The Nature of the Bible

The Nature of the Bible
from Christian Evidences, Chapter 7

By Leland M. Haines

Under construction-- Italics have not been added.

For Footnotes hit the number in the brackets. Use "back" to go back. Apostles

Its Claims

The Original Autographs

The Bible's Inerrancy

Variations In The Gospels

The Method God Used

Science's Influence On Acceptance Of The Bible

Its Claims

        We have seen that there are ample proofs that God has revealed Himself. The Bible writers make frequent claims that they recorded these historical events and their meanings in its pages. God started to reveal Himself right after man was created: "God created man in his own image.... And God said to them.... And God said .... And the Lord God commanded the man, saying.... The Lord God said" (Genesis 1:27-29, 2:16-18). This special and direct communication continued at various times throughout man's history. The first written revelation was recorded by Moses and later revelations by the prophets of Israel. We mentioned earlier that they stated in many places that the Bible records what "God said," "God commanded," "The word of the Lord said unto me," etc. "Saith the Lord God" is used frequently in Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel. "The word of the Lord that came to..." is used at the opening of the books of Hosea, Joel, Jonah, Micah, Zephaniah, Haggai and Zechariah. Amos, as well as Obadiah and Nahum, stated several times "Thus says the Lord." Malachi, the last Old Testament book, begins with "The oracle of the word of the Lord." Thus there are many claims by the Old Testament writers that they knew they were writing God's words. In fact, some 2,000 times such statements are made.
        The New Testament accepts the Old Testament as God's revelation to man. We find this emphasized in Jesus' answers during His temptations, "It is written" (Matthew 4). During Jesus' answer to the Pharisee's question about divorce, He attributed to God Moses' words, "and said... the two shall become one" (Matthew 19:5, cf. Genesis 2:24). Moses wrote this after giving the creation account of how God made them male and female. Jesus' rebuke of His disciples -- "O foolish men, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken!" (Luke 24:25) -- shows that He accepted the prophets' messages as God's revelation. Jesus said to the Jews "You search the scriptures, because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness to me," yet they failed to believe Moses. He stated "...he wrote of me. But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words?" (John 5:39-47). Both Moses' and His words were important revelations. Later Jesus emphasized "scripture cannot be broken" (John 10:35). These verses plus the many statements He made that He was fulfilling the Scripture prophecies and His appeals to Scriptures to support His teachings all indicate that He accepted the Old Testament as God's revelation.
        There are several claims made by New Testament writers that the Old Testament Scripture is God's revelation. One of the strongest of these witnesses was made by Paul; "All scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness" (II Timothy 3:16). James, when he wrote about patience, stated that "as an example of suffering and patience, brethren, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord" (James 5:10). Peter wrote "you must understand this, that no prophecy of scripture is a matter of one's own interpretation, because no prophecy ever came by the impulse of man, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God" (II Peter 1:20-21).
        The New Testament not only accepts the Old Testament, but also claims to give a clearer and fuller revelation from God: "In many and various ways God spoke of old to our fathers by the prophets; but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world" (Hebrews 1:1-2) and, "For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God; the only Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has made him known" (John 1:17-18).
        Thus a clearer revelation came through God's Son, Jesus. As part of His revelation Jesus promised the apostles: "When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth" (John 16:13). Thereby the New Testament writers were guided in their efforts to record the Good News.
