Dan Olinger

"If the Bible is true, then none of our fears are legitimate, none of our frustrations are permanent, and none of our opposition is significant."

Dan Olinger

Chair, Division of Biblical Studies & Theology,

Bob Jones University

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Firstborn!: You and the Jehovah’s Witnesses, Part 6

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We’re wrestling with Colossians 1.15, which says that Christ is “the firstborn of all creation.” What does that mean? We’ve determined that the word firstborn can mean two things: almost always, it means that the firstborn came into existence at a point in time, as the first sibling to be born; but very rarely, it can mean simply that the firstborn is pre-eminent or exalted over something else.

Which of those meanings applies here?

In the previous post I said that it is precisely at this point in the process where Christians make their big mistake. We’re talking to the Jehovah’s Witness, and we really want to win this argument, so we take them to Psalm 89.27 to show them that the word can mean “pre-eminent one,” and then we say triumphantly, “And that’s what it means here in Colossians 1.15!”

Now, hold on a minute. What did you just do?

You picked the meaning you liked the best. You picked the meaning that would help you win the argument. In other words, you didn’t do any exegesis; you didn’t “draw the meaning out of” the passage. You did eisegesis; you “read the meaning you wanted into” the passage. You made yourself the lord of the Scripture rather than its servant. You’re telling it what to say instead of listening to what it actually says.

You bad little Christian, you.

Look. The Bible is true, and the truth is our friend. We want to hear whatever it says. Every time.

So what should you have done?

You have two possible meanings, or nuances, for the word firstborn. How do you determine which one to read in this sentence?

Remember our sample sentence about the sun and chess and hair? How did you know what the word set meant in its 3 occurrences in that sentence?

Context. You looked for clues in the sentence to determine the proper meaning.

So finding that really useful nuance in Psalm 89.27 doesn’t mean that you’re done. On the contrary, it means that you’re just now ready to get started. You have the nuances; now you’re going to set out to determine the meaning. Time to look at the sentence, then the larger context of the passage, then the larger context of Paul’s writings, then the whole New Testament, and then the Bible as a whole. We have a lot of work to do.

Quick reminder. Who’s winning the argument at this point? On etymology and on usage frequency, the Jehovah’s Witness is winning by a mile. 97 to 3. Not even close.

Step 4: Intended meaning in close context

So to the sentence we go. How does Paul intend us to read this word?

If we follow the KJV punctuation, the sentence starts all the way back at the beginning of the paragraph, in verse 9. (Sentences of that length and complexity are not unusual in Paul; the longest sentence in the Bible runs for 12 verses in Ephesians 1, a sister epistle to our Colossians.) We need to read the sentence carefully, looking for clues as to whether Paul is talking about priority in time or priority in standing—whether he’s talking about being earlier or being higher.

So here we go.

  • Col 1.13: the Son has a kingdom. The king is usually the oldest son of the previous king, and he’s certainly exalted, so this phrase could go either way. A checkmark for both sides.
  • Col 1.15: this is the one we’re trying to figure out. No score.
  • Col 1.16:
    • The Son created everything. Well, now. If he created everything, then he couldn’t be created, could he? If you had written that, your freshman English teacher would have said it was a logical error. If he’s the first created being, then you should say, “For by him were all other things created.” Now, we know Paul. He’s a rabbi trained by the great Rabban Gamaliel. He wrote Romans. Even setting aside the factor of divine inspiration, how likely is it that Paul made a rookie logical mistake like that? Not very. Checkmark for “higher.”
    • And one more thing. The verse starts with the word “For.” Paul is logically connecting the fact that Christ is firstborn with the fact that he made all things. Which reading makes better sense:
      • “Christ was created first because he made all things.”
      • “Christ is over all creation because he made all things.”

That question answers itself. Checkmark for “higher.”

  • And another thing. The verse ends with the statement that all things were created “for” him. Checkmark for “higher.”

We’re just getting started. We’ll continue this little investigation next time.

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Firstborn!: You and the Jehovah’s Witnesses, Part 5

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We’ve found 3 places in the OT where the word firstborn clearly does not mean “the first one to be born.” So what does it mean in those cases? Let’s work on one of those occurrences and see what we can learn.

