Christians believe that the Bible is the supernatural inspired Word of God mainly because Jesus Christ said that it was. There is however considerable other evidence about the totally unique origin of Scripture. This section seeks to show that the Scriptures, the book we call the Holy Bible, could only have been inspired by a Supernatural Intelligence living completely outside our human experience.
WHAT DID JESUS CHRIST SAY ABOUT THE BIBLE?
Jesus said in his last prayer that, “Your Word is Truth” (John 17:17.) Jesus himself freely quoted Scripture and was obviously extremely conversant with it. He was, after all, a Jewish rabbi!
The Bible at the time of Jesus Christ was the Old Testament. Jesus not only knew the Old Testament extremely well, but freely quoted it. Jesus in fact put his own authority on Scripture in the following statement. “Heaven and Earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away”, (Matthew 24:35). Paul declared in the New Testament that, “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God”, (2 Timothy 3:16.)
OTHER INDICATIONS OF THE SUPERNATURAL ORIGINS OF SCRIPTURE
Readers of this book may not be familiar with the supernatural origin of Scripture, which is taken very lightly by large sections of our society. It is hoped that the following will add considerable understanding to the unique supernatural origin of Scripture.
PROPHECY
The Bible is a prophetic book. It clearly foretells the future because God lives outside our fourth dimension, known as Time. Jesus Christ said, “Before Abraham was born, I am”, (John 8:58) confirming that He existed before the birth of Abraham. The Bible states that Jesus Christ is God, and pre-existed everything ( John 1:1).
The Bible is a prophetic book, with over 25% of it referring to future events. The most mathematically amazing Scripture is found in Daniel 9:26-26.In this Scripture the angel Gabriel is foretelling the exact date when Jesus Christ, the anticipated Messiah, would come to Jerusalem. It is completely accurate to the very day!
“Know and understand that from the issuing of a decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until Messiah the Prince there will be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks …then after the sixty two weeks the Messiah will be cut off…”
For a concise explanation of this we have quoted from the New American Standard Bible, the New Open Bible Study Edition, page 942:
“The vision of the sixty-nine weeks in Daniel 9:25,26 pinpoints the coming of the Messiah. The decree of Daniel 9:25 took place on March 4th, 444 BC (Nehemiah 2:1-8). The sixty-nine weeks of seven years equals 483 years, or 173,880 days (using 360-day prophetic years). This leads to March 29th, A.D.33, the date of the Triumphal Entry (of Jesus into Jerusalem). This is checked by noting that 444 BC to AD 33 is 476 years, and 476 times 365.24219* days per year equals 173,855 days. Adding 25 days for the difference between March 4th and March 29th gives 173,880 days.” *It should be noted that the Babylonians used a 360 day calendar, which must be converted to our current Solar Years, of 365 days. These 360 day years are commonly called prophetic years.
This prophecy is mathematically correct to the very day! There is simply no other book on planet Earth which predicts the future with such stunning accuracy!
THE RECURRENT NUMBER 7 FOUND IN THE BIBLE.
In the Bible the number seven is the number of perfection. There are myriad chains and sequences of sevens found in both the text, and the Hebrew and Greek numerics, of Scripture. In this respect the Bible is unique, and clearly of supernatural design.
A more detailed analysis of the number seven in Scripture is beyond the scope of this book, but we quote from Chuck Missler’s briefing package “Beyond Coincidence” in which he demonstrates the supernatural authority of the Bible, quoting the famous work of Ivan Panin, the Russian mathematician (1855 – 1942).
Matthew 1, vv 1-16 concerns the names of ancestors of Jesus Christ.
“A record of the genealogy of Jesus Christ the son of David, the son of Abraham: Abraham was the father of Isaac, Isaac the father of Jacob, Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers, Judah the father of Perez and Zerah, whose mother was Tamar,Perez the father of Hezron, Hezron the father of Ram, Ram the father of Amminadab, Amminadab the father of Nahshon, Nahshon the father of Salmon, Salmon the father of Boaz, whose mother was Rahab, Boaz the father of Obed, whose mother was Ruth, Obed the father of Jesse, and Jesse the father of King David. David was the father of Solomon, whose mother had been Uriah’s wife, Solomon the father of Rehoboam, Rehoboam the father of Abijah, Abijah the father of Asa, Asa the father of Jehoshaphat, Jehoshaphat the father of Jehoram, Jehoram the father of Uzziah, Uzziah the father of Jotham, Jotham the father of Ahaz, Ahaz the father of Hezekiah, Hezekiah the father of Manasseh, Manasseh the father of Amon, Amon the father of Josiah, and Josiah the father of Jeconiah and his brothers at the time of the exile to Babylon. After the exile to Babylon: Jeconiah was the father of Shealtiel,Shealtiel the father of Zerubbabel, Zerubbabel the father of Abiud, Abiud the father of Eliakim, Eliakim the father of Azor, Azor the father of Zadok, Zadok the father of Akim, Akim the father of Eliud, Eliud the father of Eleazar, Eleazar the father of Matthan, Matthan the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ.” NIV
The following observations may be made about this passage:
- The number of words is divisible by seven.
- The number of letters is divisible by seven.
- The number of vowels is divisible by seven.
- The number of consonants is divisible by seven.
- The number of words beginning with a vowel is divisible by seven.
- The number of words beginning with consonants is divisible by seven.
- The number of words that occur more than once is divisible by seven.
- The number of words that occur in only one form is divisible by seven.
- The number of words that occur more than once is divisible by seven.
- The number of nouns is divisible by seven.
- Only seven words are not nouns.
- The number of names is divisible by seven.
- Only seven other kinds of noun are present.
- The number of male names is divisible by seven.
- The number of generations is divisible by seven.
The implications of the above lists of names, and characteristics associated with those names, is simply beyond the ability of man to comprehend! It would be extremely difficult for anyone to construct a list of names with these characteristics! It is quite impossible for anyone to arrange the name of his own father, let alone names of members of the family tree in many preceding generations! Only God could have arranged this, conclusively proving the supernatural authenticity of Scripture.
THE SIGNATURE OF GOD IN THE FIRST FIVE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE
Chuck Missler has given me permission to quote his information regarding the amazing findings in the Hebrew text of the Torah, quoted in his briefing package, “The Cosmic Codes”. The Torah consists of the first five books of the Bible, namely Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy.
Rabbi Michael Ben Weissmandl discovered the “signature of God” in the first five books of the Bible. These five books, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, are known by the Jewish community as the Torah. Readers may be more familiar with the Greek translation of Torah, namely the Pentateuch. In fact Torah is the English translation of the Hebrew word Torh.
In the original Hebrew text of the Torah, the Hebrew equivalent letters TORH are spelled out every 50th letter throughout Genesis and Exodus. That is to say, that if you take the first letter T (Tau) in the book of Genesis and then count 49 letters the next letter will be the letter O (Vav), and so on.
In the books of Numbers and Deuteronomy the same signature of God applies, although the letters TORH are found backwards, both pointing to the central book of Leviticus. Chuck Missler has calculated that the chance of the name TORAH appearing at the beginning of the text of both Genesis and Exodus is about 1 in 3 million.
Similarly we are familiar with the name of God, Yahweh, commonly described as Jehovah. Both of these are English transliterations of the actual Hebrew word YHWH.
In the book of Leviticus the name YHWH is found in the text every 7th letter, starting with the letter Y (Yod). The number 7 is, of course, the square root of 49.
The chances of the five separate constructions, all appearing only at the beginning or the end of the five books of the Torah, must be 1 chance in trillions, proving again that the whole Bible is totally supernatural.
There are many other aspects of the authenticity of Scripture beyond the scope of this book. It is recommended that the reader listens to Chuck Missler’s excellent briefing package, “The Cosmic Codes”, complete with notes.
THE GATES OF THE HEAVENLY CITY
Another interesting confirmation of Scripture is identified by D.H.A. Woodward in his book Gems from the City. He has done a scientific study of the 28 precious and semiprecious stones known on planet Earth. These are gemstones with hardness measuring over seven on the Mohs’ Scale.
He found that if particles of all 28 stones are examined under a microscope using plane polarised light, only 12 of the 28 stones refracted plane polarised light, producing rainbow colours as described in Scripture. These are the 12 listed by John in Revelation 21:18-20.
D.H.A. Woodward has calculated that, on a purely mathematical basis, the chances of John picking the correct 12 gemstones, out of 28 gemstones, is one in 30 million. This is one further mathematical proof of the supernatural origin of Scripture. (Gems from the City, The Emerald Charitable Foundation, PO Box 414, Quinton, Birmingham B17 8LQ, England. 1984).
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THE BIBLE IS SUPERNATURAL
Dr Richard Kent also provides FREE LECTURES on this subject.