        Paul proclaimed that his message also came from God, and not from men (Romans 1:5, Galatians 1:11-16, Ephesians 3:3). We see this claim to inspiration in many of Paul's writings. He closed his epistle to the Romans with comments on "the revelation of the mystery which was kept secret for long ages but is now disclosed and through the prophetic writings is made known to all nations, according to the command of the eternal God" (Romans 16:25-26). These prophetic writings, the New Testament, make the gospel known to us today. He wrote to the Corinthians: "we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is from God, that we might understand the gifts bestowed on us by God. And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who possess the Spirit" (I Corinthians 2:12-13). Writing about God, Paul states that "he has made known to us in all wisdom and insight the mystery of his will, according to his purpose which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth" (Ephesians 1:9-10). Later in this book he writes "how the mystery was made known to me by revelation, as I have written briefly. When you read this you can perceive my insight into the mystery of Christ, which was not made known to the sons of men in other generations as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit" (Ephesians 3:3-5). To the church at Thessalonica, he wrote, "you received the word of God which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men but as what it really is, the word of God" (I Thessalonians 2:13).
        In the fourth gospel John emphasized that Jesus was the Word that was in the beginning with God (John 1:1). "In the beginning" is the same moment found in Genesis 1:1. Jesus was active in the creation; "All things were made through him" (John 1:3). He is also the true light that came into His created world as the "light that enlightens every man." This "Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth; we have beheld his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father" (John 1:14).
        John also emphasized in the introduction to his first epistle that Jesus, "the word of life," was manifested to them. He wrote "that which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon and touched with our hands, concerning the word of life - the life was made manifest, and we saw it, and testify to it, and proclaim to you the eternal life which was with the Father and was made manifest to us - that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you." John and the other apostles wrote about the Word (I John 1:1-4). The apostles had spent time with Jesus and had seen His miracles and resurrection and knew that God sent Him. They were also taught by Him and thus could proclaim the revelation that was manifested to them. John wrote about this "message we have heard from him and proclaim to you" (I John 1:5). John emphasized throughout this epistle that we can know, and ended it by writing that "we know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, to know him who is true; and we are in him who is true, in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life" (I John 5:20). In very simple and straight forward language John and the other apostles proclaimed that they saw Jesus and knew that He was the Christ and the truth.
        In the Book of Revelation John wrote about the tribulation he was enduring because of "the word of God and the testimony of Jesus." During this time he was told by Jesus to "write what you see in a book and send it to the seven churches" (Revelations 1:9-10). He was told to "write what you see" (Revelation 1:19). He was frequently told to write by Jesus and an angel (2:1, 8, 12, 18, 3:1, 7, 14, 14:13, 19:9, 21:5, 22:18). Here we have records of Jesus' and an angel's direct involvement in writing a New Testament book.
        In summary, we see that the Bible makes many claims and that the proofs stated therein are true - that the Bible is God's Word and revelation to man. The reader should accept these claims, but not just because the Bible makes them. Self-proclamation would not be a valid reason to accept a book as revelation. But we have presented ample proofs (The Bible's consistent message even when written by forty different writers over 1,500 years, its historical accuracy confirmed by archaeology, its scientific accuracy, its fulfilled prophecies, Jesus Christ's miracles and signs, Jesus' death and resurrection, the apostle's signs, etc.) that God has revealed Himself, and this self-proclamation does support the fact that we are interpreting these proofs correctly. But the fact remains, it is because of the overwhelming evidence presented earlier in this book that we accept the Bible's claims that it is the written record of God's revelation.