Psalm 89.27 reads, “And I will make him the firstborn, the highest of the kings of the earth.” Before we can determine what this means, we need to know who it’s talking about. And that means identifying those pronouns—or rather, the antecedents of those pronouns. Who is “I”? And who is “him”? (And yes, that’s grammatically correct, even though it sounds awful.)

Let’s start with the “I.” Who is speaking in the passage? Well, the previous verse says, “He shall cry to me, ‘You are my Father, my God, and the Rock of my salvation.’ ” OK, the speaker is God; the Psalmist, Ethan the Ezrahite, is quoting God at some length beginning in verse 19.

And who is God going to make his firstborn? We see the answer toward the beginning of the quotation, in verse 20. He’s talking about David.

So. God will make David his firstborn, the highest of the kings of the earth.

Now, we know that firstborn here can’t mean “the first one to be born,” for two simple reasons:

  • David wasn’t the firstborn. In fact, he was the youngest of eight brothers (1Sam 16.10).
  • The verb’s all wrong. You can’t “make” someone the first one born, after he’s born. Either he’s already the first one born, or he’s not.

Well, then, what does the word mean? The last part of the verse tells us: “the highest of the kings of the earth.”

Not “the oldest,” mind you, but “the highest.” Here God is using the word firstborn to refer to someone who is over others—who is more important than those around him, who is pre-eminent.

And come to think of it, we know of situations like that in the Bible. Jacob buys the birthright from his (slightly) older brother, Esau (Gen 25.29-34); decades later the same Jacob intentionally gives his grandson Ephraim the blessing of the firstborn over his older brother Manasseh (Gen 48.13-19), to the displeasure of their father, Joseph. The younger became more important than the older.

So how did a mathematical, biological word like firstborn come to have this very non-literal nuance?

The answer is obvious. The firstborn son in a family in the ancient world had certain rights and responsibilities. In the Mosaic Law, the firstborn son received a double portion of the inheritance—so if there were 3 sons, the oldest got 2/4, and each of the other two got 1/4 (Dt 21.15-17). The firstborn would rule the family in the father’s absence; he would be “lord” over his brothers (Gen 27.29).

Since the most important characteristic of the firstborn was his pre-eminence, it was natural to make the word mean that. So the word firstborn came to mean “the pre-eminent one,” “the boss,” “the highest one.”

And that seems to be what the word means in those other two occurrences we found at the end of the previous post.

  • When God tells Pharaoh that Israel is his firstborn son (Ex 4.22), he is saying that he prefers Israel above all others—including Egypt—and that ol’ Pharaoh had better keep his bloomin’ hands to himself—and Pharaoh learns that lesson in spades through the plagues (Ex 7.14ff) and the massacre at the Red Sea (Ex 14.26-29).
  • Similarly, when Jeremiah quotes God as saying that Ephraim is his firstborn (Jer 31.9), he means that he prefers Israel (implied as included in the one tribe Ephraim) over their Babylonian captors, and he will certainly restore them to their land after the captivity.

So the word firstborn in Colossians 1.15 could have at least two possible meanings.

  • It could be used literally: Jesus came into existence by God’s creative act before anything else was created. This is the Jehovah’s Witness position, and it seems heavily favored by the word’s usage statistics.
  • Or it could be used metaphorically, as it is only rarely elsewhere: Jesus is pre-eminent over all (merely) created things.

Now right here is where most Christians make their big mistake. We’ll talk about that next time.

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Firstborn!: You and the Jehovah’s Witnesses, Part 4

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You and two hypothetical Jehovah’s Witnesses are having a discussion, and they’ve pointed you to Colossians 1.15, where Christ is said to be the “firstborn of all creation.” We’ve noted that the operative word here is the term firstborn, and we’ve set out to discover what it means.

Defining the key terms

Since words have multiple meanings, we need to gather a list of what this key term could possibly mean. We’ve noted that according to its etymology, it simply means that the person is the first one to be born, or to come into existence. That means that our Jehovah’s Witness friends are winning.

But we’ve also noted that etymology is notoriously unreliable as an indicator of meaning. We need to look further.

