The Bible, Truth or Lies

The Bible,

Truth or Lies?

Subtitle: Can the Bible Really Prove it is True?

A Thinkers’ Discussion Book

Published by Ken Sewell at Smash Words

Copyright 2013 Ken Sewell

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author

Thinkers Discuss Press

Dallas, TX 75248

http://thinkersdiscuss.weebly.com/

kgsewell@sbcglobal.net

Copyright 2013 by Ken Sewell

All Rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations.

All Scripture quotations are from the King James Version of the Bible, 1601 and have been translated into modern English by the author.

Dedication

This book is dedicated to my wife who also is my best friend, supporter, encourager, and influencer for good.

To the Reader

The Bible has been among the bestselling books worldwide for decades. It’s often called the good book by people who believe it and a book of myths by those who don’t. It can’t be both, so which is it? The purpose of this book is to explore the Bible’s own words to determine if they are consistent throughout or is just a collection of fables only remotely connected. The format for this exploration is a conversation between a nonbeliever and a believer who find themselves constrained by a long overseas flight and situated in adjoining seats.

My search for a book which would explore if the Bible’s internal evidence was consistent enough to convince one it is true and therefore from God was fruitless. What I did find were many poorly researched writings attempting to demonstrate that the Bible is filled with inconsistencies. Any book from God must be consistent by definition. If God couldn’t produce a consistent book, then he must not be God. Several major topics are explored to determine if the Bible treats them consistently. I have tried to represent both sides of the conversation fairly, and it is my hope that this book will assist those struggling to enhance their faith, those wondering if there is any basis for faith and those who are skeptics but willing to consider the evidence.

Thinkers do not accept the word of others in regard to areas critical to their own lives without personally investigating the evidence. If you will follow the evidence in earthly matters, why not do the same in spiritual. Read on and judge for yourself. If the Bible is true, it will impact your life and afterlife like nothing else.

Good reading,

Ken Sewell, Ph.D.

Table of Contents

Chapter1: Truth or Lies?

Overview of Bible History

Chapter 2: Too Many Authors?

Chapter 3: Are Miracles Believable?

Chapter 4: The Great Mystery

Chapter 5: Is God Love?

Chapter 6: How Long Will God Be Patient?

Chapter 7: Why Did God Make Beauty?

Chapter 8: Who is a Man of God?

Chapter 9: Does God Keep His Promises?

Chapter 10: Does God Forgive Any Sin?

Chapter 11: Books and Judgment?

Chapter 12: Our Big Fat Jewish Greek Wedding

Chapter 13 Conclusion

Acknowledgements

Recommended Reading and Study

Chapter 1. Truth or Lies?

Shawn pushed his carryon into the overhead compartment, and then glanced at his seatmate while giving a small nod and a brief hello. His seatmate responded in kind, before lowering his eyes to his in-flight magazine. Shawn removed his Bible from his briefcase then stowed the case under the seat. He opened it to John 1 and began to read, In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

He had only read a few minutes before his seatmate asked, Is that a Bible you are reading?

It sure is, Shawn responded with a smile. I love to read it. Hi, my name is Shawn. He held out his right hand.

Mike, the young man responded as he accepted the proffered hand. Why do you like it? My prof says it’s just fairy tales.

Have you read it?

Nope, never had the desire.

Are you still in college?

Graduated in May, Mike responded with a tinge of pride. I’ll be starting my graduate studies in Oxford. I’m pretty excited about that. Can’t wait to see the campus and digs. Are you clergy?

Congratulations Mike, Shawn said lifting his eyebrows. No, I’m not clergy. I’m a physicist.

A physicist reading the Bible! That doesn’t make any sense. You must be putting me on.

And who told you that?

Everyone knows scientists don’t believe in a god or the Bible.

I’m surprised you say that, Shawn said. Aren’t you a thinker?

A puzzled look flashed over Mike’s face and it took him a moment to reply. Of course, I’m a thinker. I graduated from UT with a BS in business, and now I’m going for a MBA at Oxford. Indignation tinged his voice.

The engines roared and the plane began to accelerate, slowly at first but soon rapidly accelerating. Shawn sat back in his seat and offered a silent prayer for a safe trip. After the plane lifted off and the wheels safely retracted with a clunk, Shawn smiled and said, No offense with my question. The reason I asked is that you have formed some opinions about God and the Bible, yet you haven’t read it for yourself.

