Bibliology

By Kenn Chipchase

The battle cry of the Protestant Reformation is often summarized in five sola statements: sola Scriptura, sola gratia, sola fide, solus Christus, and soli Deo gloria.¹ Although you often can find these five sola statements written in a different order, the order is significant, and the first and last are always given pride of place. This is not by accident. Sola Scriptura, Scripture alone, was the basis of all the other doctrines that follow.

This article (part 2 in the series) posted at Sharper Iron in 2019. It is reposted here with original comments included. Read Part 1.

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Since we’ve raised the issue of Messianic prophecies, there are plenty of others worth adding to the pile:

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So we’ve seen that Daniel’s specific prophecy of the rise and fall of Alexander the Great was at best very unlikely to have been written after Alexander’s death in 323 BC; and if Daniel describes Antiochus IV in chapter 11, then the skeptic’s position is even less likely. Daniel is accurately predicting future events, not faking it.

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The study of fulfilled biblical prophecies is a book in itself. We’ve looked at Jeremiah’s “70 years” prophecy of Judah’s exile in Babylon; in this post we’ll look at a prophecy that came during the Babylonian Captivity from a prophet living in Babylon.

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So one evidence that the Bible is an extraordinary book is its literary coherence absent a human editor. Back in Part 1 I said there were at least two verifiable evidences—what’s the second?

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I’ve argued (Part 3) that the Bible is a coherent work of literature. But that’s obviously not true if it contradicts itself. You can find all kinds of collections of supposed biblical contradictions; there’s a well-designed site that lists 140 of them, and the Skeptics Annotated Bible identifies 496.