The Divinity of Jesus Christ Revisited in the Third Millennium: Evidence of His Deity

By Leopold Sarr

Biblical Christianity is challenged today by other religions such as Hinduism, Islam, Mormonism, Buddhism, Jehovahs Witness, Scientology, to name a few, including atheists and agnostics, who claim that Jesus was simply a man, a great teacher or guru, or a prophet of God who worked his way to godhood.

Are such claims supported by the evidence?

Can we trust the Bible to tell us the truth about Jesus?

Is Jesus Christ truly God?

Can we find evidence of his deity in the Old Testament?

Does the New Testament affirm unequivocally that He is God?

Are there reliable non-Christian sources that back such claims of deity?

This book aims at addressing these fundamental questions while providing solid internal and external evidence of the divinity of Jesus Christ. In this age of plural spirituality, thirst for truth, and in need of an evidence-based dialogue among various religions, the book makes a compelling case for a closer scrutiny of prophecies contained in the Bible.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Dec 28, 2012
• ISBN: 9781477294864

Leopold Sarr

Leopold RemiSarr is currently a senior economist at the World Bank Group in Washington, DC, where he has been working in the area of human development, in particular in education and social protection in South Asia (India, Bangladesh, Nepal and Afghanistan) and Africa for the past eight years. He has been working in the international development fi eld in the past fi fteen years, after earning two master’s degrees, respectively, in development economics and project management from the University of Clermont-Ferrand, France. Prior to joining the World Bank Group, he pursued his PhD in economics at Cornell University, in Ithaca, New York. His passion for development is intertwined with his Christian faith, which is grounded on the Word of God. He is a member of Mclean Bible Church in Washington, DC, where he serves in the Creative Arts Ministry. He is passionate about youth outreach, medias, and prosperity in Africa. He is currently running a weekly Bible study focused on prophetic books in the Bible and is working on his second book on the actuality of prophecies in Scripture.

Book preview

The Divinity of Jesus

Christ Revisited in

the Third Millennium

Evidence of His Deity

Leopold Sarr

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© 2012 Leopold Sarr. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 12/21/2012

ISBN: 978-1-4772-9488-8 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4772-9487-1 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4772-9486-4 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2012922585

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Contents

1 Introduction

2 Preexistence and Eternality of Jesus Christ

2.1 Preexistence of Jesus as Signaling Deity

2.2 Jesus Has Existed for All Eternity

3 Jesus Is the Only Savior

4 Jesus: A Member of the Trinity

4.1 One God in Three Equal Persons

4.2 Relationship among the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit

4.3 There Is Only One God

5 The Divine Attributes of Jesus

5.1 Omniscience and Omnipresence of Jesus

5.1.1 Jesus Is Omniscient

5.1.2 Jesus Is Omnipresent

5.2 Omnipotence and Infinite Power of Jesus

5.3 Jesus is the Truth, He Is Holy, and He Is Love

5.4 The Faithfulness or Immutability of Jesus

5.5 Jesus Is Able to Forgive Sins

5.6 Jesus Gives Life

5.7 Jesus Is the Judge of the Living and the Dead

6 Jesus’s Deity Acknowledged by His Contemporaries

6.1 Jesus’s Disciples

6.2 Jewish Leadership

6.3 Angels, Satan, and his Demons

6.4 Other Contemporaries of Jesus

6.5 The Divinity of Jesus Challenged by His Contemporaries

6.6 Jesus Claims to Be God Himself

7 The Scripture Testifies of Jesus

7.1 The Old Testament Prophets Foretold the Coming of Jesus Christ

7.2 Christianity Is Not an Invention of the First Century

7.2.1 The New Testament Is in the Old Testament Concealed

7.2.2 Historicity of the New Testament

7.2.3 Is the New Testament Consistent with Historical Evidence?

7.2.4 Non-Christian Sources Authenticate the Historicity of Jesus and His Deity

7.3 Some Old Testament Figures Foreshadow Jesus Christ

7.3.1 Adam and Jesus

7.3.2 Noah and Jesus

7.3.3 Abraham and Jesus

7.3.4 Joseph and Jesus

7.3.5 Moses and Jesus

7.3.6 Joshua and Christ

7.3.7 Samuel and Jesus

7.3.8 David and Jesus

7.3.9 Elijah/Elisha and Jesus

8 The Divinity of Christ Does Not Suppress His Humanity: Learning to Distinguish Both Natures in the Scripture

Appendix 1: Prophecies fulfilled in Daniel 11

Appendix 2: Assessing Prophecies in the Qur’an

Appendix 3: Unfulfilled Prophecies by the Jehovah’s Witnesses

Appendix 4: Comparisons Between KJV and the NIV

Appendix 5: Comparisons between KJV and (NASB or NKJV)

