GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE BIBLE

Description

NORMAN L GEISLER & WILLIAM E NIX

‘A great one volume work on the inspiration, canonization, transmission and translation of the Bible. There are also good B&W photos, e.g. the Habakkuk Commentary, one of the Dead Sea Scrolls, so one of the earliest extant manuscripts of the OT; and P52, the oldest NT fragment.

There are good refutations of a number of false views, e.g. that an inspired Bible can contain error. The authors demonstrate that Biblical errantists confuse several concepts:

Adaptation to human finitude vs accommodation to human error: the former does not entail the latter. A mother might tell her four-year-old `you grew inside my tummy’ – this is not false, but language simplified to the child’s level. Conversely, `the stork brought you’ is an outright error. Similarly, God, the author of truth, used some simplified descriptions (e.g. using the earth as a reference frame, as modern scientists do today) and anthropomorphisms, but never error.

The sections on the accuracy of transmission and translation should help Christians have confidence that when they read a Bible accurately translated into their own language today, they are reading the very Word of God.’ — Dr J Sarfati, theological writer and scientist, Atlanta; formerly Brisbane and Wellington