"I beg your pardon?" [Sophie asked]

"The Bible is a product of man, my dear. Not of God. The Bible did not fall magically from the clouds. Man created it as a historical record of tumultuous times, and it has evolved through countless translations, additions, and revisions. History has never had a definitive version of the book.” (DVC, Paperback, pp. 250-251)

It is true that the Bible did not arrive by magic from heaven. Rather, God moved selected writers over a period of 1500 years to write what he intended. The result has been nothing short of miraculous.

“The Bible is the greatest work of literature, history and theology ever written. In its production, preservation and proclamation, and product, (changed history, changed lives) it stands as the most unique book in existence. It is a unity out of a diversity of authors, time span, and literary forms. The Old and New Testaments smoothly blend to create a bold sweep from eternity past to eternity future, from the heights of heaven to the depths of hell. In these sixty-six books, we discover our past, understand our present and attain hope for our future.” Bruce Wilkinson, Kenneth Boa, Talk Through the Bible, pg 1.

2 Peter 1:20-21

²⁰ Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet's own interpretation. ²¹ For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.

2 Timothy 3:16-17

¹⁶ All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, ¹⁷ so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

"The Bible ... has evolved through countless translations, additions, and revisions.  History has never had a definitive version of the book." (DVC, Paperback, pp. 250-251)

The Bible has been extensively rewritten and revised. Therefore, its original meaning has been lost. The Christian Scriptures "evolved through countless translations, additions, and revisions."  (DVC, p.231)

Isaiah 55:10-11

¹⁰ As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, ¹¹ so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.

Isaiah 40:8

⁸ The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God stands forever.

The Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered in 1947. At that time, the earliest dated manuscript we had of the Old Testament was the Masoretic Text, which dated to about the tenth Century AD.

The Dead Sea Scrolls contained no gospels, nor any reference to Jesus. They contained portions of every Old Testament book except Esther, commentaries on the Old Testament, some extrabiblical works, secular documents and business records.

Scholars compared the writing in the scrolls to the writing in the Masoretic text, and found that it to be remarkably unchanged for more than 1,000 years of copying. You can have a high degree of confidence that the Old Testament that we have today is very close indeed to the ancient text as it first came down to the Church.

The original writers of the New Testament wrote in Greek. Paul and Peter and John and James wrote their letters, Mathew Mark, Luke and John wrote their Gospels, and these circulated throughout the churches. Copies were carefully written and preserved. Today we have over 5,600 manuscript copies of the Greek New Testament, more than for any other ancient document. In addition we have thousands of copies in Latin, Coptic, Syriac and other ancient translations. But there are variances between the copies. Some copies have differences in spelling. Some have differences in word choice that involve synonyms. These do not affect translation. Some copies have meaningful differences, but under study and scrutiny, the differences do not hold up.

Dan Wallace states, "There are about 20 copies of the average ancient Greek author's writings. Altogether, the manuscripts of the New Testament are approximately 1,000 times more plentiful than the copies of the average ancient Greek writer. The New Testament manuscripts stand closer to the original and are more plentiful than any other Greek or Latin literature." 

"The deity of Christ is affirmed in the earliest manuscripts just as it is in the later ones; He rises bodily from the dead in all the Gospel manuscripts; and salvation is always by grace alone. We may not know the original wording in every place, but we can have confidence that no fundamental truth has been tampered with. In spite of those who make outlandish claims otherwise, the evidence is all on the side of the truth. What you have in your hands today is essentially what was written back then." ² Daniel Wallace, "Has God Preserved His Word?" http://go.family.org/davinci/content/A000000061.cfm

⁽² For a detailed examination of the claims of The Da Vinci Code that the New Testament text has been tampered with, see J. Ed Komoszewski, M. James Sawyer, and Daniel B. Wallace, Reinventing Jesus: What The Da Vinci Code and Other Novel Speculations Don't Tell You (Grand Rapids: Kregel Publications, not yet published).

"Constantine is perhaps best known for being the first Roman Emperor to freely allow Christianity.  Christian historians ever since Lactantius have adhered to the view that Constantine 'adopted' Christianity as a kind of replacement for the official Roman  polytheism. Though he was not baptized until he was on his deathbed, his conversion, according to the sources, was the immediate result of an omen before his victory in the Battle of Milvian Bridge, on October 28, 312. Upon seeing this vision, Constantine is said to have instituted a new standard to be carried into battle called the labarum. This vision seen by Constantine was made up of two events. Firstly, while marching with his soldiers he saw the shape of an ambigram cross with the words "in this sign you will conquer" in front of the sun. After seeing that he had a dream instructing him to put a new sign as the standard. It is said that after this event Constantine was immediately converted to Christianity."

 "Constantine is best remembered in modern times for the Edict of Milan in 313 and the  Council of Nicaea in 325, which fully legalized Christianity  in the Empire for the first time; these actions are considered major factors in the spreading of the religion. His reputation as the 'first Christian Emperor' has been promulgated by historians from Lactantius and Eusebius of Caesarea to the present day; although there has been debate over the veracity of his faith because he was baptized only on his death bed, this was in fact a reasonably common practice at the time ... " http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constantine_I_of_the_Roman_Empire

Rather, God’s people at large confirmed the authenticity of the New Testament Scriptures.

2 Peter 3:15-16

¹⁵ Bear in mind that our Lord's patience means salvation, just as our dear brother Paul also wrote you with the wisdom that God gave him. ¹⁶ He writes the same way in all his letters, speaking in them of these matters. His letters contain some things that are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the other Scriptures, to their own destruction.

Matthew, Mark, Luke and John were accepted in the first century based upon their authorship and their use in the early Christian centers of Jerusalem, Antioch, Alexandria and Rome.

Jeremiah 23:21, 28-29

²¹ I did not send these prophets, yet they have run with their message; I did not speak to them, yet they have prophesied.

²⁸ "Let the prophet who has a dream tell his dream, but let the one who has my word speak it faithfully. For what has straw to do with grain?" declares the LORD.

²⁹ "Is not my word like fire," declares the LORD, "and like a hammer that breaks a rock in pieces?

And the best validation of all is what happens to you when you read it, discover it, pray it, apply it. Your life will change forever. Your eternal destination will change from hell to heaven. Your heart will change from dark to light.

If you want to know God, invest the strength of your soul in this Book of Books.

It will transform you.