Regarding the critical dating of the book of Daniel, even the discoveries of the Dead Sea Scrolls did not seem to challenge the consensus. For example, Frank Moore Cross, a longtime professor at Harvard University and one of the first experts on the Dead Sea Scrolls, dated the oldest of the Daniel manuscripts (4QDan^c) to “the late second century,” “no more than about a half century younger than the autograph.”⁴ This is a remarkable claim since we have no other manuscript of the Bible so close to a book’s date of composition. Cross reached his date on paleographic grounds. (Paleography is a science that attempts to date manuscripts based on the style of handwriting.)

Scholars who followed Cross’s paleographic dating were not quite as confident about the date of the manuscript. A leading Scrolls scholar, Eugene Ulrich, dates 4QDan^c to the late second or early first century.⁵ This offers a little more wiggle room between the liberal scholarly reckoning of the book’s composition in the 160s B.C. However, newly published research forces a reevaluation of the paleographic dating of the Scrolls in general, and of 4QDan^c in particular.

How Has the Critical Consensus Been Challenged?

A team of researchers led by world-renowned Scrolls expert Mladen Papović combines new methods of Carbon-14 dating with Artificial Intelligence programming to redate a number of Scrolls. Since the Dead Sea Scrolls corpus consists of more than 900 manuscripts, further research must be done to draw conclusions more broadly, but the current results seem promising. Using new developments in technology, the Carbon-14 dating method was employed to reevaluate the standard theories about ancient Semitic paleography.

The Artificial Intelligence model, termed “Enoch,” utilizes “Bayesian ridge regression” to predict the dates of manuscripts based on “binarized” images of the scrolls. The Enoch Model’s paleographic analysis validates the Carbon-14 dating in more than 85% of cases. This result was deemed good enough to apply to 135 other Dead Sea Scrolls manuscripts whose dates are in doubt. The work of the Enoch Model was checked against the sentiments of human experts in ancient Hebrew and Aramaic paleography, and the human experts deemed 79% of its predictions to be reliable. In other words, the researchers attempt to bring together old and trusted methods with exciting new leaps forward in technology to triple-check the credibility of scholarly claims.

The practical takeaway from this study is that some of the Scrolls are much older than previously thought. First, the new Carbon-14 dating tests and AI paleographic analysis allow us to push back the date of some manuscripts by 50 years or more. This news is significant on its own. But the study also demonstrates that the Hebrew and Aramaic scripts used in the period, typically termed the “Hasmonean” and “Herodian” scripts, respectively, are older than previously thought. Scholars have long believed that these scripts were in transition around the mid-first century B.C. In other words, previous paleographers have been inclined to date a manuscript with the “Herodian” script to the late first century B.C. at the earliest, while the “Hasmonean” script manuscripts could be dated earlier. The new research suggests that the two scripts actually coexisted from a much earlier period, making previous paleographic theories about the Dead Sea Scrolls unreliable.

How Does This Apply to Daniel?

One of the sample manuscripts analyzed is the oldest known copy of the book of Daniel. As we have previously mentioned, Cross (and those who follow him) have comfortably dated this manuscript, on paleographic grounds, to the late second century B.C. Ulrich might push this date even further forward, to the first half of the first century B.C. These dates allow the original composition of the book of Daniel to fall in the 160s, as liberal scholars have traditionally maintained. However, Popović and his collaborators conclude their reanalysis of the Carbon-14 and paleographic evidence as follows: “Sample 4Q114 [i.e., 4QDan^c] is one of the most significant findings of the ¹⁴C results. The manuscript preserves Daniel 8-11, which scholars date on literary-historical grounds to the 160s BCE. The accepted 2σ calibrated range for 4Q114, 230-160 BCE, overlaps with the period in which the final part of the biblical book of Daniel was presumably authored.”⁶

This statement is hard to believe. The authors do not wish to dismiss the scholarly consensus, so they suggest that 4QDan^c dates to the book’s exact time of composition. In other words, they do not claim that the manuscript is an original copy of Daniel, but certainly contemporary with the original copies. To put it mildly, this claim is unlikely to be true. Still, the researchers allow the manuscript to be authored in “the 160s BCE,” which is decades older than Cross and Ulrich previously thought. This alone is significant.

Moreover, we should note that the authors bias the interpretation of their evidence. Since liberal scholars require the book of Daniel to have reached its final form in the 160s, any potential date earlier than that threatens to upend the consensus. The dates “230-160 BCE” are obviously broader than most scholars would call “the period in which the final part of the biblical book of Daniel was presumably authored.” I understand that these date ranges are intended to account for a margin of error, but they include what scholars usually call the terminus post quem (“the date after which”) and the terminus ante quem (“the date before which”), respectively. While Popović and his collaborators are cautious to allow room for the scholarly consensus, their data suggest the possibility that the consensus date of Daniel is objectively wrong.

Scholars believe that the book of Daniel had to be composed prior to 164 B.C. because it does not clearly mention the death of the anti-Jewish tyrant Antiochus IV Epiphanes. However, the book does mention atrocities committed during his reign, specifically ones dating during the years 167-164 B.C. Daniel chapters 8-11 refer to Antiochus as the “little horn” (8:9), and mention with great specificity the events of his reign, such as interrupting Temple sacrifice (8:11-12), his war with the Ptolemies (11:20-35), and his exaltation of himself as a god (11:36-45). These incredibly detailed passages match precisely the historical realities as documented in the books of 1-2 Maccabees and in Greek historians such as Polybius. Yet, Antiochus’s death is only obliquely referred to (11:45). Thus, the critical assumption emerges that the book was composed during the reign of, but prior to the death of, Antiochus IV.

To be clear, one of the primary reasons liberal scholars deny the book of Daniel a sixth-century date is that they assume it is impossible for the biblical authors to know the future with precision. Predictive prophecies like those found in Daniel 8-11 must be regarded, as the German critic Otto Eissfeldt once called them, vaticinia ex eventu, or “prophecies after the event.”⁷ In other words, the so-called “prophecies” of Daniel are really no prophecies at all, but historical reflections on events that occurred in recent memory. This is the scholarly consensus. If Popović and his collaborators are correct, the new dates assigned to the oldest manuscript of Daniel might force a change in how scholars date the book of Daniel.

Conclusion

The historical accuracy of the book of Daniel regarding the anti-Jewish persecutions of Antiochus IV is virtually uncontested. Critical scholars usually explain this accuracy by simply arguing that the authorwas not a prophet of the sixth century, but an eyewitness to the events of the 160s B.C. The possibility that a manuscript of the book (4QDan^c) could be older than the events it records forces a reevaluation of the predictive power of Scripture. Whether Daniel was composed in circa 530 B.C. (as Bible believers traditionally maintain) or in circa 230 B.C. (the oldest possible date of 4QDan^c) is irrelevant. Any date prior to the reign of Antiochus IV not only means the critical consensus is wrong, but also that the predictive prophecy of Scripture is right.

Endnotes

¹ Popović Mladen, Maruf A. Dhali, Lambert Schomaker, Kaare Lund Rasmussen, Jacopo La Nasa, Ilaria Degano, Maria Perla Colombini, and Eibert Tigchelaar (2025), “Dating Ancient Manuscripts Using Radiocarbon and AI-based Writing Style Analysis,” PLoS One 20[6], e0323185, https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0323185.

² Justin Rogers (2016), “The Date of Daniel: Does It Matter?” Reason & Revelation, 36[12]:134-137,141-143, December.

³ John J. Collins (1993), Daniel: A Commentary on the Book of Daniel in Hermeneia Old Testament Commentary (Minneapolis: Fortress), p. 1.

⁴ Frank Moore Cross (1961), The Ancient Library of Qumran (Garden City, NY: Doubleday), p. 43.

⁵ Eugene Ulrich (2001), “The Text of Daniel From Qumran,” in The Book of Daniel: Composition and Reception, ed. John J. Collins and Peter W. Flint (Leiden: Brill), 2:574.

⁶ Popović, et al., 20[6]:3.

⁷ Otto Eissfeldt (1965), The Old Testament: An Introduction, trans. Peter R. Ackroyd (New York: Harper and Row), p. 517.

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For dogs have surrounded Me; The congregation of the wicked has enclosed Me. They pierced My hands and My feet (Psalms 22:16).

Then they will look on Me whom they pierced; yes, they will mourn for Him as one mourns for his only son, and grieve for Him as one grieves for a firstborn (Zechariah 12:10).

The first prediction obviously has as its setting the scene of the cross. The timeframe of the second is less certain, but undoubtedly refers back to the same crucifixion event. In any case, the allusion to being “pierced” is confirmed by the first century apostle John. Describing the crucifixion scene, specifically, the incident pertaining to the breaking of the legs of the two thieves, John reports concerning Jesus, who was already dead: “But one of the soldiers pierced His side with a spear, and immediately blood and water came out” (John 19:34). John immediately identifies the incident as a fulfillment of the prophecy of Zechariah (vs. 37). He later alludes to this same piercing in connection with the coming of Jesus (Revelation 1:7).

Jesus experienced two distinct “piercings” on the occasion of the crucifixion. First, His hands and feet were pierced by the nails driven into His hands and feet and into the wooden cross by the Roman soldiers. Second, we are informed that shortly after He expired, a Roman soldier pierced His side, as if to ascertain for certain that He was deceased. None of the Gospel writers refers explicitly to Psalm 22:16 in connection with the crucifixion. Yet, the connection is all too obvious, not only because His hands and feet were, in fact, pierced by nails, but from the fact that Psalm 22 is riddled with several other Messianic predictions, including the ridicule heaped upon Him, the wagging of His enemies’ heads, and the dividing of His garments, as well as the graphic description of His depleted physical condition that characterized a crucifixion (i.e., the stretching of the skeletal framework, the extreme thirst, and the impact on the heart and chest cavity).¹

The question to consider is how could the Psalmist (cir. 1000 B.C.) and Zechariah (cir. 500 B.C.) anticipate that hundreds of years into the future the Messiah would be executed, and that that execution would include “piercing”? Stoning was the prevailing form of execution that typified Jewish society (Exodus 19:13; Leviticus 20:27; 24:14,23; Numbers 15:36; Deuteronomy 17:5; Joshua 7:25; 1 Kings 12:18; et al.). They certainly did not use crucifixion as a form of execution,² and the Roman Empire did not exist. Even if the Psalmist and Zechariah were familiar with crucifixion, how could they possibly predict with minute precision the piercing that Jesus endured? With so many forms of execution possible, what are the odds that both prophets would select “piercing”? Such specificity discourages guesswork. The charlatan remains vague and ambiguous rather than risk detection due to particularity. Since the Old Testament canon was complete two and a half centuries before Christ came to Earth, how could the Psalmist and Zechariah make such an exact prediction hundreds of years in advance? The only rational conclusion is that, as they claimed, they were supernaturally guided in their pronouncements.

