Sorry guys I have been away for a while in New Mexico and Colorado…..I will post about that soon. But I got inspired today and made this apologetics card it is generic.
Scriptures
Generic for “the bible is no different than any other holy book.” and “The bible is simply the work of a great conspiracy, where people sought to create their own religion.” And “The Old Testament is merely a set of myths made up by the Jewish people to establish national identity and give them selves a feeling of superiority.”
According to Dr. Jay L. Wile (who is an author of 10 great textbooks used world-wide by homeschoolers, holds a Ph.D. from the University of Rochester in nuclear chemistry and a B.S. in chemistry from the same institution. He has won several awards for excellence in teaching and has presented numerous lectures on the topics of Nuclear Chemistry, Christian Apologetics, Homeschooling, and Creation vs. Evolution.)
he says “In historical science, any document (a clay tablet, a scroll, a book, ect.) That claims to be a work of history is put through three test. They are called the internal test, the external test, and the bibliographic test. If the work passes those three tests, it is considered a legitimate work of history.”
Later on he explains the test “The internal test simply test to see whether or not the document in question is internally consistent. In other words, the internal test says that a valid work of history cannot contradict itself. The second test that is applied is the external test. This test ask another simple question: does the document contradict other known historical facts? There are two ways this is applied. First, they compare the document of interest to other documents that have already passed the three tests. The external test also compares the statements in the document to known archaeological facts. Then comes the final test, the bibliographic test, which is probably the most important of the three. To be a reliable document, the work must have eyewitness accounts.”
Later on in this book he says that “you have probably heard people say the bible contradicts itself.” This is true you probably have heard this, here is a example. Matthew 1:16 says “Jacob was the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary” whereas Luke 3:23 says that Jesus was the “the son of Joseph, the son of Eli.” So one account, then, says that Jesus’ grandfather was Jacob, whereas the other says he is Eli. Dr. Wile says “While these two genealogies seem contradictory, they are actually complementary. That’s because the genealogy presented in Matthew is Joseph’s family line, whereas the passage in Luke traces Mary’s family line. Since women were not considered very important to ancient Jews, their names did not appear in genealogies. Of course, Luke was also educated enough to know that women should not be mentioned in genealogies, so that’s why he used Josephs name.
So we see the bible passes the internal test in this example. Then to the second test, the external test. Then there are also archeological proofs of the bible as William F. Albright one of the greatest archeologist of the twentieth century says “there can be no doubt that archeology has confirmed the substantial historicity of the old testament..” then historian F.F. Bruce says it even better “it may be legitimate to say that archeology has confirmed the new testament record.” So we see the bible passed the first two test.
Now to the bibliographic test or eye witness test. There are actually eyewitness accounts that aren’t in the bible, one such is Flavius Josephus. An important thing to note is that Josephus was not a Christian. Josephus mentions rulers and cities discussed in the bible, and in his reports are consistent with those of the bible. In addition, Josephus mentions the life and execution of John the Baptist and the existence of Christ brother James, in agreement with the New Testament.
So in conclusion we can see the bible passes the scientific test for historical authentity.
And to sum it up, this wonderfull quote from Dr. Wile “The bible passes the internal better than any document of its time, and you come to the scientific conclusion that the stories and accounts in the bible are more trust worthy than any document of the other accounts we have about the Roman Empire and other facets of ancient life!”