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The Bible’s Fight to LiveThe Bible—God’s Word or Man’s?
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Chapter 2
The Bible’s Fight to Live
There are many strands of evidence proving that the Bible really is God’s Word. Each strand is strong, but when all are taken together, they are unbreakable. In this chapter and the one following, we will discuss just one strand of evidence: the history of the Bible as a book. The truth is, it is nothing short of a miracle that this remarkable book has survived until today. Consider the facts for yourself.
1. What are some details about the Bible?
THE Bible is more than just a book. It is a rich library of 66 books, some short and some quite long, containing law, prophecy, history, poetry, counsel, and much more. Centuries before the birth of Christ, the first 39 of these books were written—mostly in the Hebrew language—by faithful Jews, or Israelites. This part is often called the Old Testament. The last 27 books were written in Greek by Christians and are widely known as the New Testament. According to internal evidence and the most ancient traditions, these 66 books were written over a period of about 1,600 years, beginning when Egypt was a dominant power and ending when Rome was mistress of the world.
Only the Bible Survived
2. (a) What was the situation of Israel when the Bible started to be written? (b) What were some other written works that were produced during the same time period?
2 More than 3,000 years ago, when the writing of the Bible got started, Israel was just one small nation among many in the Middle East. Jehovah was their God, while the surrounding nations had a bewildering variety of gods and goddesses. During that period of time, the Israelites were not the only ones to produce religious literature. Other nations too produced written works that reflected their religion and their national values. For example, the Akkadian legend of Gilgamesh from Mesopotamia and the Ras Shamra epics, written in Ugaritic (a language spoken in what is now northern Syria), were doubtless very popular. The vast literature of that era also included works such as The Admonitions of Ipu-wer and The Prophecy of Nefer-rohu in the Egyptian language, hymns to different divinities in Sumerian, and prophetic works in Akkadian.1
3. What marks the Bible as different from other religious literature produced in the Middle East during the same period?
3 All these Middle Eastern works, however, met a common fate. They were forgotten, and even the languages they were written in became extinct. It was only in recent years that archaeologists and philologists learned of their existence and discovered how to read them. On the other hand, the first written books of the Hebrew Bible have survived right up to our own time and are still widely read. Sometimes scholars claim that the Hebrew books in the Bible were derived in some way from those ancient literary works. But the fact that so much of that literature was forgotten while the Hebrew Bible survived marks the Bible as significantly different.
The Guardians of the Word
4. What grave problems of the Israelites may have seemed to put the Bible’s survival in doubt?
4 Make no mistake, from a human standpoint the survival of the Bible was not a foregone conclusion. The communities that produced it suffered such difficult trials and bitter oppression that its survival to our day is truly remarkable. In the years before Christ, the Jews who produced the Hebrew Scriptures (the “Old Testament”) were a relatively small nation. They dwelt precariously amid powerful political states that were jostling with one another for supremacy. Israel had to fight for its life against a succession of nations, such as the Philistines, the Moabites, the Ammonites, and the Edomites. During a period when the Hebrews were divided into two kingdoms, the cruel Assyrian Empire virtually wiped out the northern kingdom, while the Babylonians destroyed the southern kingdom, taking the people into an exile from which only a remnant returned 70 years later.
5, 6. What attempts were made that endangered the very existence of the Hebrews as a distinct people?
5 There are even reports of attempted genocide against the Israelites. Back in the days of Moses, Pharaoh ordered the murder of all their newborn baby boys. If his order had been observed, the Hebrew people would have been annihilated. (Exodus 1:15-22) Much later, when the Jews came under Persian rule, their enemies plotted to get a law passed intended to exterminate them. (Esther 3:1-15) The failure of this scheme is still celebrated in the Jewish Festival of Purim.
6 Later still, when the Jews were subject to Syria, King Antiochus IV tried very hard to Hellenize the nation, forcing it to follow Greek customs and worship Greek gods. He too failed. Instead of being wiped out or assimilated, the Jews survived while, one after the other, most of the national groups around them disappeared from the world scene. And the Hebrew Scriptures of the Bible survived with them.