Appendix 6: Contradictions between the Bible and the Mormon Sacred Books

Appendix 7: Contradictions among the Mormon’s Sacred Writings

Appendix 8: Contradictions between the Bible and Jehovah’s Witness Teaching

Appendix 9: Contradictions between the Qur’an and the Bible

Appendix 10: Mathematical Prophecy as Interpreted by Sir Robert Anderson

Appendix 11: Scientific Evidence for a Young Earth

1 Introduction

Most religions (Hinduism, Mormonism, Jehovah’s Witness, Islam, Scientology, Unitarianism, Baha’ism, etc.) claim that Jesus is not God but simply a man. To some he is a human being who has worked his way to godhood; to others he is just a teacher or guru or a prophet of God. Some have argued that there is no indication of His deity in the Bible, much less in any of His sayings in which He never claimed to be God. Others have even taken it to an extreme to argue that Jesus never existed historically. While our focus will not be on the latter issue, as many excellent books already exist that provide irrefutable evidence of Jesus’s historicity, this book was written to shed definitive light on this long-standing debate concerning the nature of Christ, particularly His divinity.

In the early centuries of Christianity, controversies had erupted about His humanity, but today the issue seems to have re-centered around his alleged deity by Christians. What does the Bible tell us about the deity of Jesus? Are there Old Testament passages that present Jesus Christ as God? Are there New Testament verses that attest to His divinity? Are there external sources providing evidence of (or claims to) His deity? These are the fundamental questions this book attempts to address while placing the debate in the historical context of Jesus’s life, ministry, death, and resurrection.

Ever since the birth of Jesus, controversies regarding His divinity have emerged. The Jewish leadership (both the Pharisees and the Sadducees) and even some professed Christians in the first centuries have wrestled with the idea of a God-man. How could God be man? How could anyone be both unlimited as God and bound by time and space like any human being or angel? Are both divine and human natures embodied in the person of Jesus Christ? Or was Jesus half-God and half-human?

Most seem to agree with the fact that Jesus was undeniably a human being who walked the face of the earth.¹ The issue most people grapple with is His divinity, even as they acknowledge that He was a man. To try to understand this mystery or solve the puzzle, I will conduct a careful and exhaustive examination of the Scripture. Some may be tempted to object that explaining from the Bible what I purport to prove is tautological and already biased. Isn’t it obvious that the Bible will claim that Jesus is God? The question is, then: how can we trust that the Bible is telling us the truth?

First, many critics have precisely used the very same Bible to disprove that Jesus is God, and my intention, for one thing, is to enlighten the debate in this regard. On the other hand, I intend to address the concerns of those who would like to reject even the idea of using the Bible in the first place. Therefore, our goal in this book is to provide both internal and external validity to the claims of Jesus’s divinity, in keeping with the idea of randomized experiments now so prevalent in social sciences.²

Thousands of years ago, Eastern religions developed the idea that God is in each one of us. Now, many people from the West have made it commonplace to think that we are gods in the same way Jesus was: a mere man who worked his way to attain the God consciousness. This is incarnated, for instance, by the New Age or Mind Science movement, which claims that we can achieve whatever we set our minds to. For instance, actress Shirley MacLaine argues, in the following terms, that Jesus was travelling in and around India and Tibet and Persia and the Near East and was trained as a yogi before returning to Galilee. She came up with this fantasy simply because there is no record of Jesus’s life between age twelve and thirty. Like her, a number of New Agers have claimed that Jesus took those silent years to learn from Eastern gurus. If such claims are true, we should find evidence of Hindu teaching in the New Testament writings, with reference to those gurus from whom Jesus presumably had learned. In this book, I will attempt to address this question while providing solid evidence of Christ’s divine nature.