The Original Autographs

        In the foregoing presentation we have shown that the Bible records God's revelation to mankind. In the New Testament we find many indications that the apostles knew they were writing for the Lord. This is what one would expect since they were commissioned to do so. For instance, Paul enumerated several times that he recognized the importance of his writings. To the Corinthians he wrote, "If any one thinks that he is a prophet, or spiritual, he should acknowledge that what I am writing to you is a command of the Lord" (I Corinthians 14:37). To the same church he later wrote, "For the weapons of our warfare are not worldly but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every proud obstacle to the knowledge of God..." (II Corinthians 10:4-5); "Our authority, which the Lord gave for building you up" (10:8). He notes, "It is not the man who commends himself that is accepted, but the man whom the Lord commends" (10:18). He also wrote the Galatians not to turn to another gospel, "not that there is another gospel....I would have you know, brethren, that the gospel which was preached by me is not man's gospel. For I did not receive it from men, but it came through a revelation of Jesus Christ" (Galatians 1:6, 11-12). He wrote to Timothy, "If any one refuses to obey what we say in this letter, note that man, and have nothing to do with him, that he may be ashamed" (II Thessalonians 3:14). Paul wrote, "for the scripture says" (I Timothy 5:18), and then quoted Luke 10:7 and Deuteronomy 25:4, thus treating them both as Scripture. He also treated their message with the greatest respect. He also stated, "We have renounced disgraceful, underhanded ways; we refuse to practice cunning or to tamper with God's word" (II Corinthians 4:2), indicating he knew he was handling God's word.
        Peter also recognized the importance of the apostles' message when he connected them with the Old Testament prophets: "Remember the predications of the holy prophets and the commandments of the Lord and Savior through your apostles" (II Peter 3:2). Peter also recognized Paul's writings as Scripture: "Our beloved brother Paul wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, speaking of this as he does in all the letters. There are some things in them hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other scriptures" (II Peter 3:15-16). He tied Paul's writings to the Scriptures.
        The apostles knew they were writing for the Lord and that their words were being treated as Scripture. This recognition was made soon after the books were written. In I Timothy 5:18 this recognition was within five years after Luke wrote his gospel. Peter's classification of Paul's writings with Scripture occurred within fifteen years after Paul wrote.
        We also have other indications that the apostles wanted their writings to be more than private letters to be read only by those to whom they were sent. We see this indicated in Paul's letter to the Colossians, to whom he wrote, "When this letter has been read among you, have it read also in the church of the Laodiceans; and see that you read also the letter from Laodicea" (Colossians 4:16-17). To the Thessalonians he also wrote, "I adjure you by the Lord that this letter be read to all the brethren" (I Thessalonians 5:27). This wider use of their letters meant that they would be carefully copied and spread for use throughout the church and translated for mission work.
        Other early church leaders, such as Clement of Rome (A. D. 96), Barnabas (70 to 135), Ignatius (110), Polycarp (115), etc., made extensive use of quotes from the apostle's writings alongside of Old Testament writings to support their viewpoints, thereby showing they treated them as Scripture. Their use of New Testament quotes also makes it clear that these new books were in wide circulation throughout the church.
        This treatment of the apostolic writings as Scripture meant they would be treated with great reverence and care. Those who copied them for use in other churches would do it very carefully. They knew they were handling Scripture and that their works would be checked against the originals and by memory to verify their accuracy. Thus those who did the copying would not take any liberties to change the text by either adding to or subtracting from it. They knew that if their copies were found not accurate, the people would destroy them. This fact worked to produce good copies of the originals.
        We must always remember that it was the original "autographs" or manuscripts of the Bible that were inspired, and that none of these are known to exist. The question that may be asked is, "should the loss of the original manuscripts have been expected?" It may surprise some, but many believe this is what one would have expected. This is because it would had been very difficult to preserve the autographs through the early church's years of persecution and because each generation would have wanted to use them. Their preservation would have involved creating a special library or libraries to store them in and a constant stream of miracles to protect them. Even with special climate-controlled storage made possible by today's technology, it would have been difficult to preserve them. They would also have become objects of worship, causing idolatry. Also, those who would be in charge of the manuscripts could claim they had the truth because they held the manuscripts, regardless of how faithful or unfaithful they were to their teachings, hindering in-depth Bible study. In light of the above, God used other means to preserve His written revelation - that of very careful copying.
        Today we have over 5,000 Greek manuscripts of the New Testament writings Bible scholars can study to arrive at a sound New Testament text. These range in size from a couple of verses to the complete New Testament. They date back as far as the second century and come from all geographical areas of the church. Together these accurately reflect the originals. There are some minor variations among these manuscripts but most are misspellings or easily recognized copyist errors. They do not affect our understanding of any doctrine or event. Instead of one original copy that preserved God's revelation, there are many manuscripts that preserve it in a way that made it impossible to be destroyed or tampered with by any one individual.
        We have direct evidence that the Bible was accurately copied and transmitted to us. The most recent of this evidence comes from the Dead Sea Scrolls which were discovered between 1947 and 1952. Until then the oldest Old Testament manuscripts, known as the Masoretic texts, were a little over 1,000 years old. Among the Dead Sea Scrolls were found over a hundred Old Testament books, representing all the books except Esther. Among these was a complete Hebrew text of Isaiah that dated back to over a hundred years before Jesus Christ. When this manuscript was compared to the traditional manuscript, a 9th century one, the two were found to be in very close agreement. The slight differences that did exist were mainly spelling or obvious minor variations. The other Isaiah fragments were in complete agreement with the newer text. The accurate copying of the Bible throughout the years meant the Dead Sea Scroll's "differences have not warranted any major changes in the substance of the OT." These Scrolls showed "the Masoretic text went back several more centuries into antiquity and had been accurately copied and transmitted" over a thousand year period of time . Thus these Scrolls are a strong witness to the accuracy and trustworthiness of our Bible.
         Accurate copying of the Bible does not mean that heretics never tried to corrupt the Scriptures so they would serve their own purposes. But when this occurred, there were means to detect their errors. The many faithful copies served as a standard by which individual copies could be checked against. If a reader detected anything questionable in a copy, it could be checked it against many other copies. Because of the church's high respect of the Scriptures, if alterations were detected the copy was destroyed. This process prevented corrupted copies from gaining a foothold in the church.

