Proof for the Bible

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Sister_Amy

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Many members of this forum have criticized the Qur’an saying that there is no proof of its authenticity. No proof that God revealed it through Gabriel, no proof Gabriel delivered it to Muhammad, no proof Muhammad was telling the truth, no proof that the Qur’an has been preserved.

I am therefore curious…

What sort of “proof” is enough to make a person believe in the Bible?
 
Before you two take this thread disastrously off-topic… I’d like to wait for all the people who have spent the last week attacking me/Islam/Qur’an/Shari’ah to go on and prove the superiority of the Bible. Or at least try.
 
AgnosTheist said:
Actually I left because of the bible’s limitations. Thats interesting too. 😃
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Actually, that’s extremely common. Most people who have a bone to pick with the Bible invariable have one because of the limitations on behavior the Bible demands.

– Mark L. Chance.
 
Sister_Amy said:
What, you can’t do it?
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Well, I’m not one of those people who believe Islam isn’t a true revelation of God because there is “no proof” for the things you listed.

Divine revelation isn’t based on proofs but on whether or not it is a reliable witness to truth, reality, and man’s relationship with God.

The Bible is not a proof of faith, it is a witness to faith. A very different sort of thing. The same could be said of the Qur’an. It is the witness of Mohammed, since he was the author. It doesn’t prove that he was right or wrong.

Christianity is not a religion of “the book”, it is apostolic, with authority based in men, that was given to them by God. No proof of the sort many moderns desire can be made for it based on the Bible alone, especially since it was never intended to function as a book of proofs.

The Resurrection is the proof of Christianity. If Christ rose from the dead all we Catholics believe is true. If he didn’t, we believe in an illusion.
 
Sister_Amy said:
Before you two take this thread disastrously off-topic… I’d like to wait for all the people who have spent the last week attacking me/Islam/Qur’an/Shari’ah to go on and prove the superiority of the Bible. Or at least try.
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Ok I’m shutting my mouth this instant.

Its completely your show now, Sister Amy. 🙂

Over and out!
 
The New Testament has 24,000 manuscripts. By comparing them we elimiate copist errors. There are dozens of prophecies that have been fulfilled. Sources outside the NT write about the person of Jesus and about the christians. Archeology has comfirmed some things about the bible. There are also thousands of OT manuscripts, both christian and jewish which agree on the text.
 
Sister_Amy said:
What sort of “proof” is enough to make a person believe in the Bible?
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There is no proof or way to prove it - it is purely a matter of faith. Also, the bible isn’t an idol to be worshiped, it is a “lens” - a thing to help us see God more clearly.
 
To me the proof of the Bible is not found within the Bible, or for that matter by comparing the Bible with actual history. Rather, I look at the fruits that it has produced. Likewise, I look at the fruits of Islam.

If we look at the first 250 years of Christianity, it is one of persecution. Christians generally had to remain in hiding, and many ultimately died their faith. This is especially true of Paul and the Apostles. Anyone of them could have lived to a ripe old age if they simply had kept their mouths shut; yet they soldiered on with no promise of Earthly reward, rather the promise that they most likely would die for their belief.

In contrast, if we look at the first 250 years of Islam, it is one of conquest. Yes, the sword or the Qur’an was not usually the choice given to the conquored but the advantages of converting certainly was a major inducement.

So lets look at this for a moment. Christianity grew despite the fact that Christians were more often than not persecuted for their faith. Islam on the other hand grew because it conquered and those who were Muslim had a higher status than those who weren’t. Ultimately, to me, the conversion of the early Christians speaks more to true faith than the conversion of the early Muslims.

–
Bill
 
Sister_Amy said:
Many members of this forum have criticized the Qur’an saying that there is no proof of its authenticity. No proof that God revealed it through Gabriel, no proof Gabriel delivered it to Muhammad, no proof Muhammad was telling the truth, no proof that the Qur’an has been preserved.

I am therefore curious…

What sort of “proof” is enough to make a person believe in the Bible?
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Hello Sister Amy,

“Proof” of the bible and Christianity for me is the fact that Jesus’ disciples, who had nothing on this earth to gain, went forth with their assignments knowing they would be martyred. The first bishops of Rome (and elsewhere) were also martyred.
 
Daniel_Marsh said:
… There are dozens of prophecies that have been fulfilled…
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Holly3278 said:
How about all of the fulfilled Bible prophecies?

Here is a page with fulfilled Messianic prophecies:

scripturecatholic.com/messianic_prophecies.html
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Hi Sister Amy,

I agree with the above. Prophecy is our proof that the Bible is divinely inspired.

I agree that the Qur’an was revealed to us by Muhammed. Maybe the Qur’an is intact from the original. But none of that is a match to fulfilled prophecy. The lack of prophecy would have to be the main reason why we can’t accept the Qur’an to be divinely inspired.
 
mark_a said:
Hello Sister Amy,

“Proof” of the bible and Christianity for me is the fact that Jesus’ disciples, who had nothing on this earth to gain, went forth with their assignments knowing they would be martyred. The first bishops of Rome (and elsewhere) were also martyred.
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Agree!
Its nice to see things dont change here.😉
 
Della said:
Divine revelation isn’t based on proofs but on whether or not it is a reliable witness to truth, reality, and man’s relationship with God.

The Bible is not a proof of faith, it is a witness to faith. A very different sort of thing. The same could be said of the Qur’an. It is the witness of Mohammed, since he was the author. It doesn’t prove that he was right or wrong.

Christianity is not a religion of “the book”, it is apostolic, with authority based in men, that was given to them by God. No proof of the sort many moderns desire can be made for it based on the Bible alone, especially since it was never intended to function as a book of proofs.

The Resurrection is the proof of Christianity. ** If **Christ rose from the dead all we Catholics believe is true. **If **he didn’t, we believe in an illusion.
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Hi Della. Thanks for answering my question. Am I correct to understand that you are saying that the Bible is not the proof, but the resurrection is the proof. That being the case–what is the proof of the resurrection? If I am incorrect in my understanding please feel free to correct me.
 
Daniel_Marsh said:
The New Testament has 24,000 manuscripts. By comparing them we elimiate copist errors.
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But how old are they? Unless I am incorrect, these manuscripts do not date within the first centuries after Jesus! So how do you eliminate the errors which occurred before then and were transmitted on to all later manuscripts? How come there are passages in the Bible today which do not appear in the “oldest reliable manuscripts” like Mark 16:12-20? How do you know that the texts were inspired by God in the first place just because you have a lot of manuscripts?
There are dozens of prophecies that have been fulfilled.
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The Qur’an has prophecies which have been fulfilled as well.
Sources outside the NT write about the person of Jesus and about the christians.
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Yes, but they were not witnesses and likely only rely on the same testimony of the Christians which was spreading among the Jews at that time. (Typically this is when people refer to Josephus. Some people even claim that his reference to Christians was in fact a later forgery.)
Archeology has comfirmed some things about the bible. There are also thousands of OT manuscripts, both christian and jewish which agree on the text.
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So archeology has confirmed “some” things? Archeology has proven other books accurate as well even though they aren’t divine. The OT manuscripts are also recent in comparison to the length of Judaism and Christianity. How do you know that they weren’t changed earlier?
 
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