Endnotes

¹ For the medical aspects of the crucifixion of Christ, see William Stroud (1847), Treatise on the Physical Cause of the Death of Christ and Its Relation to the Principles and Practice of Christianity (London: Hamilton & Adams), p. 153. See also B. Thompson and B. Harrub (2002), An Examination of the Medical Evidence for the Physical Death of Christ (Montgomery AL: Apologetics Press); W.D. Edwards, W.J. Gabel, and F.E. Hosmer (1986), “On the Physical Death of Jesus Christ,” Journal of the American Medical Association, 255[11]:1455-1463, March 21.

² “Among the modes of Capital Punishment known to the Jewish penal law, crucifixion is not found”—Emil G. Hirsch (1903), The Jewish Encyclopedia (New York: Funk & Wagnall), 4:373.

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• Isaiah 7:14 by being born of the virgin Mary (Matthew 1:18-2:1),
• Isaiah 9:1-2 by dwelling in Capernaum, “which is…in the regions of Zebulun and Naphtali” (Matthew 4:12-17),
• Isaiah 53:4 by healing many who were sick and demon-possessed (Matthew 8:16-17),
• Isaiah 53:12 by being “numbered with the transgressors” (Matthew 27:38; cf. Mark 15:27-28),
• Isaiah 53:9 when “they made His grave…with the rich at His death” (Matthew 27:57-60).

Luke reminded his first-century readers that Jesus fulfilled Isaiah 9:7 by sitting on “the throne of His father David…forever” (Luke 1:32-33; Acts 2:30-36; cf. 2 Samuel 7:12-13). Mark began his Gospel account quoting Isaiah 40:3 and identified not only the forerunner of the Messiah as John the baptizer, but the Messiah Himself as Jesus (Mark 1:1-15; cf. Luke 3:4-6). Paul, the Old Testament scholar,² former persecutor of the Church, and later devoted Christian apologist, quoted Isaiah 11:10 and attested that this prophecy was one of “the promises made to the fathers” which was fulfilled in Jesus (Romans 15:8,12).

In the early-to-mid 30s (very shortly after the establishment of the Church), an Ethiopian proselyte was returning from Jerusalem reading from the scroll of Isaiah, specifically 53:7-8 (Acts 8:28-33). The Ethiopian asked the evangelist Philip, “[O]f whom does the prophet say this, of himself or of some other man?” (Acts 8:34). “Then Philip opened his mouth, and beginning at this Scripture, preached Jesus to him” (8:35). Who was the suffering Servant of Isaiah 53? Once again, the answer is Jesus. The consistent, recurring testimony of the often threatened, persecuted, and martyred New Testament apostles and prophets is unmistakable: the Messiah of Whom Isaiah frequently prophesied was Jesus of Nazareth.

Considering the plethora of testimony throughout the New Testament that Jesus was the fulfillment of the Messianic prophecies of Isaiah, it should come as no surprise that early on in Jesus’ ministry, He read publicly from Isaiah and made Himself known as the Messiah. While in the synagogue in His hometown of Nazareth, He was given the scroll of Isaiah “and found the place where it was written, ‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because He has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor’” (Luke 4:17-19, ESV). Jesus not only read from Isaiah’s prophecy of the coming Messiah (Isaiah 61:1-2), He also made an astonishing announcement: “Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing” (Luke 4:21). Jesus plainly and succinctly announced that He was Isaiah’s marvelous Messiah.

Jesus and the New Testament apostles and prophets quoted from the prophet Isaiah dozens of times—primarily to prove that Jesus of Nazareth was the long-awaited Messiah. Jesus perfectly fulfilled every prophecy, sufficiently proving³ His identification as humankind’s Divine, Sovereign Savior.

Reasonable Evidence

Any rational person knows that it is beyond the ability of humanity to foretell the future. People can have knowledge of many things about the past and the present, but no one knows the future. We may speculate about what the stock market is going to do in the coming days and years, or we can make an educated guess at who is going to win a particular game, etc., but no mere human being actually knows the future.⁴

I live in a tri-county area of Alabama with a population of nearly 400,000 people. For many years, I have passed a “fortune-teller’s” place of business on my way to and from work. Are there long lines at this establishment? Are there crowds of people anxiously waiting outside for someone to tell them who is going to win the lottery, the Super Bowl, or the next election? Nothing could be farther from the truth. “Business” is, for all intents and purposes, nonexistent. It seems evident that the vast majority of people have come to the reasonable conclusion that only an all-knowing, supernatural Being knows the future.⁵

The Bible acknowledges such a logical conclusion about the knowledge of future events. Jeremiah wrote: “[W]hen the word of the prophet comes to pass, the prophet will be known as one whom the Lord has truly sent” (Jeremiah 28:9). On the other hand, “Who is he who speaks and it comes to pass, when the Lord has not commanded it?” (Lamentations 3:37). That is, those who prophesy things that do not come to pass, “the Lord has not sent”; “they prophesy falsely” (Jeremiah 28:15; 29:8-9; cf. Deuteronomy 18:21-22). Indeed, no one accurately foretells the future unless the omniscient God of heaven informs him of it.⁶

If only God knows the future, then a logical way to prove that (1) He exists, (2) the Bible writers were correct about the Messiah, and (3) Jesus was and is the long-awaited Sovereign Messiah is (a) if real prophecies about the Messiah were made, and (b) Jesus fulfilled those prophecies.

How Do We Know the Prophecies Were Real?

How do we know that the supposed prophecies of Isaiah were not simply made up in the first century? How can we know that Jesus and the New Testament writers did not fake the “future-telling” of Isaiah? Could it be that Jesus, Paul, and all other first-century apostles and prophets were mere con men who claimed Jesus fulfilled prophecies (that were never actually made)?

First, if Jesus and the Bible writers were liars, then they repeatedly pronounced their own destruction, for they claimed that lying is sinful and that all impenitent liars will suffer eternal punishment.⁷

Second, the early audiences of Jesus and the New Testament prophets were devout Jews,⁸ who could have easily fact-checked their use of Isaiah and whether Jesus fit the description of the Messiah.

Third, non-biblical sources refer to and quote Isaiah. The first-century Jewish historian Josephus, for example, refers to “the book which Isaiah left behind him of his prophecies.”⁹ Josephus then quotes from and summarizes Isaiah 44:28-45:3 and notes how “this was foretold by Isaiah one hundred and forty years before the temple was demolished” (in 586 B.C.). Indeed, Josephus believed that Isaiah lived, prophesied, and wrote his book long before the New Testament was penned.

Finally, and perhaps most important, we have tangible, verifiable archaeological evidence that the book of Isaiah was in existence in its totality long before Jesus or any New Testament writer ever could have invented the many Messianic prophecies in Isaiah. Among the Dead Sea Scrolls (discovered in the 1940s and ’50s) were 19 different manuscripts of Isaiah, as well as five commentaries¹⁰ on the book.¹¹ Most scholars acknowledge that these manuscripts were made several decades or even a century or two before Jesus began His ministry around A.D. 27, and well before the first New Testament books were penned around the middle of the first century A.D. One manuscript of Isaiah, known as the “Great Isaiah Scroll” (1QIsa^a), contains the book of Isaiah in its entirety. What’s more, the scroll is conservatively dated to at least 100 B.C. (and very possibly as much as 200 B.C.).¹²

Though skeptics may reject that the Messianic prophet Isaiah actually prophesied in the 8^th century B.C. (in the days of Jewish kings Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, as Isaiah 1:1 claims), they cannot justifiably dismiss the hard evidence among the Dead Sea Scrolls. Verifiable proof exists that the New Testament writers did not invent the Isaiah prophecies and mislead simpletons about Jesus’ alleged Messiahship. On the contrary, it was largely an in-depth study of the Old Testament scriptures that led many thousands of first-century Jews (as well as countless Gentiles) to acknowledge Jesus’ fulfillment of the many Messianic prophecies.¹³

Why Should We Believe the New Testament Writers?

Some might argue that, though Isaiah’s prophecies were already in existence well before the time of Jesus, we cannot really know if Jesus fulfilled those prophecies. The evidence, however, firmly stands on the side of the New Testament writers, indicating that Jesus actually did fulfill the Old Testament Messianic prophecies.

First, Jesus of Nazareth was a real historical Person, affirmed even by various first and second century hostile, secular sources.¹⁴

Second, the case built for the authenticity of Jesus’ fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecies stands upon not what one writer testified, but multiple independent writers. Even leading unbelievers admit that the events in Jesus’ life were recorded by more than one writer.¹⁵ If scholars of ancient history generally render facts unimpeachable when two or three sources are in agreement, then the multiple attestations of Jesus’ fulfillment of Old Testament prophecies (by Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, James, Paul, Peter, and Jude) is extremely impressive.

Third, as stated earlier, if the Bible writers were sinful deceivers, they repeatedly pronounced their own destruction, claiming that impenitent liars would suffer eternal damnation.

Fourth, as Wayne Jackson observed, “If the New Testament writers did not believe in eternal accountability, and so callously fabricated the documents that affirmed Jesus’ divine nature, why would they have subjected themselves to the persecution that accompanied Christianity—since this life would be all they believed they would ever enjoy? It makes no sense at all. This is a problem that no skeptic can explain. The New Testament documents are reliable!”¹⁶

Fifth, the New Testament apostles and prophets consistently challenged first-century Jews to compare the recent life of Jesus of Nazareth with the Old Testament prophecies concerning the Messiah. The apostle Paul’s “custom” was to enter Jewish synagogues on the Sabbath and reason with the Jews from the Old Testament about the Christ, “explaining” and “demonstrating” Jesus’ fulfillment of the Messianic prophecies.¹⁷

Sixth, Paul’s teachings could withstand thorough, analytical scrutiny. The Bereans, for example, “searched the Scriptures daily to find out whether these things were so. Therefore many of them believed” (Acts 17:11-12).

This leads us to our last point: In the immediate 30 years following the life of Jesus, tens of thousands of Jews (Acts 21:20), including “a great many” Jewish priests (Acts 6:7), became followers of Jesus, the Christ. What did these Jews believe about the Old Testament? That it is the inspired Word of God, just as it claims thousands of times. And what did these Old Testament believers realize about Jesus of Nazareth, Who had only recently lived among them? That, indeed, He was the long-awaited Messiah.

Conclusion

Did Isaiah not predict (among other things) that a virgin-born, Galilee-dwelling, morally perfect, miracle-working Divine Ruler would be afflicted, oppressed, wounded, struck, bruised, pierced, and spat upon? Did Isaiah not predict that the Messianic suffering Servant would be numbered with the transgressors and yet also be buried with the rich? He did.

Who came along hundreds of years later and fulfilled all of these prophecies (and more) with exact precision? Who proved His Messiahship with such fulfillment? Who did the New Testament apostles and prophets repeatedly testify (at their own peril) with great specificity the One and only fulfiller of these prophecies? Jesus of Nazareth.

Though many more prophecies are found throughout the Old Testament, Isaiah’s accurate predictions alone are more than capable of sufficiently spotlighting the Messiah, Who came along hundreds of years later as the suffering Servant and ruling Redeemer. Who else but Jesus could the prophesied Messiah have been?