Mike nodded, and Shawn continued. Don’t thinkers evaluate the evidence for themselves before making up their minds?

I guess so, but I’ve been so busy in school, Mike stammered. Maybe someday, I’ll read the Bible.

One of our former presidents, Ronald Reagan once said about his opponents, ‘The trouble with them is not that they are ignorant, they just know so much that isn’t so.’

That’s funny, but kind of insulting.

I didn’t mean it that way. We’re all like that. We take the time to study what is important to us at the time, but accept someone else’s opinion about the rest. There just isn’t time to study everything. Mike, my concern is that you have neglected the most important factor in your life.

You mean that ‘pie in the sky’ religion stuff.

Now where did you hear that? Following God is not just for the future, it’s for today. You see, I’ve gone from being an unbeliever like you, to being a believer, and I can vouch that it has impacted my life for the better. My family relations are much, much stronger and I am a happy person. You should at least examine it for yourself and not let others who haven’t tried it set your life’s pathway.

I don’t know, Mike said. The profs are pretty smart.

They are smart in their field. Did they teach you to just trust them and not investigate for yourself?

No, Mike asserted. Well, maybe some didn’t say one way or the other, but my favorite one said college would just teach us to think for ourselves so we could move on. But he doesn’t believe in god and would consider such a thing as wasting time.

Even an unbeliever should read the Bible. It impacts so much of our lives, particularly here in America.

What do you mean?

The people who formed our government believed in God and their beliefs are reflected in the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, and many other early government documents. The structure and fabric of our society is based in many ways upon this ancient book, Shawn said.

I thought the founders were atheists, Mike replied. They insisted in separation of church and state, because they didn’t trust or believe in religion.

Not exactly. Do you remember why many of the early American settlers came to this country?

Probably to make money.

They came to escape religious persecution in Europe.

Exactly. That proves my point. They came to get away from religion and to make money.

Except they were religious. They didn’t come to America to escape religion. They just believed that God wanted them to follow him in a different way than the established, government sponsored European churches thought they should. They were persecuted because they read their Bibles and decided to live their beliefs no matter what some other church said. They believed enough to leave their homeland and go to a new land where they could worship as they considered proper. Many of their descendants were involved with writing the constitution, and they wanted to make sure the new country didn’t repeat religious persecution through a state church. They didn’t want the same situation they had left in Europe, so they said that Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. They wanted freedom of religion without persecution.

That sounds different from what I hear on the news, Mike replied.

Check it out. Shawn removed his E-book reader and pulled up the Constitution of the United States and located the First Amendment and then handed it to Mike.

That’s what it says, Mike agreed after reading it. It doesn’t even use the term separation of church and state. Wonder where that came from?

Much of American literature draws from the Bible for its content, situations, and locations. For example, several years ago, I met Mr. Chin who came to the United States to study American Literature so that he could become a university professor on that subject in his homeland, The People’s Republic of China. As he continued his studies, he realized that he could not fully comprehend American Literature without a better understanding of the Bible. So he began to study that book. Mr. Chin is definitely a thinker. The more he read the Bible, the more he wanted to read. He found the book filled a void in his life by bringing purpose and reason.

I hadn’t realized that literature pulled from the Bible so much.

Well, it’s all there in black and white. Remember how the Declaration of Independence starts?

Mike grinned, When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. Should I continue?

I’m impressed, Shawn said with a smile. Wish I could do that. Did you notice who entitles mankind to a separate and equal station?

Mike looked puzzled for a moment, then brightened, Do you mean nature’s God?

Yes.

My prof said that was nature which is evolution, certainly not the God of the Bible.

What does the next paragraph say?

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Who’s the Creator? Shawn asked.

Mike frowned, not wanting to answer.

Is that evolution? Shawn persisted.

Evolution doesn’t create; it evolves from one situation to another.

The Bible says God created the heavens, the earth, and all life including mankind. Could that be the Creator they were speaking of?

Well….maybe, Mike finally admitted. There are a lot of Bible characters depicted in Washington. I know Moses is on the Supreme Court building. I guess that’s who they were talking about.