First, I will present what the Scripture says about the eternality and preexistence of Jesus. Second, I will document where the Bible emphasizes Jesus as being the one and only Savior, the Messiah that the Jews were awaiting for centuries. Then I will describe Him as a Member of the Holy Trinity, with the special relationship that exists among the three Persons of the triune God, after which I will expose His divine attributes. Next, I will present the writings and sayings of those who have effectively acknowledged the deity of Jesus during His ministry on earth, while exposing how His divinity was challenged to the point of nailing Him to the cross for claiming to be God. Finally, I will highlight the role of fulfilled prophecies regarding Jesus’s birth, His earthly ministry, and His death and resurrection, all of which ineluctably point to His divinity. Once His deity is established through internal evidence, I will turn to historical and external evidences to infer His sovereignty as God. While presenting the evidence, I shall underscore how the Bible stands out on one side, vis-à-vis other religious books, as the very Word of the One and True God of the universe.

The Bible is unlike any other book. It is God’s revelation to mankind, His Word to humanity. If God exists, then He must be able to tell that He exists and to communicate what He wants to mankind.³ Although the Bible was not dictated from heaven by God, it is a divinely inspired book. The human authors who wrote the Bible were led by the Holy Spirit, the third Person of the Trinity (the doctrine of which I shall elaborate on later), who directed the writing of the original texts. This included the very words and phrases chosen, in spite of the freedom that these writers enjoyed while penning the biblical texts. Admittedly, the authors of the Bible were not themselves inspired, i.e., God-breathed, but rather their writing. These authors were moved by the Holy Spirit as they wrote Scripture (2 Pet. 1:21). Therefore, the Bible bears God’s seal of truth in all its statements, including those of a scientific, historical, or factual nature.⁴ As a result, the Bible cannot err, insofar as it is the Word of God, because God is omniscient and infallible.⁵ It is, consequently, the final authority on all matters about which it speaks, all things that pertain to life and godliness (2 Pet. 1:3).

But then you may object, How do we know that the Bible is God’s Word? One of the major proofs that it is God’s Word is fulfilled prophecy.⁶ God declares in the book of Isaiah:

Isaiah 46:9-10:

⁹ Remember the former things of old: for I am God, and there is none else; I am God, and there is none like me,

¹⁰ Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure:

God is saying that He will announce ahead of time the things that are to come, to let mankind know that He exists. God is able to do this because He is outside time; He is not bound by physical reality. Science has now established, with Einstein’s theory of relativity, that time is not only finite but also a physical property that varies with mass, gravity, and acceleration (2 Tim. 1:9).⁷ God, being outside of time, is able to see the entire human history before it unfolds. To illustrate this, I will take a concrete example. The nation of Israel was destroyed in 605 BC by the armies of Nebuchadnezzar and was taken to exile in Babylon. Then the Jews were allowed to return to their land in Israel in 539 BC, when Cyrus, the Persian king, conquered Babylon. In AD 70⁸, Roman troops invaded Jerusalem to bring down a rebellion, destroying the Temple and killing over one million Jews. The surviving Jews were compelled into exile throughout the world. This destruction of the Jewish Temple was literally prophesied by Daniel (Dan. 9:26) about 530 BC and again by Jesus Christ Himself (Matt. 24:1–2) about forty years before it came to pass.⁹ Furthermore, the second return of the Jews from exile was prophesied between 700 and 500 BC by several prophets of Israel, and it was literally fulfilled only in 1948 when Israel became an independent nation again after almost 1900 years (cf. Isaiah 11:11–12; Jeremiah 23:3–8; Ezek. 37:21–22; Amos 9:9, 13–15). Let us read these passages one by one.

The first time the Israelites were gathered back to the Promised Land from outside Israel was after they had been exiled to Babylon. Isaiah thus prophesied that they would be gathered again the second time, and this happened only in 1948 after the Jews were forced into exile, wandering around the world (Deut. 28:64–66).¹⁰ Let us read from the book of Isaiah:

Isaiah 11:11-12

¹¹ And it shall come to pass in that day, [that] the Lord shall set his hand again the second time to recover the remnant of his people, which shall be left, from Assyria, and from Egypt, and from Pathros, and from Cush, and from Elam, and from Shinar, and from Hamath, and from the islands of the sea.

¹² And he shall set up an ensign for the nations, and shall assemble the outcasts of Israel, and gather together the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth.

