We listed some of the opinions about the Bible previously from both the positive side and the negative side. But still there is no concise and clear answer that directly addresses the simple question:
What really is the Bible?
I think the following quote from a book on Bibliology provides a good answer:
“The Bible is the revelation of God’s will and purpose for mankind in the context of history and in relation to four doctrinal themes: Creation, Fall, Redemption, and Restoration.”
Friends, I understand that there are at least two problems with the above description on the meaning of the Bible. Firstly, there are many Christian jargons such as “Redemption” and “Restoration” that make the above statement unintelligible for anyone who are not familiar with these terms. Secondly, if one is not sure about the existence of God, then the above description does not make much sense. Without God, there is no supernatural being to reveal anything.
Despite of the above problems, allow me to explain the following:
Assuming the existence of the all-powerful and all-loving Creator, He would initiate a communication channel such as the Bible to reach out to humans.
If there is the Creator, then we should be totally powerless and unintelligent when compared to Him. When we marvel at creation, on a large scale as the stars and on small scale as unicellular organisms or just our hair, we should understand there is a vast gap in intelligence between the Creator and us. How can we as minuscule humans understand the Creator? By serious meditation through our extremely limited intelligence? It is just impossible.
Only if the Creator himself reaches out to humans can we understand the Creator. The Bible describes how the Creator reaches out to humans through history. The Bible itself is the Creator’s official way to let us know about himself.
But why does the Creator want to let us humans know about himself? Perhaps He created the universe, and then let the physical laws govern the universe all by themselves. He then hid himself and forgot about humans. Did He?
The Creator cannot just leave people behind and let the blind physical laws to be our master. Why? Because God is love. It is part of the nature of God as the Bible, His official channel to people, tells us. If a father loves his sons, he naturally would like to talk to them even if his sons do not want to. If a man and a lady are in love, they would be eager to communicate to each other.
Nature lets us wonder about Creation. We may infer the existence of a mighty Creator. From there we may further infer justice, love, and many noble characters that we aspire to. We may relate these noble characters to the Creator. However, only through a direct communication from the Creator can we understand, to the extent that we are capable of, the Creator in a personal way.
We may not be convinced about the existence of God. However, we can be sure that if God really exists and that He loves humans, then the existence of a communication channel such as the Bible is inevitable.
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