2. What does the Bible contain?
its character
reliability
morality
its content
The Composition of the Bible

3. Evidence for inspiration
self-made claims of scripture
necessary, but not sufficient
self-validation of consistency and unity
prophetic validation of fulfillment
historical validation and lack of contradiction
divine validation of Jesus Christ

4. What was Jesus’ view of scripture?
God’s word is truth (John 17:17)
infallible (Matt 22:29-32)
indestructible (Matt 5:17-20; John 10:35)
consistent (Luke 24:27,44)
authoritative (Matt 4:4; John 6:63; 12:44-50)

5. What exactly is inspired?
are these the inspired Word of God?
manuscript copies
English translations
modern sermons and interpretations
technically, no! — accommodatively, yes!
“inspiration” of original, error-free message
“inspiration” of process: tools to access message contain errors, but don’t affect message!

6. What about supposed errors?
must distinguish difficulties from contradictions
“errors” created from ignoring the context
“errors” assumed via argument from silence
NO violations of the law of non-contradiction
“something cannot be both ‘X’ and ‘not-X’ at the same time and in the same sense”
“Taking into account all contextual issues and all conventions that I know of that were operative in the day and time of the NT writers, I have yet to find a single example of a clear violation of the principle of noncontradiction anywhere in the NT.” (Ben Witherington, The Living Word of God, 117)

7. Names in the right place
Palestine:
Simon
Joseph
Lazarus
Judas
John
Jesus (Joshua)
Ananias
Jonathan
Matthew
Egypt:
Lazarus
Sabbataius
Joseph
Dositheus
Pappus
Ptolemaius
Samuel
Missing:
Moses
Elijah
David

8. Names in the right proportion
top nine men’s names
Palestine: 41.5%
Gospels/Acts: 40.3 %
top nine women’s names
Palestine: 49.7%
Gospels/Acts: 61.1 %
right proportions (individually and collectively)
four authors over five books
separated by hundreds of miles and decades of years

9. Names in the right precision
disambiguation
Simon: Peter, Zealot, Tanner, Cyrene, Leper
Mary: Magdalene, mother of James/Joses, mother of Jesus
NT reflects disambiguation precision
all names with qualifiers are ranked at top
only top-ranked name regularly without qualifier: Jesus!
all other names used without qualifiers less prominent
how would a fraudster know to do this?

10. Example: the apostles (Matt 10.2-4)
Simon (#1): qualifier
Andrew (unranked): introduced in relation to brother (uncommon)
James (#11): qualifier
John (#5): qualifier
Philip (#61): no qualifier
Bartholomew (#50): no qualifier
Thomas (unranked): no qualifier
Matthew (#9): qualifier
Thaddaeus (#39): no qualifier
Judas (#4): qualifier
chart maxes out at 80 most common names

11. What does the Bible contain?
its character
reliability
morality
its content
how does the Bible begin and why?
what are the most important sections and why?
what is the main theme/story of the Bible?
The Composition of the Bible