Endnotes

¹ Isaiah also foretold of those who rejected Jesus’ teachings.

² Philippians 3:4-6.

³ Along with the supernatural miracles He worked (John 20:30-31).

⁴ Perhaps there is no better example in recent times of humankind’s inability to know the future than Donald Trump’s rise in politics. Do you recall how, early on in the primary process, virtually no one thought the life-long businessman, Donald Trump, would ever be elected President of the United States? Even the most seemingly politically informed Americans—both Democrats and Republicans—did not give Donald Trump a chance (at least early on in the process). Yet, the virtually incomprehensible happened in 2016: Mr. Trump won the Republican nomination and then went on to become the 45^th President of the United States.

⁵ Granted, atheists do not believe in God, but even they know that if, theoretically, such an omniscient Being does exist, then He would have the ability to know the future.

⁶ Diviners may occasionally and vaguely “predict” something that comes to pass, but such guesswork or weatherman-like predictions are far from the supernatural foreknowledge of God.

⁷ John 8:44; Acts 5:3; Ephesians 4:25; Revelation 21:8.

⁸ E.g., Jews traveled from all over—from many distant lands—to Jerusalem on the first Pentecost after Jesus’ resurrection and heard various Old Testament scriptures applied to Jesus and the establishment of His Kingdom (Acts 2:5-40). Devout Jews who were in synagogues on Sabbath days were challenged to compare the recent life of Christ with the prophecies He was said to have fulfilled (Acts 13:14ff; 17:1-4,10-12).

⁹ Antiquities of the Jews, 11:1:2.

¹⁰ These commentaries are known as pesharim [John D. Barry (2013), “The Great Isaiah Scroll and the Original Bible: An Interview with Dr. Peter Flint,” Associates for Biblical Research, April 17, biblearchaeology.org/research/topics/ancient-manuscripts/2812-the-great-isaiah-scroll-and-the-original-bible-an-interview-with-dr-peter-flint].

¹¹ Obviously, if a commentary exists on a book, then the book on which that commentary is based has already been in existence.

¹² Even the pro-atheistic, pro-evolution magazine New Scientist admitted that the Great Isaiah Scroll “was completed around the 2^nd century BC” [Krista Charles (2021), “AI Analysis Shows Two Scribes Wrote One of the Dead Sea Scrolls,” New Scientist, April 21, https://www.newscientist.com/article/2275298-ai-analysis-shows-two-scribes-wrote-one-of-the-dead-sea-scrolls/].

¹³ Cf. Luke 24:27; Acts 9:20; 17:10-12; 21:20; 28:23.

¹⁴ See Kyle Butt (2000), “The Historical Christ—Fact or Fiction?,” Reason & Revelation, 20[1]:1-6, January, https://apologeticspress.org/the-historical-christ-fact-or-fiction-187/.

¹⁵ Cf. Dan Barker (1992), Losing Faith in Faith (Madison, WI: Freedom From Religion Foundation), p. 179; cf. also Tad S. Clements (1990), Science vs. Religion (Buffalo, NY: Prometheus), p. 193.

¹⁶ “Are the Gospel Writers Credible?” (2022), Christian Courier, https://christiancourier.com/articles/are-the-gospel-writers-credible.

¹⁷ Acts 17:1-4; cf. 9:20; 13:5; 14-41; 18:4.

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The usual nomenclature that has characterized much of human history has assigned the notion of “seed” to the man—not the woman. Prior to the discovery of modern genetics—a science that largely commenced with Gregor Mendel, a 19^th century Augustinian monk, now recognized as the Father of Modern Genetics—popular understanding perceived the male as the primary, if not exclusive, contributor to the reproduction process. The woman was certainly an important variable in the production of children—so much so that she was uniformly blamed by male monarchs for their own failure to produce male heirs. However, her role was generally viewed in much the same way that an incubator is integral to the hatching of eggs. The prevailing perspective did not conceptualize the equal contributory role of the female to the production of progeny.

This circumstance was well-stated by Reginald Punnett roughly a century ago. A British geneticist, who co-founded the Journal of Genetics in 1910, Punnett is probably best remembered today as the creator of the Punnett square—still used by biologists to predict the probability of genotypes of offspring. He authored the book Mendelism—considered by many to be the first textbook on genetics. Punnett served as a professor of biology and, later, was appointed the first Arthur Balfour Professor of Genetics at Cambridge. Here is Punnett’s summary assessment of the popular misconception that prevailed prior to the 18^th century:

Few if any of the more primitive peoples seem to have attempted to define the part played by either parent in the formation of the offspring, or to have assigned peculiar powers of transmission to them, even in the vaguest way. For ages man must have been more or less consciously improving his domesticated races of animals and plants, yet it is not until the time of Aristotle that we have clear evidence of any hypothesis to account for these phenomena of heredity. The production of offspring by man was then held to be similar to the production of a crop from seed. The seed came from the man, the woman provided the soil. This remained the generally accepted view for many centuries, and it was not until the recognition of woman as more than a passive agent that the physical basis of heredity became established. That recognition was effected by the microscope, for only with its advent was actual observation of the minute sexual cells made possible. After more than a hundred years of conflict lasting until the end of the eighteenth century, scientific men settled down to the view that each of the sexes makes a definite material contribution to the offspring produced by their joint efforts.⁵

Unlike the prevailing misconception that characterized most of human history, the Bible demonstrated its divine origin by using terminology that harmonizes with now better understood scientific truth. While also referring often to the seed of man, on one other occasion, God refers to the “seed” of woman when the Angel of the Lord reassured Hagar: “I will surely multiply your offspring” (Genesis 16:10; cf. 24:60, ESV). The term “offspring” is the usual word for “seed.” Translators tend to render into English their own conclusions, rather than allowing the biblical text to retain its original terminology.

Indeed, someone might suggest that “seed” in Genesis 3:15 is merely used colloquially to refer to “posterity,” “offspring,” or “descendants,” with no intention of suggesting that the female possesses “seed” comparable to the male. However, observe that language would not use the term to refer to a woman’s offspring unless she also possesses literal “seed” from which that offspring could descend. The colloquial or metonymical meaning rises out of and is dependent upon the underlying reality of the literal meaning of “seed.” Moses used the same term repeatedly throughout the rest of Genesis to refer to the “seed” of the patriarchs.⁶ Notice: “offspring” or “descendants”—whether from male or female—must come from literal, actual “seed,” i.e., genetic material that combines to create another human being.

This remarkable Messianic prophecy, uttered at the beginning of human history and recorded by Moses 3,500 years ago, contains an uncanny allusion to an intricate feature of the human anatomy. Such sophisticated awareness is inexplicable on any other grounds than that the author of the book of Genesis was guided by a higher, supernatural Power Who was responsible for the creation of the human body. That same Creator has provided the world with an inerrant record of His intricate, incredible dealings in the history of mankind.

Endnotes

¹ Dave Miller (2021), Hidden Meanings Buried in the Bible (Montgomery, AL: King Solomon Publications).

² For discussion of the Messianic nature of this prophecy, see Walter Kaiser (1980), Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament, eds. R. Laird Harris, Gleason Archer Jr., and Bruce Waltke (Chicago, IL: Moody), 1:253; Jack Lewis (1991), “The Woman’s Seed (Gen. 3:15),” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, 34[3]:299-319.

³ Josiah Gibbs (1832), A Manual Hebrew and English Lexicon (New Haven, CT: Hezekiah Howe), p. 62; William Osburn (1845), A New Hebrew-English Lexicon (London: Samuel Bagster & Sons), p. 77. Cf. Numbers 5:28—“she shall be made pregnant with seed”— F. Brown, S. Driver, and C. Briggs (1907), The Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson), p. 282.

⁴ L. Koehler, W. Baumgartner, M.E.J. Richardson, J.J. Stamm (2000), The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament (Leiden: E.J. Brill, electronic ed.), 5:283; Brown, et al., p. 282. See also Samuel Lee (1840), A Lexicon, Hebrew, Chaldee, and English (London: Duncan & Malcolm), p. 178; Selig Newman (1834), A Hebrew and English Lexicon (London: Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown & Green), p. 152.

⁵ R.C. Punnett (1913), Mendelism (New York: MacMillan), pp. 1-2, emp. added.

⁶ 12:7; 13:15-16; 15:13,18; 21:13; 22:17-18; 24:7; 26:3-4,24; 28:13-14; 32:12.

The post The Seed of Woman appeared first on Apologetics Press.

The Wonder of Old Testament Prophecy

Of this salvation the prophets have inquired and searched carefully, who prophesied of the grace that would come to you, searching what, or what manner of time, the Spirit of Christ who was in them was indicating when He testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow. To them it was revealed that, not to themselves, but to us they were ministering the things which now have been reported to you through those who have preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven—things which angels desire to look into…. [K]nowing this first, that no prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation, for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit (1 Peter 1:10-12; 2 Peter 1:20-21).

The nature of Hebrew prophecy was such that the prophets were superintended by the Holy Spirit in their utterances. To be sure, their own minds were engaged as they reported the truths God wanted conveyed, but the Scripture they wrote did not arise from their own thinking or opinions. They did not necessarily grasp the full significance of their messages—particularly as those utterances pertained to the Messianic age far distant from their own day. Hebrew professor A.B. Davidson noted this circumstance:

[T]here are…passages in the Old Testament where the writer does not seem to be consciously speaking of anything future, but of things and persons then existing; while the New Testament applies the passages to the Messiah, and affirms that they were spoken of Him, not merely that they are applicable to him.¹

Since the Holy Spirit superintended the writing, being eternal and omniscient, He would be aware of future fulfillments and anticipations of which the human writer would not be aware. Hence, God could inspire and superintend a prophet—like Isaiah in 750 B.C.—to produce a prophecy that pertained largely to events contemporaneous with the prophet’s own day and yet, simultaneously, have the prophet embed in his prophecy an allusion or allusions that are worded in such a way that they also anticipate an incident or event in the life of the Messiah while He was on Earth. These allusions often also fit into the context of the contemporaneous situation and convey immediate relevance and application. Yet their meaning also anticipates moments in the life of Christ.²

Take, as an example, Isaiah chapter six which consists of the call and commission of Isaiah by God to his prophetic role. God informs Isaiah that his missionary effort to cause Judah to repent would fail, and that God would “cut Judah down in judgment until only a tenth or remnant remains.”³ Yet John could quote from verse 10 of the chapter and declare its fulfillment, along with Isaiah 53:1, as occurring nearly eight centuries later among those in the 1^st century A.D. who refused to believe in Christ despite the miraculous signs He performed in their midst (John 12:38-40). So, while Isaiah received a message from God that was intended for the immediate 8^th century B.C. audience of Isaiah, he also received bits of insights that pertained specifically and ultimately to the circumstances surrounding the Messiah’s incarnation. Consequently, John declared: “These things Isaiah said when he saw His glory and spoke of Him” (John 12:41).