The Bible's Inerrancy

        One should not expect errors in God's revelation; errors can have no prominence when an all-powerful and all-knowing God reveals Himself. Because the meaning of Bible inerrancy has been
misunderstood and because there has been widespread criticism of this view in liberal and other circles for many years, this subject will be discussed in more detail.
        The absence of errors in the Bible does not mean that we have perfect understanding of all Scriptures or that we can harmonize every one of them. There are difficulties in our understanding of a few passages. But most of the so-called "errors" are not really errors but only difficulties in our understanding.
        Many times when people have pointed out examples of errors in the Bible, it was found they disappear after further research. Following are some examples of how these "errors" have been resolved:
        The Old Testament mentions the Hittites (Genesis 23:10f, 26:34f, Exodus 3:8, Numbers 13:29, etc). The critics used to point out that there was no evidence outside of the Bible that these people ever existed, and therefore the Bible contained myths. But archaeology has recently found that the Hittites were a tribe of Canaanites, and were as powerful and numerous as the Bible claimed. Thus the Bible was not erroneous; further research showed men were in error.
        In writing the history of the early church, Luke made frequent references to government leaders in the Book of Acts. We find he actually described their titles, but one of his descriptions was once cited as an example of error. He used the title of "proconsul" (the Roman province leader with unlimited military and civil powers) for the Cyprus governor (Acts 13:7) and for Gallio (Acts 18:12). These usages were accepted as accurate.
When Luke came to Thessolonicia, the city authorities were called by the Greek term "politarchs" (Acts 17:6-8). Since this term was not found in classical writings, it was assumed that Luke had made an error. But the term has since been found on some nineteen inscriptions of Macedonian city leaders. Since Thessolonicia was a Macedonian city, Luke was correct in his use of "politarchs."
        Luke wrote that at Iconium, the unbelieving Jews stirred up the Gentiles, forcing Paul and Barnabas to flee "to Lystra and Derbe, cities of Lycaonia" (Acts 14:6). It was once commonly believed that Iconium was located in the province of Lycaonia, and thus it would not have made much sense to say they fled from Iconium to the province that it was located in. But it has since been found that Iconium was located in Phrygia and thus Luke wrote correctly.
        At one time Luke's account that "all went to be enrolled, each to his own city" (Luke 2:1-3), and that Quirinius was governor were cited as examples of error. Some did not believe the Roman's required people to return to their home cities for census purposes. And it was known that Saturnius was governor. But archaeology since found an edict in Egypt dated A. D. 104 describing a tax enrollment that required returning to the home cities. It was also found that Quirinius was the military governor under the civil governor, Saturnius, between 10 and 7 B. C., and later became governor in A. D. 6. Thus Luke was correct in every detail; there were no errors.
        These are but a few examples where errors were really only difficulties in men's understanding and disappeared when men understood the history of the events. This is what one should have expected to have happened; one should not expect errors in God's revelation.
        When considering the subject of errors in the Bible we must always keep in mind how God effected His revelation. The absence of errors does not mean that God forced men to sit at a word processor to record His revelation. God acted in human history and used ordinary men and the circumstances they were in to deliver His revelation. Some of these men wrote to make a record of revelation, as illustrated by Luke's writing the New Testament books of Luke and Acts to Theophilus. Luke explained that "inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things which have been accomplished among us, just as they were delivered to us by those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word, it seemed good to me also, having followed all things closely for some time past, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, that you may know the truth concerning the things of which you have been informed" (Luke 1:1-4). Luke brought the eyewitnesses and reports together so Theophilus could know, and in doing so God used the fruit of his work so that we too could know the truth today. Others also mention that they made eyewitness reports, as Peter wrote, "we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty" (II Peter 1:16, cf. Acts 10:41). Other letters were written to address issues occurring at the time. For instance, God used Paul to write his epistles to various churches and individuals because they faced problems or had questions.
        This means the writer's humanity had an effect on the style and circumstances under which the Bible was written. The Holy Spirit guidance, as stated earlier, did not mean they wrote as mechanical dictation machines, eliminating the personalities and circumstances of the writers. This should be clearly understood because when one studies the Bible he will find various styles, vocabularies, emotions, personal problems, etc. along with some minor variations in parallel passages and some free quotations of the Old Testament in the New Testament. Inspiration did not eliminate the humanity of the writers but did insure that the historical events and their interpretation were accurately recorded and without error.

