Do you know the Bible is ultimately from God?
How can we know that the Bible is from God since it is recorded by the people, people wonder. In order to answer that question, we need to concern a spiritual factor that can be proven mathematically. Let me just forward you to the end of the answer: The Bible is the authentic and unmistakable word of God. Also, it is a fact that different people write the Bible. Let’s have a look at some assumptions.
There are many opinions about the accuracy and reliability of the Bible. For example, some people believe it is not the Word of God at all. In that case, it is superfluous to talk about her reliability. While others believe that it is a mixture of God’s and personal statements and, therefore, it includes facts and mistakes. Also, some people think it is God’s word, but it still contains mistakes. Such thinking is characteristic mainly of the last three to four centuries. Before that, few questioned the inspiration and infallibility of the Bible. Because of frequent opposition to biblical infallibility, leading evangelical theologians met in Chicago in 1978. They wanted to make make a statement on the infallibility of the Bible. This statement is known as the Chicago Declaration of Infallibility of the Bible.
The structure of the Bible
The Bible consists of sixty-six books, thirty-nine are in the Old Testament, while twenty-seven are in the New Testament. These include history books such as Ezra and Acts, poetry books like psalms, and the book of preachers; books of a prophecy like Isaiah and Revelation; biographies, as the Gospels of Matthew and John; and epistles (formal letters) such as the epistles to Titus and the Jews. Around 40 people, inspired by the Spirit of God, wrote the Bible for over one and a half millennium. The writers were different types of people, from emperors to fishermen, priests, peasants, shepherds, etc. From all this diversity springs an incredible unity, with traditional themes that penetrate the entire book.
The unity of the Bible exists because it has one author, God Himself. The Bible is divided into two main parts: the Old and New Testaments. In short, the Old Testament is a story about the people, and the New Testament is about the man. Through the people, God brought Man — Jesus Christ — into the world. The Bible is nothing like other books. It is an indivisible union of God and people. Her records of many details of world history are part of her overall intention to convey the history of salvation. The New Testament gives details of the coming of the promised Man. His name is Jesus, and He fulfilled the Old Testament promises with His perfect life, died to become the Savior, and rose from the dead.
History books in the Bible
List of historical books of the Bible: Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1 Samuel and 2 Samuel, 1 Kings and 2 Kings, 1 Chronicle and 2 Chronicle, Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther. The history books of the Bible covered about a millennium of the history of the nation of Israel. The history books record the events of Israeli history, beginning with the book of Joshua and the nation’s entrance into the Promised Land. After Joshua, the books of history lead us through the rise and fall of Israel under the judges, the transition to the kingdom, the division of the nation, and its life as two rival kingdoms (Israel and Judah). The events described in the Bible are described in the same way in some other scriptures so that they coincide.
When we read those pages of the Bible, we experience wondrous stories and meet fascinating figures, and how God worked in their life. God used his people to glorify himself in all of those events. The Bible, unquestionably and ultimately from God, says that those events happen to people in the past (history), and we should learn from them. The authority of history books is determined by different sources. For example, for the New Testament, we have over 5600 documents in Greek, 10000 in Latin, about 500 in other languages.
Prophetic books in the Bible
According to the Bible, the true prophet was called and equipped ultimately by God, empowered by the Holy Spirit to do his work. God’s business is to speak God’s message to certain people in specific situations. Sometimes to face people with sin, to warn of judgment and consequences if people refused to repent and subdue. As observers, the prophets also brought a message of hope and future blessing to those who went into obedience. The Old Testament prophets pointed the way to Jesus Christ, the Messiah, and showed people the need for his salvation. Since these prophecies have already fulfilled, we logically see that the books are true. It is so easy to determine the authenticity of predictive books because only the same events previously happen with other sources.
The last book of the Bible, the book of Revelation, is a prophecy yet to be fulfilled. The author is John, son of Zebedee, who also wrote the Gospel of John. He wrote this marvelous book while he was living in exile on the island of Patmos. At that time, at the end of the first century, the early Christian church was persecuted. The book of Revelation contains symbols and images that provoke the imagination of the events that will happen. It is considered to be the culmination of end-time prophecies. Although it seems like a difficult book, without a doubt, the book of Revelation is worth studying. The dominant themes of the book are the message of the fulfillment of the hope of salvation in Jesus Christ, the promise of blessings to his followers, and God’s final victory.
Mathematical prof that the Bible is from God
In the Old Testament, we have predictions that previously happened. Also, we have a prophecy that is about to happen. No fulfillment is of a prophecy different from the way it was reported to appear. So, in a highly specific way, we have the future described. The fundamental probability for some even to happen is fifty percent. Since we have a basic probability of 50%, that indicates when we flip a coin, every time there are equal chances to have either heads or tails. In other words, with every prophesy, we have a 50% probability that it is correct to prophesy and a 50% possibility that is a false one. Just like when you flip a coin and get heads, that doesn’t mean next time it will be heads again. It could be tails. Every time you have equal chances because the events are not connected.
There are around 3500 prophesies that already happened in the Scripture. Since they previously occur, they can be correctly determined. For overall probability, we will use letter Q, while for basic probability letter p. Since there is a 50% uncertainty of any prophecy to happen, the primary probability is p=0.5 (or p=1/2). The chances of all of those occurring can be exposed is a mathematical formula from 1:1000 to 1:10000000.
In short, the probability of all of that prophesies to happen, exactly as they as described, is one in several million. You are more likely to get a jackpot on a lottery because there are more chances to guess those 6-7 numbers. If you challenge the Bible, keep in mind that you are challenging God himself. It is okay to ask questions and wonder, about the truth in the Scripture, but once you learned the truth, admit it.
The Bible is ultimately from God
Including all of that above, we can only conclude that the Bible is ultimately the Word of God. However, some people would say that mistakes during translation people made mistakes. In history, we can see that the translators made mistakes with translating Srcipute to other languages. They forget a word, or even a term, or write it twice or make a spelling mistake, etc. (Such errors make up over 99% of transcription errors in the Bible.) Nevertheless, we do not have just one manuscript but hundreds and thousands. Some of the documents are pretty old from the first or even second century. As we saw before, there are over a thousand copies of different books of the New Testament. There are several references in the documents of early Christian writers who cited originals or early records.
Therefore, it is straightforward to reconstruct the text by comparing numerous manuscripts. Thus, we have that the Bible we possess is identical to the original writings. Since we prove that the Bible we have today is the same as the original documents, we can also conclude that the Bible is ultimately the Word from God. For true believers, the mathematical evidence is not necessary. Because the Bible itself says it is the ultimate Word from God. If you want to see ALL the verses in the Scripture related to this subject read this article.