There are some Old Testament prophecies that are very nearly, if not wholly, describing the Messianic era, with no immediate historical context in view (e.g., Psalm 2:2; 110:1; Isaiah 9:6; 53). There are other prophecies that have an immediate historical context, but which also anticipate future events associated with the Messianic era (e.g., 2 Samuel 7:12-14; Isaiah 7). These latter prophecies differ with each other in terms of what percentage of the prophecy has both the immediate and the future in view. Still other prophecies appear to be almost completely intended to refer to circumstances that the prophet is himself facing and the immediate audience is, therefore, himself or his contemporaries. Yet, even in such a prophecy, a single Messianic anticipation may be divinely deposited which fully accords with the immediate context while also predicting a single instance in the life of the coming Messiah. It is nothing for God to deliver a message to an audience in 1000 B.C. and have every part of the message to have immediate and pertinent meaning to the original audience, while simultaneously wording the message to have a meaning for a subsequent audience hundreds of years into the future. What’s more, such anticipations may or may not be explained by later inspired writers, thereby leaving the student of the Scriptures to detect such long-term applications based on the tenor of Bible teaching, particularly as it relates to the culmination of the divine scheme of redemption in the New Testament.

Psalm 129:3

Psalm 129 appears to fit in this last category:

“Many a time they have afflicted me from my youth,” Let Israel now say—“Many a time they have afflicted me from my youth; yet they have not prevailed against me. The plowers plowed on my back; they made their furrows long.”

The LORD is righteous; He has cut in pieces the cords of the wicked (129:1-4).

Interestingly, the original setting of this psalm cannot now be ascertained. As Barnes notes, “it is a psalm which would be applicable to many periods of the Jewish history.”⁴ As a “song of ascents,” Psalm 129 reassures the average Israelite that all the afflictions and persecutions heaped upon Israel by the wicked have been unable to terminate her national existence. Indeed, Israel’s enemies will be thwarted by a righteous God. What, specifically, are these afflictions that have been inflicted on Israel? The psalmist pinpoints only one—a statement that is striking if not puzzling: “The plowers plowed on my back; they made their furrows long” (vs. 3).

No doubt the psalmist’s contemporaries would have taken this statement metaphorically, acknowledging that the history of Israel had been such that they had endured harsh treatment at the hands of enemies whose mistreatment could be likened to a plow gouging one’s back. Yet, such a metaphor would seem to be a rather odd comparison. Barnes suggests: “the idea is that the sufferings which they had endured were such as would be well represented by a plough passing over a field, tearing up the sod; piercing deep; and producing long rows or furrows. The direct allusion would seem to be to stripes inflicted on the back, as if a plough had been made to pass over it.”⁵ He then recalls the Egyptian bondage to which Israel had been subjected for so many years. But if the reference is strictly to a beating, why compare it to a plow that creates furrows? The lash can certainly inflict substantial damage to the back, but one would not typically conceive of that damage in terms of the deep furrows of a plowed field. And why speak of the furrows as “long”? Barnes gives the sense of “long” as pertaining to length of time, i.e., prolonging—since he felt “it is difficult to see in what sense it could be said that stripes inflicted on the back could be made long.”⁶

However, what if this allusion is, in fact, intended to be a Messianic anticipation?⁷ If we assume Psalm 129:3 is an allusion to Jesus, what could the statement possibly mean? In what sense or in what way could Jesus have had His back “plowed” resulting in “long furrows”? We must first turn to the New Testament for possible clarification. When we do so, examining specifically the four Gospel narratives concerning Christ’s sufferings leading to the cross, we find that one of His ordeals consisted of a Roman scourging. Here are the inspired writers’ remarks on the subject:

Then he released Barabbas to them; and when he had scourged Jesus, he delivered Him to be crucified (Matthew 27:26; NKJV margin: “flogged with a Roman scourge”).

So Pilate, wanting to gratify the crowd, released Barabbas to them; and he delivered Jesus, after he had scourged Him, to be crucified (Mark 15:15).

So then Pilate took Jesus and scourged Him (John 19:1).

The underlying Greek term rendered “scourged” in the first two verses is phragelloo while the term used in the third verse is mastigoo—both verbs meaning “to scourge.”⁸ What, precisely, was a Roman “scourging”?

Roman Scourging

In their efforts to keep the peace, the Romans employed a cruel, barbaric instrument called a flagrum (diminutive: flagellum⁹). Among the various forms of whips, “the terrible flagellum [was] the severest of all.”¹⁰ This instrument was used as a form of punishment for criminals, typically as a prelude to crucifixion and capital punishment—¹¹“the brutal preliminary to the still more brutal death of the cross.”¹² Historical sources are generally uniform in their depiction of the Roman flagrum. It consisted of a stout wooden handle to which were attached three or more leather thongs—sometimes plaited or braided—of variable length.¹³ Each strip of leather was impregnated and weighted with a variety of objects, attached intermittently at intervals along each thong, including small, jagged bits of bone, rough pieces of metal (iron, lead, or zinc), and even sheep bones (astragals).¹⁴ Sometimes balls of metal were attached that were “stuck full of small sharp points.”¹⁵ And sometimes the leather thongs were even “terminated by hooks.”¹⁶ The translators of the English Standard Version recognized these facts and inserted at both Matthew 27:26 and Mark 15:15 the following footnote for “scourged”: “A Roman judicial penalty, consisting of a severe beating with a multi-lashed whip containing imbedded pieces of bone and metal.”

The physical trauma inflicted on the human body by this devilish device is reflected in the third of Horace’s Satires—“the horrible scourge.”¹⁷ Similarly, in his Historia Ecclesiastica, written in the early fourth century, historian Eusebius of Caesarea described the scourging of second century Christian martyrs in Smyrna in these words: “the bystanders were struck with amazement when they saw them lacerated with scourges even to the innermost veins and arteries, so that the hidden inward parts of the body, both their bowels and their members, were exposed to view.”¹⁸ In their celebrated article on the death of Christ which appeared in The Journal of the American Medical Association, William Edwards, et al. described the impact: “the leather thongs and sheep bones would cut into the skin and subcutaneous tissues. Then, as the flogging continued, the lacerations would tear into the underlying skeletal muscles and produce quivering ribbons of bleeding flesh.”¹⁹ In his forensic inquiry into the crucifixion of Christ, Zugibe explained: “The bits of metal would dig deep into the flesh, ripping small blood vessels, nerves, muscle, and skin…. [resulting in] lacerations (tears) [and] puncture marks made by the weights or scorpions [as well as] lacerations with bleeding into the chest cavity.”²⁰

We must not miss the abhorrent, frightful reality of this nightmarish form of Roman punishment. The usual flogging or whipping, which has characterized many cultures throughout human history, inflicted wounds on the recipient consisting of bruises, whelps, and surface tearing or even stripping of the skin. In stark contrast, the flagrum inflicted far greater damage to the back. As Nicolotti observed, compared to the lash (scutica), “the scourge caused deeper wounds and could even lacerate the flesh…. [I]t produced deep wounds.”²¹ Referring to the flagellum in his A Dictionary of Roman and Greek Antiquities, Anthony Rich notes that “the nature of the wound produced by it is always specified by words which are descriptive of cutting, such as caedertre, secare, scindere.”²² Scholars repeatedly used the term “lacerate” to describe the wounds created by the flagrum.²³ Appleton’s Medical Dictionary defines “lacerate” as “having the margin deeply cut into irregular segments as if torn,” and “lacerated” as “cleft irregularly, as if torn,” and “laceration” as “a breach made by tearing.”²⁴ Collins Dictionary states: “If something lacerates your skin, it cuts it badly and deeply.”²⁵ Macmillan Dictionary has: “to make a deep cut in someone’s flesh.”²⁶

In view of these graphic depictions and descriptions of a Roman scourging, it is surely not without significance that the Hebrew term used by the psalmist to describe the injuries inflicted on the back of the first-person speaker bears a meaning that strongly resembles those descriptions. Brown, Driver, and Briggs define the term rendered “plowed” as “vb. cut in, engrave, plough, devise,” connecting the term “engrave” with a “worker in metals.”²⁷ Koehler, Baumgartner, et al. give the same two basic meanings of “to plough” and “to engrave on.”²⁸ A sample instance of the latter meaning is seen in Jeremiah 17:1—“The sin of Judah is written with a pen of iron; with the point of a diamond it is engraved on the tablet of their heart, and on the horns of your altars.” Observe the two meanings are closely aligned, since the act of engraving on metal and the act of ploughing a field are the same, i.e., the object on which the action is performed in both cases receives a “cut” or “laceration,” creating essentially a lengthy groove or rut. Pierre Barbet uses the expression “long oblique furrows.”²⁹ “Oblique” is defined as “having a slanting or sloping direction, course, or position.”³⁰ Incredibly, the ancient descriptions of the Roman scourging’s horrific carnage inflicted on the back of its victims match the simple declaration of the psalmist: “The plowers plowed on my back; they made their furrows long.”

Isaiah’s Allusions

Observe how this psalm bears a striking resemblance to Isaiah 53 in which the “man of sorrows” is despised and afflicted—but the outcome is positive. Significantly, the Messianic prophet Isaiah made two references to the passion of Christ as it relates to Christ’s “back.” The first comes in chapter 50 in which the Messiah declares: “I gave My back to those who struck Me, and My cheeks to those who plucked out the beard; I did not hide My face from shame and spitting” (50:6). The second appears in the famous “Suffering Servant” prophecy: “But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed” (53:5). As a marginal note for the term “stripes,” the NKJV has “blows that cut in.” The NASB has “and by His scourging we are healed.” The Orthodox Jewish Bible has in brackets “stripes, lacerations.” The Wycliffe Bible has “by his scourgings.”

Summary

Here we have another mystery hidden in the Divine Mind from all eternity. One cannot help but feel a sense of wonder concerning the incredible Old Testament foreshadowing of the earth-shaking events surrounding the earthly life and death of Jesus Christ—“who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness—by whose stripes you were healed” (1 Peter 2:24).³¹

Endnotes

¹ A.B. Davidson (1903), Old Testament Prophecy (Edinburgh: T.&T. Clark), pp. 335-336.

² Bible scholars have for centuries bandied about the question of how to describe and categorize the various ways in which Old Testament prophecy functions. For example, Andres Fernandez coined the expression sensus plenior—the “fuller sense”—which refers to the additional or deeper meaning of a passage intended by God but not clearly recognized by the human author who recorded the original passage. See Raymond Brown (1955), The Sensus Plenoir of Sacred Scripture (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock); John Donahue, ed. (2005), Life in Abundance (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press), pp. 207ff.; “What Does the Term “sensus plenior” Mean? (2008), Monergism, https://www.monergism.com/thethreshold/articles/onsite/qna/plenior.html. Not referring specifically to this expression, Davidson nevertheless offered a similar description of this Old Testament phenomenon: “we may say quite fairly that the meaning or reference in the mind of the Spirit of Revelation was different from that of the Hebrew writer. To the one the whole was in view, the end was seen in the beginning, and the line, longer or shorter, of intermediate development, through which the beginning should rise into the perfect end, was visible in all its extent; while the view of the other was necessarily limited, and though he always spoke or wrote intelligently, and with an earnestness never surpassed by any teacher or moralist in other lands, yet his conception of the truth which he was teaching must have been coloured by the relations amidst which he stood, and by the nature of his own mind” (pp. 327-328). See also Gordon Fee and Douglas Stuart (1982), How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth (Grand Rapids, MI: Academie Books), pp. 164-167; Neale Pryor (1986), “Use of the Old Testament in the New” in Biblical Interpretation, ed. F. Furman Kearley, Edward Myers, and Timothy Hadley (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker), pp. 276ff.

