows what is right and what is wrong. Even the greatest philosophers have failed to derive even a basic system of ethics from pure logic and empirical fact and it is now known that it is not possible to define right and wrong without the idea of an entity outside the universe to provide a moral standard. This is one of the roles of the God of the Bible. By claiming that there is a moral standard against which the Bible can be judged the atheist is admitting the existence of God.

The Problem of Suffering.

One argument which is regularly produced by atheists is the argument that a Good God would not allow suffering in the world and that the existence of suffering is thus proof that no God exists.

In reality this argument fails for two reasons:-

First, it presumes that the God of the Bible is indulgent and will not act in the face of human depravity. The God of the Bible is not like this, and will act to limit the existence of those who work against the moral standards that God lies down. This leads to a need for deliverance for all of us.
Second, it assumes that there is a universal moral principle which allows one to decide whether God is good or not. There can only be such a principle if there is a God to define it.

Thus the atheist argument has no meaning unless there is a God to define right and wrong. If there is, then the argument simply states that this God cannot be indulgent, but must be a moral judge of mankind.