A Bíblia e Como Chegou Até Nós (Ed. Vida)

This book has four parts: inspiration, canonicity, transmission, and translation.

The general conclusion of the book sums it up well:

The general purpose of this book has been twofold: historical and theological. Historically and critically, it has been an attempt to answer the question as to whether the Bible of the twentieth century, based as it is on the critical Hebrew and Greek texts, is a faithful reproduction of the books produced by its original authors. The answer is by now obvious, and it is this: No book from antiquity comes to the modern world with greater evidence for its authenticity than does the Bible. Both the kind and the amount of evidence that supports the fidelity of the present critical text are greater than for any other book from the ancient world.

Directly related to this historical conclusion is a theological one. For if there is overwhelming evidence that the biblical documents are genuine and authentic -- that they stem from alleged periods and authors -- then one must face seriously their persistent claim to divine inspiration. When these claims are thoroughly examined and honestly faced, one can but conclude that the Bible as a whole claims to be the Word of God, and the evidence confirms this claim.

Along with the question as to whether the books of the Bible are divinely inspired, it has been necessary to address the kindred question as to which books of the Bible are inspired, that is, the question of canonicity. One statement will suffice as a summary for both this and the foregoing question. The sixty-six books of the Protestant Bible known today are the entire and complete canon of inspired Scripture, handed down through the centuries without substantial change or any doctrinal variation.

Now, that is what they think. Predictably, as an atheist, I disagree that their arguments are as conclusive as they think they are. Their arguments tend to be rather one sided. When they agree with a point, they only consider the evidence that agrees with that position. When they disagree with a point, they dwell nearly exclusively on anything negative which can be said of this view. Now, this may not be an invalid method of arguing in the social sciences, but when one is making the claims these authors make about the Bible, I expect a higher standard than one would use to argue, for example, deeper meanings behind Oliver Twist. The authors even explicitly spell out their bias on page 156:

Any results of higher criticism that are contrary to [the orthodox view of the Bible] are incompatible with the traditional doctrine of the inspiration and authority of Scripture... such contrary views of Scripture are actually unorthodox.

This does not seem like honest evaluation of the evidence to me. Later the authors claim that any criticisms contrary to their belief must be based in various "isms" (and obviously all "isms" are evil).

Overall, the authors have a very conservative Protestant point of view, and they do not work so much to justify it as to show how taking that point of view as a starting point, the opinions of the Bible implied by that point of view follow.

This is the evidence that the authors claim prove the Bible is the Word of God and, parenthetically, my opinion of these "proofs":

1. The nature of the Bible itself is evidence for its inspiration (a false dichotomy that the authors of the Bible were either telling the truth or consciously lying).

2. The witness of the Spirit to the heart of the believer (sure, if you're only trying to convince people who believe the Bible is inspired that it is inspired).

3. The ability of the Bible to transform people's lives (lots of religions and non-religious belief systems make that claim).

4. Some of the events in the Bible are confirmed by historic evidence (wow, people tried to explain real events in terms of the supernatural? Shocking!).

5. The testimony of Christ that the Bible is the Word of God (i.e., you should believe the Bible is true because the Bible says that someone the Bible claims is important said the Bible is true).

6. Fulfilled prophecies (every time I have looked up a prophecy on the internet, whether or not it has been fulfilled is quite sketchy. For example, a prophecy saying Egypt will fall from power and be barren forever is not really fulfilled by the fact that Egypt is no longer a dominant power unless you start allowing massive hyperbole in prophecies and then it seems that you can find some event that seems to fulfill nearly any prophecy).

7. The influence of the Bible (I would say the the U.S. Constitution is pretty influential too, but I am guessing the authors would not claim that its influence implies it should be taken as divinely inspired).

8. The apparent indestructibility of the Bible as another sign that it is from God (I don't even know how the fact that the Bible has not been destroyed implies that it is divinely inspired...).

9. The integrity of the human authors (again, this is the false dichotomy mentioned above)

10. The miracles of the Bible confirm its divine origin (you know, those miracles that are documented in the Bible...).

11. The claim that the Bible could not have come from good or evil creatures because good creatures would not have lied and claimed it came from God and evil creatures would not have written something that caused so much good ((a) I am not so sure that evil creatures can't cause good -- whether or not they intend it, (b) how many ways can you express the same false dichotomy?, (c) the Bible has caused bad as well as good)

The authors admit that none of these alone is overwhelming evidence, but claim that in sum they are overwhelming. I am not quite sure how, and they fail to enlighten me on that point.

They authors make some points that do not undermine any of their core claim points, but which do undermine points commonly made by conservative Christians. In particular, conservative Christians often claim that our moral law is based on the Bible. However, as the authors of this book point out

To the biblical student familiar with the phraseology of the New Testament, it will be no surprise to find among the inscriptions [from pagan writers] the well-known "I have fought a good fight," "Love your husband," and "Rebuke not an elder." The list of sins (excepting idolatry and covetousness) are also similar. It seems that both Christian and pagan writers shared a common core of culture and terminology

Another amusing point was when the authors pointed out that some translations have translated Matthew 19:24 as "It is easier for a rope to go through the eye of a needle..." rather than the more traditional camel. I find that interesting because the alternate translation makes so much more sense and appears to be equally valid since the Aramaic words for rope and camel are the same. Overall, the translation and transmission sections were disappointing because they were mostly lists of different source texts and translations ("then there was this translation made in this year by this person based on these manuscripts" over and over again for 50 pages). I would have been much more interested in more "camel" discussions of why translation is hard and some of the specific ambiguities claimed.

Reading this book was educational and probably worthwhile (although I should have skimmed more). However, when the authors move away from straight facts or descriptions of the various academic disciplines involved they tend to fall into a mode where they are not convincingly justifying their claims. This made a work that I was initially quite interested in reading disappointing and frustrating in the end. ( )

While I appreciate some of the comments, please for information sake do not refer to biased writing without some form or hint of reference. the title suggest a general introduction, that's the first clue, furthermore I do not think anyone writes a book with the title "Introduction" hoping to be a main of source of reference.
In ones attempt to use any book, it is always a good idea to use various sources then draw conclusions, furthermore the book also was written considering the Bible, rubbishing the writers does not help anyone then this site simply becomes another Trip Advisor website. ( )

Lots of good information, but not written very well and unbalanced. Lots of time spent where a little is sufficient, a little time spent where a lot would have been nice. ( )

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