Step 3: Possible meanings–context

The best indicator of a word’s meaning is how it’s actually used. If Michael Jackson used the word bad to mean “good,” then we need to know that when one of his fans uses the word bad.

Similarly, we need to survey how the word firstborn is used. The most reliable indicator is typically how it’s used in “near context”—the same chapter, the same epistle, the same author. The word does appear just a few verses below this occurrence, in verse 18; we’ll come back to that later. For now, we notice that it appears 3 times in Paul, twice in Hebrews, and twice in the Gospels. If you’re being extra diligent and using Strong’s numbers to check the underlying Greek word, you find 2 more uses, translated “first begotten” in the KJV, both in Hebrews.

So 9 uses in the New Testament. That’s a problem in that 9 uses are nowhere enough to constitute a meaningful dataset; statisticians will tell you that you need 50 whatevers before you can start drawing statistical conclusions. Furthermore, the problem gets worse; of these 9 occurrences, 8 of them are simply calling Jesus the firstborn, which is the very thing we’re trying to figure out. We need verses that use the term to refer to other things, so we can see what the term actually means. Our one instance in the NT, Hebrews 11.28, is a reference to Passover, when the death angel destroyed the firstborn of Egypt, and that’s talking about people and animals that were literally the first ones to come into existence.

Too little evidence, and what little we have says that the Jehovah’s Witness is still winning.

Drat. Again.

But we do have another resource. The Old Testament, the Scripture of the same cultural group, was translated into Greek about 200 years before Christ, which is close enough in time to be useful as evidence. We can take a look at that Greek OT, the Septuagint, to see how much it uses the term.

Firstborn occurs in the KJV OT 110 times. Now there’s a dataset. (If you get more technical and count the number of times the Greek word prototokos occurs in the Septuagint, you’ll get 124. That number’s different for several reasons, which won’t make any significant difference in our work here.)

Of those 110 occurrences, about 97% are literal—that is, we’re talking about a human or animal that is literally the first one born. So 97% of the time, this word speaks of coming into existence.

Who’s winning? The Jehovah’s Witness. Still. And by a mile.

But 97% is not 100%. There are a few instances where the word is used of someone or something that is not the first one born:

  • Then you shall say to Pharaoh, ‘Thus says the Lord, Israel is my firstborn son (Ex 4.22).
  • And I will make him the firstborn, the highest of the kings of the earth (Ps 89.27).
  • With weeping they shall come, and with pleas for mercy I will lead them back, I will make them walk by brooks of water, in a straight path in which they shall not stumble, for I am a father to Israel, and Ephraim is my firstborn (Jer 31.9).

Next time we’ll take a closer look at one of those passages, and we’ll learn of a second possible meaning for our word.

And, more importantly, we’ll also learn how not to completely abuse the Scripture in the process.

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Firstborn!: You and the Jehovah’s Witnesses, Part 3

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Defining the key terms

So you’re deep in conversation with the Jehovah’s Witnesses, and you’re discussing the deity of Christ, and the spokesman clobbers you with Colossians 1.15: Christ is “the firstborn of all creation.” He’s the first created being.

Now what?

Well, you treat this passage like any other. You follow the exegetical process to determine what it means. Since this is a short passage and a simple statement, the process will be a little simpler than if you’re working in, say, Ezekiel 40-48, so this shouldn’t take long.

Step 1: Identifying the key words

You begin by looking at the words. (Were you expecting something more, well, profound?) What are the key words in the passage? You’re going to start with the subject and the main verb, then other nouns and verbs, then adjectives and adverbs. If you were dealing with a longer passage, you’d look closely at conjunctions as well, to see how the statements fit together.

The main verb of the verse is simply a form of “to be,” which in this case is fairly simple. There are nouns—image, God, creature—which here have fairly plain meaning (image excepted, perhaps) and in any case are not the focus of the theological disagreement. Both you and the Jehovah’s Witnesses are going to agree that the key word, the central character in the disagreement, is the adjective firstborn. What does it mean that Jesus is “firstborn”? Everything hangs on the answer to that question.

