Q. When was the book of Daniel written down? Was it written by Daniel or someone else? You said that chapter 11 was the most heavily verified chapter in the Bible. Can you explain to me how it was verified? Read Post »

Q. My husband and I were saved 7 years ago. I have a huge appetite for end times information. Most of my knowledge of end times comes from the Bible and reading everything I can get my hands on.

The only thing that bothers me about my church is that they do not teach anything about end-times prophecy. Read Post »

Q. I was having a conversation with my mom over the weekend regarding the Bible. She said that she is having a hard time getting through the prophets because she doesn’t understand what it is all about. This wasn’t a new complaint from her becauase she rarely (if ever) studies out the word much further than just reading the text. Read Post »

Q. I wanted to see what your thoughts were on the 13 letters penned by Paul.  I have read in some research that scholars only are sure that 7 were penned by Paul, maybe another 2 are 50-50, and the rest are likely not penned by Paul (the pastoral epistles).  Personally, I think Paul did pen them but have no proof of this other than faith.   In fact, one article I read was on a catholic resources page.  One of the letters in question is 2Thesselonians which our prime sources for the rapture defense (this one is disputed by approximately 1/2 of biblical scholars).    Since early church fathers such as Polycarp did not question Paul’s letters as part of early canon, I would believe we should not either. Read Post »

I love God’s word and have several versions I read. (KJV, NASB & NIV). My son was recently saved and I gave him an NIV version. My pastor only condones KJV and feels that the encroachment of the newer versions is just Satan’s way of causing more division among God’s people.

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Q. Thank you so much for this wonderful site. I have found answers to so many interesting questions. Now I have one of my own.

My pastor is preaching through the book of 1 Samuel right now. Recently, we covered 1 Samuel chapter 6.

I use a New American Standard, while my pastor preaches from a New King James. Verse 19 notes that God struck down 50,070 men. However, while talking about it later with some of our friends, they said they were confused when our pastor read that part. Their translations said it was just 70, not 50,070. There was no explanation, and at the time they were confused where that extra fifty thousand came from.

Sure enough, the notes in my Bible state that the 50,000 was probably a copyist’s error, as it was not properly conjugated or something like that, and doesn’t appear in all the manuscripts. It further states that there’s no way the city held over fifty thousand people, and that the likely number was actually just seventy.

So what’s going on here? Obviously, I’m extremely confused. Can you shed some light on this for me?

A. The words translated 50, 1,000 and 70 in 1 Sam. 6:19 are cardinal numbers in Hebrew. Apparently the confusion is caused by the fact that there’s no conjunction between the 50 and the 1000.

But most Hebrew manuscripts and the Septuagint, which is a Greek text translated from Hebrew, say 50,070. Only a few Hebrew texts opt to eliminate the 50 and the 1000.

Jewish scribes had an elaborate system for avoiding errors like the one that’s being claimed for this verse, and then there’s the God factor. Would He allow an error of that magnitude to get by everyone?

Finally, the verse ends by saying that the people lamented that the Lord had smitten them with a great slaughter, which sounds to me like it must have been a number larger than 70. So even if it seems improbable, I’m going to stick with the majority Hebrew opinion, 50,070.

In the past you’ve sent me some good information that supports my belief (that the Bible is authentic) but I was hoping you could point me in a direction outside the apologetics world for facts to dispute claims that it isn’t. Any help you could provide would be greatly appreciated.

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I need your help to refute a charge an atheist has brought against the Bible. He claims the Bible says we “think with our hearts.” He claims approximately 920 verses say that we think with our hearts. Is he right? Does the Bible claim we think with our hearts? Isn’t it our soul that guides our actions?

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My question is about Deuteronomy 4:2, and the command not to add to or subtract from the Word of God. How do we know that this doesn’t apply to the books after Deuteronomy? Is there anything in the book of Deuteronomy or the previous books to support this?

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I was watching (a secular Archeologist’s TV program) a few days ago. He said, not once, but several times, and seemed to emphasize it each time, that the only secular reference to Jesus as a real, historical person, is found in the works of Josephus. Are there no others of the time who wrote about Jesus?

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