Hank Hanegraaff - Has God Spoken?: Proof of the Bible?s Divine Inspiration

HAS GOD
SPOKEN?

Other Books by Hank Hanegraaff

NONFICTION

The Apocalypse Code: Find Out What the Bible Really Says

About the End Times and Why It Matters Today

The Bible Answer Book for Students

The Bible Answer Book, Volume 1

The Bible Answer Book, Volume 2

Christianity in Crisis

Christianity in Crisis 21st Century

The Complete Bible Answer Book, Collectors Edition

Counterfeit Revival

The Covering: Gods Plan to Protect You from Evil

The Da Vinci Code: Fact or Fiction? (coauthored with Paul L. Maier)

The Face That Demonstrates the Farce of Evolution

Fatal Flaws: What Evolutionists Dont Want You to Know

The Heart of Christmas

The Legacy Study Bible

The Millennium Bug Debugged

The Prayer of Jesus: Secrets to Real Intimacy with God

Resurrection

The Third Day

FICTION (COAUTHORED WITH SIGMUND BROUWER)

Fuse of Armageddon

THE LAST DISCIPLE TRILOGY

The Last Disciple

The Last Sacrifice

The Last Temple (forthcoming)

HAS GOD
SPOKEN?

Memorable Proofs of the Bibles Divine Inspiration

HANK HANEGRAAFF

2011 Hank Hanegraaff

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or otherexcept for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by Thomas Nelson. Thomas Nelson is a registered trademark of Thomas Nelson, Inc.

Thomas Nelson, Inc. titles may be purchased in bulk for educational, business, fund-raising, or sales promotional use. For information, please e-mail SpecialMarkets@ThomasNelson.com.

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version, NIV. 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica Inc. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com. Italics added to NIV quotations indicate the authors emphasis.

Scripture quotations marked NASB are taken from the New American Standard Bible. The Lockman Foundation 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972 1973, 1975, 1977. Used by permission.

Scripture quotations marked NKJV are taken from the New King James Version. 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked KJV are taken from the Holy Bible, King James Version.

Scripture quotations marked ESV are taken from the English Standard Version. 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers.

Unless otherwise noted, quotations from the Apocrypha are taken from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, 1989, by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America.

ISBN 978-0-8499-4891-6 (IE)

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Hanegraaff, Hank.
Has God spoken? : memorable proofs of the Bible's divine inspiration / Hank Hanegraaff.
p. cm.
Includes references and indexes.

ISBN 978-0-8499-1970-1 (hardcover)

1. Bible--Inspiration. I. Title.
BS480.H26 2011
220.1'3--dc23

2011021034

Printed in the United States of America

11 12 13 14 15 QG 6 5 4 3 2 1

To Hank
my son in flesh and faith,
a talented golfer and apologist in the making.

Contents

First, I am deeply grateful to God for giving me health and strength to complete a life goalthat of providing seekers and saints with a memorable means by which to internalize answers to the three great apologetic issues of this or any other generation. My prayer is that our heavenly Father will use this book, along with my books on origins and resurrection, for his glory and for the extension of his kingdomnot by might, nor by power, but by his Spirit.

Furthermore, kudos to Kathy and the kidswithout a solid and secure foundation at home, Id be impotent in mission and ministry. I am also deeply grateful for the staff and support of the Christian Research Institute and the Bible Answer Man broadcast, particularly for their prayer and practical input. I am particularly beholden to my friend and coworker Stephen Ross, who has faithfully worked alongside me now for two decades, also to Warren Nozaki, researcher par excellence.

Finally, I would like to express my appreciation to Matt Baugher and the Thomas Nelson team. From editing to encouragement you have provided joy for the journey.

The Bible is a rock of diamonds, a chain of pearls, the sword of the Spirit; a chain by which the Christian sails to eternity; the map by which he daily walks; the sundial by which he sets his life; the balance in which he weighs his actions.

THOMAS WATSON

Has God spoken? If there is a more significant question, I am wholly unaware of what it might be. Muslims answer by pointing to the Quran as Gods only credible uncorrupted revelation. From the Muslim perspective, God spoke through the archangel Gabriel, who dictated the Quran to Muhammad over a period of twenty-three years.

But has God really spoken through the Quran or the Book of Mormon? The answer is emphaticallyno! The Quran is a hopelessly flawed document full of faulty ethics and factual errors. In Sura 4:3, for example, Muhammad allegedly received a revelation from God allowing men to marry women of your choice, two, three, or four. And in Sura 33:50 he received a divine sanction to marry any believing woman who dedicates her soul to the Prophet if the Prophet wishes to wed her. While other men were permitted to marry up to only four wives, Allah provided Muhammad with a divine exception for his marriage to at least twelve womenincluding Aishah, whom he married at the tender age of eleven. Also troubling is the fact that the Quran allows men to beat their wives in order that the women might return to obedience (Sura 4:34).

Factual errors are similarly problematic. A classic case in point involves the Quranic denial of Christs crucifixion. The denial is explicit and emphatic: They killed him not, nor crucified him, but so it was made to appear to them (4:157). As will be established, truth points in the opposite direction. The fatal suffering of Jesus Christ as recounted in the New Testament is one of the most well-established realities of ancient history. In todays modern age of scientific enlightenment, there is virtual consensus among credible scholars, both conservative and liberal, that Jesus did in fact die on a Roman cross.

The Book of Mormon fares no better. While Mormons claim that their prophet, Joseph Smith, found golden plates containing the fullness of the everlasting gospel written in reformed Egyptian hieroglyphics, the facts say otherwise. Not only is there no archaeological evidence for a language such as reformed Egyptian hieroglyphics; there is no archaeological support for lands such as the land of Moron (Ether 7). Nor is there any archaeological evidence to buttress the notion that the Jaredites, Nephites, and Lamanites migrated from Israel to the Americas. On the contrary, both archaeology and anthropology demonstrate conclusively that the people, places, and particulars chronicled in the Book of Mormon are little more than the products of a fertile and faulty imagination.