Why do some people say the Bible is God's word?

Question

I'm new to Christianity, so I've been using Yahoo Answers to answer my religious questions. I hope you don't take them into offense in anyway.

The Bible wasn't written by God directly, right?
So why do people say it is God's word?
From what I've read, yes, it does have things that God directly said, but how in the world can this be a basis of religion?

Why do people go by this?
Indeed, it does have wonderful advice and wisdom,
but does that mean that a person can attribute all of it to one figure in religion? (peoples contributing to one figure)

In what ways can this be plausible?
From what I've learned in history, the Catholic faith has gone through much corruption through wielding so much power in ealier times, so why is this book not considered thought up of while in that corruption? I know that the Catholic faith wasn't the first church, but it was the most influential

So what I'm asking is why is the Bible the word of God and wouldn't the corruption deal with it?

Answer 1

SIDEBAR: In your Bible studies you also will find the word of God referred to as a sword or a seed.



QUESTION:The Bible wasn't written by God directly, right? So why do people say it is God's word?



John 1:1. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2. The same was in the beginning with God. 3. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.



Jesus is the word of God.



John 1:14. And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.



So all that is in the Bible is the word of God, Jesus, who is the truth.







QUESTION: From what I've read, yes, it does have things that God directly said, but how in the world can this be a basis of religion? Why do people go by this?



The word of God is not the basis of a religion. It is the spiritual food that gives us life. If you stop eating physically then you will die physically. Those who do not have the word of God in them and study the word of God are spiritually dead (God knows them not).



Matthew 4:4 But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. (also Luke 4:4)







QUESTION: Indeed, it does have wonderful advice and wisdom, but does that mean that a person can attribute all of it to one figure in religion? (peoples contributing to one figure)



I do not think of the Bible as a "how to guide". It is the will of God expressed in words that we can read and listen too. The word of God is Jesus, who says that he came in the name of his father to do his father's will. (John 14:10,11,24) So I do not attribute the act of following God to one figure.



The word of God talks about giving food, shelter, and clothing to the poor. This is a great thing to do but if they are not give the spiritual food, word of God, they shall not be saved. So the poor that need food, shelter, and clothing are spiritually poor/starved.



Matthew 8:8. The centurion answered and said, Lord, I am not worthy that thou shouldest come under my roof: but speak the word only, and my servant shall be healed.







QUESTION: In what ways can this be plausible? From what I've learned in history, the Catholic faith has gone through much corruption through wielding so much power in earlier times, so why is this book not considered thought up of while in that corruption? I know that the Catholic faith wasn't the first church, but it was the most influential. So what I'm asking is why is the Bible the word of God and wouldn't the corruption deal with it?



Not sure what you are asking but John 8 and 1 Corinthians 2 might help.





I have highlighted a few parts of the Bible. But answers to your questions are throughout the Bible. All the best on your studies.

Answer 2

Any person who doesn't believe the Bible to be the Word of God is either not a true Christian or one who is very weak and/or misguided.



There is some good instruction in some of the answers being given but you need to deal with your approach and not just your understanding.

Your mind will always have questions so you need to know how to get the answers.



Those who worship God must worship in spirit and in truth, because God is a spirit. Reading the Word is taken up as worship and the spirit speaks understanding to you as you read.



You must read it like a love letter and understand that from beginning to end the Bible speaks of Jesus Christ (the Word made flesh) and He in turn, being now the dispensation of the Holy Spirit, speaks to the tables of our heart.



Right now you need experience before doctrine or understanding. The words on the Bible page literally become food and life to your spirit.



You say you are new to Christianity. How did you come in? God calls people to be Chrisitans. There are no volunteers in this army. If you are called of God the Word of God is going to be the focal point of your life.



The Bible will speak to you of Jesus. It will verify or dismiss preachings, teachings, etc. It is your guide, the best lie detector every made and much more.



I suggest your pray: "Lord Jesus if this is your Word show me." If there is a verse or an idea you do not understand. Pray that it be revealed to you and trust the Lord for an answer.



Sometimes he will give you another Scripture which gives you the understanding. Sometimes he will send another person to you with the answer. Sometimes he will give you the answer at the next worship service you attend, Sometimes He will just speak the answer to your heart. Sometimes He will give you a life lesson or a trial. And there is more!



Finally, if someone tells you something about Christ or Christianity (such as me or others here) you check out what is told you against the Bible. If it doesn't line up with the Word then you don't ever accept it. This is true be it your mommy, daddy, an angel from heaven, thoughts in your head, voices in your mind, or great religious leaders.



I know this is long, but anyone who is called in these days needs all the help they can get.