Note in verse 12 that the prophet Isaiah underscored the fact that the wandering Jews would be gathered from the four corners of the earth. To be sure, this did not happen after the Babylonian exile, as most Jews were coming back from Babylon and possibly from parts of the ancient Assyrian empire where they were deported (Dan. 9:7). Moreover, history proves that, at that time, the Jews were not wandering around the world. This happened only in 1948 when the State of Israel was declared, ending British control over the land. ¹¹

Like Isaiah, Ezekiel was a Jewish prophet who also prophesied the second return of the Jews in 1948. Born into the priesthood lineage around 622 BC, Ezekiel was exiled to Babylon (2 Kings 24:12–16) during the second wave, around 597 BC, like many other upper-class Jews—such as Daniel and his three friends, who were among the first wave of those deported in 605 BC. Ezekiel was called by God to warn the Israelites and to remind them of the reasons why such calamities were falling upon them. For twenty-two years, he preached among the discouraged captives in Babylon. In Ezekiel 37, during the time the prophet was writing his book, the exiled Jews were mainly living in Babylon and not in other parts of the world. However, verse 21 emphasizes that the Jews would come from the Gentile nations in every part of the world—the rest of the world, with respect to Israel. Furthermore, the Jews have not had a king, from the time they returned from Babylon to this day. Zerubbabel, the governor of the Persian province of Judah, and Joshua, the high priest, led the return of the captives to Jerusalem to rebuild the Temple (Hag. 1:1). The Ezekiel passage specifically mentions that Israel will no longer be divided¹² but will come back to the land as one nation, and this was only fulfilled in 1948.

Ezekiel 37:21-22

²¹ And say unto them, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I will take the children of Israel from among the heathen, whither they be gone, and will gather them on every side, and bring them into their own land:

²² And I will make them one nation in the land upon the mountains of Israel; and one king shall be king to them all: and they shall be no more two nations, neither shall they be divided into two kingdoms any more at all:

Note that the prophecy in Ezekiel 37:22 about a King for the nation of Israel is yet to be fulfilled. The return of Jesus Christ is expected on earth, and when He comes, He will set up His Kingdom from Jerusalem, as clearly prophesied in numerous passages of the Bible (Zech. 1:17; 3:2; 14:16–17; Ps. 2:6; Isaiah 2:1–2).

In the same vein as Ezekiel, the prophet Amos—who lived around 750 BC and was a contemporary of the prophets Isaiah, Hosea, and Micah—foretold the return to the Promised Land. He prophesied the return of the Jews to the land God had promised to Abraham and his seed, e.g., the Jews: the land that goes from the river of Egypt unto the great river Euphrates (Gen. 15:18). He warned the Jews that it shall not be sold because it belongs to Him, Jehovah God (Lev. 25:23). Let us read from the book of Amos:

Amos 9:9, 13-15

⁹ For, lo, I will command, and I will sift the house of Israel among all nations, like as [corn] is sifted in a sieve, yet shall not the least grain fall upon the earth.

¹³ Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that the plowman shall overtake the reaper, and the treader of grapes him that soweth seed; and the mountains shall drop sweet wine, and all the hills shall melt.

¹⁴ And I will bring again the captivity of my people of Israel, and they shall build the waste cities, and inhabit [them]; and they shall plant vineyards, and drink the wine thereof; they shall also make gardens, and eat the fruit of them.

¹⁵ And I will plant them upon their land, and they shall no more be pulled up out of their land which I have given them, saith the LORD thy God.

This last verse provides the solid assurance that no country or power has been—nor will be—able to destroy Israel again as a nation after their return to the land in 1948. Note that this verse is not referring to the first return after the Babylonian exile, although it was written before the first deportation of the Jews in 605 BC, because that would contradict what happened in AD 70, as we saw earlier. Even if we accept, for the sake of argument, that the book of Amos was written after the Jews returned to rebuild the Temple and Jerusalem—starting from 539 BC after king Cyrus’s edict—it would still be an amazing prophecy fulfilled in 1948 after more than two thousand years. Furthermore, verse 9 made it absolutely unambiguous that the exiled Jews would come from all nations, and the only time this happened was in 1948. Appendix 1 provides a detailed description of the 135 prophecies of Daniel 11 fulfilled literally throughout history. The prophecies were so accurate that critics had no other choice but to late-date the book of Daniel, as they could not comprehend how someone could be that precise. The Bible declares that nothing is impossible or too hard for God (Gen. 18:14; Jeremiah 32:17; Luke 18:27).

