today. These paintings can be found in every important museum on earth. They have been done by the greatest and most talented artists of all time. These would include Leonardo da Vinci, Rembrandt, Raphael, Michelangelo, and others.
3. Music. The Bible has produced more inspiring music than all other combined books in the world.
Bach—History has concluded that Johann Sebastian Bach "anticipated every important [musical] idea that has been born since his day. He is the inspiration of the pianist, the organist, and the composer." Bach was a zealous Lutheran who devoted most of his genius to church-centered music. Also consider
Mendelssohn—author of "St. Paul, Elijah"
Brahms—"Requiem"
Beethoven—"Mt. of Olives," "Samson and Delilah"
Handel—"Messiah" (he quotes from fifteen books of the Bible)
Haydn—"The Creation"
E. The Bible has produced the law of the Western world. Early attempts of governing forms such as the English common law, the Bill of Rights, the Magna Carta, and our own Constitution are all rooted in God's gift to Moses on Mt. Sinai, the Ten Commandments.
VII. Seventh Supernatural Element—Its Care and Copy.
A. No book in history has been copied as many times with as much care as has been the Word of God. The Talmud lists the following rules for copying the Old Testament:
1 . The parchment had to be made from the skin of a clean animal, prepared by a Jew only, and was to be fastened by strings from clean animals.
2 . Each column must have no less than forty- eight or more than sixty lines.
3. The ink must be of no other color than black, and had to be prepared according to a special recipe.
4. No word nor letter could be written from memory; the scribe must have an authentic copy before him, and he had to read and pronounce aloud each word before writing it.
5. He had to reverently wipe his pen each time before writing the Word of God, and had to wash his whole body before writing the sacred name Jehovah.
6 . One mistake on a sheet condemned the sheet; if three mistakes were found on any page, the entire manuscript was condemned.
7. Every word and every letter was counted, and if a letter were omitted, an extra letter inserted, or if one letter touched another, the manuscript was condemned and destroyed at once.
The old rabbi gave the solemn warning to each young scribe: "Take heed how thou dost do thy work, for thy work is the work of heaven; lest thou drop or add a letter of a manuscript and so become a destroyer of the world!"
The scribe was also told that while he was writing if even a king would enter the room and speak with him, the scribe was to ignore him until he finished the page he was working on, lest he make a mistake. In fact, some texts were actually annotated—that is, each letter was individually counted. Thus in copying the Old Testament they would note that the letter aleph (first letter in the Hebrew alphabet) occurred 42,377 times, and so on.
According to Westcott and Hort, the points in which we cannot be sure of the original words are insignificant in proportion to the bulk of the whole, some 1/1000. Thus only one letter out of 1,580 in the Old Testament is open to question, and none of these uncertainties would change in the slightest any doctrinal teaching.
B. Today there are almost 5,000 ancient Greek manuscripts of the New Testament. This perhaps does not seem like many, until one considers that:
1 . Fifteen hundred years after Herodotus wrote his history there was only one copy in the entire world.
2 . Twelve hundred years after Plato wrote his classic, there was only one manuscript.
3. Today there exist but a few manuscripts of Sophocles, Euripedes, Virgil, and Cicero.
VIII. Eighth Supernatural Element—Its Amazing Circulation. When David Hume said, "I see the twilight of Christianity and the Bible," he was much confused, for he could not tell the sunrise from the sunset!
A. Only one-half of one percent of all books published survive seven years. Eighty percent of all books are forgotten in one year. For example, let us imagine that during this year, 200 new books are published in America. Statistics show that by next year only forty of these 200 will remain. At the end of the seventh year, of the original 200, only one lonely book will survive.
What other ancient religious book can even remotely be compared to the Bible? Where could one go today to purchase a copy of Zen Vedas, or the Egyptian Book of the Dead? In fact, dozens of religions which once flourished have simply disappeared from the face of the earth without leaving the slightest trace. But the smallest child can walk into almost any bookstore in America and pick up a copy of the Word of God.
IX. Ninth Supernatural Element—Its Absolute Honesty. Perhaps no other single statement so completely summarizes the Bible as does the following: "The Bible is not a book that man could write if he would, or would write if he could." Let us analyze this one section at a time.
"Man could not write the Bible if he would." Even if a man had all the necessary spirituality he could not know the facts involved in the historical, scientific, and prophetical statements we have previously seen in the Bible. Thus, without God's direction the Bible is not a book that man could write if he would.
"Man would not write the Bible if he could." Suppose God would give sinful man all the necessary facts and abilities to write the Bible. What then? Man still would not write it correctly if he could. Note the following reasons:
A. Because of the bad things God writes about some of his friends. Here five men immediately come to mind. Most of these individuals are mentioned in the Faith Hall of Fame (Hebrews 11).
1. Noah—indeed a man of God. He walked with God, he was a just man (Gen. 6:9), and he obeyed God (Heb. 11:7). Yet after the flood this great hero of the faith gets dead drunk and exposes his nakedness and shame to his entire family (Gen. 9:20-24). Surely a mere human author would not have written all this.
2. Moses—the meekest man in all the earth during his time (Num. 12:3), and a leader who single-handedly led an entire nation of enslaved Hebrews out of captivity in Egypt. But en route to Palestine we read of his anger and direct disobedience to the clearly revealed Word of God. (See Num. 20:7-12.) Surely man would have eliminated this part of Moses' record.
3. David—without exception the grandest hu¬
man king who ever sat upon a throne. God himself would testify that here was a man after his own heart. (See 1 Sam. 13:14; 16:7, 12, 13.) David's fearlessness (1 Sam.
17:34-36, 49), love for God (Ps. 18,103, etc.), and kindness (1 Sam. 24:6, 7) were universally known. But in 2 Samuel 11 this same king is accurately accused of lust, adultery, lying, and cold-blooded murder. Who but God would write in such a manner?
4. Elijah—few other Old Testament prophets are as colorful and exciting as Elijah the Tishbite. In 1 Kings 18, he champions the cause of God against 450 priests of Satan, but in the very next chapter he is pictured as running for his very life from a mere woman.
5. Peter—self-appointed spokesman for Christ who so confidently assured the Savior that, "Though all men shall be offended because of thee, yet will I never be offended" (Mt. 26:33). But in the hour of Jesus' great need we read of Peter: "Then began he to curse and to swear, saying, I know not the man" (Mt. 26:74).
B. Because of the good things God writes about some of his enemies. As we have already seen, on many occasions God records bad things about his friends, and he often mentions good things about his enemies. This can be seen in the accounts of Esau (Gen. 33); Artaxerxes (Neh. 2); Darius (Dan. 6); Gamaliel (Acts 5:34-39); Julius (Acts 27:1-3); etc.
The point of all the above is simply this—the Bible is not an edited book. God literally "tells it like it is."
Human authors, however sincere, simply do not consistently write this way.
C. Because of certain doctrines repugnant to the natural mind. Many examples could be listed here, but the following three will demonstrate this:
1. The doctrine of eternal hell. (See Rev. 14:10,