2011 A.D.: The Middle of the Bible
There are a great many people who explain their disinterest in Christianity by saying that you cannot trust that the Bible is accurate because if it's written by men, there are bound to be mistakes, people might have interjected their own viewpoints into the scripture, etc. That's not to mention the translation errors that they feel might have crept in and changed the meaning of various parts of the Bible.
That's a process we all go through.... deciding if the Bible is trustworthy. For some, it's a quick process, and they decide to have faith in the pages of the scripture. For others, it's a long and difficult journey to have that faith. Some people try, but never obtain it.
It's good, then, to find various hints within the Bible itself which suggest that only God could have designed it to be as it is. Here are a few examples that I think lend to that, and I hope to be adding to these from time to time, as I run across more.
Example number 1)
A friend sent me one of those chain E-mails recently showing something interesting within the structure of the Bible. I had seen parts of it before, but this added to it:
The center verse in all of the Protestant Bible is 118:8
"It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in man" NIV
The Bible seems to teach very little so much as it teaches that very thing. Over and over as the narrative of the Bible advances, God extends different covenants to man. Each time, man cannot or will not keep that covenant with God. But, God keeps trying, even to the point of finally sending His son Jesus. And mostly, men will not even keep the covenant with Jesus, the most merciful covenant of all. It shows that God is truly faithful, ever faithful, though He has His limits,.....but men? We're beyond hopeless, most of us!
But since men wrote the Bible onto the various first pages for each specific book, and have translated it since, the question may arise: Was Psalm ever 118:8 meant to be the center verse of the Bible?
Well, this suggests that it might have been! According to those who have counted, there are 594 chapters in the Bible before this Psalm 118, and 594 chapters in the Bible after this Psalm 118.
That's a pretty amazing coincidence, but if you add up those two numbers (594 + 594), you get 1,188. Psalm 118:8 was the center verse of the Bible, remember? And yet there is 1,188 chapters before and after Psalm 118? That would be hard for a team translating the Bible to arrange for, wouldn't it? Also, something else which hints that Psalm 118 might hold something important is the fact that the shortest Psalm (Psalm 117) is just before it, and the longest Psalm (Psalm 119) is just after it.
That's quite a lot to ask of coincidence, isn't it. But if you added or subtracted a few verses or chapters from the Bible, that all might become untrue! 118:8 probably wouldn't be the exact center anymore, etc. Food for thought, right!
Example Number 2)
I noticed myself that, though the ministry of Jesus of Nazareth has been traditionally considered to have been 3 1/2 years, from his baptism by John the Baptist until his Crucifixion, there is a second way to look at it. When Jesus was only 12 years old, his parents and their relatives travelled to Jerusalem to keep a Holy feast time - the Feast of Passover. Luke 2:41
When returning home, they got 1 day back when they began to notice that Jesus didn't seem to be among the large crowd of relatives travelling back. They made a search, and found that He was indeed missing. They returned to Jerusalem (that took a day, I suppose) and finally found Jesus after 3 days of looking for Him. So this has been 5 long worried days for these parents.
When they find 12 year old Jesus, He is in the Holy Temple of Yahweh, and he is seated with the teachers. It says this:
Luke 2:46 - 50
"After three days they found him in the temple courts, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. Everyone who heard him was amazed at his understanding and his answers. When his parents saw him, they were astonished. His mother said to him,"Son, why have you treated us like this? Your father and I have been anxiously searching for you."
" "Why were you searching for me?", he asked. Didn't you know I had to be in my Father's house?" "
"But they didn't understand what he was saying to them." End Quote
So, in a way, since Jesus was giving answers to questions, as a 12 year old, which astonished professional teachers of the scriptures, we might say that he was teaching, even as a 12 year old. Since people mostly believe that he began his ministry at about 30 years of age (scripture says this) and it was a 3 1/2 year ministry that Jesus had as an adult, He was about 33 when He was crucified.
So, if you decide to say that even as a 12 year old, Jesus was teaching, then he had a 21 year ministry. That means 7 + 7 + 7 years of ministry, for Jesus, the Holy One of God, also called the Word. 7 is the number of holiness, purity, and completion. Just a thought, but kind of cool, huh?
Example Number 3)
In Luke chapter 3, in the NIV at least, (I haven't checked other translations, but I read and like other translations!) is a geneolgy of Jesus going back to Adam, and even listing God before Adam. If you include both God and Jesus, 77 names are given. 7 is the number of holiness, purity and completion.