7, 8. How was the survival of the Bible threatened by the tribulations of the Christians?
7 The Christians, who produced the second part of the Bible (the “New Testament”), were also an oppressed group. Their leader, Jesus, was killed like a common criminal. In the early days after his death, Jewish authorities in Palestine tried to suppress them. When Christianity spread to other lands, the Jews hounded them, trying to hinder their missionary work.—Acts 5:27, 28; 7:58-60; 11:19-21; 13:45; 14:19; 18:5, 6.
8 In the time of Nero, the initially tolerant attitude of the Roman authorities changed. Tacitus boasted of the “exquisite tortures” inflicted on Christians by that vicious emperor, and from his time on, being a Christian was a capital offense.2 In 303 C.E., Emperor Diocletian acted directly against the Bible.a In an effort to stamp out Christianity, he ordered that all Christian Bibles should be burned.3
9. What would have happened if campaigns of extermination against the Jews and the Christians had succeeded?
9 These campaigns of oppression and genocide were a real threat to the Bible’s survival. If the Jews had gone the way of the Philistines and the Moabites or if the efforts of first the Jewish and then the Roman authorities to stamp out Christianity had succeeded, who would have written and preserved the Bible? Happily, the guardians of the Bible—first the Jews and then the Christians—were not wiped out, and the Bible survived. There was, however, another serious threat if not to the survival at least to the integrity of the Bible.
Fallible Copies
10. How was the Bible originally preserved?
10 Many of the aforementioned ancient works that were subsequently forgotten had been engraved in stone or stamped on durable clay tablets. Not so the Bible. This was originally written on papyrus or on parchment—much more perishable materials. Thus, the manuscripts produced by the original writers disappeared long, long ago. How, then, was the Bible preserved? Countless thousands of copies were laboriously written out by hand. This was the normal way to reproduce a book before the advent of printing.
11. What inevitably happens when manuscripts are copied by hand?
11 There is, however, a danger in copying by hand. Sir Frederic Kenyon, the famous archaeologist and librarian of the British Museum, explained: “The human hand and brain have not yet been created which could copy the whole of a long work absolutely without error. . . . Mistakes were certain to creep in.”4 When a mistake crept into a manuscript, it was repeated when that manuscript became the basis for future copies. When many copies were made over a long period of time, numerous human errors crept in.
12, 13. Who assumed responsibility for preserving the text of the Hebrew Scriptures?
12 In view of the many thousands of copies of the Bible that were made, how do we know that this reproduction process did not change it beyond all recognition? Well, take the case of the Hebrew Bible, the “Old Testament.” In the second half of the sixth century B.C.E., when the Jews returned from their Babylonian exile, a group of Hebrew scholars known as Sopherim, “scribes,” became the custodians of the Hebrew Bible text, and it was their responsibility to copy those Scriptures for use in public and private worship. They were highly motivated, professional men, and their work was of the highest quality.
13 From the seventh century to the tenth century of our Common Era, the heirs of the Sopherim were the Masoretes. Their name comes from a Hebrew word meaning “tradition,” and essentially they too were scribes charged with the task of preserving the traditional Hebrew text. The Masoretes were meticulous. For example, the scribe had to use a properly authenticated copy as his master text, and he was not allowed to write anything from memory. He had to check each letter before writing it.5 Professor Norman K. Gottwald reports: “Something of the care with which they discharged their duties is indicated in the rabbinic requirement that all new manuscripts were to be proofread and defective copies discarded at once.”6
14. What discovery made it possible to confirm the transmission of the Bible text by the Sopherim and the Masoretes?
14 How accurate was the transmission of the text by the Sopherim and the Masoretes? Until 1947 it was difficult to answer that question, since the earliest available complete Hebrew manuscripts were from the tenth century of our Common Era. In 1947, however, some very ancient manuscript fragments were found in caves in the vicinity of the Dead Sea, including parts of books of the Hebrew Bible. A number of fragments dated to before the time of Christ. Scholars compared these with existing Hebrew manuscripts to confirm the accuracy of the transmission of the text. What was the result of this comparison?