Finally, to establish this irrefutable proof of the Bible being the Word of God, I shall quote another witness, in accordance with the teaching of the Bible that every matter shall be established by the mouth of two or three witnesses (Deut. 19:5; 17:6). This witness is none other than the prophet Jeremiah, whose mission started around 627 BC—a few years before the destruction of Jerusalem in 605 BC by king Nebuchadnezzar—and spanned some period of the Babylonian exile. Let us read:

Jeremiah 23:3-8

³ And I will gather the remnant of my flock out of all countries whither I have driven them, and will bring them again to their folds; and they shall be fruitful and increase.

⁴ And I will set up shepherds over them which shall feed them: and they shall fear no more, nor be dismayed, neither shall they be lacking, saith the LORD.

⁵ Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will raise unto David a righteous Branch, and a King shall reign and prosper, and shall execute judgment and justice in the earth.

⁶ In his days Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell safely: and this [is] his name whereby he shall be called, THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS.

⁷ Therefore, behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that they shall no more say, The LORD liveth, which brought up the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt;

⁸ But, The LORD liveth, which brought up and which led the seed of the house of Israel out of the north country, and from all countries whither I had driven them; and they shall dwell in their own land.

Note that this prophecy of the Jews returning to Israel in 1948 (as specifically mentioned in verses 3 and 8) has nothing to do with those small, psychic predictions invading our world today, which any witty magician or sorcerer could produce. This is a world-shaking event that no one can deny. In like manner, the rise and fall of the Babylonian empire, which was taken over by the Medes and the Persians, who were in turn subdued by the Greek empire, which was defeated later by the Romans, are all historical events that can be easily verified. This succession of world empires has been amazingly described in the book of Daniel, who prophesied the so-called time of the Gentiles, which started with King Nebuchadnezzar and continued up to our present time.¹³ These prophecies are in sharp contrast to the predictions given by Islam, Hinduism, Jehovah’s Witnesses¹⁴, Mormons,¹⁵ or any other religion: these other predictions turned out to be false, were surrounded by ambiguity, or were never fulfilled. (See, for instance, Appendix 2, regarding some prophecies contained in the Qur’an, and Appendix 3, relative to prophecies made by the founders of the Jehovah’s Witness religion). To be sure, none of the predictions from other religions can claim to be unequivocally related to a world-shaking event that we can still verify today. I defy anyone to provide a prediction similar to the one I have just described concerning the return of the Jews to Israel. Only the Bible offers such irrefutable evidence.

And this is the evidence that the Bible must be the Word of God, as no man, guru, or angel can make such accurate predictions centuries before they take place. Notice again that, as in the previous quote from Ezekiel, the king spoken about in verses 5 and 6 of Jeremiah refers to a future prophecy that is yet to be fulfilled. Given the one-hundred-percent accuracy of predictions in the passages cited above—and many others I will describe later—I have full confidence that all the remaining unfulfilled prophecies will be literally fulfilled with the same precision. In particular, Ezekiel’s prophecy concerning the King will definitely come to pass in the end-times. Jeremiah goes even further to precisely confirm, in verses 5 and 6, that Jesus will be that King, i.e., the Lord of Righteousness who is God Himself.

Just like the astonishing prophecy of the return of the Jews to their homeland in 1948, the Bible contains hundreds of other such predictions, and I shall return, in chapter 7, to this central role of prophecy in providing irrefutable evidence that the Bible is God’s Word and hence contains no error.

Another evidence of the authenticity of the Bible is that it was written over a span of 1,500 years by about forty different authors who did not know one another. These writers lived in different cultures during different periods, yet there is not one single contradiction in the entire Bible when we scrutinize closely its texts. Assuredly, there are seeming contradictions that critics are eager to point out. However, anytime criticisms have been leveled against the Bible, when these issues are carefully examined, the Bible has always turned out to be proven right. The Bible’s authors talk about the justice of God, His character, the truth, the origin of the universe, and the end of this earth after the tribulation period; and they are all consistent with one another.

Even Moses, who grew up in Pharaoh’s court and was highly educated, never referred to any Egyptian mythology in the first five books of the Bible he wrote, let alone suggesting worshipping the Egyptian gods.¹⁶ In the Egyptian myths, for instance, Osiris is cut into fourteen pieces, spread across Egypt, and then reassembled and brought back to life by the goddess Isis. However, Osiris does not come back to physical life but as a member of some underworld, which is completely different from the physical resurrection of Christ, who came back to the earth that we human beings know of. After His resurrection, Jesus met with His disciples and many more people over a period of forty days.¹⁷

On the other hand, no Greek or Roman mythology spoke of a literal incarnation of a monotheistic God into human form by way of a literal virgin birth. In this regard, Christianity is unique. Greeks believed in reincarnation of the dead into a different physical body, whereas Christians believe in the resurrection of the same physical body, though in a glorified and incorruptible form. (See Heb. 9:27; Luke 24:37, 39.)