³ Frank Chesser (2016), The Heart of Isaiah (Huntsville, AL: Publishing Designs), pp. 34-35.

⁴ Albert Barnes (2005 reprint), Psalms: Notes on the Old Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker), p. 255.

⁵ p. 256, emp. in original. Other commentators treat the allusion similarly. E.g., Joseph Alexander (1975 reprint), The Psalms Translated and Explained (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker), pp. 519-520; H.C. Leupold (1969 reprint), Exposition of the Psalms (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker), p. 900.

⁶ Ibid. A flagrum would wrap around the rib cage and be dragged across the torso around to the back.

⁷ In his comments on Psalm 129, Charles Spurgeon connected the plowing described as inflicted on Christ’s church in the wake of Jesus’ own sufferings: “The true church has in every age had fellowship with her Lord under his cruel flagellations: his sufferings were a prophecy of what she would be called hereafter to endure.” It is interesting that he linked the furrowing of the psalm with Jesus’ flagellations—(1978 reprint), The Treasury of David (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker), 7:56.

⁸ “In NT, however, mastigoo is a synonym for phragelloo”—J.C. Lambert (1908), “Scourge, Scourging,” A Dictionary of Christ and the Gospels, ed. James Hastings (Edinburgh: T.&T. Clark), 2:581.

⁹ “Flagellum,” Collins English Dictionary, http://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/flagellum; “Flagellum,” Oxford Dictionaries, http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/american_english/flagellum; John Ayto (2005), “Flail” in Word Origins (London: A.&C. Black Publishers), second edition, https://books.google.com/books?id=hsRISNLSSHAC&pg=PT384&lpg=PT384&dq=Latin:+flagrum;+diminutive:+flagellum&source=bl&ots=d3C44_TwJC&sig=ACfU3U3dp2GJhqj5rMJmAaMsmgK36N34JQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjvpOuV54HoAhUDSa0KHUVVAS8Q6AEwEXoECAwQAQ#v=onepage&q&f=false; William Smith, et al. (1901), A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities (London: John Murray), p. 864.

¹⁰ William Cooper (1869), A History of the Rod in all Countries from the Earliest Period to the Present Time (London: John Hotten), p. 34.

¹¹ Charles Anthon (1843), A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities (New York: Harper & Brothers), p. 445; Henry Dosker (1915), The International Standard Bible Encyclopaedia, ed. James Orr (Chicago, IL: The Howard-Severance Co.), 4:2704.

¹² Lambert, 2:581. Also, Frederick Zugibe (2005), The Crucifixion of Jesus: A Forensic Inquiry (New York: M. Evans), p. 19—“the usual procedure among the Romans prior to crucifixion.” “In many cases it was itself fatal”—Carl Schneider (1967), “mastigoo, mastidzo, mastix,” Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, ed. Gerhard Kittel (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans), 4:517.

¹³ Lambert, 2:582; Henry Dosker (1915), The International Standard Bible Encyclopaedia, ed. James Orr (Chicago, IL: The Howard-Severance Co.), 4:2704; William Edwards, Wesley Gabel, and Floyd Hosmer (1986), The Journal of the American Medical Association, 256, March 21; Cooper, p. 34.

¹⁴ Alexander Adam (1819), Roman Antiquities or an Account of the Manners and Customs of the Romans, rev. P. Wilson (New York: William Mercein), p. 529; Smith, p. 864; Dosker, 4:2704; Zugibe, p. 19.

¹⁵ Cooper, p. 35.

¹⁶ Anthon, p. 445. See also Philip Shaft and Henry Wace, eds. (1892), “The Ecclesiastical History, Dialogues, and Letters of Theodoret” in A Select Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, trans. Blomfield Jackson (New York: The Christian Literature Co.), 3:124.

¹⁷ Horace (1883), The Works of Horace Rendered into English Prose, trans. James Lonsdale and Samuel Lee (London: Macmillan), I.3 (p. 113). Horace, who was the leading Roman lyric poet during the time of Caesar Augustus, died in 8 B.C.

¹⁸ Eusebius (312-324), Historia Ecclesiastica, Book 4, Chapter 15, Paragraph 4, https://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf201.iii.ix.xv.html#fna_iii.ix.xv-p3.2.

¹⁹ William Edwards, Wesley Gabel, and Floyd Hosmer (1986), “On the Physical Death of Jesus Christ,” The Journal of the American Medical Association, 256[11]:1455-1463, March 21, p. 1457.

²⁰ pp. 20-22.

²¹ Andrea Nicolotti (2018), “What Do We Know About the Scourging of Jesus?” The Ancient Near East Today, 6[12], December, http://www.asor.org/anetoday/2018/12/What-Do-We-Know-About-Scourging-Jesus.

²² Anthony Rich (1881), A Dictionary of Roman and Greek Antiquities (New York: D. Appleton), p. 288, emp. added.

²³ E.g., D.D. Whedon (1874), A Popular Commentary on the New Testament (London: Hodder & Stoughton), p. 333.

²⁴ Smith Jelliffe, ed. (1915), Appleton’s Medical Dictionary (New York: D. Appleton & Co.), p. 474.

²⁵ “Lacerate,” Collins English Dictionary, https://www.collinsdictionary.com/us/dictionary/english/lacerate.

²⁶ “Lacerate,” Macmillan Dictionary, https://www.macmillandictionary.com/us/dictionary/american/lacerate.

²⁷ Francis Brown, S.R. Driver, and Charles Briggs (2004 reprint), The Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon (Hendrickson), p. 360.

²⁸ L. Koehler, W. Baumgartner, M.E.J. Richardson, & J.J. Stamm (1994–2000), The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament (Leiden: E.J. Brill, electronic edition), pp. 357-358.

²⁹ Pierre Barbet (1963), A Doctor at Calvary (Garden City, NY: Image Books), p. 92.

³⁰ “Oblique,” The American Heritage Dictionary, https://www.ahdictionary.com/word/search.html?q=oblique.

³¹ The author is fully cognizant of the fact that no New Testament passage identifies Psalm 129:3 as a Messianic prophecy, nor is he contending that we can know for certain that such is the case. We know the Old Testament contains a great deal of foreshadowing of the coming Messiah, and that Jesus, Himself, declared that the Old Testament is riddled with it: “And beginning at Moses and all the Prophets, He expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself” (Luke 24:27). One cannot help but wonder how much more foreshadowing exists in the Old Testament that the Holy Spirit did not choose to divulge in the New Testament. For example, the wording of Isaiah 62:1-2 is such that it is difficult not to see in it the grand two-phase culmination of the divine scheme of redemption with, first, the conversion of the first Jewish Christians on Pentecost in A.D. 30 (Acts 2) and, second, the conversion some years later of the first Gentile Christians (Acts 10), followed immediately by the divine bestowal of the name “Christian.” Yet, the New Testament does not explicitly allude to Isaiah 62 in the fruition of these earth-shaking events. One is reminded of the admonition of the Angel of the Lord to the high priest in Zechariah’s day: “Listen, High Priest Joshua, you and your associates seated before you, who are men symbolic of things to come.” In any case, the author recognizes the need to show caution in drawing a firm conclusion regarding the possible Messianic import of Psalm 129:3. It is offered to the reader solely as a possibility. James Bales offered this guiding principle that reassures the author on the matter: “[H]ow shall we interpret those prophecies of the Old Testament, which pertain to the Messiah and his reign, which are not interpreted in the New Testament? These must be interpreted so as to harmonize with New Testament teaching”—(1971), The Inspiration and Authority of the Bible, ed. W.B. West, Bill Flatt, and Thomas Warren (Nashville, TN: Gospel Advocate), p. 120, emp. added. Indeed, for 2,000 years men have been mining the treasures of Old Testament prophecy, digging ever deeper, in a feeble effort to uncover the unfathomable depths of inspired writ.

The post Jesus’ Furrowed Back appeared first on Apologetics Press.

Why is the Bible so popular? The reason most often given is that those who are printing, distributing, and reading the Bible believe it is the inspired Word of God. Most people who read the Bible do not think it is good advice from mere men. Nor do they think it is a book of fairy tales written for entertainment. Instead, they believe the Book they are reading is the product of the one true God.

Oftentimes, when people are asked to give reasons that support their belief that the Bible is from God, they say that the Bible claims to be from God. It is certainly true that the Bible contains numerous statements that claim inspiration. Second Timothy 3:16-17 states: “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God….” In fact, anyone who wants to search the entire Bible will discover that it contains more than 2,700 instances in which divine inspiration is claimed (e.g., “God said;” “the Lord said;” “by revelation He [God] made known”).

Yet, even though we would expect to find that any book produced by God would claim divine inspiration, such a claim does not prove anything in and of itself. It is a necessary trait of inspiration, but it is not a sufficient trait. Various books claim to be inspired by God (e.g., the Quran, the Book of Mormon), but are contradictory to the Bible, and can be proven to be inaccurate and deficient in other instances (see Miller, 2005; Miller, 2003). Simply because a book or writing claims divine inspiration is not positive proof of its inspiration. Any person could stand in front of an audience and claim to be the President of the United States of America. In fact, he could make that claim over 2,700 times. But his multiple claims to the presidency would fail to prove his case unless he could provide more adequate and sufficient evidence.

When Jesus revealed Himself to the world as the Son of God at about the age of 30 (Luke 3:23), He did not expect people to believe Him simply because He said He was the Messiah. On the contrary, Jesus said, “If I do not do the works of My Father, do not believe Me; but if I do, though you do not believe Me, believe the works, that you may know and believe that the Father is in Me, and I in Him” (John 10:37-38, emp. added). If the Messiah was not to be trusted merely based upon claims of messiahship, neither should the Bible. Again, though the claim of inspiration is important (and expected if the Bible is the Word of God), mere claims prove nothing.

Those who penned the Bible did not expect the world to receive their writings as God’s Word simply because they claimed they were. The Bible writers insisted that their writings were not based on imaginary, unverifiable people and events, but instead were grounded on solid, verifiable facts. The apostle Peter wrote: “For we did not follow cunningly devised fables when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of His majesty” (2 Peter 1:16). In his introduction to the book of Acts, Luke stated that Jesus “presented Himself alive after His suffering by many infallible proofs, being seen by them during forty days and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God” (Acts 1:3, emp. added). The Bible writers understood and insisted that the information they penned was accurate and factual, and should be accepted, not based on a lack of evidence or a “leap in the dark,” but on an abundance of verifiable proof.