Step 2: Possible meanings–etymology

Now that you’ve identified the key word(s), you need to find out what they mean. This process will involve multiple steps.

You begin with a critical observation: words mean more than one thing. If you look up any word (in any language, come to think of it) in the dictionary, it’s pretty much always going to have more than one definition. There are exceptions, mostly very technical terms—deoxyribonucleic, for example—but every biblical word I’ve ever studied has multiple definitions (or, as the scholars like to say, “nuances”).

It might seem like the logical place to start is with the question, “Well, where did the word come from?” Or, to put it more technically, what is the word’s etymology? The word firstborn looks pretty obvious, and it is: it comes from two words meaning, um, “first” and “born.” So, the first one to be born, or to come into being. Jesus is the first one to come into being.

Who’s winning so far? The Jehovah’s Witness.

You can double-check in a formal source, like the Oxford English Dictionary (at the library), or Merriam Webster’s, or even dictionary.com. They’ll all say the same thing. First. Born.

Hmm. Well, how about the Greek? I don’t recommend that people who don’t know Greek set out to “check the Greek,” for reasons both practical and professional, but I’ll save you the trouble. The Greek word is prototokos. Proto, “first.” Tokos, “born.”

Drat.

He’s still winning.

I’ll tell you a little secret, though.

Etymology is a lousy way to find out what a word means. There’s even an exegetical error called the “etymological fallacy.” The reason for that is really simple: we’re in the image of God, and God’s creative, and consequently so are we. One of the ways we show that is by coming up with creative uses for our existing words. One reason you can’t understand half the things your teenagers say is that they’re using existing words with meanings that only they and their friends know. Back in the 80s Michael Jackson decided that the word bad actually meant “good,” and we’ve been messed up ever since.

If I were to say, “When the sun set, I polished my chess set while my wife set her hair,” you wouldn’t have any problem understanding the sentence, although it would seem like an odd juxtaposition of observations. The word set occurs in that sentence with 3 completely different and unrelated meanings (to go down; a collection of objects; and to harden in place), but if you’re a native speaker of English, it didn’t even slow you down. How did you sort out the meanings?

Context. The accompanying words sun, chess, and hair told you which meaning, or nuance, I intended in each instance.

So to find out what our word firstborn means, we’re going to have to do some work with context.

Next time.

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Firstborn!: You and the Jehovah’s Witnesses, Part 2

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Part 1

The battleground

So you’re standing on the porch, or maybe sitting in your living room, and the conversation begins. You have a couple of choices. You can just let them talk, and ask clarifying questions along the way, or you can drive the conversation yourself. Either way, eventually you’re going to get to the most serious difference between JW theology and biblical Christianity: the deity of Christ.

Jehovah’s Witnesses, as modern ideological descendants of Arius and his followers, believe that Jesus is a created being, the first of God’s creatures, and then the creator of everything else. They happily show you where your Bible teaches that:

Who [Jesus] is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation (Col 1.15).

The designated spokesman of the pair will show you the passage in your Bible and then say, trying not to sound triumphal, “You see, this verse clearly says that Jesus was the first created being.”

What are you going to say to that? Many Christians find the statement a little troubling and seek to counter it with a bunch of other verses that, they say, teach the deity of Christ. You know, verses like John 1.1 (boy, is there going to be an argument about that one; few things are more comically futile than two people who don’t know Greek arguing about what the Greek says), and John 8.58, and Titus 2.13, and Isaiah 9.6, and …

But there’s a problem or three with that approach. First, you’re trying to win an argument by having the more verses. And in doing that you’re implying that the Bible teaches both sides, and the side with the more verses wins. And that’s an implicit denial of the unity and inerrancy of Scripture. Second, you’ve failed to respond meaningfully to his argument, thereby giving him a solidly planted tent peg that he doesn’t deserve. And most important, you haven’t gained from the Word what this verse actually teaches. If all the Scripture is profitable (2Ti 3.16), then you ought to mine the gold from this passage.

So what do you say about this passage? Here you have a wonderful opportunity to teach beyond the argument. You have a chance to teach these folks some exegesis, through which, if they heed it, they’ll be finding problems with their own theology all by themselves for the rest of their time as Jehovah’s Witnesses.