Inspiration of the Scripture¹⁸

Let us now clarify what is meant when Christians affirm that the Bible was inspired by God (2 Tim. 3:16; Exod. 24:4; Jeremiah 26:2). Although the Bible writers were fallible men, they recorded without error what God directed them to write. This inerrancy of the Scripture is predicated and grounded on the nature of God, who cannot err. Because God is omniscient and infallible, His Word has to be infallible.¹⁹ Throughout this book, I will provide evidence that the Bible is the Word of God. For now, let’s read evidence of that truth from the gospel of Matthew:

Matt. 5:17-18

¹⁷ Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.

¹⁸ For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.

In other words, not even one single dot of the Scripture is to be rejected on any basis, as this is how God intended it to be. That being said, let us quickly dismiss any claim that every single word in the Bible is God’s word. Not true. The writers recorded what happened exactly the way it did, meaning that even lies, adulteries, evil deeds, or wrong statements were recorded exactly as they happened. Inspiration does not mean that God dictated the entire Bible. God allowed men the freedom to write, but at the same time, He guided them so that they made no errors. The writers incorporated what God had revealed to them supernaturally. In doing so, God still allowed them to express their own opinions, feelings, and fears (Gal. 4:14). Since they were writing from a human standpoint, God allow them to record even their memory lapses (1 Cor. 1:14–16).

With prophecy, however, the writers went beyond their feelings and hopes (2 Pet. 1:20–21). As we have shown above, the Bible, unlike any other religious book, contains fulfilled prophecies, verifiable by any human being, that provide irrefutable evidence that they were inspired by God and that He directed their writing. For instance, the book of Daniel, so vehemently attacked by the critics, contains one of the most astonishing prophecies in the entire Bible. Daniel 9:24–27 summarizes the whole Gentile history, starting from king Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon up to our present-day time, while the first thirty-five verses of Daniel 11 contain about 135 prophecies literally fulfilled in history. (For more details, see Appendix 1.) How could any being, whether human genius, angel, or extraterrestrial, come up with such accurate predictions several centuries before the facts? Only God Almighty could do that, and this is the way He chooses to let us know not only that He exists but also that it is He who spoke through the prophets of Israel.

With this background in mind, we shall examine what the Bible says about the eternality and preexistence of Jesus, His membership in the Trinity, His divine attributes, His being the only Savior of mankind, His deity being acknowledged by others, the whole Scripture testifying of Him, and, finally, His dual nature. But before that, I would like to explain why I have decided to quote, throughout this book, from the King James Bible rather than any other version of the Bible. Forgive me if the language of the King James Version appears unfriendly, but I intend to make a point. Many critics of the Bible, including some Christian scholars, have questioned the reliability of the Bible on the grounds that it contains many errors and numerous contradictions among the various versions or interpretations of the books—to a point where no one can tell who is right and who is wrong, nor can anyone confirm which version is the correct one. Critics have also argued that no one knows where the originals are or whether the copies we possess today come from the original manuscripts.

Although the purpose of this book is not to prove the reliability of the Bible—as many competent scholars have already thoroughly documented it—I will shed some light onto these questions in chapter 7. But for now, let me establish why I believe the King James Bible to be the closest to the original manuscripts, the version that contains the sound biblical doctrines that Jesus’s apostles contended for (Jude 3).

Why do I choose to quote the King James Version instead of any other version of the Bible?

I would like to address this question by quoting an important verse in the Bible related to the well-known story of David fighting against Goliath the Philistine.²⁰ Even non-Christians are familiar with it. The text in 1 Samuel 17 provides the account of the battle between the Israelites and the Philistines in which David slew Goliath, specifically in verses 49 to 51. To illustrate why I choose to use the King James Version in this book, let us read 2 Samuel 21:19 in both NIV (New International Version) and KJV (King James Version). Note that I could have used some other version, such as the NASB (New American Standard Bible), MSG (The Message by Eugene Peterson), or the ESV (English Standard Version) to come to the same conclusion. In appendixes 4 and 5, you can find tables comparing the KJV with the NIV, the NASB, and the NKJV. I select these modern versions because they appear to be the most popular Bible versions used by many Christians today.