Variations In The Gospels

        When one compares the numerous parallel passages found in the three Synoptic Gospels, Matthew, Mark and Luke, one can find quotations that vary slightly in wording, a few events that are listed in slightly different order, etc. If the humanity of the writer and the first century writing styles are not considered one may get the impression that these accounts are not accurate. But this is not the case when one considers the accounts more carefully.
        Since some have made much of these few minor variations or discrepancies between parallel passages found in the Gospels, we need to clarify this area. The humanity of the writers caused these variations by several means. First, the New Testament writers God used to record His revelation, as mentioned earlier, were common men enabled by the Holy Spirit to make an accurate written record. They were not highly educated or from the "universities" of the day, and therefore may not have recorded things in a verbatim manner that today's scholar may wish they had. As Johnson pointed out, "contrary to our modern practice of precise documentation, exact, verbatim citation was not common in the Graeco-Roman world of the first century AD."
Sometimes their writings were imprecise, and in some cases they may even appear ambiguous. Both of these are trademarks of ordinary first century writing and thus cannot be made a point of criticism.
        Secondly, New Testament Greek, as other early writing, did not use quotation marks. Thus the New Testament writers did not quote Jesus' words verbatim as the quotation marks indicate to the modern reader. Everett Harrison writes that "verbatim reporting was not expected on the part of a faithful disciple." Even though the New Testament writers often quoted Jesus' words freely, they did not lose the accuracy of His sayings. As Harrison stated, "reason and experience teach us that the same can be stated in more than one way without loss of accuracy."
        The absence of quotation marks means it is not always possible to identify Jesus' words exactly; thus the variations may not be
due to the writer's incorrectly reporting Jesus' words, but only variations in the writer's style. The writer's freer form of quotations than we generally use today can be seen when one studies the Old Testament quotations found in the New Testament. This freer form sometimes uses different words to convey the thought. These clearly show they did not always give a word for word quotation that our English quotation marks imply.
        Also, Jesus generally spoke in Aramaic, and occasionally in Hebrew, and the New Testament is written in Greek. This means it was necessary to translate His sayings into Greek. These translations may have been done differently by the various Gospel writers. These, along with the later translations to English, introduced some more of these variations.
        Finally, some of the slight variations we think exist may not exist at all because they may relate to different events or different parts of the same sermon. Jesus undoubtedly repeated many of His messages, and what we may think is a parallel account may not be. He may even have repeated them in the same sermon or in different sermons at the same locations. We cannot always know for certain that these passages are parallel because of lack of detailed knowledge and therefore we should be slow to claim that they are errors.
        As mentioned earlier, most of the "errors" are the result of our own misinterpretations, but some areas still present difficulties for us today. We do not always know enough about the events to explain or harmonize them.
        But even in light of the above we should follow Jesus' example and treat the Scripture as fully accurate and trustworthy. When we closely compare Old Testament passages we can find passages that we cannot completely explain or harmonize. But as Jesus did not make these into big issues, neither should we. As He accepted the Scriptures as error free, we should also accept the Scriptures as error free. And as Jesus did not major in finding errors in the Old Testament, or spend a lot of time in seeking to harmonize every Old Testament passage, we also should center on understanding the "good news" and not let alleged "errors" disrupt the "good news" to us.
        In summary, God entered into men's lives, and through special events He revealed Himself. Because God used common men to record His revelation, sometimes we may find it hard to harmonize their records because of the above reasons. These slight apparent variations that occur in a few parallel passages show the humanity of the Bible writers. They do not affect the message of the Bible, or any doctrine or teaching. We should not allow them to become a difficulty for us, but instead use them to give us an additional reason to accept the Bible as God's revelation. The lack of monotonous detail in the writings shows that the writers did not collaborate between themselves when they wrote. They wrote independently and the similarities are the results of writing about the same events and a common Holy Spirit that guided them in the writing. The differences are due to their different styles of writing. These slight differences in no way effect any doctrines or result in a misleading teaching.

