the inspiration of the Bible

People talk about the Bible as being God-breathed, meaning that God guided the thoughts and hearts of the authors to record, through their individual personality and style, exactly what He wanted to communicate to people in written form.  In fact, in the Old Testament alone, scripture claims to be the “Word of God” 2600+ times.  If the Bible wasn’t inspired by God, then I would question its application to my life.  Even if their accounts were accurate, are these 40 different authors sharing the right message to the millions of people who read the Bible, or were their beliefs entirely off base and formulated in their own minds?  But I have an unwavering faith that God “breathed” every sentence of scripture –- He spoke directly and indirectly to the authors and unambiguously counseled and instructed each of them as they put the pen to parchment.  And this faith doesn’t come from a simple hope that I am right.  It comes from a deep rooted trust in how the Bible is penetratingly, and sometimes painfully, accurate to my life and my condition as a human.  It comes from the ability of scripture to speak to me and touch my life in positively profound ways.  It comes from the reality of the “facts” about its inspiration, and because that is kinda the kick I’ve been on, these “facts” are what I am gonna share with you now.

Consider…

If the Bible wasn’t God-breathed, wouldn’t you expect it to include some of the erroneous beliefs from the particular time that it was written.  For example, 500 years ago, everybody thought the earth was flat.  If the Bible had been written 500 years ago (which it wasn’t—this is just an example so go with it lol), don’t you expect that mention of a flat earth would have been found within its pages because that is what man was entirely convinced of at that time?  Well, these kind of mistakes did not make it onto the pages of the Bible.  Not because the authors were crazy smart and ahead of their time, but because God was inspiring them, and He is ahead of all time.

So here is a specific example… Moses wrote the first 5 books of the Old Testament in 1500BC.  Archeologists found a medical journal in Egypt (where Moses is from) dating back to 1500BC.  This medical journal is called the Papyrus Ebers, and it is considered by historians to be the “most advanced medical journal of that time.”  This is what Papyrus Ebers suggested as medical cures:

**“To prevent the hair from turning grey, anoint it with the blood of a black calf which has been boiled in oil or with the fat of a rattle snake.”

**To save people bitten by poisonous snakes, physicians gave them magic water poured over idols.

**For a simple splinter, it was suggested to apply worms blood and donkey dung to the area.  The bacteria in these are now known to cause lock jaw and kill people FYI.     

Moses was born in and lived in Egypt for years.  He knew about the Papyrus Ebers; he was raised with it.  And yet when he led 2 million people out of Egypt, he didn’t turn to Papyrus Ebers for medical advice.  He would head up to Mount Sinai (the mountain where God would speak to Moses alone), and would come back to the people of Israel with all sorts of medical advice very opposite of Papyrus Ebers.  In fact, in the Bible, you know what God recommended to Moses for contagious diseases?  Not some magic water, or animal dung, or blood … He recommended quarantine.  And now 3500 years later, what do we do to take care of contagious diseases?  Quarantine.  The Bible was ahead of its time because God is ahead of all time, and He inspired it. 

Here’s another example…

In 1840, a physician named Ignes Simowitz worked in a hospital in Venice.  At that time, the normal routine was to perform autopsy’s on the first floor and then go to the second floor and examine pregnant women.  And this was before they washed their hands.  Simowitz noticed that the mortality rate was 84% among pregnant women, so he suggested that the doctors dip their hands in a bowl of water in between each case.  The doctors in Venice ran him out of town because they said he was suggesting something that was a complete waste of time.  Clearly, Simowitz was ahead of his time. 

Ironically, 3500 years ago, Moses wrote in the Bible about what you were supposed to do if you touched a dead body.  You were to take off all of your clothes and wash them, and then you were supposed to wash your hands in a particular way: place your hands under living water (which implies running water), then take your right fist and rub it in your left hand, and then take your left fist and rub it in your right hand.  And then you were supposed to never dry hands with cloth, but instead, you were supposed to stand with your hands hanging, letting the water drip off your elbows until the sun had dried your hands.  And now … so many years late, every surgeon does this exact procedure a dozen times a day before going into surgery.  If this wasn’t the word of God, then how could the Bible have been so spot-on so long ago? 

The Bible was not mislead by erroneous beliefs of its time because God breathed it.  Instead, it recommended things that were so far ahead of its time that we still use those principles today.  How could that even be possible unless God inspired all that was written in scripture? Just think about it.


K thanks for reading.  Grace and peace, my friends♥