Latest / Admonition Podcast / How We Got The Bible - Ben Shanks - Jun 7, 2026

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How We Got The Bible - Ben Shanks - Jun 7, 2026 · Admonition Podcast

• 0:03
  Tonight, or this afternoon, we're gonna have a little different topic um than my normal Psalms.
• 0:11
  ah But today I wanted to talk about...
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  um
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  How we got the Bible.
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  So if you think back throughout history, the Bible is a strange book.
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  It is a book that is written by 40 plus authors.
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  um It was written over a very long period of time, um but it is a book that has a unified message to it.
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  So how did we get
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  the Bible that we use today.
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  If you look at Christianity as a whole, there are several versions of the Bible.
• 0:55
  um There is the 66 book collection ah that we probably all have sitting in front of us right now.
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  um If you look at the Orthodox and Catholic Church, they have a few extra books in there, seven additional books and a few extra chapters in Daniel and Esther.
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  And those books that are in the Catholic Bible are
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  referred to by the Catholics as the deuterocanon, um referred to by uh most non-Catholic Christians as the apocrypha.
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  um
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  But they're a collection of books that are mostly historical in nature or prayers or sermons.
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  So Tobit is a story about uh God testing the faithful.
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  Judith is a war adventure story, almost like the Xena warrior princess of the Bible.
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  ah
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  And Esther has some additionals, but it's mainly like collections of sayings from Mordecai's perspective.
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  ah First and second Maccabees document the war that happened with the Maccabean revolt.
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  About our main point of reference is saying happy Hanukkah to somebody once a year.
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  ah
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  Wisdom of Solomon were other collections of proverbs that were attributed to Solomon.
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  Serach is a collection of sermons.
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  Baruch was Jeremiah's scribe and his writings were collected here.
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  There are two additional chapters in Daniel, one where Daniel ah proves that the idolatrous priests were making magic happen through Mary Manuel activity um and one that
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  was him defying
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  offending a young uh Israelite girl um from elders who were taking advantage of her.
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  um Then you also have in some versions of it first and second address, are expansions on Ezra.
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  um One of them is ah basically history from other perspectives.
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  It contains the book of Ezra, but then it also has some additional stuff to it.
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  Second, Ezra is more of an apocalyptic approach about the return from the perspective of Jews who were in the diaspora, specifically Jews who lived in Egypt.
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  And then there's also the prayer of Manasseh, which is...
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  um
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  Manasseh's prayer when he is finally captured and taken back and rejects idolatry finally from being like one of the most idolatrous kings there were.
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  ah Then there's the Ethiopian ah Orthodox Bible which adds some additional books of estrus, more modern or more versions of the story of the Maccabean revolt, the book of
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  Enoch, and one additional psalm.
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  But when we look at these books,
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  The reason they're not included in the Bible we use is because they were only included as some additional writings in ah the Septuagint.
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  So if you look at what happened, there was a concerted effort to translate the Bible to Greek.
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  ah The Greek world was...
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  interested in what the Jews were doing and they brought 70 scholars over, they brought them down to the city of Alexandria and they started translating the Bible from some
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  original Hebrew, mostly Aramaic texts, but they started translating the Bible and when these scholars got together, these scholars said, okay, of these 70, 80 writings that we
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  have, these are the 39 that should be considered scripture.
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  These other writings are writings that should be considered more of spiritual works, but not necessarily scripture.
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  And so as they collected these 39 books together,
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  There was a, of the other books were included as part of the collection.
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  But one thing that is a little different in the way we think about something is we use a technology that was invented in the first century AD.
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  Prior to the first century AD, all of these writings were on scrolls.
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  And it's difficult for us to kind of frame our mind around the mindset they had then, that you had a common knowledge of what was scripture, but that there wasn't something that had
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  a sequence to it.
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  So you had what they referred to as the Tanakh.
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  So the Tanakh is, the translation is that they are the law, the prophets, and the writings.
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  And the Tanakh is often what is referred to by New Testament apostles as scripture.
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  So those were the 39 books that we call.
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  So the law was the books that we call the law, the Torah, but it was also all the histories all the way up through Second Chronicles.
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  And then the...
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  Writings were Psalms, Job, uh Proverbs, Song of Solomon, Ecclesiastes, and then the prophets were all of the books of the prophets, whether it was the major or minor
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  prophets.
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  So divided up a little differently than what we think about now.