First, let us read 2 Samuel 21:19 in the 1984 NIV version:

2 Sam. 21:19

¹⁹ In another battle with the Philistines at Gob, Elhanan son of Jaare-Oregim the Bethlehemite killed Goliath the Gittite, who had a spear with a shaft like a weaver’s rod.

Now let us compare that with the King James Version

2 Sam. 21:19

¹⁹ And there was again a battle in Gob with the Philistines, where Elhanan the son of Jaareoregim, a Bethlehemite, slew [the brother of] Goliath the Gittite, the staff of whose spear [was] like a weaver’s beam.

At this point, I suppose that you have already identified the difference between the 1984 NIV and the KJV. If you haven’t yet, let me clarify where the difference lies: the NIV says that Elhanan killed Goliath, whereas the KJV reveals that the same Elhanan killed instead the brother of Goliath. Who is right? As I mentioned earlier, it is well-known that David, the first king of Israel²¹, killed the giant Goliath with one stone, and he had four more stones left to fight against the remaining four brothers of Goliath (1 Sam. 17:40). If we stop here, then the verdict is that the KJV has the correct information. However, we want to go further to corroborate this point, as some critics may still argue that this is not the same Goliath as the one David killed (1 Sam. 21:9). If we can prove that this is the same Goliath, then we will have established the fact that there is a mistake in the 1984 NIV regarding the story of David and Goliath.

To prove it, let us go to the following passages in:

1 Samuel 17: 4, 7

⁴ And there went out a champion out of the camp of the Philistines, named Goliath, of Gath, whose height [was] six cubits and a span.

⁷ And the staff of his spear [was] like a weaver’s beam; and his spear’s head [weighed] six hundred shekels of iron: and one bearing a shield went before him.

Verse 4 establishes the name of Goliath who was from Gath (hence, a Gittite), while verse 7 gives specific details about that Goliath who had a staff that resembled a weaver’s beam. And this is what 2 Samuel 21:19 uses to characterize and uniquely identify the person whom David killed, e.g., the very same Goliath. Moreover, he is so unique that they call him THE Gittite in 2 Samuel 21:19. Therefore, when the 1984 NIV version says that Elhanan killed Goliath, it is clear that it is a mistake, because it contradicts 1 Samuel 17:51 and 1 Samuel 21:9, since Elhanan is not David. Now the question you want to ask yourself is the following: if the NIV represents the Word of God, do you think there would be such a mistake in it?

Let me be clear: I am not forcing anyone to use the KJV. If you consider the NIV to be the right Bible for you, then by all means go for it. All I am saying is this: as a diligent student of the Bible, you have the responsibility to check what people have written and make your own judgment. When you stand in the presence of God, you cannot say, "They told me the NIV or The Message was good enough, since they were written in a modern language we can understand." Numbers 23:19 tells us that God is not a man that He should lie, nor has He announced anything that did not come to pass. In the gospel of Matthew, Jesus also reminds us that nothing shall be taken from the Scripture until the end-times, because God knows how to preserve His Word (Ps. 12:6–7). He does not need the help of any particular human being.

The following passages of Matthew are a testimony of His enduring words.

Matt. 24:35

³⁵ Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.

Matt. 5:18

¹⁸For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.

In their efforts to perfect the Bible through unceasing revisions based on their personal beliefs, ideas, or understanding, the NIV committee members finally recognized their mistake in 2 Samuel 21:19 and corrected it in the latest version of NIV 2011—but without officially letting people know that they had made a mistake in the earlier versions. Intellectual honesty would require that they abide by this code of ethics. Don’t you dare move on without checking out how they changed from Elhanan killed Goliath to Elhanan killed the brother of Goliath! And now the NIV passage is consistent with the Word of God as faithfully translated in the King James Bible three centuries before. Had they taken the time to properly read the KJV or used translations based on the Textus Receptus, they would not have made such an error. Instead, they relied on manuscripts that mixed the Word of God with human thinking or opinions. What happened to those NIV readers (now dead) who saw these contradictions and wrestled inside their heart and mind about whether the Bible was the Word of God because some translators misled them?

