The Origin and Design Nature of the Bible
INTRODUCTION
How was the Christian Bible written? I often say that Jesus and/or the Father wrote the complete book. That must be the case since the book has so many supernatural characteristics. We see that the book is a literary hologram; we see so many different things when we look at it from different perspectives and it appears to have many layers of information. We see that in the many models presented in the Old Testament, in the multiple fulfillments of prophecy from the same passages and in the multiple layers of codes that are embedded in the scriptures. These things go across the scriptures and are independent of human author and the time it was written. The Bible had 40 or more human authors and was written over a 2000 year time span, yet it is still completely consistent and the prophecies and codes span the entire book. All of this would not be possible if it were merely men writing the books. The hardest thing for me to understand is how God could have written all of the books, had codes and prophecies span the many books and yet had the books still reflect the personalities and perspectives of the individual human authors. It’s baffling and had to be done supernaturally, at least from a human perspective. I would say that it is a misnomer to call the humans who put pen to paper the authors except for the fact that in John 5:46 Jesus says that Moses wrote about him and in John 12:41 John says that Isaiah wrote about Jesus. In spite of the fact that Jesus says that Moses wrote the books of law, in Hosea 8:12 Jesus says that he wrote the law. How could this be true? It is supernatural in four dimensions and we can’t really understand it in our four dimensional world. We’ll understand it when we get to heaven. All that we can do now is to see that it has to be true because of the Bible’s supernatural characteristics.
Of all of the religions in the world, Christianity is the only one which provides irrefutable proof about what it says. It provides this irrefutable proof in two ways; through fulfilled prophecy and through a supernatural book which could have been written only by God himself. There are over 300 prophecies of Jesus first coming which were all fulfilled completely and in every way. The Bible presents amazing prophecies regarding when things would happen hundreds of years in the future and they always happen right on the very day prophesied. In fact, in Isa 48:5 God said that he used fulfilled prophecy to prove that he was God since no idol or false god could do this. In spite of this most of the world ignores the proof and goes its own way. No other holy book would dare to try to predict the future because it would be doomed to failure. Why is it then that less than 1/3 of the people on earth believe in and recognize the creator of the universe and the author of this supernatural book, the Bible? Could it be because it requires serious and long term commitment to study and find the truth and most either aren’t willing to or don’t realize that they need to make the commitment? For whatever reason, these things, even though they are eternally important, are unknown to most Christians.
In order to determine how the Bible was written, we will turn to the real authorities, those who say that they wrote the various books of the Bible. We will begin with the books of prophecy.
HOW DID GOD REVEAL HIS PROPHECIES TO THE PROPHETS?
In the books of prophecy in the Old Testament, God communicated his prophecies through either oracles or visions, sometimes referred to as dreams. The oracles may have reflected God communicating orally but not visually, while the visions reflected that the prophet both heard and saw what God was communicating to him.
Is there anything in the Bible that might help us understand what a vision might have been like? 2 Cor 12:1-10 describes a vision that God gave Paul of heaven. It was so real to him that he wasn’t sure of whether or not he had been taken there bodily. I suspect that the prophet’s visions were just like this, so real to them that they felt that they had been a real physical part of the vision.
John also describes for us the way that he received the visions upon which Revelation is based. It was from God, through Jesus Christ, Rev 1:1-2. John saw the revelation, Rev 1:2. John was in the Spirit and was told specifically what to write, Rev 1:10-11. The person speaking to John was referred to as Jesus’ angel, Rev 1:1, and was apparently his special angel, Gabriel, who many times was sent to earth to give special revelations about Jesus. However, there are several direct quotes from Jesus himself in Revelation. Even what Gabriel had to say was in essence Jesus speaking through him. John is given an outline for the book in verse 19. From Rev 1:17 through all of chapter 3, John is recording Jesus speaking in first person. This was often done in the Old Testament prophecies; the prophets recorded God and/or Jesus speaking in first person. Rev 4:1-3 describes what it meant to be “in the spirit,” John’s condition when he wrote this book. John was out of his body; his spirit was taken to heaven by Jesus so that he could see what he was to write. This experience was similar to Paul’s experience, although for some reason Paul was expressly forbidden from writing about much of what he had seen. We will next look individually at all of the Old Testament books of prophecy to see how they were written.
HOW DID GOD SPEAK TO THE OLD TESTAMENT PROPHETS?
We will start with Isaiah and leaf through the Old Testament books of prophecy one by one and see if we can determine how God spoke to the prophets. After doing this we’ll analyze what we find, present similarities and then compile a list of the various means that God used to determine which he used the most. Read through the following table “How God spoke to the Old Testament Prophets,” and then go on to the following analysis.
Analysis of the information presented in the table:
There are 16 prophets listed.
Ten of the prophets mentioned visions, oracles or revelations.
Eight used the phrase “This is what the Lord says.”
Nine used the phrase “The word of the Lord came.”
Ten used the phrase “The Lord said or declared.”
Fifteen used either “This is what the Lord says” or “The Lord said or declared.” Only Daniel didn’t use one of these phrases.
Two mentioned angels, including the angel of the Lord, who is Jesus, by Zechariah.
Even though these books were written over a period of 3 centuries we can see great consistency and similarity between them. God tells us that he is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow. He obviously was dealing with all of the prophets in very similar ways.
In Hosea 12:10 God tells us directly how he spoke to the prophets “I spoke to the prophets, gave them many visions, and told parables through them.”
Does God still speak to us in this same way today? Are there still revelations about the future or is there just help in understanding the present?
So, we see great consistency throughout the books of prophecy in how they were written, in spite of the fact that they were written over a period of over 300 years. The prophets applied the pen to the scroll and wrote what God told them and/or showed them. Let’s read a couple of scriptures that might help us to understand.
Jer 30:1-2 1 This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD:
2 "This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: 'Write in a book all the words I have spoken to you.
2 Pet 1:20-21 20 Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet's own interpretation. 21 For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.
So it is becoming clear that the prophets did not create or originate in their own minds the books that they wrote. The Holy Spirit spoke the words of God, either the Father or the Son, to them through visions, oracles, dreams or angels. In some cases, Jesus delivered the message himself.
As we read through the books of prophecy it is apparent that some of the words are the words of the prophet as he is speaking in first person, some of the words are quotations of the Father speaking in first person and some of the words are quotations of the Son speaking in first person. However, it is also apparent that even when the prophet is speaking in first person, his words have been given to him by the Holy Spirit even though they express the personality of the individual prophet. It’s mind boggling. Let’s look at a scripture from Hosea.
Hosea 8:12-13 12 I wrote for them the many things of my law, but they regarded them as something alien.13 They offer sacrifices given to me and they eat the meat, but the LORD is not pleased with them. Now he will remember their wickedness and punish their sins: They will return to Egypt.
THE ORIGIN AND DESIGN NATURE OF THE BIBLE
This section contains the following discussions concerning the supernatural origin and design of the Christian Bible: