The great detective looked at his friend Watson.
“ Circumstantial evidence is a very tricky thing; it may seem to point very straight to one thing, but if you shift your own point of view a little, you may find it pointing in an equally uncompromising manner to something entirely different.”1
Sherlock Holmes was right. Circumstantial evidence really is a tricky thing. So much depends on the way you look at it.
Many millions of people regard the circumstantial evidence against the Bible as damning. But almost all of them have taken a very one-sided view of it.
In this book I have tried to look at this evidence from another point of view. You know now-perhaps for the first time-nearly all the things that can be said against the Bible. But does the Bible appear any the worse for this?
You will remember how, in Part One, we saw a great deal of positive evidence that the Bible is a superhuman book. That evidence has never been properly answered by the Bibles enemies. They may try to shrug it off, but they cannot dispose of it.
Thus we started Part Two in a position of strength. We knew of many good reasons to believe that the Bible is true. We were going to keep those in the backs of our minds as we started to look at the case against the Bible.
In Chapter 12 we noted that difficulties were bound to exist. There are unsolved problems in every area of human knowledge. We can hardly expect the Word of the Almighty to be so simple that every question can be answered.
Chapter 13 debunked those twentieth-century idols, the Experts. We cannot do without experts; our modern civilisation depends upon them. (I earn my own living as a specialist in one narrow field of science and technology.) Experts are usually right on questions of fact. But they are often hopelessly wrong in their opinions. And yet they have somehow managed to bluff the general public into accepting their opinions as practically unquestionable.
Chapter 14 showed that there can be no half measures about the Bible. It claims to contain the very words of God. We cannot water down this claim and accept only the bits we like. There are overwhelming reasons for accepting the whole Bible as an inspired message from the Lord.
We saw the disastrous effects of trying to compromise, in Chapter 15. First you reject just a little here and a little there. Gradually you whittle away at the Bible until you have nothing left. Then comes the moral landslide. The present sorry state of our “Christian civilisation” is the direct result of its leaders glib rejection of the Bible.
In Chapter 16 we looked at the question of authorship. Some scholars consider that the Old Testament was written by the men whose names it bears. But many other scholars disagree. We looked at the reasons for both points of view, and found that modern criticisms of the Old Testament are based more on guesswork than on facts. In the New Testament we saw that there was a far greater supply of solid evidence; and this evidence strongly favours the traditional views about the authors of the New Testament.
Chapter 17 told the astonishing story of how the Bible has come down to us, across a gap of nineteen centuries or more. We saw strong evidence for the Bibles claim that each book was recognised as “Scripture” as soon as it was written, and for ever after was preserved as such. We marvelled at the accuracy of the ancient scribes who copied it by hand. We admired the efforts of hundreds of scholars to give us the best possible translation into our mother tongue. And we saw that there is no need to worry about the problem of interpretation
-so long as we are prepared to read the Bible for ourselves.
We saw in Chapter 18 that the Bible as a history book is second to none. Again and again new finds by archaeologists have proved it right, where once it was accused of being wrong. We saw that there is no real reason to reject its claim to be absolutely right, always.
So-called contradictions in the Bible were examined in Chapter 19. We saw that everyday life is full of things that look like contradictions, but which, when you know all the facts, are nothing of the kind. We found reassuring evidence that no real contradictions have ever been proved to exist in the Bible.
In Chapter 20 we looked at the slanderous things that are said about the Bible. We saw that it was neither indecent, nor bloodthirsty, nor unreliable, nor unfair-but just misrepresented by its critics.
Chapter 21 was the first of a series of chapters about the impact of modern science. We saw that it was more logical to believe in the miracle stories of the Bible than to reject them. And we saw that scientists themselves cant explain the existence of the universe with-out talking of “creation”.
Then we saw in Chapter 22 that it takes more faith to believe that evolution could have occurred without a Creative Power behind it than to believe the Book of Genesis.
Chapter 23 showed that the shakiest part of this shaky theory is that which deals with the evolution of man. We saw that Adam and Eve were real people; that they were specially created by God as the ancestors of the whole human race; and that we are not told how long ago they lived. We saw no clash between Bible-believing Christianity and anthropology-once the misconceptions on both sides were stripped away.
Finally, in Chapter 24 we saw that the existence of suffering is no reason for disbelief. Far from it: the Bibles own explanation of the reason for suffering is so convincing that it provides another powerful reason for belief
We have looked at the evidence on both sides.