15. (a) What was the result of comparing the Dead Sea scroll manuscript of Isaiah with the Masoretic text? (b) What should we conclude from the fact that some manuscripts found at the Dead Sea show a certain amount of textual variance? (See footnote.)
15 One of the oldest works discovered was the complete book of Isaiah, and the closeness of its text to that of the Masoretic Bible we have today is amazing. Professor Millar Burrows writes: “Many of the differences between the [recently discovered] St. Mark’s Isaiah scroll and the Masoretic text can be explained as mistakes in copying. Apart from these, there is a remarkable agreement, on the whole, with the text found in the medieval manuscripts. Such agreement in a manuscript so much older gives reassuring testimony to the general accuracy of the traditional text.”7 Burrows adds: “It is a matter for wonder that through something like a thousand years the text underwent so little alteration.”b
16, 17. (a) Why can we be sure that the text of the Christian Greek Scriptures is sound? (b) What did Sir Frederic Kenyon testify about the text of the Greek Scriptures?
16 In the case of the part of the Bible written in Greek by Christians, the so-called New Testament, the copyists were more like gifted amateurs than like the highly trained professional Sopherim. But working as they did under the threat of punishment by the authorities, they took their work seriously. And two things assure us that we today have a text essentially the same as that penned by the original writers. First, we have manuscripts dated much closer to the time of writing than is the case with the Hebrew part of the Bible. Indeed, one fragment of the Gospel of John is from the first half of the second century, less than 50 years from the date when John probably wrote his Gospel. Second, the sheer number of manuscripts that have survived provides a formidable demonstration of the soundness of the text.
17 On this point, Sir Frederic Kenyon testified: “It cannot be too strongly asserted that in substance the text of the Bible is certain. Especially is this the case with the New Testament. The number of manuscripts of the New Testament, of early translations from it, and of quotations from it in the oldest writers of the Church, is so large that it is practically certain that the true reading of every doubtful passage is preserved in some one or other of these ancient authorities. This can be said of no other ancient book in the world.”10
The People and Their Languages
18, 19. How was it that the Bible was not limited to the languages in which it was originally written?
18 The original languages in which the Bible was written were also, in the long run, an obstacle to its survival. The first 39 books were mostly written in Hebrew, the tongue of the Israelites. But Hebrew has never been widely known. If the Bible had stayed in that language, it would never have had any influence beyond the Jewish nation and the few foreigners who could read it. However, in the third century B.C.E., for the benefit of Hebrews living in Alexandria, Egypt, translation of the Hebrew part of the Bible into Greek began. Greek was then an international language. Thus, the Hebrew Bible became easily accessible to non-Jews.
19 When the time came for the second part of the Bible to be written, Greek was still very widely spoken, so the final 27 books of the Bible were written in that tongue. But not everybody could understand Greek. Hence, translations of both the Hebrew and the Greek parts of the Bible soon began to appear in the everyday languages of those early centuries, such as Syriac, Coptic, Armenian, Georgian, Gothic, and Ethiopic. The official language of the Roman Empire was Latin, and Latin translations were made in such numbers that an “authorized version” had to be commissioned. This was completed about 405 C.E. and came to be known as the Vulgate (meaning “popular” or “common”).
20, 21. What were the obstacles to the Bible’s survival, and why were these overcome?
20 Thus, it was in spite of many obstacles that the Bible survived down to the early centuries of our Common Era. Those who produced it were despised and persecuted minorities living a difficult existence in a hostile world. It could easily have been badly distorted in the process of copying, but it was not. Moreover, it escaped the danger of being available only to people who spoke certain languages.
21 Why was it so difficult for the Bible to survive? The Bible itself says: “The whole world is lying in the power of the wicked one.” (1 John 5:19) In view of this, we would expect the world to be hostile to published truth, and this has proved to be the case. Why, then, did the Bible survive when so many other pieces of literature that did not face the same difficulties were forgotten? The Bible answers this too. It says: “The saying of Jehovah endures forever.” (1 Peter 1:25) If the Bible really is the Word of God, no human power can destroy it. And right up into this 20th century, this has been true.
