I can't remember what I had for lunch last Tuesday, but that
doesn't mean I didn't have lunch at all.
"Before you were born, I knew you". (Jeremiah 1:5) Even the
bible seems to support the idea that there was a "you" in
existence, and able to be known, apart from any physical
incarnation that "you" might have. Of course many will deny
that this is what the verse is talking about, but the same can
be said for any verse in the bible, because all of them can be
interpreted and re-interpreted six ways to Sunday depending
on who one's favorite pastor or bible-commentator happens
to be.
The inability to remember past lives isn't necessarily an
indicator that they never happened. I don't remember
meeting God, either, but I wouldn't disbelieve in His
existence because of that.
The lack of past life memory recall helps to compartmentalize
things a bit. There's enough going on in one's current life
without having one's mind filled up with people and events
from heaven only knows how many other past lives.
There are cases where people do remember their past lives,
especially very young children who know details about a
previous life that they really shouldn't be able to know
otherwise.
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Hi Rayjeena
You seem to say that "Before you were born, I knew you" (
Jeremiah 1:5) seems to support the idea that there was a "you" in existence, and able to be known, apart from any physical incarnation that "you" might have. You do recognize that many will disagree.
Well the Bible refute anything about rebirth in
Hebrews 9:27: Just as people are destined to
die once, and after that to face judgment.
When I speak to Buddhists in Singapore, they use this analogy: Just because we cannot remember our childhood does not mean we were not children before. At first it seem credible. But there are other ways to prove that we were children before.such as birth certificates and photographs. Even if we cannot remember whether we have lunch yesterday, there are ways to find out if we try.. But of course, if you are asked to demonstrate whether you have lunch 16 years ago on 7 August (example), then it be pretty tough.
However, we know that personal religious beliefs cannot be changed from using simple analogies. For me why do I believe and continue to keep faith? One is personal experience with God. The other reason is the Bible, which provides sufficient proof that it is the Word of God. If one makes an effort to examine its validity, instead of just saying that it is just a book, there are sufficient evidence. The Bible has been scrutinized by scholars and historians who wanted to examine its credibility because it claims to be the Word of God. The following, adapted from the book, "Understanding Prayer Faith and God's Will" tries to demonstrate that the Bible is more than just hearsay.
Accurate scientific statements
The Bible is not a book of science but when it made scientific statements on several occasions, it is surprisingly accurate.
For instance, the Scriptures predicted that the earth was round even before science confirmed it. “He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth, and its people are like grasshoppers... [Isaiah 40:22]; the word “circle” implies that the earth is round. The prophet Isaiah said this about 700 BC , which is more than 2600 years ago. At that time, people believed that the earth was flat, or they would fall off the surface into space if it was round; back then, no one understood gravity, and sailors were afraid to reach the edge of the sea. In 340 BC, the famous Greek thinker Aristotle wrote a book,
On the Heavens, where he gave reasons to support the theory that the earth was shaped like a sphere. Later, more evidence would confirm it. In the twentieth century, aerial photographs showed the earth to be round, but the Bible had said it well ahead of time.
The Bible also says the earth is suspended upon nothing. “He spreads out the northern skies over empty space; he suspends the earth over nothing” [Job 26:7]. In those days, people had little or no clues about the universe. The Greeks believed that the earth was held in space by one of their gods, Atlas. Gradually, thinkers like Ptolemy, Copernicus and Galileo asserted that the earth, like the other planets, might be suspended upon nothing. Science would confirm this later, but not before the Bible had said it much earlier.
The Scriptures have been consistently correct on numerous occasions, and not just a couple of times.
The Lord told Abraham that his descendants would be as many as the number of stars in the sky, if indeed he can count them [Genesis 15:5]. Early astronomers used to believe that they can count the stars in the sky but later, they realized that there are billions of them in the galaxies – beyond our ability to even give a close estimate.
When God created the earth, He said, “Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear” [Genesis 1:9]. It means that at the beginning, the land mass was together. Today, there are geological evidences to substantiate this theory, as rocks and fossils of animals and plants on different continents show that they used to exist on the same land. Geologists or scientists believe that one supercontinent used to exist, which later broke up or became separated into the land masses that we see today.
“Do you send the lightning bolts on their way? Do they report to you, ‘Here we are’?” [Job 38:35]. When the Bible was written, the word “electricity” did not exist, obviously, and “lightning” referred to raw electric power from nature. Several millenniums later, scientists would be able to harness electricity for use in lighting, telephones and many other ways that we see today. Now, we are indeed using electric power to speak and send messages over telephones, radios, computers, satellites and communication equipment. In Job’s time, when lighting was provided by fire, no one would dream of using electricity, let alone run away from streaks of lightning. And the telephone was invented more than two millenniums later in 1876. Yet the Bible alluded to it well ahead of time.
Biblical Prophecies Fulfilled
The Scriptures contain prophesies about the future that have come true.....
Some prophecies are in Revelation.
2000 years ago when apostle John had a vision of war and battle scenes, he saw the kinds of weapons and technologies that would be used in the future. In his time, when soldiers fought with spears and swords, and cavalries rode horses and chariots, the apostle did not have the vocabularies to describe modern day arsenals that he never saw before. He could only compare them to locusts with wings, moving with noises like the thundering of horses and chariots rushing into battle. He also wrote that the heads of the horses resembled the heads of lions, and out of their mouths came fire, smoke and sulfur [
Revelation 9: 7-19]. Today, we can see that the apostle was trying to describe modern war machines. The locusts with wings were helicopters and fighter jets. The horses with lion heads that threw fire and smoke were armored vehicles and tanks. John’s vision did materialize during the twentieth century – the Bible was 2000 years ahead of time.