The text in 1 Chronicles 20:5 even gave us the name of the brother of Goliath who was killed by Elhanan. His name was Lahmi. Surprisingly, the NIV 1984 contains the same exact information as the KJV, which contradicts what 2 Samuel 21:19 describes in NIV 1984. This is a testimony to the fact that we cannot rely on men when it comes to the Word of God (Acts 17:11). Therefore, as diligent students of the Bible, we need to exercise great caution with the numerous versions of Scripture floating all over the place, checking them out and putting them to the test and at their right place (1 Thess. 5:21).

Let us read now from the first book of Chronicles:

1 Chron. 20:5

⁵ And there was war again with the Philistines; and Elhanan the son of Jair slew Lahmi the brother of Goliath the Gittite, whose spear staff [was] like a weaver’s beam.

The NIV is just one case, but if I had space, I could have pointed out numerous changes made in other versions, such as the NASB, the New King James Version (NKJV), the Revised Standard Version (RSV), etc. (See appendixes 4 and 5 for further detailed comparisons between the KJV and some modern Bible versions.) Although these scholars are filled with very good intentions, wanting to help God out by making the Bible more perfect and easier to access for the average person, they don’t realize that they are demonstrating their lack of faith in the capacity of a sovereign and mighty God to preserve His Word (1 Pet. 1:25). They behave like pottery that is trying to help out its maker, the potter.

This is why so many Christians and non-Christians are still confused about the innumerable translations of the Bible. They wonder how one can judge which version is reliable and consistent with the oldest manuscripts of the extant Bible. Some scholars have argued that the KJV contains over twenty thousand errors, while others have focused on the many contradictions among different versions to cast serious doubts on the reliability of the Bible. In particular, Muslims and Mormons have claimed that the Bible has been corrupted, but neither of them has ever come up with the correct version of the Bible, nor have they told us which parts are corrupted and which parts are not.²² The Mormons have three sacred books beside the King James Bible: the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants, and the Pearl of Great Price. The Book of Mormon, being the most important of the four, has a number of passages that contradict the KJV Bible. Worse still, their own sacred scriptures contradict one another. We do not have space to cover these contradictions here, but they are presented in appendixes 6 and 7.

Today there are, in total, 5,700 Greek manuscripts or manuscript fragments of the New Testament, of which 5,400 originated in Antioch, Syria. A second set of manuscripts (fewer than sixty) originates from Alexandria, Egypt. The latter is the basis for the Critical Text, which is used to produce most of the modern translations (such as the NIV, NASB, or The Message to name a few), whereas the Antiochian manuscripts were used for the KJV. Two manuscripts from the Alexandrian family were discovered: Sinaiticus in 1841 and Vaticanus, known to exist since 1481 but kept by the Catholic Church.²³

I present six reasons why I believe the KJV is the best translation of the Bible.

1. It is the only English version that can truly claim a correct text, i.e., coming from the Textus Receptus²⁴, unlike most modern versions, which come from the modified Hebrew and Greek texts of Alexandria, representing about one percent of the available manuscripts.

2. KJV is the closest to the originals: its fifty-four translators were men of great piety and learning who were extremely careful to produce a version that accurately reflected the originals.

3. Its style of English has set the standard of excellence in English. It was completed when the English language was at the height of its purity.

4. It is easy to memorize because it makes use of simple sentence structures and single syllable words.

5. It has been blessed by God in countless revivals and church and missionary movements. For nearly four hundred years, churches have been built upon its truth and souls have been saved. For over two hundred years, the KJV was the only Bible in English—until Westcott and Horton came up with their modified Greek version of the Bible in 1881 using two Alexandrian texts (Vaticanus and Siniaticus).

6. KJV has served as the Standard English translation of the Bible.

Furthermore, note that the King James Version is a verbal and formal translation. It renders, as closely as possible, the Hebrew and Greek words from the manuscripts into English. In other words, it translates nouns as nouns, verbs as verbs, pronouns as pronouns, etc. Many people have complained about the use of thee, thou, ye, thine, etc., as being archaic words that preclude our understanding the meaning of biblical passages. I myself don’t like these words. However, the issue is not whether you like them or not but rather whether you are interested in knowing what God said and the truth about God. In 1611, these weird pronouns were not even generally used by ordinary people but were employed by the KJV translators to translate exactly what was said in Hebrew or Greek. For instance, while both you and ye were used interchangeably when Jesus spoke to His disciples about missions work, these two terms are distinct and represent respectively the singular you and