Is this your first time to be so far away from your parents?

Yep, I grew up in Canyon Lake just outside of Austin, so I could go home anytime I wanted to. I think I’m going to miss them, but this was just too great an opportunity to pass up. The Rotary Club gave me a two year scholarship to Oxford.

That’s a terrific opportunity. I’m sure you’ll adjust just fine. You know, as adults, we must make decisions which impact not only our lives, but the lives of our family, friends, and co-workers. Most people want to make the right decisions. The Bible is a book that tells us the difference between right and wrong, how to develop satisfying social behaviors, how to control our finances, how to treat our loved ones, and on and on and on. Did you know the Ten Commandments can be summarized into two?

How?

Love your God with all your heart, mind, and soul, and love your neighbor as yourself. It’s all based on love.

So if we love others as ourselves, we won’t steal their stuff, sleep with their wives, murder them, and so on. Interesting.

You’re a thinker. Did you know that God wants his followers to be thinkers?

I’ve heard that Christians don’t think, Mike replied with a smirk.

Let’s test that statement. A thinker wants evidence to base decisions on. God has given us plenty of evidence in this book, Shawn said as he lifted his Bible. And he wants us to read it and come to the decision that he is God for ourselves. He doesn’t want or expect us to believe just because someone said we should.

Hmm.

Believers consider this book both relevant and beneficial to their daily lives, Shawn continued. Not only does it impact this life, but if it’s true, it impacts life after death. Why would anyone not want to evaluate whether this book is true?

But it is inconsistent, Mike complained. I’ve seen websites that have hundreds of inconsistencies listed.

So have I. Have you looked past what they said on the website?

No.

"Perhaps you should. Just yesterday, I was looking at one called freethinker or something like that. One of the first inconsistencies he claimed was that God tempted David to take a census, and then stated that there is a conflict because James 1:13 says that God never tempts anyone. Here look at what it says in First Chronicles 21:1." He opened the Bible and handed it to Mike.

Mike read, "Satan stood up against Israel and provoked David to take a census of Israel." He paused and said, Even I know that Satan and God are different. Why would he make such a dumb claim?

He’s writing to non-thinkers. He doesn’t expect or want anyone to actually read the Bible. He just wants them to accept what he says.

Mike smiled, You mean people like me. He sat silent for a moment, and then said, I’m not sure there is any such thing as truth.

Oh, Shawn replied. Now think about that for a moment. You said earlier that the inconsistencies of the Bible proved it wasn’t true. Doesn’t that imply that truth is consistent?

If it was true, it would have to be consistent. Truth couldn’t be inconsistent. He paused, and then continued, But my psychology prof said he didn’t believe in truth.

Wonder if he meant there really isn’t anything true or that we don’t all have the same opinion?

Uh…is there a difference?

We often disagree on what is true, because we have different opinions and different points of view. For example, two people may observe the same traffic accident but come away with different opinions about what happened. They may even differ about who caused the accident or the details of the accident. Most people will agree that the differences probably mean that one or both may not have seen what really happened, and the actual truth may not be represented in their testimony. Yet, this does not mean that truth is non-existent or inconsistent. The purpose of our justice system is to take the testimony of different witnesses and the totality of all the evidence and try to determine what actually happened. It doesn’t always work, but usually the procedure does quite well.

But it makes mistakes. Several innocent people have gone to jail.

It makes mistakes because it doesn’t always find the truth. Don’t we find these people innocent when we actually learn the truth?

Well, yeah, Mike agreed grudgingly.

"Scientists understand truth in the physical world. When one scientist performs a new experiment and announces a startling result, do other scientists leap to accept the results? No they don’t. Rather, other scientists rush to perform the exact same experiment to verify the results.

Several years ago, two electrochemists made the startling announcement that they had observed nuclear fusion in the laboratory at room temperature. Because of the huge potential financial implications for energy generation, scientists around the world raced to check their results. When these secondary experiments failed to produce nuclear fusion, the original claims were discredited along with the two men. The later experimental results were inconsistent with the original claims; however, each of those experiments was performed consistently and yielded consistent results with each other. The consistent results indicated that truth was present in the later results, but not in the original ones. Room temperature nuclear fusion is still a dream.

"My high-school