in this episode i want to share with you some surprising facts about the bible nowhere does
the christian bible claim to be the word of god or inspired of god or to be a revelation of god
so how do christians reply to this fact well they usually quote a couple of passages from the
new testament the one they quote most often is a passage in 2 timothy 3 16 which reads
all scripture is inspired by god and is useful for teaching for reproof for correction and training
in righteousness so that everyone who belongs to god may be proficient equipped for every good work
so this sounds like a pretty good verse proving that the christian bible is the word
of god does it not well not really because what they've done is they've taken a verse
out of context and they've tried to make it do more work than it can actually do
if you read a couple of verses before which i'll now do uh from 1 timothy 3 12
up to 17 you'll see what i mean i'll just read the whole context and look it up for yourself so you
can get a good sense indeed all who wants to live a godly life in christ jesus will be persecuted
but wicked people and imposters will go from bad to worse deceiving others and being deceived
but as for you timothy continue in what you have learned and firmly believed
knowing from whom you learned it and how from childhood you have known the sacred writings
that are able to instruct you for salvation through faith in christ jesus all scripture
is inspired by god and is useful for teaching for improved correction and training in righteousness
so that every everyone who belongs to god uh may be equipped for good work
so if you read it in context it seems clear that the scriptures that paul is referring to
are those that timothy have known has known since he was a youth and indeed in paul's time but the
only scriptures that existed at that time were the jewish scriptures what we call the old testament
the new testament hadn't been written then the canon of scripture was only finalized in the about
the fourth century a.d and even then there was still disputes so that's several centuries later
so this text this protest one timothy 3 16 at the very most is referring to
the old testament and not to the new testament to the christian bible so when i say this to
christians they say oh well there's another verse i said great another verse let's uh let's hear it
and the second verse they wheel out is a letter called the second letter of peter
sorry chapter 1 verse 20 to 21 and that reads as follows
first of all you must understand this that no prophecy of scripture is a matter of one's own
interpretation because no prophecy ever came by the by human will but by men and women moved by
the holy spirit spoke from god so this is talking about no prophecy of scripture is a matter of
one's own interpretation it comes from uh those who are moved by the holy spirit fair enough
but note this passage refers only to biblical prophecies in the old testament
most biblical books do not contain prophecy for example the book of job or the psalms or
the book of proverbs or the song of solomon's etcetera most books don't contain prophecy
so it can't even be referring to the whole of the old testament let alone to the christian
bible which contains uh books all the way from genesis all the way to the book of revelation
also there is a major problem with this letter's authenticity according to the most distinguished
christian scholarship and all other scholarship it is a forged letter let me show you what i mean
here we have uh this text which is the oxford dictionary of the christian church and uh the
article here on two peter the second letter of peter
concludes after a survey of the uh the evidence of the authorship and the dating of the letter
it concludes this these indications of date and the difference in style and interest from
juan peter make it virtually impossible to hold that saint peter was the author
the letter was received into the canon i into the list of bible books with considerable hesitation
its date is probably the second or third christian generation perhaps 150 a.d so this uh uh this
oxford dictionary of the christian church is probably the most distinguished and reputable
single reference work in existence uh and it says that it's virtually impossible to believe
that saint peter wrote this or wrote this letter isn't that amazing so um to peter's testimony
is extremely doubtful anyway because it's almost certainly a forged letter but there are further
problems um and uh just to give you uh one last problem before uh there are many but there are
some passages in the new testament believe it or not that even deny they are revelation from god
for example paul's letter to the corinthians known as 1 corinthians chapter 7 verse 12 says
and he's teaching here about marriage and divorce and the details of the subject and the teaching
don't really concern us but the status of what he teaches what does he say about this he says in
verse 12 to the rest i say i and not the lord that if any believer has a wife who is an unbeliever
and she consents to live with him he should not divorce her now the point here is that he says
what i'm teaching you is what i am saying and it's not from god
so it's not revelation from god now what paul says may be true it may be perfectly wise and
holy and godly teaching but its status is as paul's opinion a man he says it's not revelation
from god so at least that passage cannot be taken as the word of god as revelation from god
now just to conclude by way of contrast there is a hundred percent agreement amongst the 2
billion muslims in the world about the contents of the quran no one doubts that the 114 surahs
or chapters of the book are the actual speech of god himself the quran refers to itself repeatedly
as a revelation from god as the speech of god as a book given by god himself and if anyone doubts
that they are not a muslim as simple as that every chapter virtue every chapter in the quran says
that so given there's so much confusion amongst the peoples of the book about their scriptures
what does the quran say in quran chapter 5 verse 48 it says in muhammad assad's
translation and unto thee o prophet we have vouchsafed this holy writ
setting forth the truth confirming the truth of whatever their remains
still of earlier revelations and determining what is true therein judge then between the followers
of earlier revelation in accordance with what god has bestowed from on high and do not follow their
errant views forsaking the truth that has come unto thee that that's muhammad assad's translation
of quran 5 48. so this is claiming for the quran that it is divine writ it's the actual word of god
and confirming whatever truth there still remains of the earlier revelations implying that there
was uh elements that have been lost judge them between uh the followers of the earlier revelation
what the christians and jews say in accordance with what god has bestowed from on high in other
words the holy quran and in this passage this is the message of the quran the assad's translation
there's a little uh footnote to this passage that i've just read uh footnote 65. he says
the the participle mohamed for those who know arabic will know what i'm referring to
is derived from the quadrilateral verb heimanna he watched over a thing or controlled it
and is used here to describe the quran as the determinant factor in deciding what is genuine
and what is false in the earlier scriptures so if you like the quran is like a quality control which
people can use to determine what is true and false what is from god and what is the opinion of a man
for example so that's how islam sees its role vis-a-vis the scriptures of the people of the book
this is part one of a two-part video about some surprising facts about the bible and
in the next video which i'll be making shortly we'll see some more surprising facts until then