The Internet is Cool!

Happy Super Bowl weekend to everyone. Go Giants! I wanted to share a very interesting email I received from someone who claims to be writing from Poland, and identifies himself as a believer. No, he did not ask me to handle an estate in his country, or to send him money. J He found me through my blog, and a brief discussion I had in one of my posts about Daniel's prophecies. Although the writer of the email may not actually be from Poland, it appears to me that he is. And his location had nothing to do with the subject of his email: He wrote to me providing me with what he describes as a "short" (12 pages, single space) analysis of Daniel Chapter 11. The thought of someone from Poland writing to me to discuss the Bible is a wonderful thought to me. Wow!

 

But the reason that I am telling you about this, is to discuss one of the topics he raised where he tells me the identity of the "northern king" / Gog / the northern country that will one day attack Israel. The typical Church view, and the Polish writer's view is that Russia is this northern country that will one day in the future lead an attack against Israel. And for those of us who grew up and lived during the Cold War, it is easy to believe that godless Russia could be the leader of a future attack against Israel. This attacker is discussed in the God's Word as being 'Gog' in Revelation 20:8-:15 (the Leader of the Final Battle against Israel); Ezekiel 38-39 (the great Old Testament prophetic chapters describing Gog and Magog leading an attack against Israel); and Daniel 11:36-12:4 (northern king who attacks the "Glorious Land" of Israel). While it may be true that this northern king, known as Gog may indeed be the country of Russia, I wanted to raise at least the possibility that it is not.

 

First, let me briefly summarize why many thoughtful Bible scholars believe that the nation prophetically described as Gog and Magog is really modern day Russia. Remember our starting point is Ezekiel chapter 38 which describes Gog and Magog. In Ezekiel 38:2, Gog is described as the prince of Rosh, Meschech, and Tubal. Some have equated Meschech with Moscow, and Tubal being the Russian city of Tobolsk. Yet, it seems clear that the people of Israel did not know of Russia until the Vikings came to the area in the Middle Ages, and so it seems unlikely that Ezekiel would have known Russian city's names. Several ancient sources (Hesiod, Josephus, and Philo) describe Magog as being a group of people known as 'Scythians'. The famous Roman historian Herodotus apparently wrote that the Scythians lived in present day southern Russia. And so, if Ezekiel's description of Magog means the Scythains, then because they lived in what is now known as modern day Russia, this may mean Russia is Israel's future attacker.

 

But I think there is good reason to read the prophetic attackers from the north as meaning that the attackers are from those parts more directly north of Israel, or modern day Palestine, Syria, Iraq and Iran. I base this on the context of Ezekiel, Daniel, and Revelation's prophecy about northern kingdoms attacking Israel, and what would these writers think was meant by a northern kingdom attacking Israel. This means we should read the end-times prophecies in light of other descriptions of Old Testament books. There are many references of threats to Israel coming from the north. For a short list see, Isa. 5:26-29, 13:1-13, 41:25; Jer. 1:13-15 (and fifteen other references in Jeremiah), Ezekiel 26:7, Zech. 2:6, 6:6-8, etc. And prior to the sixth century exile in Babylon, this typically meant the nations of Assyria, Babylon and Persia. And so, it may be that the prophecies contained in Ezekiel 38-39, Daniel 11, and Revelation 20:8-15 that describe Gog, Magog, or northern kingdoms that will one day attack Israel are the traditional northern enemies of Israel: Assyria, Babylon and Persia. This then means that the northern attackers are the immediate northern neighbors of Israel, modern day Palestine, Syria (Assyria), Iraq (Babylon) and Iran (Persia). Given that these areas today are followers of Islam, perhaps this better explains an unbridled hatred inspired united attack against Israel, that is described as the final battle of Armageddon (Revelation 16:16, 19:17-:21, 20:7-:10, and Zech. 14:2-:4). But I pass these thoughts out humbly, knowing that that the original prophecies of Ezekiel and Daniel were made over 2,600 years ago, and given this, there is room for differing thoughts on whatever position is taken. (I borrowed liberally from the study notes in my Reformation Study Bible for my thoughts on this.)

 

So I am grateful to have received an email from this unknown writer claiming to be from Poland. It helped me to see there are more parts of Daniel dealing with the end-times. And that there is likely a connection between Daniel's prophecy and Ezekiel's prophecy. I find studying the end-times prophecies in the Bible to be exciting, and I hope it was helpful to anyone reading this now. I invite your thoughts on this discussion. Thanks, and may God bless you this day and weekend.

Prophecy in the Bible

Is there anything special about the Bible, or is it just a collection of books that were written by men without any inspiration from God? I saw some old friends who I really enjoy spending time with last night, and the topic of the Dead Sea Scrolls came up. So I think it is a wonderful topic to look at both the Dead Sea Scrolls and how they show that there is something amazing, and supernatural about the Bible.

 

The Old Testament of the Bible speaks of a coming Messiah. And the claim is that Jesus Christ, or more properly Jesus the Messiah is this person who was described in the Old Testament prophecies. And some of the coolest prophecies of the Bible are contained in the major Prophet Isaiah's book. Here is a few of the prophecies that Isaiah by inspiration from God, wrote about: Isa. 7:14 - THEY WILL CALL HIM IMMANUEL WHICH MEANS GOD WITH US; (So here we see that the Messiah is actually a person who is also God.); Isa. 9:6, 7 TO US A CHILD IS BORN, A SON IS GIVEN, AND HIS NAME SHALL BE CALLED WONDERFUL COUNSELOR, MIGHTY GOD, EVERLASTING FATHER, PRINCE OF PEACE. (The Messiah will come to earth in the form of a baby, whose titles include Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, and Prince of Peace. Incredible, a person who is also righteous, and both Man and God?!) But the centerpiece of Isaiah's prophecies is contained in Isaiah where the description of the Messiah as a Suffering Servant is contained. It is described in Isaiah 52:13 through chapter 53. Here is what Isaiah wrote, tradition holds sometime earlier than 701 years before Jesus was born (701 BC), about the Messiah in Isa. 53:

 

Who has believed what they heard from us? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?