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  But they also, when they translated them, they also translated um the Apocrypha.
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  and they included that in the writing.
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  And they also had a bunch of writings from different religious groups, different, so all of these were like collections of, considered part of the collection of knowledge, but not
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  necessarily considered part of scripture.
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  When we get to the New Testament, some of these scriptures, mostly when it's referred to in the New Testament, they refer to a specific author, it's from the 39 books.
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  There is one reference to the book of Enoch
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  Jude, but the reference in the book of Enoch was because Enoch collected ideas from three or four other writings into that one passage that he quoted.
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  So these were all books that were considered to be worthy of study.
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  And when we look at
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  ah The idea of canonicity how we collected the 39 books of the Old Testament It's something that was sort of a new concept Because when you had this collection of scrolls
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  you wanted to get as many scrolls as you could Because you wanted to study about God you weren't concerned with are these specific scrolls?
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  Scripture or not, but it was commonly acknowledged that the Tanakh was what was considered to be scripture So the 39 books that are the law the prophets and the right
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  meetings.
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  What drove that is you had to think about how you organize things differently when you built a codex, when you built a book, than you had to when you built a collection of
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  scrolls.
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  So.
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  The move from a codex or from the scrolls to a codex system had them start thinking and putting thought into how do we put this together in a sequence that makes sense.
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  So if you look even back to how the Torah itself was written, the Torah itself, we commonly say Moses wrote the Torah.
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  But there's a lot of things in the Torah that had to have been added later.
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  So all the references pretty much every time you see and is the same until this day, that was a comment that was added later.
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  So we have a little different way of perceiving the Bible because we have 2,000 years of history of having it collected, whereas the Jews didn't necessarily add that.
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  They had a collection of religious writings that they were looking at.
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  And there's three views of how the Torah was put into its final form.
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  One is that there were four separate groups that were authoring it.
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  That's kind of the scholar review.
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  There's been a lot of questions about that, a lot of arguments about that.
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  And that's one thing scholars love to do is argue about stuff.
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  ah So ah people have made their doctorates based on this.
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  But realistically, when we look at it, we have references back to the Torah existing at least since Ezra.
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  So if you look at the collections of the writings of Moses, of Joshua, of Ezra, probably had editorial things entered in it.
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  That's probably where a lot of these references to it remains this way until this day is because Ezra was a scholar and when he was putting the Torah together in its final form,
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  he was adding notes in there to put it into the historical reference for a collection of people who had been sent in an accident
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  and were um needed to be reminded that this was real and needed it to be framed up into something that was real.
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  So when we look at these writings, even down to, we like to refer to book, chapter, and verse, right?
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  That's a very recent addition to the Bible.
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  And there are lots of mistakes that were made when we did that.
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  So if you look at the chapters, the chapters are divided out around 1200 AD.
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  The verses weren't added until around 1500 AD.
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  The first English Bible that had book chapter and verse was the Geneva Bible.
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  And if you look, you don't have to look further than the first page to see where they made a mistake.
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  when they had the book chapter and verse.
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  We have to remember that
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  While the word of God is infallible, the work of man is very fallible.
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  So if you look at Genesis chapter 1, chapter 1 really doesn't end until Genesis chapter 2 verse 3.
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  So when man started working on organizing things, not changing the words, but trying to help people get things organized, there are mistakes made all throughout out the books and
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  chapters and verses where they'll end a verse in the middle of a sentence or they'll end a chapter before they finish the thought from the previous chapter.
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  So we have to remember as we study the word, it wasn't written from a perspective of being divided up into books and to chapters.
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  into specific verses that were called out.
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  It was meant to be read as a whole, as something that was complete.
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  So when we look at how we got the Bible, it was a lot of people working towards a common goal, trying to establish what God wanted us to say.
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  Inspired by God, but
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  it was something that had modified over time.
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  When we get over to the New Testament, it's a more recent history, less authorship in it.
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  And it's a lot easier to nail down exactly how we got the New Testament.
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  So the New Testament is made up of 27 books.
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  They're divided into the four gospels, the book of history of the Acts of the Apostles, the writings of Paul, the writings of other disciples, and then the book of prophecy.
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  So when they were trying to decide what was going to be included in the New Testament, they said, is there something that directly connects this to an apostle, to one of the 12
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  plus Paul?
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  Does it align with the rest of the words?
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  And was there common acceptance?