But it’s going to take some time. So, I suppose, those of you who are sitting on comfortable couches and drinking iced tea will have a bit of an advantage.

Exegesis is simply the process of getting the author’s intended meaning from a piece of writing. You do exegesis all the time, even if you’ve never heard the word before. In fact, you’re doing it right now—you’re reading my words and getting the meaning from them.

Most of our daily exegesis is pretty simple: Stop. Authorized personnel only. Exit left. Wait here to be seated. Waffles $8.95. Electronics Department. Lather, rinse, repeat.

But lots of writing requires more care in understanding correctly. Good poetry, for example, typically requires some scratching of the head, stroking of the beard, and furrowing of the brow. Narrative is much easier. In biblical studies, epistolary literature, of which Colossians is one example, requires considerable thought, especially when it’s developing an argument over multiple paragraphs and even chapters.

That means there’s a process for exegeting challenging writing. This process has multiple steps, each of which you need to do in its order and with careful thought. This passage is a great opportunity to learn the process, because it’s brief, but it also requires all the steps of the process if you’re going to understand what it’s saying. Further—and this is really cool—if you follow the process carefully, the meaning is absolutely clear, and it’s absolutely impossible for the passage to say what the Jehovah’s Witness claims it says. But all along the way, until the very end, your JW friend is going to think that he’s headed for a win; he’s going to be the proverbial hare to your tortoise.

All of that makes the exercise deeply enjoyable.

So next time, we’ll head jauntily off toward Understanding.

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Firstborn! You and the Jehovah’s Witnesses, Part 1

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To engage or not to engage

It’s not a question of “if.”

It’s only a question of “when.”

You’re going to open your front door, and two Jehovah’s Witnesses are going to be standing there. And they’re going to want to talk.

There was a time in this country when door-to-door salesmen were common and generally welcome, as another supply vector—for Fuller brushes or Hoover vacuum cleaners or Schwan’s ice cream. But those days are gone; today Americans are unanimously thinking How can I get this bozo off my porch and get on with my life? That’s not true in many other countries, but it’s true here.

So I know what you’re going to be thinking about those JWs.

Great. Just great. This is not a good time. Come to think of it, it’ll never be a good time. I have better things to do.

But. Do you? Really? Unless you’ve just called 911, and somebody’s exsanguinating on your kitchen floor, I’m not so sure you really do have better things to do.

There is a heaven, and there is a hell. And everyone’s going one place or the other. And here are two people, in the image of God, who have gone to the trouble of coming right to your door, and who want to talk about Jesus.

Now, exactly what better things do you have to do?

First question: do you invite them in? or do you talk on the porch?

Most Christians know about 2 John 7-11—I suspect mostly because it’s a great way to get yourself out of talking to them and back to those “better” things you have to do:

7 For many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not confess the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh. Such a one is the deceiver and the antichrist. 8 Watch yourselves, so that you may not lose what we have worked for, but may win a full reward. 9 Everyone who goes on ahead and does not abide in the teaching of Christ, does not have God. Whoever abides in the teaching has both the Father and the Son. 10 If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not receive him into your house or give him any greeting, 11 for whoever greets him takes part in his wicked works.

So someone who “does not abide in the teaching of Christ,” who, as in this case, denies the deity of Christ, is a false teacher, and we’re not supposed to let him into the house.

Several years ago, I was helping a pastor friend plant a church in a Boston suburb. One afternoon we were planning the next Sunday’s service when the doorbell rang, and there were two JWs. My pastor’s words to them were curt:

“I know who you are; you’re Jehovah’s Witness; you’re heretics, Arians, and your heresy was condemned by the church in the fourth century. The Bible says I can’t invite you into my house, so I have nothing to say to you. If Dan wants to talk to you out here on the porch, he’s welcome to do so, but as far as I’m concerned, this conversation is over.”

And he closed the door in their faces. (I was young and a seminary student and spoilin’ for a fight, so I engaged them for quite a bit there on the porch—but that’s a story for another time.)

My pastor friend interpreted the 2 John passage very literally—on the porch, OK, but not in the house.