So what is the proof that the Bible is of supernatural origin? Why should an honest truth-seeker come to the conclusion that the Bible is the special revelation from the Creator of the Universe? In short, the main, overarching reason that the Bible is demonstrated to be of divine origin is because the Bible writers were correct in everything they wrote—about the past, the present, and even the future.

Eighteenth-century English poet Alexander Pope succinctly noted in “An Essay on Criticism” what every rational person knows all too well—“to err is human” (1709). Even though we may set high standards for ourselves and learn all that we can, and even though we may put as many safeguards in place as is humanly possible, mistakes will be made; ignorance will be revealed; errors will occur. As great of a historian as Herodotus was, he sometimes erred. As brilliant of a man as Aristotle was, he was terribly incorrect at times (see Jackson, 1997). As accomplished a writer as was the eighth-century B.C. Greek poet Homer, sometimes “even good old Homer nods” (Horace, 1.359). It simply is humanly impossible to be correct about everything a person says or writes. “With God,” however, “all things are possible” (Mark 10:27).

If an all-knowing, all-powerful God exists (and there is ample proof that He does—see Lyons and Butt, 2014), then such a God could produce written revelation for His human creation that was flawless in its original production. He could guide uneducated men to write about events that occurred hundreds or thousands of years before their time with complete accuracy. He could “move” (otherwise) ordinary men to write flawlessly about any number of contemporary people, places, and things (2 Peter 1:20-21). He could even guide men to write about future events with perfect accuracy. In truth, the all-encompassing reason (which shall be dissected into three parts) that a person can come to the rational conclusion that the Bible is “given by inspiration of God” is because the writers of the Bible were amazingly accurate…about everything.

Reason #1: Predictive Prophecy

On Tuesday, September 11, 2001, a horrible tragedy shocked the United States of America when terrorists attacked the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Amidst the tragedy, a rumor circulated that Nostradamus, a supposed fortuneteller, had predicted the turn of events. Websites with information on Nostradamus received thousands, even millions of hits. After all was said and done, the rumored prediction had been fabricated and misunderstood; Nostradamus had not predicted the future. But it was obvious from the public’s response that anyone who can accurately predict the future is more than just a little special. The prophet Jeremiah wrote: “Who is he who speaks, and it comes to pass, when the Lord has not commanded it?” (Lamentations 3:37). The prophet’s point was clear: no one accurately foretells the future unless God informs him of it. Therefore, if the Bible accurately predicts the future, we can know that it is from God.

The fact is, the Bible contains numerous prophecies that ancient history has shown to be perfectly fulfilled in every detail. Consider a few examples. [NOTE: For many other instances that space restraints will not allow in this article, please consult Apologetics Press’s book Behold! The Word of God or visit the “Inspiration of the Bible” section of www.apologeticspress.org.]

The Fall of the City of Tyre

According to history, the Phoenician city of Tyre stood as one of the most ancient and prosperous cities in history. During a visit to the temple of Heracles in Tyre in the fifth century B.C., the historian Herodotus inquired about the age of the temple, to which the inhabits replied that the temple was as old as “Tyre itself, and that Tyre had already stood for two thousand three hundred years” (Herodotus, 2:44). According to the early 20^th-century Hebrew and Greek scholar, Wallace Fleming, in his book The History of Tyre, “As early as 1400 B.C., Tyre was not only a great city but was considered impregnable” (1966, p. 8).

In the early sixth century B.C., however, the prophet Ezekiel mentioned several events that were to occur in Tyre as punishment for the city’s arrogance and merciless actions (26:1-14,19-21). The prophet predicted: (1) Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon, would build a siege mound against the city; (2) many nations would come against Tyre; (3) the city would be broken down, scraped like the top of a rock, and the stones, timber, and soil would be thrown in “the midst of the water;” (4) the city would become a “place for spreading nets;” and (5) the city would never be rebuilt.

History reveals that everything Ezekiel prophesied about Tyre came to pass.

• Nebuchadnezzar “besieged Tyre for thirteen years in the days of Ithobal, their king” (Josephus, 1.21). The king of Babylon severely damaged the mainland as Ezekiel predicted, but the island city remained primarily unaffected.

• Regarding the prediction that “many nations” would come against Tyre, in 392 B.C., “Tyre was involved in the war which arose between the Persians and Evagorus of Cyprus” in which the king of Egypt “took Tyre by assault” (Fleming, p. 52). Sixty years later, in 332, Alexander the Great besieged Tyre and crushed it. In fact, Tyre was contested by so many foreign forces that Fleming wrote: “It seemed ever the fate of the Phoenician cities to be between an upper and a nether millstone” (p. 66). Thus, Ezekiel’s prophecy about “many nations” remains as a historical reality that cannot be successfully gainsaid.

• By 333 B.C., Ezekiel’s 250-plus-year-old prophecy that Tyre would be destroyed and its building material cast into the midst of the waters had yet to materialize. But that situation was soon altered. Ancient historian Diodorus Siculus, who lived from approximately 80-20 B.C., wrote extensively of Alexander the Great’s dealing with Tyre (see Siculus, 17.40-46). Secular history details Alexander’s destruction of Tyre, which coincides precisely with Ezekiel’s prophecy concerning what would happen to the city’s building materials. As Ezekiel had predicted, the stones, timber, and soil of the mainland city were thrown into the midst of the sea in an unprecedented military maneuver (Fleming, p. 56), which allowed Alexander to create a land bridge upon which his army could come across to defeat the island city of Tyre. For Ezekiel to have accurately “guessed” this situation would be to stretch the law of probability beyond the limits of absurdity.

• Ultimately, in A.D. 1291, the Sultan Halil massacred the inhabitants of Tyre and subjected the city to utter ruin. “Houses, factories, temples, everything in the city was consigned to the sword, flame and ruin” (Fleming, p. 122). After this major defeat in 1291, Fleming cites several travel logs in which visitors to the city mention that citizens of the area in 1697 were “only a few poor wretches…subsisting chiefly upon fishing” (p. 124).

Taking these accounts into consideration, it is obvious that many nations continued to come against the island city, that it was destroyed on numerous occasions, and that it became a place for fishing, fulfilling Ezekiel’s prediction about the spreading of nets. Furthermore, it is evident that the multiple periods of destruction and rebuilding of the city have long since buried the Phoenician city that came under the condemnation of Ezekiel. The Columbia Encyclopedia, under its entry for Tyre, noted: “The principal ruins of the city today are those of buildings erected by the Crusaders. There are some Greco-Roman remains, but any left by the Phoenicians lie underneath the present town” (“Tyre,” 2006).

So accurate were the prophecies made by Ezekiel that skeptics are forced to suggest a later date for his writings. Yet, such a later date cannot be maintained, and the admission of Ezekiel’s accuracy stands as irrefutable evidence of the prophet’s divine inspiration. With the penetrating gaze that can only be maintained by the Divine, God looked hundreds of years into the future and instructed Ezekiel precisely what to write so that in the centuries following the predictions, the fulfillment of every detail of the prophet’s words could be denied by no honest student of history. “When the word of the prophet comes to pass, the prophet will be known as one whom the Lord has truly sent” (Jeremiah 28:9).

The Fall of Babylon and the Rise of Cyrus

Imagine taking a trip to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and visiting the State House where the Constitutional Convention took place in 1787. During the tour, your guide points to a document dating back to just this side of the Convention—about the year 1820. The piece of parchment tells of a man named George W. Bush from Austin, Texas who would be President of the United States within the next 200 years. But how could someone know that a man named George W. Bush would be born in the United States? And how could someone know more than a century before Mr. Bush ever was born that he would be President of the United States? Furthermore, how could someone in 1820 know that a man from Texas (named George W. Bush) would be President of the United States when Texas wasn’t even part of the Union yet? Such a prophecy truly would be amazing! Yet, obviously no such prediction was ever made. Amazingly, the Bible makes a comparable prediction, which was fulfilled with complete accuracy.

In the eighth century B.C., Isaiah vividly described how God would destroy the powerful kingdom of Babylon, “the glory of kingdoms” (13:19). Writing as if it had already occurred (commonly known as the “prophetic perfect,” frequently employed in the Old Testament to stress the absolute certainty of fulfillment), Isaiah declared Babylon would fall (21:9). He then prophesied that Babylon would fall to the Medes and Persians (Isaiah 13; 21:1-10). Later, he proclaimed that the “golden city” (Babylon) would be conquered by a man named Cyrus (44:28; 45:1-7). (This prophecy is remarkable, especially since Cyrus was not even born until almost 150 years after Isaiah penned these words.) Not only did Isaiah predict that Cyrus would overthrow Babylon, he also wrote that Cyrus, serving as Jehovah’s “anointed” and “shepherd,” would release the Jews from captivity and assist them in their return to Jerusalem for the purpose of rebuilding the Temple. All of this was written almost two centuries before Cyrus conquered Babylon (539 B.C.).

Amazingly, secular history verifies that all of these events came true. There really was a man named Cyrus who ruled the Medo-Persian Empire. He did conquer Babylon. And just as Isaiah prophesied, he assisted the Jews in their return to Jerusalem and in the rebuilding of the Temple.

Jeremiah also predicted the destruction of Babylon, the most powerful nation in the world at the time the predictions were made (Jeremiah 50-51). He predicted that Babylon’s water would be dried up, and her soldiers would be drunken and sleep a perpetual sleep. The precision of his predictions was remarkably verified when Cyrus redirected the Euphrates River and entered Babylon through the opening where the river usually entered. The entrance was left unattended because the Babylonians were getting drunk during a festival celebration.

Messianic Prophecies

Throughout the pages of the Old Testament there are over 250 prophecies about a coming Messiah. Each one of these is fulfilled in minute detail in the life of Jesus Christ. While it is true that most people’s lives can only be chronicled after they have lived it, the life of Jesus was chronicled before He arrived on Earth. In addition, a host of the prophecies concerning Christ were intentionally specific and could not have been arranged by a mere human who was falsely claiming to be the Messiah. For instance, the Old Testament told where the Messiah would be born (Micah 5:2), a situation that cannot be manipulated by the one being born. The circumstances of the Messiah’s death were detailed, even down to His burial, which provides another instance in which the deceased could not have connived a fulfillment.

In contrasting the God of Israel with the pagan idols of old, the prophet Isaiah issued a challenge to those who believed in the potency of their pagan deities. Isaiah said this about the idols: “Let them bring forth and show us what will happen; let them show the former things, what they were, that we may consider them…. Show the things that are to come hereafter, that we may know that you are gods” (41:22-23). According to Isaiah, any deity that could consistently forecast the future would be recognized as a true God, while any unable to tell the future should be relegated to the rubbish pile of false religions. In order to prove that the God of Israel was the true God, Isaiah quoted this from the mouth of God: “I am God, and there is none like Me, declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times things that are not yet done” (46:9-10). Truly, Isaiah’s God could tell the future. The fall of Tyre and Babylon, the reign of Cyrus, and the coming Messiah are but a few of the more prominent examples. When evidence is honestly considered, the truth seeker must admit that the prophecies contained in the Bible show that it was penned by the inspiration of God.