We saw that the evidence for a God-given Bible is impressive. We saw that the evidence against the Bible is nothing like as weighty as its opponents suppose.
And yet most people disbelieve.
Why?
Have they weighed the evidence, and found it wanting? Or is there some other reason?
Yes, there is. There are several other reasons, in fact. It is not difficult to recognise the following six factors as the major causes of twentieth-century unbelief.
Once I was involved in a minor car accident. It was all my own fault. I said as much to the panel beater who was straightening out my dented wing.
“Lumme, guvnor,” he said, “youre the first bloke whats been in here this year who hasnt been in the right!”
I could well believe him. Motorists never like to admit that they are in the wrong. But motorists are not a special class of people. They are just ordinary human beings. And the sad fact is that none of us likes to be told off; we all hate facing up to our shortcomings. Hence the unpopularity of the Bible, which tells us fairly and squarely what God thinks of the way we behave.
A missionary once gave a Bible to an educated native. A few weeks later he asked him how he had enjoyed reading it.
“I didnt like it at all,” replied the native. “That book knows too much about me! It is like a second conscience.”
The truth often hurts. The things that the Bible tells us about ourselves are particularly painful. To admit that they are true is as unpleasant as admitting that the other fellow in a road accident was in the right. Our natural instinct is to defend ourselves against the Bibles criticisms. And the easiest way to do this is by convincing ourselves that the Bible is not true.
In 1969 Mr. Charles Holme moved away from an old farmhouse in Staffordshire to a smart new bungalow. When he moved he disposed of some of his furniture, including an old painting that had once belonged to his father. He thought it was a dull old picture that wouldnt suit his bright new home. So he accepted £4 for it.
Two years later he had the shock of his life, when he recognised the picture on a TV programme. Someone had spotted it in a London junk shop and identified it as a genuine Van Gogh. It had just fetched £46,000 at a sale in New York.2
Poor Mr. Holme! He had so many attractive things in his new bungalow that he had no room for a “dull old picture”. And so he lost a fortune which passed to someone else.
We must not laugh at Mr. Holmes misfortune. His story is a parable of our time. We have all been spoilt by the abundance of nice bright things in our lives. We have been so dazzled by them that we cannot recognise true riches when we see them. We have no room for a “dull old book” in our way of life. So like Mr. Holme, and like the Biblical character Esau,3 we settle for short-term happines-and miss the opportunity of untold riches.
Bibles are scarcer than diamonds in Russia today. A friend of mine has a young son who tried to smuggle a load of Russian Bibles to a church in Leningrad. Unfortunately his suitcase was searched at the Russian customs, and his precious cargo was discovered. The Bibles were confiscated while he was fined heavily and deported. Undeterred, he asked his accusers a searching question:
“Why are you making such a fuss? Why should the mighty Soviet Union be afraid of this little book?”
He was not surprised that they ignored his query. But he knew the answer. Bible-believing Christians do not make enthusiastic supporters of Russias atheistic rulers. So the men in the Kremlin regard the Bible as a threat to their security, and suppress it.
Although we may not realise it, many of us feel the same way about the Bible, deep down. If we were to let the Bible rule in our hearts, most of us would have to change our whole way of life. We cannot tolerate such a threat to our peace of mind. We want to remain securely entrenched in our present way of living. So we suppress the Bible in the only way open to us-by convincing ourselves that it is untrue.
Through an administrative mistake a perfectly healthy little boy was sent to a school for handicapped children. As the one normal boy in a crowd of cripples he felt dreadfully uncomfortable. But within a week he had solved his problem. He taught himself to walk with a very convincing limp. Nothing would convince him that his healthy condition was “right”, and that of everybody else was “wrong”.
The desire to conform is deep-rooted in every one of us. Jellyfish always go along with the tide; it takes a fish with a backbone to swim against it. The argument, “But hardly anybody believes that sort of stuff today!” has no logical force at all. Yet psychologically it is tremendously powerful.
There is only one way to resist that sort of argument. Remember that all through history men have been led astray by it. Within living memory hardly anybody believed that it would ever be possible for man to travel faster than sound. An early nineteenth-century professor, Dionysius Lardner, told the Dublin Royal Society that “men might as well expect to walk on the moon as cross the North Atlantic in one of those steamboats!” The world agreed with him. Hardly anybody thought that man would ever do either.