The Method God Used

        The fact is, God chose the method He used and it should not be criticized or questioned today. The Biblical record of the historical events and its words that gives God's interpretation of them gives us clearly and precisely the thoughts of the writers. We should study to understand this message and not major on minor variations. The important thing is not that there is a word for word, or an event for event agreement in every minor and unimportant detail, but that the Gospel message is truly conveyed to us
        Perhaps this method of recording revelation does not always meet with modern men's or the scholars' approval. But modern man must not think that God had to act according to human understanding to effect revelation. Modern man may have wanted God to use very logical and precise documents written by the learned men of the day to contain revelation, but God did not do this. God had the wisdom and power to effect revelation using ordinary - easily understood - circumstances in man's history, and ordinary men who were filled with the Holy Spirit to record and interpret their meaning.
        These parallel passages might not be as precise as some today would like them to be, but these small variations should not be blown out of proportion as some do today when they criticize the Bible, claiming that the Bible contains errors and inaccuracies. Much of this criticism is really the result of the person's philosophic views rather than the results of sound scientific studies. This criticism is used by many today to free themselves from the Bible message and its claims, and enable them to support their own views.
        It is a common practice among liberals to go from the recognition of variations to assertions that they show the Bible is full of errors and therefore must be screened to recover the original. This allows them to freely accept or reject the passages as they see best, resulting in their creating their own badly distorted "revelation." As has been pointed out, "there is an irresistible temptation to reconstruct the teachings of Jesus on the basis of this select material, and the results cannot possibly be other than a massive distortion." The result of their approach is their failure to understand the only type of revelation that counts, the revelation God has recorded for us in the Bible.

Science's Influence On Acceptance Of The Bible

        Part of the problem modern man has when it comes to accepting the Bible as revelation is due to the success of science. There are several reasons for this. First, the fast changing technology and science quickly makes the old out of date. This creates in man a distrust for anything that is old. This distrust spills over into religion, and men begin to look for reasons to throw out the old Bible truths, and quickly accept any new "truth." This results in men's not seeing and believing the revealed truth.
        Secondly, seeing the success of science, the theologians have a desire to use scientific methods. But too often they apply it to areas where it cannot be applied, such as the areas of "beginnings," or Genesis. This causes an apparent conflict between the Bible's Genesis account and science. There is no conflict between the Bible and true science. Science is the organization of knowledge related to the physical world. It has been successful due to the application of the scientific method, which involves "principles and procedures for the systematic pursuit of knowledge involving the recognition and formulation of a problem, the collection of data through observation and experiment, and the formulation and testing of hypotheses." The end result is theories and laws that express how the physical world operates.
        The scientific method can by applied only when experiments and observations can be made. This limits it to such areas as chemistry and physics. It can be applied to some extent to some areas of biological sciences, but not to areas concerning the beginnings of life or so-called changes in life form because man cannot repeat the event for testing, observing the changes, or conducting experiments. It is in these areas that many see a conflict between the Bible and science, but this should not be the case because the scientific method cannot be applied to these areas. Thus the Bible is not antagonistic towards science, nor is true science towards the Bible.
        As mentioned above, some see a conflict between the Genesis' creation account and science. As stated earlier, we should follow Jesus' example in this matter. He accepted the creation account as factual (Matthew 19:4). We should also follow His example in accepting other Old Testament accounts as factual that some scientists question, such as, Noah and the flood (Matthew 24:38-39, Luke 17:26), Lot and Sodom's destruction (Luke 17:28-29), Manna given to the Jewish people in the wilderness (John 6:31-33, 48-51), Jonah being in the "whale" for three days and three nights (Matthew 12:39-41, 16:4, Luke 11:32), etc. As He accepted the Old Testament Scriptures as true, so should we, regardless of what some scientists say.
        In summary, we can conclude that the Bible does preserve God's revelation, and today there is no question that every doctrine and historical event and teaching is accurately transmitted to us.

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