22. What change took place early in the fourth century of our Common Era?
22 However, in the fourth century of our Common Era, something happened that eventually resulted in new attacks on the Bible and profoundly affected the course of European history. Just ten years after Diocletian tried to destroy all copies of the Bible, imperial policy changed and “Christianity” was legalized. Twelve years later, in 325 C.E., a Roman emperor presided over the “Christian” Council of Nicaea. Why would such a seemingly favorable development prove to be hazardous for the Bible? We will see the answer in the following chapter.
[Footnotes]
a In this publication, instead of the traditional “A.D.” and “B.C.,” the more accurate “C.E.” (Common Era) and “B.C.E.” (before the Common Era) are used.
b Not all the manuscripts found at the Dead Sea agreed so exactly with the surviving Bible text. Some showed quite a lot of textual variance. However, these variations do not mean that the essential meaning of the text has been distorted. According to Patrick W. Skehan of the Catholic University of America, most represent a “reworking [of the Bible text] on the basis of its own integral logic, so that the form becomes expanded but the substance remains the same . . . The underlying attitude is one of explicit reverence for a text regarded as sacred, an attitude of explaining (as we would put it) the Bible by the Bible in the very transmission of the text itself.”8
Another commentator adds: “In spite of all uncertainties, the great fact remains that the text as we now have it does, in the main, represent fairly the actual words of the authors who lived, some of them, nearly three thousand years ago, and we need have no serious doubt on the score of textual corruption as to the validity of the message which the Old Testament has to give us.”9
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The Bible’s Fight to LiveThe Bible—God’s Word or Man’s?
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[Box on page 19]
The Bible’s Well-Established Text
To appreciate how well established the text of the Bible is, we have only to compare it with another body of literature that has come to us from antiquity: the classical writings of Greece and Rome. In fact, most of this literature was written after the Hebrew Scriptures were completed. There were no recorded genocide attempts against the Greeks or the Romans, and their literature was not preserved in the face of persecution. Yet, notice the comments of Professor F. F. Bruce:
“For Cæsar’s Gallic War (composed between 58 and 50 B.C.) there are several extant MSS, but only nine or ten are good, and the oldest is some 900 years later than Cæsar’s day.
“Of the 142 books of the Roman history of Livy (59 B.C.-A.D. 17), only 35 survive; these are known to us from not more than twenty MSS of any consequence, only one of which, and that containing fragments of Books III-VI, is as old as the fourth century.
“Of the fourteen books of the Histories of Tacitus (c. A.D. 100) only four and a half survive; of the sixteen books of his Annals, ten survive in full and two in part. The text of these extant portions of his two great historical works depends entirely on two MSS, one of the ninth century and one of the eleventh. . . .
“The History of Thucydides (c. 460-400 B.C.) is known to us from eight MSS, the earliest belonging to c. A.D. 900, and a few papyrus scraps, belonging to about the beginning of the Christian era.
“The same is true of the History of Herodotus (c. 488-428 B.C.). Yet no classical scholar would listen to an argument that the authenticity of Herodotus or Thucydides is in doubt because the earliest MSS of their works which are of any use to us are over 1,300 years later than the originals.”—The Books and the Parchments, page 180.
Compare this with the fact that there are thousands of manuscripts of various parts of the Bible. And manuscripts of the Christian Greek Scriptures go back to within a hundred years of the time of the writing of the original books.
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The Bible’s False FriendThe Bible—God’s Word or Man’s?
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Chapter 3
The Bible’s False Friend
In this chapter, we discuss the major reason why many from non-Christian lands refuse to accept the Bible as the Word of God. Historically, Christendom has claimed to believe in the Bible and to be its guardian. But the religious organizations of Christendom have been associated with some of the most appalling horrors of history, from the Crusades and pogroms of the Middle Ages to the Holocaust of our own time. Is the conduct of Christendom a good reason to reject the Bible? The truth is, Christendom has proved to be a false friend of the Bible. Indeed, when Christendom emerged in the fourth century C.E., the Bible’s fight to survive was by no means over.
1, 2. (Include introduction.) (a) Why do many refuse to accept the Bible as the Word of God? (b) What good work was accomplished during the first and second centuries, yet what dangerous development was under way?
