HELLO CHRISITANFORUMS.COM
I am a NEW CHRISTIAN!!! I NEED HELP! GOD.
I AM having trouble With some things. Specifically the exhistance of an
Will you explain these things to me?
1 How did God come about?
2 How is there a talking snake?
3 Who wrote the bible?
you may NOT use the bible as a source because I don't know if i accept the bibile as truth yet. I AM NEW!
thx
Nothing like tying my hands eh?
Asking for proof of God and not accepting His book as a source.
Well, I'll give it a go.
Hmm..perhaps I should tackle question 3 first. This is easy. With the exception of the book of Hebrews, authorship of the Bible is common knowlege and well documented outiside the Bible. There is a wealth of information on this subject. Quickly, Moses wrote the first 5 books. Various people wrote more of the OT books including King David, King Solomon and many prophets. The first four NT books are named after their authors, as are several later ones. Most were apostles of Christ, several letters by Jesus' brothers and an letter to the Hebrews of uncertain authorship. The Apostle Paul wrote the 13 books starting at Romans. Luke, a physician and historian wrote Luke and Acts (and possibly Hebrews).
Now to go any further, you need to decide whether the Bible is true. Honestly, your questions cannot be answered any further without it.
Let me answer the questions first and we'll go from there.
Your first question. How did God come about. Well, He didn't. God is eternal. He has no beginning or ending. There are, of course
NO extrabiblical sources for this. We only know this much from the book He inspired.
A talking snake is the least of the miraculous things. If you come to accept the Bible you will be dealing with far more than that. BTW, the snake is Satan.
The rest of the answer to question three is that God inspired the whole Bible.
Now why should you believe that? Well, let's start with manuscript evidence. There is more manuscrpt evidence to prove the Bible as we have it is accurate to the original than with other books from the same era that we tend not to question such as historical records etc. Thousands of manuscripts and fragments exist and they all have a remarkably high level of agreement between them and our current versions. That proves that the Bible today is what was written in the first place. But not that it is true.
For that, take historical control if you will. Paul made some big claims in the midst of several cultures that wanted to stamp out Christianity. His claims were made to large groups and were verifyable by hundreds of witnesses. If he had been lying about Christ's life, death or resurrection, hundreds of people could have proved him wrong. The eyewitnesses were still alive. He was not making wild claims without some controls on what he could get away with. Many of the events of Jesus' time are in fact recorded in secular history.
Next, take into account the resurrection itself. The Jews and the Romans wanted nothing more than to disprove the resurrection of Jesus. Christianity cannot be if Jesus was not raised from the dead. So the, if Chirst was not raised, why have the enemies of the faith not provided us with his body? The tomb was in land under their control. The Christians, few and disheartened were powerless at the time. They say the Christians must have stolen the body and hidden it, but lets think about the radical change in the Apostles who would have had to do this.
These men thought that the Messiah (or the Chirst) would come as a conquering King, overthrowing the Romans and restoring Israel. Upon His death, they went away dejected feeling they must have been mistaken saying to each other that they thought He was the One. Not only that, but the authorities were rounding up followers of Jesus to get rid of them so these men were in hiding for their lives, weak and afraid. Then, all of a sudden, they got news of the resurrection. They went from hiding to proclaiming the Gospel in hostile country. Their lives were in constant danger and indeed they all ended up martyred except for John who was banished to an Island. They never amassed any wealth or power. Now if they made it all up, what explains their willingness to sacrifice themselves, live under persecution and get no reward? Their actions can only be explained by the fact that they were proclaiming the truth.
I see this as proof of the resurrection of Christ, which in turn proves the Divinity of Christ. hen you have the fact that Christ Himself authenticated scripture and you have a compelling reason to believe in the Bible.
This is far from an exhaustive study on the evidence supporting the Bible. And interestingly, that Bible has not been disproven in 2000 years of ardent effort by it's opposition. No claim against the Bible has gone unanswered.