Other students of the Bible have read the passage differently. They suggest that in the first century, to “receive [someone] into your house” meant to give him a place to stay, and that meant that you were effectively endorsing him in your community. They note that when Jason, a man from Thessalonica, offered Paul and his team a place to stay, the locals took that as support and endorsement and even threatened Jason with civil forfeiture (Acts 17.1-9). Long before that, Lot took strangers (actually angels) into his house and felt obligated to protect them from the townsmen to the point that he offered the mob his own daughters for sexual assault (Gen 19.1-11). Hospitality in the ancient Near East was a very serious business indeed.

So, these interpreters suggest, the issue isn’t whether the conversation takes place inside or outside the house; the issue is whether you act toward them in a way that implies endorsement or recognition as anything other than false teachers. So, they would say, invite them in; show them to a seat; offer them some (sweetened!) ice tea. And then have a gracious but frank conversation with them about the error of their ways.

Whichever interpretation you take, I think you ought to have the conversation. The image of God is very serious business as well.

Next time: then what?

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Hard Evidence for a Supernatural Book, Part 8: On a Scientific Examination of the Data

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Part 1      Part 2     Part 3     Part 4     Part 5     Part 6     Part 7 

Since we’ve raised the issue of Messianic prophecies, there are plenty of others worth adding to the pile: 

  • That Messiah’s mother would be a virgin (Isa 7.14). (And yes, the Hebrew word there means virgin, as the choice of the Septuagint translators shows: they chose the Greek word parthenos, which unambiguously means virgin. The Septuagint translators were much more likely to know the nuances of a Hebrew word in their day than a modern scholar with naturalistic biases.) See Matt 1.22-23. 
  • That he would be born in Bethlehem (Micah 5.2). You’ll recall that Herod’s advisors used this prophecy to tell the Babylonian magi (the “wise men”) where they could find the infant king (Matt 2.3-6). 
  • That he would spend early years in Egypt (Hos 11.1). See Matt 2.15. 
  • That one preparing his way would cry out in the wilderness (Isa 40.3). See Matt 3.3. 
  • That he would bring light to Galilee (Isa 9.1-2). See Matt 4.12-16. 
  • That he would heal people (Isa 53.4). See Matt 8.16-17. 
  • That he would ride into Jerusalem on a donkey but also as a king (Zech 9.9). See Matt 21.1-5. 
  • That he would be betrayed by a friend, one who ate bread with him (Ps 41.9). See Matt 26.20-25, 47-56. 
  • That he would be sold for 30 pieces of silver (Zech 11.12-13). See Matt 27.9-10. 
  • That he would be silent before his accusers (Isa 53.7-8). See Matt 27.12-14. 
  • That he would be tortured (Isa 50.6). See Matt 26.67-68. 
  • That he would be mockingly urged to let God deliver him (Ps 22.7-8). See Matt 27.39-40. 
  • That he would be pierced (Zech 12.10). See Matt 27.35. 
  • That his clothes would be disposed of by lot (Ps 22.18). See Matt 27.35. 
  • That his death would be alongside both the wicked and the rich (Isa 53.9, 12). See Matt 27.38, 57-60. 

Whew. That’s quite a list. 

And did you notice a pattern? 

All the confirmations I’ve listed are from Matthew. 

Matthew is clearly writing his Gospel to demonstrate to his Jewish audience that Jesus is the Jewish Messiah. One of the clearest ways he does that is by demonstrating that Jesus fulfilled the Messianic prophecies; he’s constantly saying, “All these things happened so that it might be fulfilled which was written by the prophet … .” A study of those passages would be worth your time; I haven’t included all of them in the list above. 

I began this series by saying that I’ve found two objective evidences that the Bible is not an ordinary book. We’ve looked—briefly—at both its literary unity and its prophetic accuracy. After a lifetime of study, I find those evidences compelling. 

Perhaps you don’t. Fair enough. But I hope you’ll be intellectually honest enough—and scientific enough—not to simply dismiss evidences that don’t support what you’d like to believe. A pile of hard data calls for serious investigation. 

You wouldn’t want to be unscientific, would you?