BY THE end of the first century, the writing of all the books of the Bible was completed. From then on, Christians were in the forefront of copying and distributing the complete Bible. At the same time, they were busy translating it into the most common languages of the day. While the Christian congregation was busy with this admirable work, however, something was beginning to take shape that would prove very dangerous to the survival of the Bible.
2 This development was foretold by the Bible itself. Jesus once told a parable of a man who sowed his field with good quality seeds of wheat. But “while men were sleeping,” an enemy sowed seeds that would produce weeds. Both types of seeds sprouted, and for a while the weeds hid the wheat from view. By this parable, Jesus showed that the fruitage of his work would be true Christians but that after his death, false Christians would infiltrate the congregation. Eventually, it would be difficult to distinguish the genuine from the false.—Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43.
3. According to the apostle Peter, what would be the effect of weedlike “Christians” on belief in the Bible?
3 The apostle Peter frankly warned of the effect of these weedlike “Christians” on the way people would view Christianity and the Bible. He warned: “There will also be false teachers among you. These very ones will quietly bring in destructive sects and will disown even the owner that bought them, bringing speedy destruction upon themselves. Furthermore, many will follow their acts of loose conduct, and on account of these the way of the truth will be spoken of abusively.”—2 Peter 2:1, 2.
4. How were the prophecies of Jesus and Peter fulfilled even during the first century?
4 Even during the first century, the prophecies of Jesus and Peter were being fulfilled. Ambitious men infiltrated the Christian congregation and sowed dissension. (2 Timothy 2:16-18; 2 Peter 2:21, 22; 3 John 9, 10) During the following two centuries, the purity of Bible truth was corrupted by Greek philosophy, and many mistakenly came to accept pagan doctrines as Bible truth.
5. What policy change did Constantine inaugurate early in the fourth century?
5 In the fourth century, the Roman emperor Constantine adopted “Christianity” as the official religion of the Roman Empire. But the “Christianity” he knew was very different from the religion preached by Jesus. By now, the “weeds” were flourishing, just as Jesus had foretold. Nevertheless, we can be sure that during all that time, there were some who represented true Christianity and labored to follow the Bible as the inspired Word of God.—Matthew 28:19, 20.
Bible Translation Opposed
6. When did Christendom begin to take shape, and what was one way in which Christendom’s religion differed from Bible Christianity?
6 It was in Constantine’s time that Christendom as we know it today began to take shape. From then on, the degenerate form of Christianity that had taken root was no longer just a religious organization. It was a part of the state, and its leaders played an important role in politics. Eventually, the apostate church used its political power in a way that was completely opposed to Bible Christianity, introducing another dangerous threat to the Bible. How?
7, 8. When did the pope express opposition to the translating of the Bible, and why did he do this?
7 When Latin died out as an everyday tongue, new translations of the Bible were needed. But the Catholic Church no longer favored this. In 1079 Vratislaus, who later became king of Bohemia, asked the permission of Pope Gregory VII to translate the Bible into the language of his subjects. The pope’s answer was no. He stated: “It is clear to those who reflect often upon it, that not without reason has it pleased Almighty God that holy scripture should be a secret in certain places, lest, if it were plainly apparent to all men, perchance it would be little esteemed and be subject to disrespect; or it might be falsely understood by those of mediocre learning, and lead to error.”1
8 The pope wanted the Bible to be kept in the now-dead tongue of Latin. Its contents were to be kept “secret,” not translated into the languages of the common people.a Jerome’s Latin Vulgate, produced in the 5th century to make the Bible accessible to all, now became a means of keeping it hidden.
9, 10. (a) How did Roman Catholic opposition to Bible translation develop? (b) What was the purpose of the Church’s opposition to the Bible?
