This past Sunday we kicked off a new series where we are looking at the basics of our faith and why we believe what we believe. The first message in the series was about the Bible. Check it out here if you missed it. We discovered that…

• The Bible was written by 40 different authors.
• The Bible was written over a 1500 year time period.
• The Bible was written in 3 different languages: Greek, Hebrew, Aramaic
• The Bible was written on 3 different continents: Europe, Asia, Africa
• Despite all of this, there are no real contradictions (see below) and there is only ONE central message to it all! “The story of God and His people He created.”
• The New Testament is the most reliable historical document of all time. There are more than 25,000 manuscripts dating to as early as the first century, only one generation removed from the actual events. The first runner up is Homer’s Iliad with not even 650 manuscripts and 400 years removed from the actual events!
• Archaeology has never refuted a biblical account. In fact, archaeology continues to prove the Bible. One of the most famous examples is the story of Jesus at the Pool of Bethesda.
• Even historians are baffled at the statistical chances that one person – Jesus – would actually fulfill the prophecies of the Old Testament. Taking only 8 of the dozens of prophecies and accepting historical proof that Jesus fulfilled them hundreds of years after they were written leaves us with a statistical probabilty of 1 in 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 that one person would do that!

For further study, here are some great resources:

• Nearly Every Question about the Bible Answered
• History of the Canon of the Bible – How the Bible as we know it today became organized
• A List of Bible Contradictions Explained – From the petty attempts to find contradictions to more reasonable attempts, this scholar has a well-researched answer for each.
• The Case for Christ – A great book for the skeptic willing to consider the other side and for the believer wanting to better understand “proof” for our faith.

This week we tackle another fun topic – creation! It’s going to be another great one. See you Sunday at 10 or 11:30 but don’t come alone!