Answer 3

Large portions of Christianity (non-Catholic, mostly) believe that the bible is the divine word of god as he "breathed" it to the men who wrote it. The believe it is the infallible word of god, word for word.



If the bible says it rained for 40 days and 40 nights all over the world, they believe it did... rather than thinking rationally that there is no way the writer could have possibly known it was raining on the ENTIRE WORLD (the Weather Channel didn't exist) but that to the ignorant masses back then, what they saw WAS the world. It has also recently been "interpreted" that there were dinosaurs on the ark... not fully grown ones because those would be too big, but babies or eggs.



You get the idea. Catholicism, on the other hand, tells their congregants that the bible, while divinely inspired, is not historical fact but a guideline consisting of great stories inspired by god and recorded by man.



Catholicism was the first of the Christian-based religions... all others are those that branched off of Catholicism when they had different opinions on things. But there were MANY other religions on this earth WAY before Catholicism, something that a huge number of Christians refuse to acknowledge.

Answer 4

Because unlike any other text on earth It is the immutable Living Word of God. It is not just some book written by men. It is written by men, sinful men by the divine revelation and inspiration of the Holy Spirit. It is very important to clarify exactly what role the Emperor Constantine played in the Council of Nicaea, what the purpose for the council was, what happened at Nicaea, and briefly how the canon—the Bible as we know it—was formed. Constantine was a Roman Emperor who lived from 274 to 337 A.D. He is most famous for becoming the single ruler of the Roman Empire (after deceiving and defeating Licinius, his brother-in-law) and supposedly converting to Christianity. It is debated whether or not Constantine was actually a believer (according to his confessions and understanding of the faith) or just someone trying to use the church and the faith to his own advantage. Constantine called the Council of Nicaea—the first general council of the Christian church, 325 A.D.—primarily because he feared that disputes within the church would cause disorder within the empire. The dispute in mind was Arianism, which was the belief that Jesus was a created being. The famous phrase they were disputing was, "There was when He was not." This was in reference to Jesus and was declared heretical by the council and thus resulted in the following words about Christ in the Nicene Creed: "God from true God…from the Father…not made." It was determined by the council that Christ was homoousia, meaning, one substance with the Father. Concerning manuscripts that were burned at the order of Constantine, there is really no mention of such a thing actually happening at the order of Constantine or at the Council of Nicaea. The Arian party's document claiming Christ to be a created being, was abandoned by them because of the strong resistance to it and was torn to shreds in the sight of everyone present at the council. Constantine, and the Council of Nicaea, for that matter, had virtually nothing to do with the forming of the canon. It was not even discussed at Nicaea. The council that formed an undisputed decision on the canon took place at Carthage in 397, sixty years after Constantine's death. However, long before Constantine, 21 books were acknowledged by all Christians (the 4 Gospels, Acts, 13 Paul, 1 Peter, 1 John, Revelation). There were 10 disputed books (Hebrews, James, 2 Peter, 2-3 John, Jude, Ps-Barnabas, Hermas, Didache, Gospel of Hebrews) and several that most all considered heretical—Gospels of Peter, Thomas, Matthaias, Acts of Andrew, John, etc. Liberal scholars and fictional authors like to purport the idea that the gospels of Thomas and Peter (and other long-disputed books) contain truths that the church vehemently stomped out, but that simply has no basis historically. It is closer to the truth to say that no serious theologians really cared about these books because they were obviously written by people lying about authorship and had little basis in reality. That is one reason why a council declaring the canon was so late in coming (397 AD), because the books that were trusted and the ones that had been handed down were already widely known.

Answer 5

Seeing that human hands wrote the words of the Bible of course there is corruption involved. That's why, personally, I have a hard time believing in it. For all I know, I wouldn't be following God's word but another human's word on how I should live my life.

Answer 6

The Bible is just a collection of ancient books, which viewed from a nonbeliever's perspective are pretty damned stupid.



A lot of Christians refer to the Bible as the Word of God, without even realizing that the Bible itself reserves that description not to some silly collection of books, but to Jesus. This is heretical by early Christian standards.