On the day that Jesus Christ was crucified, hardly anybody thought that the world would ever hear any more of Him. Most people thought He was finished. How wrong they were!
Yet human beings go on reacting in the same old way. Most people reject the Bible just because most other people reject the Bible, and they cant bear to be different.
The practical psychologist, Dale Carnegie, used to say that the only way to win an argument was to avoid it. This is only a slight overstatement of the truth. When a man once gets deeply involved in an argument, he is likely to stick to his guns whatever happens. His emotions become stirred, and after that no amount of logical evidence will move him. “I jolly well wont give in!” he says to himself, in effect.
The behaviour of a man called Hiel is typical of this attitude. The story begins some thirteen or fourteen centuries before Christ, when Joshua destroyed the city of Jericho. He forbade anyone to rebuild it, and prophesied what would happen if anyone disobeyed:
“ May the Lords curse light on the man who comes forward to rebuild this city of Jericho. The laying of its foundations shall cost him his eldest son; the setting up of its gates shall cost him his youngest.”4
About 500 years went by. The Bible and the archaeological record agree that during that period Jericho lay desolate. Then along came friend Hiel. Like so many of the people around us today, he appeared to have no fear of Bible prophecy coming true. He determined to rebuild Jericho.
He laid the foundations of the city-and his eldest son, Abiram, died. It is tempting to imagine what his wife might have said to him.
“You fool! You have defied the Scripture, and Abiram is dead. Let that be a lesson to you. Stop this crazy plan before the second part of the prophecy is fulfilled, and our other son dies.”
But Hiel took no notice. Perhaps he regarded his first sons death as a coincidence. Anyway, he pressed on obstinately and at last set the gates of the city in their place. And then his second son died.5 A tearful Mrs. Hiel had every justification for saying, “I told you so!”
Millions of unbelievers today act just like Hiel. They brush aside the evidence of prophecy already fulfilled, and stride on regardless of the Bibles warnings about the future. Christ commented that they will go on pursuing their own ways, right up to the day when He returns to fulfil the remaining prophecies of the Bible.6 As with Hiel, their obstinate refusal to face the facts will be their undoing.
This is the greatest reason of all. In a way it embraces all the other reasons. Human nature has a natural rebelliousness about it, a kind of built-in opposition to everything that comes from God. He did not create us that way; we have become like it of ourselves.7 The result is, in the words of Paul:
“ The desires of the flesh ["flesh” is Pauls word for what we call “human nature"] are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh; for these are opposed to each other, to prevent you doing what you would.”8
This inborn perversity of human nature has operated all through history. It caused the ancient Israelites to turn against Moses, even though he had just delivered them from a life of slavery in Egypt.9 It caused their descendants to disregard the words of the prophets, and persecute them. 10 It caused the Jews of the first century to crucify their King. And it is at the root of mens unreasonable attitude to the Bible, all through history.
Thus God gives us a word of advice. Because of the way we are made, it is difficult for us to be fair to the Bible. Recognising this fact is half the battle. If we once determine to give the Bible a fair chance, despite our instinctive dislike for it, we shall soon begin to see it in a very different light.
For one thing, the opinions of the unbelievers around us will gradually come to seem less important. We shall begin to recognise them for the blind expressions of prejudice that they are. The objections men raise against the Bible will look less and less weighty. And we shall find ourselves discovering more and more positive evidence that the Bible is true.
Part One of this book ended with a suggested prayer from Marks Gospel, for you to pray as you studied the Bible: “Lord I (want to) believe; help Thou mine unbelief!”
Now is a good time to add to this a second prayer, drawn from Lukes Gospel: “God, be merciful to me, a sinner.”11
This can be your way of recognising where you really stand. We are not in a position to set ourselves up as judges of the Bible. On the contrary, the Bible is going to judge us, one day.12
So we need to continue our studies with this sort of feeling in our hearts:
“Oh, Lord, I am beginning to see why the Bible always looked wrong. It was because there was something wrong with me. It was as if I had always looked at it through dirty, half-closed eyelashes. Now I want to look at it fairly and squarely-even though I know it is going to be painful to do so. I want to give the Bible a fair hearing, at last. Help me, Lord.”
To give the Bible a fair hearing. Yes, of course, thats what we need to do. But how do we set about it?
Part Three will point the way.