God has shown himself to be real through multiple means, the strongest of which being shown through the prophetic word as we discussed in the first article (October 2015). In addition:
- The Jewish history, both prophetically and not prophetically, can be used to show that the God of the Bible does exist.
- A study of Jewish Medicine as revealed in the Bible shows how much it was ahead of its time, under the direction of God and His prophets.
- The big bang theory as well as the theory of evolution will be examined, all leading to the conclusion that our God is indeed real.
The return of the Jews to the land
The Jewish people stand out in history as an abnormality. All the religions that came about the same time of the Jewish religion have seemed to die out. The Mesopotamian, Egyptian, Greek, Roman, and many others surrounding the time of the Jewish religion rising are all gone, whereas the Jewish religion is still alive today. Not only so, but the Jewish people are the focus of the Middle Eastern world right now. The Jewish people have survived this long, yet have been extremely small in population. By all the other examples in history they should have died out like the other religions that came into history around their time. The following chart
goes through the Jewish heritage and history as well as their population. As one can see, the max population of the Jews was around 16.6 million people. According to “records that the Romans kept about 2,000 years ago, there were between 8-10 million Jews living in the world” (Packouz) at the time of Christ. That means over 2,000 years the Jewish population has about doubled. The Chinese people, on the other hand, went from 30 million people to about one billion people in the same amount of time (Packouz). There should be many more Jews then there are today, and unsurprisingly the Bible predicted their small population. The Bible states, “And the LoRD shall scatter you among the nations, and ye shall be left few in number among the heathen, whither the LoRD shall lead you” (Deut 4:27). Throughout the 2,000 years of the Jews being a smaller people they have consistently remained a distinct people, and played a major role in history (Packouz).
Probably one of the most sad but true facts about Jews that the Bible predicts is the massive amounts of persecution they would face. The Bible states, “And among these nations shalt thou find no ease, neither shall the sole of thy foot have rest: but the Lord shall give thee there a trembling heart, and failing of eyes, and sorrow of mind: And thy life shall hang in doubt before thee; and thou shalt fear day and night, and shalt have none assurance of thy life” (Deut 28:65-66). Specifically focusing on the section stating, “Neither shall the sole of thy foot have rest” (Deut 28:65), the Jews truly have never had a place to rest until Israel’s reestablishment. In fact, from 250 A.D. to 1945 A.D. the Jews have been expelled from various countries a total of 82 times (Packouz). In some cases it was for silly reasons such as being “blood drinkers,” even though their law prohibits them from even eating meat with blood in it. In the same time period, there have been over 105 either miniature or major genocides against the Jews ranging from the burning of Rabbi’s to the Holocaust. One of the scariest facts would be that, “In almost every generation there is an attempted Jewish genocide somewhere in the world on a macrocosmic or microcosmic scale” (Packouz). The irrational persecution of the Jewish people was definitively predicted in the Bible and could not be guessed or fulfilled through pure chance.
Jewish medical practices
Not only do the Bible’s prophecies show that the Bible is inspired and therefore God exists, but it also gave the Jews medical practices well ahead of their time. The most apparent example of this would be in the handling of dead bodies. “Prior to the twentieth century surgeons used to handle the dead and the dying and then, without washing their hands, go into the operating theatre. Because of this many patients lost their life through infection” (“Reasons to Believe — Reason 7”). In modern day medicine, a surgeon doing something along those lines would cause an uproar and would likely be subject to a malpractice law suit. The Jews on the other hand knew that they must wash after handling the dead for thousands of years prior to modern medicine. The Bible states, “He that toucheth the dead body of any man shall be unclean seven days” (Numb 11:11), which then would require a cleansing process. An unclean person, “shall purify himself with it on the third day, and on the seventh day he shall be clean” (Numb 11:12). When a person was unclean in the Jewish law, they were not allowed to interact with society, and any person they touched would become unclean as well. The purifying process was a full cleaning of the person and their clothing. The Bible states, “And the clean person shall sprinkle upon the unclean on the third day, and on the seventh day: and on the seventh day he shall purify himself, and wash his clothes, and bathe himself in water, and shall be clean at even” (Numb 11:19). This means that in contrast to a surgeon going from handling the dead straight into surgery, a Jew would have to separate himself from society for seven days and have a clean person thoroughly wash both him and his clothing. This is just one of multiple examples of the Jewish law being thousands of years ahead of its time, and adds to the idea that a supernatural, all-knowing being actually created these laws.
When brought up to an atheist, or someone who does not believe in a God, the typical response is that someone had to figure out these things first. In other words, there would have to be a first group to figure out that handling the dead without cleaning after is unhygienic and the Jews happened to be that group. Although this is plausible in some aspects, it fails to be a fulfilling explanation of the Jews being so far advanced medically. Today, if the United States were to develop a cure to cancer, within a few weeks multiple nations would have the same cure. Although this is by and large because of modern technology, it is very unlikely it would take two to four thousand years for people to come to the same conclusions the Jews did when these laws were created, if the Jews had discovered these medical laws through science and reasoning.
Probability
One of the largest oppositions to the belief in God, and specifically in the inspiration of the Bible, is through science. In the creation account in Genesis, the Bible claims human kind and all animals were made within a two day process. Scientists disagree, claiming that evolution is the explanation for how human beings came into being. Statistically speaking, the theory of evolution is highly improbably. William Lane Craig, an avid evangelist with a PhD in philosophy, states that “The probability of the evolution of the human genome is between four raised to the negative 180th power, raised to the 110,00th power, and four raised to the 360th power, raised to the 110,000th power” (Craig). He also states that in the time for one tenth of the evolutionary process to occur purely by chance, the sun should have expanded and destroyed the Earth (Craig). This shows that when one takes away the existence of God and leans on the theory that chance is what brought us into being, they are going entirely against statistical probabilities.
The Big Bang
Another common theory used to explain the creation of everything is the big bang theory. One form of this theory claims that all matter and time came into existence at one moment on its own. The issue with this theory is that this means nothing caused nothing to become something. On contrast, the Genesis account of creation has an almighty being causing nothing to become something. A common question asked to a Christian is the question of, “If the universe could not exist without a creator, then using the same logic, the creator must have a creator. So who created God?” This directly goes against a believer of the Bible’s claim though. The Bible claims, “The eternal God is thy refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms” (Deut 33:27). Since Christians claim that God is eternal, there is no need for a creator of Him. To further explain, God has no beginning, and therefore does not need to be created. The universe is almost universally accepted to have a beginning, and therefore must have a creator (Craig).
Belief in God does require an amount of faith, and cannot be absolutely proven through reasoning, but that does not take away that there is plenty of evidence that leads to the conclusion of there being a God. Through prophecy that has predicted improbable events, Jewish people standing out in history, and clearing up a few scientific oppositions, it is evident that the God of the Bible must be true. The question of, “Does God exist?” is an extremely popular question, and is personal to people both of faith and without it. When approaching the question through a statistical scope, it seems extremely improbable for the Bible to have been written, say the things it does, and then be correct without some form of inspiration through a higher being, thus showing that the God of the Bible indeed real.
Sources
- Craig, William, and Christopher Hitchens. “Debate — William Lane Craig vs Christopher Hitchens — Does God Exist?” YouTube.
- Packouz, Kalman. “7 Wonders of Jewish History.” Simple to Remember Judaism Online.
- “Reasons to Believe — Reason 7.” Reasons to Believe (on Web).
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One