Answer 7

Ok, first lets start with the first five books of Moses, these were, according to the Bible itself, given directly by G-d to Moses on mount siani, then moses wrote them down, the jewish epople were the "gaurdians" of these books, it was their whole identity(take the Toarahh from the Jew and no more Jew), when examining these writing to the oldest text we have, the dead sea scrolls, we find little to nothing changed, so it is G-d's word because G-d "gave" it to moses verbally and moses wrote it, second if there is little change to the writings over many years(dead sea scroll as compared to today, the scrolls date from 200 B.C. to 68 A.D.) then we can have some faitht hat there was little if any corruption in these writing. Now you are right that when King James translated the book many things were changed to fit the catholic understanding, history does prove this. But also as men gain knowledge many of your leaders in christianity have studied these writings and found them to be accurate, but their thinking may influence how they "translate" these writins as well, this is why Paul states "study to show yourself approved..." you should not take anyones answer as "fact" but study it for yourself, and question, but pleae do not ask questions of Yahoo for your spiritual understanding but rather find someplace you feel comfortable in and ask them, but if any of them tell you not to question get out. Plus ask some Rabbi's they are friendly and will try to help you, though they are not "educated" in the new testament they do have a vast knowledge of the Bible and how why it can be trusted.

Answer 8

I am not a Christian nor a biblical scholar although I do read the bible sometimes as a philisophy. My spiritual practices center around African Hoodoo Root Work. I feel that the DR MARTIN LUTHER KING JR puts it in a much better perspective when he said. "I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality." It is refreshing to see that a Christian can look at the possibilities with an open mind.

Answer 9

Says who Bible is God's word? All of the words are man made. Man's words, that is why they will always have old/new testiment.

Answer 10

look man, u got some serious learning to do. let me introduce myself, i am a muslim and im a believer that bible and the holy jewish books are the words of God, and were written by Mosses(Musa) and Jesus(Eisa). But the initial or purified versions of bible are not present because they were changed by the rulers of that time. But still bible is god's word..

Answer 11

The Bible is not written by God but it is inspired by God. Moses brought the Ten Commandments. Our laws has the origin from there.



The New Testament is written by the people who actually followed Jesus, eye witnessed His miracles, dined with Him etc. So they are very qualified to write about it.



The Bible is God's life manual for us. His love letters for us.

Answer 12

This is how Peter described the Word of God: "...Instead, men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit."

(II Peter 1:21b) And Paul emphasized to Timothy, " All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness..." (II Timothy 3:16)



Allow me to show you how we came to have our Bible. When the translators of the King James Bible wrote the Old Testament, the oldest available manuscript for them to use, was known as the Masoretic Text. This had been written in the 9th century A.D. It was this text that the translators based their work on the Old Testament. In 1947, a shepherd boy discovered some pottery in caves in the area called Qumran, near the Dead Sea. In these jars, he discovered scrolls, which archaeologists and Bible scholars have researched ever since. Every book of the Old Testament (except Esther) was discovered. Most of these scrolls are dated to 150 B.C. After comparing these Dead Sea Scrolls to the Masoretic Text, the scholars discovered an amazing degree of unanimity between the two, although they were written a thousand years apart. Further, the Septuagint (the Greek language translation of the Hebrew Bible) was also compared. With all of these references, there is plenty of evidence that no biblical doctrine has been tampered with.



Next, let's take a look at the New Testament. There is no larger ancient body of manuscript evidence in the history of mankind, than the papyri and parchment manuscripts of the New Testament. With over five thousand actual Greek manuscripts, and numerous other manuscripts in four other languages, there are about twenty-four thousand available manuscript texts for the New Testament.



Even if we didn't have these documents, we could almost have a complete New Testament from extra-biblical sources, such as ancient lectionaries, church fathers' records/sermons/writings, etc.



No other body of ancient work comes close. No one really disputes Julius Caesar's The Gallic Wars (10 manuscripts remain, with the earliest one dating to 1,000 years after the original autograph). No one really disputes Pliny the Younger's Natural History (7 manuscripts; 750 years elapsed). Or Thucydides' History (8 manuscripts; 1,300 years elapsed). No one disputes Herodotus' History (8 manuscripts; 1,350 years elapsed). No one really disputes Plato (7 manuscripts; 1,300 years elapsed). No one really disputes Tacitus' Annals (20 manuscripts; 1,000 years elapsed.) Homer's Iliad, the most renowned book of ancient Greece, is the second best-preserved literary work of all antiquity, with 643 copies of manuscript support discovered to date. In those copies, there are 764 disputed lines of text, as compared to 40 lines in all the New Testament manuscripts.



But we have ancient manuscripts of the New Testament that are written within a generation of Christ's resurrection, and people have the audacity to say it's been tampered with!

Answer 13

Some people are stupid, do not think, and believe whatever people tell them to believe. They do not question they just follow orders. It is a sad existence. God did not write the Bible, man did. Man came up with the Bible and God as a security blanket.