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  So by 140 AD, we have records that there was common acceptance that the books of the New Testament were the 27 that we look at.
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  If you look at how they were circulated during the time, first, second, and third John were circulated together across the churches all the time.
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  A lot of these epistles were connected together.
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  So 1 Corinthians and 2 Corinthians would have been connected together into one codex.
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  They would have been sent to different churches and put into the collection of together.
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  Not something that after the initial writing, because there were four letters to the church at Corinth, we only have two of them.
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  There were...
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  Likely, first, second, and third John were written at the same time.
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  They read very similar.
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  And they were probably written to one church specifically, but intended for different members of the church.
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  First John intended to be read publicly amongst all the members.
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  And then second John and third John written to specific people.
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  But these works were all circulated together.
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  They're all commonly accepted.
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  During this time frame, there were a lot of people writing additional works.
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  There were works that we call the Gnostic Works.
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  where people were trying to take Eastern religion, take things that were passed along the Silk Road, and integrate those into this new religion that seemed to be taking over the
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  world.
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  And you went with books like the Gospel of Thomas or the Gospel of Mary Magdalene or the Gospel of Judas, which the Gospel of Judas being a glaring example of somebody writing
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  something from a very biased perspective that had very little to do with the rest of the scripture.
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  ah You have the infancy gospels, which frame, some of them frame Jesus in a negative light.
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  ah You have the apocalypse of Peter, but you also have a bunch of sermons that were passed around.
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  So the Shepherd of Hermes, the Didache, the writings of Barnabas, these were sermons that were collected and were passed around.
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  But it was pretty easy for them to decide.
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  And realistically, the first reference we have that says these are something to be considered canon comes all the way from 350.
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  But that 350 traces its way all the way back nearly to the first century.
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  have original writings where they are saying that these are the only books that are important.
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  So why am I talking about this?
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  Because I've had conversations with people over the years.
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  Like, they frame up the Bible as something that is foulable because it was written over such a long period of time.
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  They frame the Bible as something where you can't trust it because how can you be sure we have the original words?
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  If you look back to Hebrew, Hebrew didn't have vowels.
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  The vowels are added, I think, around 700 AD.
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  So it is not something, it is, they didn't even have spaces when Moses was writing.
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  So how can you be sure that the Bible is infallible if they don't even have any of modern things?
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  So about 500 years after Moses lived, they invented the space between words.
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  So there are lots of arguments.
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  And part of what we need to be able to do is we need to be able to counter those arguments.
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  So I'm gonna turn over to the book of Matthew real quick.
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  And in Matthew chapter five, we have what is famously referred to as the Sermon on the Mount.
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  And Jesus is delivering a sermon, and during the sermon he goes through the blessings.
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  And then he goes to, in verse 13, he starts to talk about the people.
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  You are the salt of the earth, but if the salt has become tasteless, how will it be made salty again?
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  It is good for nothing anymore except to be thrown out and trampled under feet by men.
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  You are the light of the world, a city set on a hill cannot be hidden.
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  Nor do men light a lamp and put it under a peck measure, but the lamp stand and give light to those in your house.
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  Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works and glorify your father who is in heaven.
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  So after that framework.
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  of you need to go share truth with the world.
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  You need to go be that light set on a hill.
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  Jesus takes just a minute to explain what he means by that.
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  Do not think that I came in to abolish the law or the prophets.
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  I did not come to to abolish but to fulfill.
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  For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass away from the law until all is accomplished.
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  Jesus didn't struggle with what was law and what wasn't law.
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  He didn't struggle because he knew the Father provided.
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  He knew that God would not let the law be confusing.
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  He would not let people struggle with it.
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  So when that argument is framed up, that we can't trust the Bible, it's because they're missing the whole point.
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  They're missing the fact that God is actively involved into protecting his word.
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  Even today.
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  If you think back.
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  Over the last 100 years or so.
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  There's been a lot of attempts to discredit the Bible by doing a new translation.
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  And this has been going on for a long time.
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  Thomas Jefferson famously threw James out of his version of the Bible.
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  because he struggled with the idea of faith and works.
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  So he just removed the whole book from his Bible.
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  There's been translations like the Jive Bible, where not only do they translate it into slang, but they translate it into very vulgar slang.
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  There's been translations that have been done as a spoof or as a joke.
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  but everyone on the planet still has access to the word of God.
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  God's not going to allow that to be taken away.