Reason #2: Scientific Accuracy and Foreknowledge

While the Bible does not present itself as a scientific or medical textbook, it is only reasonable that if God really did inspire the books of the Bible, they would be completely accurate in every scientific or medical detail found within their pages. Furthermore, all scientific and medical errors that fill the pages of other ancient, non-inspired texts should be entirely absent from the biblical record. Is the Bible infallible when it speaks about scientific disciplines, or does it contain the errors that one would expect to find in the writings of fallible men in ancient times?

The Egyptians were renowned in the ancient world for their progress in the field of medicine. Dr. Samuel Massengill, early 20^th-century pharmaceutical chemist, noted that “Egypt was the medical center of the ancient world” (1943, p. 13). Herodotus recorded that it was king Darius’ practice “to keep in attendance certain Egyptian doctors, who had a reputation for the highest eminence in their profession” (Herodotus, 3.129). Among the ancient documents that detail much of the Egyptian medicinal knowledge that has survived, the Ebers Papyrus (discovered in 1872) ranks as one of the foremost sources (Bryan, 1930, p. 1). It consists of a host of medical remedies purported to heal, enhance, and prevent. “Altogether 811 prescriptions are set forth in the papyrus, and they take the form of salves, plasters, and poultices; snuffs, inhalations, and gargles; draughts, confections, and pills; fumigations, suppositories, and enemata” (p. 15). Among the hundreds of prescriptions, we find disgusting treatments that caused much more harm than good. For instance, under a section titled “What to do to draw out splinters in the flesh,” a remedy is prescribed consisting of “worm blood, mole, and donkey dung” (p. 73). Remedies to help heal skin diseases included such things as cat dung, dog dung, and a hog’s tooth (p. 92). It seems that the Egyptians were among the first to present the idea of “good and laudable pus” (McMillen and Stern, 2000, p. 10). While it must be noted that some of the Egyptian medicine was helpful, the harmful remedies and ingredients cast a sickening shadow of untrustworthiness on the entire Egyptian endeavor as viewed by the modern reader.

Admittedly, the Bible is not devoted to long lists of medical prescriptions. The Bible writers did not intend to write a medical textbook. There are, however, especially in the first five books of the Old Testament, numerous rules for sanitation, quarantine, and other medical procedures that were to govern the daily lives of the Israelites. Interestingly, the harmful remedies and ingredients prescribed by other ancient civilizations are missing entirely from the pages of the Bible. In fact, the Pentateuch exhibits an understanding of germs and disease that the “modern” medical community did not grasp until relatively recently.

Germs, Labor Fever, and Biblical Sanitation

In 1847, an obstetrician named Ignaz Semmelweis was the director of a hospital ward in Vienna, Austria. Many pregnant women checked into his ward, but 10-18% of those women never checked out. About one out of every six that received treatment in Semmelweis’ ward died of labor fever (Nuland, 2003, p. 31). Autopsies revealed pus under their skin, in their chest cavities, in their eye sockets, etc. Semmelweis was distraught over the mortality rate in his ward, and other hospital wards like it all over Europe. Nuland noted that Australia, the Americas, Britain, Ireland, and practically every other nation that had established a hospital suffered a similar mortality rate (pp. 41-43). If a woman delivered a baby using a midwife, then the death rate fell to only about 3%. Yet if she chose to use the most advanced medical knowledge and facilities of the day, her chance of dying skyrocketed immensely!

Semmelweis had tried everything to curb the carnage. He turned all the women on their sides in hopes that the death rate would drop, but with no results. He thought maybe the bell that the priest rang in the wee hours of the morning scared the women. So, he made the priest enter silently, yet without any drop in death rates. As he contemplated his dilemma, he watched young medical students perform their routine tasks. Each day the students would conduct autopsies on the dead mothers. Then they would rinse their hands in a bowl of bloody water, wipe them off on a shared, dirty towel, and immediately begin internal examinations of the still-living women. Medical doctor and historian Sherwin Nuland commented concerning the practice: “Because there seemed no reason for them to wash their hands, except superficially, or change their clothing before coming to the First Division, they did neither” (p. 100). As a 21^st-century observer, one is appalled to think that such practices actually took place in institutes of what was at the time “modern technology.” What doctor in his right mind would touch a dead person and then perform examinations on living patients—without first employing some sort of minimal hygienic practices intended to kill germs? But to Europeans in the middle-19^th-century, germs were virtually a foreign concept.

Semmelweis then ordered everyone in his ward to wash his or her hands thoroughly in a chlorine solution after every examination. In three months, the death rate fell from 18% to 1%. Semmelweis had made a groundbreaking discovery…or had he? Almost 3,300 years before Semmelweis lived, Moses had written: “He who touches the dead body of anyone shall be unclean seven days. He shall purify himself with the water on the third day and on the seventh day; then he will be clean. But if he does not purify himself on the third day and on the seventh day, he will not be clean” (Numbers 19:11-12). Germs were no new discovery in 1847; the biblical text recorded measures to check their spread as far back as circa 1500 B.C.

Germs and the Water of Purification

When Old Testament instructions are compared to the New Testament explanations for those actions, it becomes clear that some of the ancient injunctions were primarily symbolic in nature (e.g., John 19:31-37). With the presence of such symbolism in the Old Testament, it is important, however, that we do not overlook Old Testament instructions that were pragmatic in value and that testify to a Master Mind behind the writing of the Law. One such instruction is found in Numbers 19, where the Israelites were instructed to prepare the “water of purification” that was to be used to wash any person who had touched a dead body.

At first glance, the water of purification sounds like a hodge-podge of superstitious potion-making that included the ashes of a young cow, hyssop, cedar wood, and scarlet. But this formula was the farthest thing from a potion intended to “ward off evil spirits.” On the contrary, the recipe for the water of purification stands today as a wonderful example of the Bible’s brilliance, since the recipe is nothing less than a procedure to produce an antibacterial soap.

When we look at the ingredients individually, we begin to see the value of each. First, consider the use of ashes. The chemical known as lye is one of the main ingredients in many soaps today. In fact, lye, in high concentrations, is very caustic and irritating to the skin. In more diluted concentrations, it can be used as an excellent exfoliant and cleansing agent. Various lye-soap recipes reveal that, to obtain lye, water often is poured through ashes. The water retrieved from pouring it through the ashes contains a concentration of the chemical. Moses instructed the Israelites to prepare a mixture that would have included lye mixed in a diluted solution, which would have been ideal for stopping the spread of germs.

What about the specific ingredients for the water of purification? Hyssop contains the antiseptic thymol, the same ingredient that we find today in some brands of mouthwash (McMillen and Stern, p. 24). “Cedar wood has long been used for storage cabinets because of its ability to repel insects and prevent decay. In oil form, applied to humans, it is an antiseptic, astringent, expectorant (removes mucus from respiratory system), anti-fungal, sedative and insecticide” (“Cedar Oil,” n.d.). The Israelites were instructed to toss into the mix “scarlet,” which most likely was scarlet wool (see Hebrews 9:19). Adding wool fibers to the concoction would have made the mixture the “ancient equivalent of Lava® soap” (McMillen and Stern, p. 25).

Thousands of years before any formal studies were done to see what type of cleaning methods were the most effective, millennia before American pioneers concocted their lye solutions, and ages before our most advanced medical students knew a thing about germ theory, Moses instructed the Israelites to concoct an amazingly effective recipe for soap, that, if used properly in medical facilities like hospitals in Vienna, would literally have saved thousands of lives.

Quarantine

The Old Testament record added another extremely beneficial practice to the field of medicine in its detailed descriptions of maladies for which living individuals should be quarantined. The book of Leviticus lists a host of diseases and ways in which an Israelite would come in contact with germs. Those with such diseases as leprosy were instructed to “dwell alone” “outside the camp” (Leviticus 13:46). If and when a diseased individual got close to those who were not diseased, he was instructed to “cover his mustache, and cry, ‘Unclean! Unclean!’” (13:45). It is of interest that the covering of one’s mustache (“upper lip”—ASV) would prevent spit and spray from the mouth of the individual to pass freely through the air, much like the covering of one’s mouth during a cough.

In regard to the understanding of contagion that is evident in the quarantine rules in the Old Testament, Roderick McGrew noted in the Encyclopedia of Medical History: “The idea of contagion was foreign to the classic medical tradition and found no place in the voluminous Hippocratic writings. The Old Testament, however, is a rich source for contagionist sentiment, especially in regard to leprosy and venereal disease” (1985, pp. 77-78). Here again, the Bible exhibits amazingly accurate medical and scientific knowledge that surpasses any known human ingenuity available at the time of its writing.

Many physicians who have compared Moses’ medical instructions to effective modern methods have come to realize the astonishing value and insight of the Bible. As 20^th-century pharmacologist and Hebrew scholar, Dr. David Macht of Johns Hopkins University, once wrote: “Every word in the Hebrew Scriptures is well chosen and carries valuable knowledge and deep significance” (1953, p. 450). Indeed, the accurate medical practices prescribed thousands of years before their significance was completely understood provide excellent evidence for the divine inspiration of the Bible.

Reason #3: The Overall Factual accuracy of the Bible

Suppose we were to ask a group of historians to author the most up-to-date history of the United States of America on the market. Suppose we gave them years to finish it and unlimited resources to use for their research. At the end of that period, with their newly published volume in hand, could we be confident that they had accurately recorded the significant dates and information perfectly? No, we could not. In fact, within just a few years, as every decent publishing company owner knows, we would need a second edition. Within a decade, so much new information would have come to light that a third or fourth edition would be necessary. And within 20 years, we most likely would need a completely new book if we wanted to preserve history accurately. But when we look into the 66 books of the Bible, we find perfect historical accuracy that has never needed updating or correcting.

Every single statement of the Bible that can be historically checked or verified has shown that the Bible writers never once made a mistake. The fact that the books of the Bible are perfectly accurate indicates that an intelligence beyond human ability must have been involved in the composition of the books.

The Accuracy of Acts

Sir William Ramsay was a one-time unbeliever and world-class archaeologist. His extensive education had ingrained within him the keenest sense of scholarship. But along with that scholarship came a built-in prejudice about the supposed inaccuracy of the Bible (specifically the book of Acts). As Ramsay himself remarked:

[A]bout 1880 to 1890, the book of the Acts was regarded as the weakest part of the New Testament. No one that had any regard for his reputation as a scholar cared to say a word in its defence. The most conservative of theological scholars, as a rule, thought the wisest plan of defence for the New Testament as a whole was to say as little as possible about the Acts (1915, p. 38).

