What Is The Bible?

God’s Words. God says that the words written in the Bible are His words. He indicates this in 2 Timothy 3:16 when He says that all scripture is inspired. The word “inspired” comes from a Greek word that means “God breathed.” The message is simple. God is the real author of scripture - both the Old and New Testaments. He used human authors to write the books of the Bible, but the Bible is without error or mistake in the original documents. Numbers 23:19 tells us why the Bible is truthful, accurate and trustworthy. Why is the Bible accurate according to Numbers 23:19?

Objective Truth. Do you wonder if the Bible is really from God and is absolute truth? If you do, the answer is found in Deuteronomy 18:21-22. That passage says that we can know God has spoken through a prophet when the prophecy comes true. The Bible is a very unique book with approximately 737 prophecies recorded in about 8,500 verses. That is about 25% of the Bible. There are prophecies in both the Old and New Testaments. The Old Testament prophets, the New Testament apostles and Jesus Christ made predictions about the future. There are prophecies about the future of Israel, the future of other nations, cities, people, Jesus Christ and a future kingdom. One of the most amazing prophecies concerns the timing of the death of Jesus Christ.

Daniel 9:25-27 predicts that the Messiah, Jesus Christ, would be cut-off or die after 69 prophetic weeks which is 69 x 7 years or 483 Biblical years or 476 years and 24 days (365.239 days per year) after the order to rebuild the city of Jerusalem. The original biblical year contains 360 days. The order to rebuild Jerusalem was given in 444 B.C. by King Artaxerxes (Nehemiah 2:2-5). Nehemiah 2:1 tells us that this was the 20th year of King Artaxerxes’ reign. Since the Jews count the first year as the year of a king’s ascension (compare Daniel 1:5, 18; 2:1), we should then subtract 21 years (1 year ascension plus 20 years for his reign) from 465 B.C. (the year King Artaxerxes came to the throne). We will come to 444 B.C. Then if we count 476 years and 24 days from 444 B.C., we come to 10 Nisan A.D. 33, the very week in which Jesus died. Nisan is a Jewish month which overlaps the months of March and April.

Can you imagine that a prophecy given in 530 B.C. could be so accurately fulfilled? The prophecy was fulfilled to the exact week. No one dying before that week and no one who died after that week could be the Messiah. Amazingly Jesus not only died during that week, He also fulfilled all of the many Old Testament prophecies about the coming Messiah. Jesus, the Messiah, came to this earth for a purpose. He came to die so that our sins could be forgiven. Jesus returned to life. That was also prophesied in Ps. 16:10. Today Jesus is in heaven and plans to return to earth someday. Prophecy is the fingerprint of God. It is the proof the Bible is His book. There are many other prophecies which have been fulfilled.