Answer 14

if you actually read the bible(the book of Genesis) you would know that what seperated humans from being in GOD's presence is sin, the fact that we sin by our own free will is the answer to your question. The catholic church, the protestant church, and any other christian denomination are lead by humans, therefore, since humans are not GOD, we will sin, we will be corrupt, and we will be forgiven for our mistakes. The fact that we will be forgiven and loved is the real treasure in Christianity.

Answer 15

yeah..

it's like a word passed on and misunderstood...

actually the bible is written by men inspired by the holy spirit...

we know that the holy spirit is God as well..

and the things that these men write are the things that the holy spirit wants to tell us...

that's why some people call it God's word because they are the things God wants us to know...

thigns he wants to tell us...

Answer 16

Bible was the book revealed by God to His messengers, but people made alterations in it. Now the present Bible is an altered book.

Answer 17

Yes it was, through the anointing of His Spirit on the men who brought it to us.



You might like to look at this video if your computer will support it: http://www.ibs.org/bibles/about/translation/index.php



you might also like to look at this exhibition online or even go to see it if you can: http://www.moas.org/



For the record I am Catholic and this person above: rlrose63 is misrepresenting my faith. We believe that the Bible is the Word of God. Just like any other Bible believing Christian Church.

Answer 18

The Bible was inspired by God. Man wrote down the words, as God told them what to put.

Answer 19

The Bible claims that it was inspired by God Himself (2nd Timothy 3:16)



“Inspiration” is the theological word, derived from the Latin term spiro, used to refer to the process whereby God superintended the human authors of scripture so that what they wrote was simultaneously their own words as well the Word of God Himself; God “breathed out” His words through the writings (using the minds and personalities) of His spokespeople (2nd Timothy 3:16). Thus, through Spirit-inspired writings God has preserved an historical/theological record of His words and deeds and has given it to His covenant people as a means of grace that they might trust Him fully and obey Him implicitly. As a result of our sinfulness and finiteness we stand in need of such divine guidance and wisdom; scripture was inspired to that end.

Inspiration, however, is not limited to mechanical dictation (indeed, very little of it can be said to be mechanical in any way), as we might have, say, in the receiving of the Ten Commandments (or the letters to the churches in Revelation 2-3), but rather, occurred in a variety of situations involving the writers as whole people (their minds, emotions, wills, etc.) in their own particular life situations (linguistic, religious, political, economic, etc.). The end product, however, was always God’s Word to man through man (2nd Tim 3:16; 2nd Pet 1:20-21) and carries God’s “full weight and authority.” Technically speaking, inspiration applies to the autographa (not later copies or translations).

Some theologians have referred to the verbal (extending to the actual words, not just concepts), plenary (the entire Bible, not only those parts that seem to speak directly to issues of faith and practice) inspiration of Scripture. This is the view that (1) best corresponds to the view of OT writers, the prophets, Christ Himself and His apostles, and (2) best represents the historic position/understanding of the church on this issue. Since the Enlightenment in France and Germany (17th/18th centuries), however, it has been fashionable to deny the verbal plenary inspiration of Scripture in light of apparent historical inaccuracies and philosophical objections, particularly with the existence and nature of God as well as the limitations of language. But, while we can learn much from these views, we may safely set aside their anti-super naturalistic prejudices as both unfounded and contrary to the teaching of Jesus who Himself strongly upheld the complete trustworthiness of Scripture without reserve (e.g., Matt 5:17-20).

Answer 20

As far as Corruption goes in any Religion "This is caused by Man"

Why do I say this ........easily..........Man decides that he does not like a certain rule in a particular Religion and WhaLa He makes a Sect. of his own.........which will allow what ever rule he wants changed alright.........But is this really alright.......the answer is NO........

Is the Bible the Word of God..........Yes it is.......Although it may have been written by Man ..........It was done Through God

The Holy Spirit talked to Man and told him what to write..........

Answer 21

i dont think im quite getting what your saying however, the Bible says its by the word of god, written by man through divine inspiration. you could think of it as a boss and secratary, the secratary is writing a letter that is being dictated by the boss. same sort of view.

Answer 22

good question im new to christianity too. i asked a similar question. click on my thing aznboyjohn and there are 2 questions that ive asked and the answers ive recieved were very hlepful. i asked twice can we trust the bible, hope this helps.

Answer 23

God spoke to us through his prophets (Moses, Isiah, etc). They wrote down his words to them exactly as he told them to. It's called faith, honey.

Answer 24

Dude, you need to get help. Yahoo Answers is no place to get spiritual help.

Answer 25

just remember...bible was put together ..some 80 years..after prophet Jesus...

how credible could it be ???

Answer 26

Just curious, whatdo you think was the first christian faith?

Answer 27

this is not the place to do research on your religion!