9 As the Middle Ages progressed, the Church’s stand against vernacular Bibles hardened. In 1199 Pope Innocent III wrote such a strong letter to the archbishop of Metz, Germany, that the archbishop burned all the German-language Bibles he could find.3 In 1229 the synod of Toulouse, France, decreed that “lay people” could not possess any Bible books in the common tongue.4 In 1233 a provincial synod of Tarragona, Spain, commanded that all books of “the Old or New Testament” be handed over to be burned.5 In 1407 the synod of clergy summoned in Oxford, England, by Archbishop Thomas Arundel expressly forbade the translating of the Bible into English or any other modern tongue.6 In 1431, also in England, Bishop Stafford of Wells forbade the translating of the Bible into English and the owning of such translations.7
10 These religious authorities were not trying to destroy the Bible. They were trying to fossilize it, keep it in a language that only a few could read. In this way, they hoped to prevent what they called heresy but what really amounted to challenges to their authority. If they had succeeded, the Bible could have become just an object of intellectual curiosity, with little or no influence in the lives of ordinary people.
The Bible’s Champions
11. What resulted when Julián Hernández smuggled Spanish-language Bibles into Spain?
11 Happily, though, many sincere people refused to follow these edicts. But such refusals were dangerous. Individuals suffered terribly for the “crime” of owning a Bible. Consider, as an example, the case of a Spaniard named Julián Hernández. According to Foxe’s History of Christian Martyrdom, Julián (or, Juliano) “undertook to convey from Germany into his own country a great number of Bibles, concealed in casks, and packed up like Rhenish wine.” He was betrayed and seized by the Roman Catholic Inquisition. Those for whom the Bibles were destined “were all indiscriminately tortured, and then most of them were sentenced to various punishments. Juliano was burnt, twenty were roasted upon spits, several imprisoned for life, some were publicly whipped, many sent to the galleys.”8
12. How do we know that the religious authorities of the Middle Ages did not represent Bible Christianity?
12 What a horrible abuse of power! Clearly, these religious authorities were by no means representative of Bible Christianity! The Bible itself revealed to whom they belonged when it said: “The children of God and the children of the Devil are evident by this fact: Everyone who does not carry on righteousness does not originate with God, neither does he who does not love his brother. For this is the message which you have heard from the beginning, that we should have love for one another; not like Cain, who originated with the wicked one and slaughtered his brother.”—1 John 3:10-12.
13, 14. (a) What remarkable fact about the Bible during the Middle Ages shows its divine origin? (b) How did the situation change as far as the Bible was concerned in Europe?
13 How remarkable, though, that men and women were willing to risk such shocking treatment just to possess a Bible! And such examples have been multiplied many times over right down to our day. The deep devotion that the Bible has inspired in individuals, the willingness to suffer patiently and to submit uncomplainingly to terrible deaths without striking back at their tormentors, is a strong evidence that the Bible is the Word of God.—1 Peter 2:21.
14 Eventually, after the Protestant rebellion against Roman Catholic power in the 16th century, the Roman Catholic Church itself was forced to produce translations of the Bible in the everyday languages of Europe. But even then, the Bible was associated more with Protestantism than with Catholicism. As Roman Catholic priest Edward J. Ciuba wrote: “One would honestly have to admit that one of the more tragic consequences of the Protestant Reformation was a neglect of the Bible among the Catholic faithful. While it was never completely forgotten, the Bible was a closed book for most Catholics.”9
Higher Criticism
15, 16. Why is Protestantism not free from blame as far as opposition to the Bible is concerned?
15 But the Protestant churches are not free from blame as far as opposing the Bible is concerned. As the years passed, certain Protestant scholars mounted another sort of attack on the book: an intellectual attack. During the 18th and 19th centuries, they developed a method of studying the Bible known as higher criticism. Higher critics taught that much of the Bible was composed of legend and myth. Some even said that Jesus never existed. Instead of being designated the Word of God, the Bible was said by these Protestant scholars to be the word of man, and a very jumbled word at that.
16 While the more extreme of these ideas are no longer believed, higher criticism is still taught in seminaries, and it is not unusual to hear Protestant clergymen publicly disavow large sections of the Bible. Thus, one Anglican clergyman was quoted in an Australian newspaper as saying that much that is in the Bible “is just wrong. Some of the history is wrong. Some of the details are obviously garbled.” This thinking is a product of higher criticism.
“Spoken of Abusively”
17, 18. How has the conduct of Christendom brought reproach on the Bible?