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  Jesus promised us there that it wouldn't be taken away, that there was nothing man could do to destroy the word of God.
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  In 2 Timothy 3,
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  All scripture is inspired of God and is profitable for doctrine, reproof, correction, and instruction in righteousness, that the man may be perfect, thoroughly furnished to all
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  good works.
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  That is both a promise and a challenge.
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  God is going to protect the scripture.
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  He's going to make sure that it's there for our instruction, for our correction, for our perfection.
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  But it's also a challenge to us that we have to become that word.
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  We have to become living embodiments, just as Jesus referred in Matthew chapter five.
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  We have to be that light to the world.
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  We have to know God's word.
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  We have to live God's word.
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  in Revelation 22 as John is closing out the prophecy.
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  We see him make a reference that reminds us of this promise that Jesus gave.
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  Verse 18, I testify to everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book.
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  If anyone adds to them, God shall add to him the plagues which are written in this book.
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  And if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part from the tree of life and from the holy city which are written in this book.
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  those people who have made those changes, who have made a mockery of the scripture.
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  That's who this promise is to.
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  So how can we be sure?
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  Well, if you flip over to Hebrews chapter 11, we have something that is much more powerful.
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  much more powerful.
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  than a documented systematic history, a record of exactly who wrote what chapter, what verse, what letter.
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  We have a promise.
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  Now, faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.
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  For it, the men of old gained approval.
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  By faith, we understand the worlds that were prepared by the word of God.
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  so that what is seen is not made out of the things which are visible.
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  Faith is our proof.
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  It is the evidence.
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  It is our conviction.
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  Because we know God has promised that he's going to provide his scripture to us, that he's going to give us what we need.
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  And we know he's active.
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  You can see his influence all throughout history.
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  The level of excruciating detail that the scribes went to when they were translating or when they were transcribing the Bible literally dictated letter by the letter in Latin to
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  make sure that the Bible, every time it was printed, was 100 % correct.
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  through all the translations that we have, whether it's to English, whether it is to Latin, whether it is back to Greek, whether it is to modern Greek, all of these
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  translations, God is actively protecting.
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  And if he's not protecting it, it's obvious.
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  Things like the Jive Bible.
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  But he's actively guiding us even today to make sure that no letter disappears from the Bible.
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  So it wasn't a struggle for the apostles.
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  They knew what they were doing when they referenced scriptures.
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  All throughout the New Testament are hyperlinks back to the Old Testament, back to prophecy, back to Psalms, back to Proverbs, back to Job.
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  This Bible is a living document.
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  It is a living word.
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  Jesus didn't struggle with it.
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  The scholars of the day didn't struggle with it.
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  They were pretty firm when they picked the 39 books that we included in the Old Testament.
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  They're extremely firm and there are thousands of documented discussions about the New Testament and what books we picked.
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  But at the end of the day, it's not something we have to worry about because it's something that God promises he's going to take care of.
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  So in Hebrews chapter four, back a few pages.
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  Verse 12 and 13.
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  For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword and piercing as far as division of the soul and spirit, both joints and marrow, able to judge the
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  thoughts and intentions of the heart.
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  There is no creature hidden from his sight, but all things are open and laid bare to the eyes of him.
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  to the eyes of him with whom we have to do.
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  There's nothing hidden from God.
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  and he's providing protection for his word.
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  It's not something that's going to change because God's not going to allow it.
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  It's not something that we have to worry about because we have faith in God, in His instruction, and in His desire to be with us, to be reunited with us.
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  With that, knowing that we are assured that God is providing for us, knowing that we have a God who we can see evidence all throughout history, has protected his word, has
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  protected his message to us.
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  who not only was willing to save the Word, but was willing to send the Word to us, was willing to offer his Son up to come here and show us what it meant to be the living Word
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  of God.
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  To be an example,
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  to be.
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  what we all hope to be.
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  someone who was so zealous and so strong in his knowledge of the word.
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  that he didn't have to make decisions, he just was.
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  He was the greatest of teachers.
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  He was someone who loved not just those around him, but loved so deeply that the whole world is now blessed through him.
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  Loved his creation so much that he was willing to offer himself as a sacrifice.
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  This is the same God that's actively protecting His Word.
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  So if anybody needs to be reunited with God, needs to follow the word religion to its original route, to be re-tied to God, if anybody needs a prayer, please come forward as we
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  stand and sing.