Bible is supported by History
When historians, archaeologists and scientists conduct extensive research, they use cross references to determine the authenticity of the writings. Many biblical accounts have been found to be agreeable with history, such as the existence of ancient Israel, Assyria, Babylon, Persia and Roman Empire. The existence of Nebuchadnezzar, Darius, Artaxerxes, Herod and Pilate can be independently confirmed from other historical annals. Other archaeological discoveries substantiate accounts which are mentioned in the Bible, such as the invasion of ancient Israel by Babylonians and Persians. When Judea was under the control of the Roman Empire, the authorities regarded it as a difficult place to govern because the Jews resented foreign rule. In 66 AD, there was a revolt against the Roman authorities, who were forced to withdraw from Jerusalem because the fighting was fierce. The skirmishes continued until 70 AD when the Romans took back the city and crushed the resistance. Such events were found in historical records.
Some people assert that if the Bible is God’s Word, then there should be no mistakes at all. Should we apply such a standard towards the Scriptures? When scientists, mathematicians, scholars and historians conduct experiments for verification, they do not insist that the results must be totally free from mistakes. Some kinds of technical variations are accepted within certain margin of error. It does not mean that should absolutely be no glitches in God’s Word. Somewhere in the Old Testament, for example, a few numbers may not be absolutely accurate. When the manuscripts were copied by hand, a few variations could happen, such as the use of different words which have the same meaning or connotation. However, when experts scrutinized the Bible, such occurrences were acceptable. If there were too many flaws or mismatch with other historical findings, then it would have been exposed as a falsified piece of work. Instead, until today, it continues to endure the test of time.
Dead Sea Scrolls
In 1947, in the Mediterranean area, an Arab youth, Muhammad, accidentally stumbled upon the Dead Sea Scrolls, which were hidden in jars in a cave. The parchments, which were written mainly in Hebrew (with some parts in Aramaic), might have belonged to one of the Jewish religious sects or a community of people who lived during biblical times. It is possible that they could have hidden the scrolls from the Romans who came to crush the Jewish revolt circa 70 AD.
It was a phenomenal discovery, not only for Christians but also for historians, archaeologists, and scholars. The Dead Sea Scrolls were the manuscripts of the Hebrew Scriptures, without the Book of Esther. They were believed to have been written by the Jews who, after returning to Judah from exile (circa 400 BC), continued to keep records of their history, beliefs and traditions. This was an era commonly referred to as the Second Temple Period.
The greatest significance is that the Scrolls represent a close resemblance to the “original” Hebrew Old Testament (the Tanakh), which consists of the Pentateuch, History, Prophets and Poetry. At this point, it is appropriate to mention the existence of Jewish scribes, known as the Masoretes, from about 500 AD to 900 AD. They were entrusted with copying, editing and distribution of the Old Testament – a sacred and serious vocation that was held in high regards, which entailed the washing of hands before they started to write, for instance. They developed a system of counting the number of words in each book in order to ensure that every word was copied. Even if one error was spotted, the entire manuscript would be discarded by burying, in accordance with Jewish customs. They also introduced vowels into the Hebrew words, which only contained consonants originally.
When Masoretes Texts were compared to Dead Sea Scrolls, the very minute variations being found were confined to change of spellings over time or use of different synonyms in various manuscripts. This means that they were copied very meticulously and accurately, which was important, in view of the fact that they had been used as a basis for translations. The Dead Sea Scrolls helped to confirm that the Hebrew Scripture translations, which had been transmitted to us, had real roots in ancient historical sources that could be traced back to the Jews and ancient Israel. They also allowed academic scholars to compare various translations of the Bible, and gain understanding of certain ambiguous words, such as those with dual meanings. Other parchments discovered in the cave provided an insider’s view of the ancient Jewish society, their culture and beliefs, including the existence of religious sects and rabbi that were first formed during the Second Temple Period.
The Dead Sea Scrolls were believed to have been written 1000 years before the Ben Asher Codex, a Masoretic Text, which was the oldest known copy of the Old Testament before 1947. For the New Testament, manuscripts that were found included Codex Alexandrinus (dating back to 400 AD), Codex Sinaiticus (350 AD), and Codex Vaticanus. In the 1900s, more than a hundred manuscripts were found in Egypt.
The Roman Calendar
Could Abraham Lincoln or Napoleon be cleverly fabricated myths that somehow became accepted as the truths? Could historical records attribute the Great Wall of China to the work of a fictitious emperor? Surely these people were not just stories or folklores. Likewise, our calendar today, dated according to the birth of Jesus, indicates that He once lived on earth.
The Roman Empire persecuted Christians for about three hundred years. In 312 AD, however, the emperor Constantine converted to Christianity. Just before a decisive battle with his arch enemy, Maxentius (who was a co-ruler of the empire), Constantine had a dream, where God told him that under the cross, he would have victory, upon which he ordered that the sign of the cross be painted on his soldiers’ shields. His army prevailed, he believed, and passed a decree to stop all persecutions against the church, and also declared Christianity to be the official religion of the empire.
Later, the existing Roman calendar at that time was modified to be marked according to the year that Jesus was born, which became 1 A.D. Anno Domino means “the year of the Lord”. The years before His birth were marked BC (Before Christ).
There are more than these, but the abovementioned are some pointers.