²      For he grew up before him like a young plant,    and like a root out of dry ground;   he had no form or majesty that we should look at him,

          and no beauty that we should desire him.

³      He was despised and rejected by men;    a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

⁴      Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted.

⁵      But he was wounded for our transgressions;    he was crushed for our iniquities;

     upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,   and with his stripes we are healed.

⁶      All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

⁷      He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent,

          so he opened not his mouth.

⁸      By oppression and judgment he was taken away; and as for his generation, who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people?

⁹      And they made his grave with the wicked and with a rich man in his death, although he had done no violence, and there was no deceit in his mouth.

¹⁰      Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him; he has put him to grief; when his soul makes an offering for sin, e shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days;

     the will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand.

¹¹      Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied; by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant,

          make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities.

¹²      Therefore I will divide him a portion with the many, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong, because he poured out his soul to death

          and was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many, and makes intercession for the transgressors.

 

And so we see the God-inspired Prophecy predict there would be a man despised and rejected, whom God would lay the sins of the world upon. The Messiah would be sacrificed not for His own sins, He was righteous, but for "our transgressions", "our iniquities". And through His sacrifice He will "make many to be accounted righteous" in God's eyes. We will no longer have to pay the price for our own sins, because Jesus paid the full charge for any sin that could ever be committed: any sin that deserves death was paid for by an innocent Man's death on the Cross.

 

A common charge for why we should not trust what is written in the Bible, is that because we do not have what was originally written that through 2,000 years of copying, people made mistakes and intentional errors to change what was originally written. The charge is that the Bible is not trustworthy because there are many copying errors. But that is the importance of what the Dead Sea Scrolls show: The Dead Sea Scrolls show that the Bible is extremely reliable, and that there are no significant changes or errors made through 2,000 years of copying.

 

Let me show you why the Dead Sea Scrolls are great proof that the Bible is given to us today without error. The Dead Sea Scrolls were found in buried jars and in the Qumran caves near the Dead Sea. Here is the REALLY AMAZING fact: the Isaiah scroll was carbon-dated to somewhere between 335 BC and 107 BC (source: Wikipedia)!!!!!! Yes, you read this right – we have copies of the original Isaiah manuscript that are over 107 years BEFORE Jesus was even born. So all of the prophecies by Isaiah, including the ones shown above, were written at least 100 years before He was born, AND WE HAVE THE COPIES of what was written. This means that we have an untainted, uncopied manuscript of the Isaiah prophecies dated before Jesus was even born.

 

The Old Testament books were provided by a group known as the Masoretes. So how does the Masoretic copied of the manuscripts compare to what is written in the uncopied Dead Sea Scrolls? You guessed it, there are some minor variations, but nothing of substance.

Dead Sea Scrolls roughly 100 AD -------------------------------------à 1950 AD discovered (no copies made – it copied manuscripts from 350 BC-107BC and these are in our hands. The Dead Sea Scrolls were not touched or copied for 2,000+ years)

Masoretic Text of the OT copied again and again for over 2,000 years

        llllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllà copied many times over 2,000 years. And it still is 95% the same as what is contained in the Dead Sea Scrolls. And no significant doctrine is affected by any of the copyists' differences. Instead, most of the differences are insignificant spelling variations.

The Masoretic Text is the same as the Dead Sea Scrolls. Example of Isaiah 53. The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Masoretic text are 95% identical. If any Old Testament text was going to be changed by Christian copyists it would be the prophecy about the Messiah contained in Isaiah 53. But instead there are only a total of 17 differences between the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Masoretic text.

1. 10 of the 17 differences is alternate spellings (similar to in America 'Judgment' is spelled without the 'e', while in Great Britain it is spelled 'judgement' with the 'e' in the middle.) These differences have no effect on any meaning,
   
2. 4 of the 17 differences are the addition of a conjunction. Again, no change in the meaning.
   
3. 3 of the 17 changes are contain in Isaiah 53:11, where it says 'They shall see", and the DSS add "light" which is not contained in the Masoretic text. Again no change in the meaning.
   

 

And that's all of the changes between the Dead Sea Scrolls that are pure, uncopied, untouched for 2,000+ years and the Masoretic text of the OT which was repeatedly copied for over 2,000 years. They are identical in meaning, with only a very few, minor changes, with most of these differences being spelling changes. And it is the same with the other portions of the OT as well. The text contained in the DSS is the same as the Masoretic text, again with only a few, immaterial differences between the two manuscripts. This is the best example showing that copyists of the Bible took their job seriously, and any errors or changes are easily discovered.

 

So what is the conclusion that we can draw about whether or not the Bible is reliable? Clearly, people who copied the books of the Bible took their job seriously. The Bible is reliable, and there are real, God-inspired Prophecies that show the supernatural character of the Bible. What do we make of the claim made in Hebrews 4:12 that the Bible is "living" and full of the Holy Spirit? This is what makes the Bible different from any other book that has ever been written. It contains God's Spirit, and changes lives. It has changed my life – and if you are open to learning about Who the Creator of the Universe is, and why He has put us here on earth, the Book will change your life too. Open up your Bible today, and find out what the Creator of the universe would like you to hear and understand better today.