As could be expected of someone who had been trained by such “scholars,” Ramsay held the same view. He eventually abandoned it, however, because he was willing to do what few people of his time dared to do—explore the Bible lands themselves with an archaeologist’s pick in one hand and an open Bible in the other. His self-stated intention was to prove the inaccuracy of Luke’s history as recorded in the book of Acts. But, much to his surprise, the book of Acts passed every test that any historical narrative could be asked to pass. In fact, after years of literally digging through the evidence in Asia Minor, Ramsay concluded that Luke was an exemplary historian. Lee S. Wheeler, in his classic work Famous Infidels Who Found Christ, recounted Ramsay’s life story in great detail (1931, pp. 102-106), and then quoted the famed archaeologist, who ultimately admitted:

The more I have studied the narrative of the Acts, and the more I have learned year after year about Graeco-Roman society and thoughts and fashions, and organization in those provinces, the more I admire and the better I understand. I set out to look for truth on the borderland where Greece and Asia meet, and found it here [in the book of Acts—KB/EL]. You may press the words of Luke in a degree beyond any other historian’s, and they stand the keenest scrutiny and the hardest treatment, provided always that the critic knows the subject and does not go beyond the limits of science and of justice (Ramsay, 1915, p. 89).

Luke, the writer of the book of Acts, is now widely acknowledged as an extremely accurate historian in his own right—so much so that Ramsay came to believe in Christianity as a result of his personal examination of the preciseness of Luke’s historical record. What legitimate reason is there to reject Luke’s amazingly accurate testimony? As Wayne Jackson summarized:

In Acts, Luke mentions thirty-two countries, fifty-four cities, and nine Mediterranean islands. He also mentions ninety-five persons, sixty-two of which are not named elsewhere in the New Testament. And his references, where checkable, are always correct. This is truly remarkable, in view of the fact that the political/territorial situation of his day was in a state of almost constant change (1991, 27:2).

The Pilate Inscription

The last few days of Jesus’ life were the most tragic of any in human history. Amidst all the violence, there stood one man who had the power to stop all the torture. One man could call off the Roman soldiers and save Christ from being crucified. His name—Pontius Pilate, the Roman official who governed the area of Judea at the time of Christ’s death. The story of the crucifixion can hardly be told without mentioning the name of this Roman official who sentenced Christ to death—even though Pilate knew He was innocent (John 18:38; 19:4,6).

Although the Bible mentions Pilate on several occasions, his name could not be found among the archaeological evidence. For hundreds of years, no stone inscriptions or other physical evidence could be produced to support the idea that a man named Pilate had anything to do with either Christ or Judea. Because of this, many mocked the Bible and claimed that creative biblical writers concocted Pilate from their own fertile imaginations. After all, if Pilate were such a prominent leader, wouldn’t there be some kind of archaeological evidence to verify his existence?

Critics were silenced when, in 1961, an Italian archaeological team working at Caesarea found a stone tablet that measured 32 inches high, by 27 inches wide, by 8 inches thick. On this slab, now known as the “Pilate Inscription,” were the remains of this simple title: “Pontius Pilate, Prefect of Judea”—almost the exact same title as the one given to him in Luke 3:1. This, then, became yet another find to remind us that the more we uncover the past, the more we uncover the truth that the Bible is indeed the Word of God (see Price, 1997, pp. 307-308).

The truth is, numerous archaeological finds have verified the Bible’s accuracy. As the renowned archaeologist Nelson Glueck wrote: “It may be stated categorically that no archaeological discovery has ever controverted a Biblical reference. Scores of archaeological findings have been made which confirm in clear outline or exact detail historical statements in the Bible” (1959, p. 31). Truly, the perfect historical accuracy, without the tell-tale mistakes that are found in works written by mere humans, testifies to the Bible’s divine origin.

Conclusion

No series of books in human history has maintained the supernatural consistency that is present within the pages of the Bible. From the first book of Genesis to the last book of Revelation, approximately 40 men penned individual treatises that combine to form the best-selling, most widely distributed, perfectly unified, flawlessly written book ever produced. Mere human genius never could have produced a work with such predictive prophecy, scientific foreknowledge, and overall factual accuracy. Common sense demands an adequate explanation. The only rational conclusion, which is in keeping with the evidence at hand, is that the Bible is “given by inspiration of God.”

References

“Best Selling Book of Non-Fiction” (2014), Guinness World Records, http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/records-1/best-selling-book-of-non-fiction/.

Bryan, Cyril (1930), Ancient Egyptian Medicine: The Papyrus Ebers (Chicago, IL: Ares Publishers).

“Cedar Oil” (no date), Spavelous, http://www.spavelous.com/Articles/Health_Nutrition/Aromatherapy_Chart.html.

Fleming, Wallace B. (1966), The History of Tyre (New York: AMS Press).

Glueck, Nelson (1959), Rivers in the Desert: A History of the Negev (New York: Farrar, Strauss, and Cudahy).

“God Facts” (no date), http://www.wwj.org.nz/gfacts.php.

Herodotus (1972 reprint), The Histories, trans. Aubrey De Sélincourt (London: Penguin).

Horace, “Ars Poetica,” http://www.thelatinlibrary.com/horace/arspoet.shtml.

Jackson, Wayne (1991), “The Holy Bible—Inspired of God,” Christian Courier, 27:1-3, May.

Jackson, Wayne (1997), “Homer Sometimes Nodded, but the Bible Writers Never Did!” Apologetics Press, http://www.apologeticspress.org/apcontent.aspx?category=13&article=249.

Josephus, Flavius (1987), The Life and Works of Flavius Josephus: Against Apion, trans. William Whiston (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson).

Lyons, Eric and Kyle Butt (2014), “7 Reasons to Believe in God,” Reason & Revelation, 34[10]:108-120, http://apologeticspress.org/apPubPage.aspx?pub=1&issue=1175.

Macht, David I. (1953), “An Experimental Pharmacological Appreciation of Leviticus XI and Deuteronomy XIV,” Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 27[5]:444-450, September-October.

Massengill, S.E. (1943), A Sketch of Medicine and Pharmacy (Bristol, TN: S.E. Massengill).

McGrew, Roderick (1985), Encyclopedia of Medical History (London: Macmillan Press).

McMillen, S.I. and David Stern (2000), None of These Diseases (Grand Rapids, MI: Revell), third edition.

Miller, Dave (2003), “Is the Book of Mormon from God?” Apologetics Press, http://www.apologeticspress.org/apcontent.aspx?category=11&article=1187.

Miller, Dave (2005), The Quran Unveiled (Montgomery, AL: Apologetics Press).

Nuland, Sherwin B. (2003), The Doctor’s Plague (New York: Atlas Books).

Pope, Alexander (1709), “An Essay on Criticism,” http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/myl/ldc/ling001/pope_crit.htm.

Price, Randall (1997), The Stones Cry Out (Eugene, OR: Harvest House).

Ramsay, William (1915), The Bearing of Recent Discovery on the Trustworthiness of the New Testament (London: Hodder and Stoughton).

Siculus, Diodorus (1963), Library of History, trans. C. Bradford Welles (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press).

“Tyre” (2006), Columbia Encyclopedia, http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Tyre.aspx.

Wheeler, Lee S. (1931), Famous Infidels Who Found Christ (Peekskill, NY: Review and Herald Publishing Association).

The post 3 Good Reasons to Believe the Bible Is From God appeared first on Apologetics Press.

Tyre began its rise to prominence with the plundering of Sidon by Philistines around 1200 B.C. The influx of refugees and the temporary loss of competition spurred a period of great growth. Dealers and shipping merchants grew fabulously rich (Isaiah 23:8). They used their wealth to create a “stronghold of Tyre” (2 Samuel 24:7; see also Joshua 19:29), and bought peace by paying hefty tributes to whatever superpower was in control at the time.

Hiram I of Tyre (c. 979-945 B.C.) ushered in a “golden age” by uniting the Phoenician city-states under one rule, building temples to the deities of Melqart and Astarte, constructing a breakwater to create a harbor on the southern side, and connecting the two ports with a canal. In between periods of foreign influence, Tyre continued to expand its economic reach, including the founding of Carthage in 814 B.C.

This growth coincided with the reigns of Israel’s most powerful kings, David and Solomon, so it is not surprising that we should find considerable contact between these neighbors. After all, little more than a hundred miles separated Tyre from Jerusalem. (Facts like these are hard to keep in mind, given the larger-than-life significance of the events played out in this tiny corner of the world.) In fact, the Phoenician port crops up frequently in biblical history, poetry, and prophecy. David relied on Tyre’s resources for the building of his royal palace in Jerusalem (2 Samuel 5:11). Solomon went further, drawing on its materials and skilled workmen for the construction of the great temple in exchange for territory (1 Kings 9:11), and on their seafaring prowess for the founding of a fleet at the Red Sea port of Ezion-Geber (1 Kings 9:27). It is to Tyre that the repatriated exiles turned for the rebuilding of Jerusalem under the grant of Cyrus (Ezra 3:7). Of all the rulers, Ahab went the farthest by establishing a political alliance with Tyre. This he confirmed by a marriage to Jezebel, daughter of Ethbaal (1 Kings 16:31), Tyre’s ruler/high priest who had overthrown King Phelles. As biblical history makes quite clear, this unholy compact had disastrous consequences for Samaria (1 Kings 13:31-33).

Of all the prophets, the book of Ezekiel devotes the most attention to Tyre (chapters 26-28). The revelation begins by citing the city’s notorious opportunism as one reason for its ultimate demise (26:2-3). As noted previously, Tyrian merchants had much to lose by an interruption of regular commerce, and could afford to buy peace with their enemies. Frequently, these treaties brought the city-state into alliance with other nations against Israel (Psalm 83). Despite the mutual respect that existed in the time of Hiram, the king’s successors took advantage of God’s people in their moments of weakness (Joel 3:4-6; Amos 1:9). Of course, divine condemnation would come on all nations, including Tyre, that acted against the people of God (Jeremiah 25:14-29). One of Tyre’s rulers also claimed to be a god, and this individual’s transgression constituted a further indictment against the city (Ezekiel 28:2).

What is most notable about Ezekiel’s prophecy is the accuracy of its fulfillment. Although secular records are not sufficiently complete to provide an independent confirmation of every detail, chapter 26 makes at least seven definite predictions that can be tested against historical data (see table below).

In their book, Science Speaks, Peter W. Stoner and Robert C. Newman attempt to attach some real-world, but conservative, probabilities to each of these seven predictions (1976, pp. 72-79). If, for a moment, we assume that Ezekiel made some guesses about Tyre’s fate, what would be the chance that he could get, not just one partially correct, but all correct in every detail? That chance turns out to be 1 in 75,000,000. To give a practical analogy, an individual is twice as likely to be killed on the ground by an airplane during his or her lifetime, than to make these seven predictions and have them all come true. Or, to take a less morbid approach, this probability would be on the same order as flipping a coin and getting heads 26 times in a row (“26” may not seem a big number, but just try it some time!). Truly, the divine judgment of Tyre, and the accuracy of Ezekiel’s prophecy, provide a great demonstration of God’s presence in human affairs.

REFERENCES

Liverani, M. (1988), “Tyre,” International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, ed. G.W. Bromiley (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans), 5:932-934.

Pfeiffer, C.F. (1966), The Biblical World (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker).

Stoner, Peter W. and Robert C. Newman (1976), Science Speaks (Chicago, IL: Moody).

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