17 Perhaps, though, it is the conduct of Christendom that has posed the greatest obstacle to people’s accepting the Bible as God’s Word. Christendom claims to follow the Bible. Yet, her conduct has brought great reproach on the Bible and on the very name Christian. As the apostle Peter foretold, the way of the truth has been “spoken of abusively.”—2 Peter 2:2.
18 For example, while the church was banning Bible translation, the pope was sponsoring massive military efforts against the Muslims in the Middle East. These came to be called “holy” Crusades, but there was nothing holy about them. The first—termed the “People’s Crusade”—set the tone for what was to come. Before leaving Europe, an unruly army, inflamed by preachers, turned on the Jews in Germany, slaughtering them in one town after another. Why? Historian Hans Eberhard Mayer says: “The argument that the Jews, as the enemies of Christ, deserved to be punished was merely a feeble attempt to conceal the real motive: greed.”10
19-21. How did the Thirty Years’ War, as well as Europe’s missionary endeavors and colonial expansion, serve to bring reproach on the Bible?
19 The Protestant rebellion in the 16th century dislodged Roman Catholicism from power in many European lands. One result was the Thirty Years’ War (1618-48)—“one of the most terrible wars in European history,” according to The Universal History of the World. The basic cause of the war? “The hatred of Catholic for Protestant, of Protestant for Catholic.”11
20 By this time, Christendom had begun to expand beyond Europe, carrying “Christian” civilization into other parts of the earth. This military expansion was marked by cruelty and greed. In the Americas, the Spanish conquistadores quickly destroyed the indigenous American civilizations. Noted one history book: “In general, the Spanish governors destroyed the native civilization, without introducing the European. The thirst for gold was the principal motive that drew them to the New World.”12
21 Protestant missionaries also went out from Europe to other continents. One of the results of their work was the promotion of colonial expansion. A widespread view today of the Protestant missionary effort is: “In many instances the missionary enterprise has been used as a justification and a cover for the domination of people. The interrelation between mission, technology, and imperialism is well known.”13
22. How has Christendom brought reproach on the name of Christianity during the 20th century?
22 The close association between Christendom’s religions and the state has continued down to our day. The last two world wars were fought primarily between “Christian” nations. Clergymen on both sides encouraged their young men to fight and try to kill the enemy—who often belonged to the same religion. As was noted in the book If the Churches Want World Peace: “Certainly it is no credit to [the churches] that the war system of today grew up and has worked its greatest havoc among states devoted to the cause of Christianity.”14
The Word of God Survives
23. How does the history of Christendom indicate that the Bible is God’s Word?
23 We recount this long, sad history of Christendom to highlight two points. First, such events are a fulfillment of Bible prophecy. It was foretold that many claiming to be Christian would bring reproach on the Bible and the name of Christianity, and the fact that this has happened vindicates the Bible as being true. Nevertheless, we should not lose sight of the fact that the conduct of Christendom does not represent Bible-based Christianity.
24. What identifies true Christians and thus clearly condemns Christendom as unchristian?
24 The way genuine Christians can be recognized was explained by Jesus himself: “By this all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love among yourselves.” (John 13:35) Further, Jesus said: “They are no part of the world, just as I am no part of the world.” (John 17:16) On both counts, Christendom betrays itself as clearly not representing Bible Christianity. It claims to be the Bible’s friend, but it has been a false friend.
25. Why did the Bible survive all its tribulations down to our time?
25 The second point is this: In view of the fact that Christendom as a whole has acted so much against the interests of the Bible, it is remarkable, indeed, that the book has survived until today and still exercises a good influence on many people’s lives. The Bible has survived bitter opposition to translating it, onslaughts from modernistic scholars, and the unchristian conduct of its false friend, Christendom. Why? Because the Bible is unlike any other written work. The Bible cannot die. It is the Word of God, and the Bible itself tells us: “The grass withers, the flowers fade, but the word of our God endures for evermore.”—Isaiah 40:8, The New English Bible.
[Footnotes]
a A few translations into vernacular languages were made. But they were often laboriously produced in very ornate manuscripts and were definitely not for popular use.2
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