Example number 4) In that same geneology from Luke chapter 3, Abraham is the 21st man listed, if you count Adam as the 1st man listed. 21 is 7+7+7. Abraham is the man of faith, in the Old Testament. He trusted in God, and it was counted to him as righteousness, the scripture says. So Abraham, who is characterized as one who had faith in God, and it was counted to him as righteousness, has connections to the 777 idea just like Jesus (example number 2) does, and Jesus is the God through whom we may be saved, by faith! If we have faith, we can be clothed with His righteousness as a substitute for our own sorry righteousness, scripture tells us.
Example number 5) God alone has known the end of things from the very beginning of things, scripture says. So man's story - history - has been seen by God from of old, even before it unfolded. (And I will contend that the centerpoint of history is the victory that Jesus won for us on the cross, and what Jesus will do when He returns) So, with that in mind, why not look at the quintessential scriptures about the beginning, the end, and about man. The beginning is Genesis. The end I will say is Revelation, though some prophets speak of it also. And for man (who was created on the 6th day) let's look at the Bible's 6th Book, 6th Chapter, 6th Verse:
First, Man (from Joshua 6:6. Joshua (who's name is essentially the same as 'Jesus') has brought the new nation of Israel across the Jordan River (which divided for him, as the sea had for Moses). They are in Canaan. God has told them to utterly destroy the extremely wicked Canaanites of which there are about a half dozen different peoples.
They are about to attack Jericho in the strange manner ordered by God, whereby they will walk around the great walled city once a day for six days, blowing trumpets, and then on the 7th day they will walk around it 7 times, and God has told them that if they finish that 7th lap on the 7th day, and then yell really loud, the walls of this great Canaanite city will simply fall down, and they can rush in from every direction and conquer it.
Joshua 6:6 "So Joshua son of Nun called the priests and said to them, "Take up the ark of the covenant of the Lord and have 7 priests carry trumpets in front of it. "
So, a man with a name like Jesus is lleading God's chosen people, they are about to attack God's enemies, Joshua has just led his people through the flooding Jordan River (which parted for them when the Priests stood in the river holding the holy Ark of the Covenant) and Joshua now has 7 priests carrying 7 trumpets leading the Ark of the Covenant as it is carried around the enemy city of Jericho in a process that will end with them carrying this Ark for 7 laps on the 7th day of this process. 7 is the Holy number of completion, purity, holiness, as we discussed earlier. The Ark of the Covenant is being carried, and this Ark, remember, is where God has chosen to dwell on Earth when He so chooses. There are 7 trumpets. (Curiously, there are 7 trumps spoken of in the Book of Revelation.)
Now let's look at 'the Beginning!'. Genesis. Let's look at what's in the middle of the Book of Genesis. Genesis ends with Chapter 50, so the halfway point would be Chaoter 25, and Chapter 26. Remember, I think that the centerpoint of history is Jesus. So, what is this centerpoint of Genesis about?
In Chapter 25, Abraham, the favored of God, the man who walked in faith and pleased God, dies of old age at 175 years old. He is buried in someone else's tomb (a tomb he once bought from Ephron the Hittite) in the Cave of Machpelah. He is placed in the cave by 2 men - Isaac and Ishmael, two of his sons.
That is not unlike Jesus, the son of God, and the one who walked in faith on Earth, being placed in the tomb of some other person, by two men (Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea). It seems to be sort of a 'type' of it.
Next, Isaac gets Rebekah his wife pregnant. Two are in her womb. They jostle with each other. The one born first is Esau, with his body covered with red hair. The next is Jacob, who grabs at older brother Esau's heel as he is born. The Lord had told her that the jostling inside of her womb was because
Gen 25:23 "Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples from within you will be seperated; one people will be stronger than the other, and the older will serve the younger. "
That, for whatever strange reason, makes me think of Redcoats (British Redcoat soldiers) who were covered with red wool jackets, which is red hair of an animal, as Esau was covered with red hair like an animal has. And Jacob grabbed his heel. The grabbing the heel connotation is first mentioned back in Adam and Eve's day, when it is said that the serpent (snake) would grab the heel of the son of Eve. The early New England colonies of America, when rebelling against England, fashioned flags showing themselves as a choppped up snake (divided) that needed to unite to bite their enemy (Great Britain). And the US was allowed to win that war (revolt) and we did go on to become greater in some measures than Great Britain. Just so, Jacob the heel grabber went on to be greater than Esau the red animal hair wearer.