Unlike any other book in the world, the Bible offers its own test to show
whether it is divinely inspired. That test is prophecy-foretelling
the future. It passes the test so well that critics have to twist the Bible to deny
it!
In what other well-known book can we find not only the future revealed,
but also the record of the fulfillment of foretold events when they came
to pass many hundreds of years later? There can be no more dramatic proof
of the inspiration and truth of the Bible than fulfilled prophecy.
Dr. Gleason Archer, renowned Old Testament scholar, wrote: "The Holy Bible
is like no other book in all the world. It is the only book which represents
itself as the written revelation of the one true God ... demonstrating
its divine authority by many infallible proofs. Other religious documents,
such as the Muslim Koran, may claim to be the very word of God, but they
contain no such self-authenticating proofs as does the Bible ... [such
as] the phenomena of fulfilled prophecy" (A Survey of Old Testament
Introduction, 1974, p. 15).
Unlike any other book, the Bible offers its own test as to whether it
is divinely inspired. That test is prophecy.
Notice what Dr. Norman Geisler, author or coauthor of 60 some books, has
stated: "One of the strongest evidences that the Bible is inspired by God
... is its predictive prophecy. Unlike any other book, the Bible offers
a multitude of specific predictions-some hundreds of years in advance-that
have been fulfilled or else point to a definite future time when they will
come true" (Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics, 1999,
p. 609).
How difficult is it to predict the future? Many secular psychics have
attempted to do this very thing. "The People's Almanac ... did a study
of the predictions of twenty-five top psychics. The results: Of the total
seventy-two predictions, sixty-six (92 percent) were totally wrong ...
An accuracy rate around 8 percent could easily be explained by chance and
general knowledge of circumstances" (ibid., p. 615).
