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by Charlie Wolcott

The Bible is unique, more than any other “religious” book. The Bible is rooted in history. The Bible is the only book whose claims about the core worldview questions are rooted in history. It’s the only holy book that is actually rooted in reality. The Bible doesn’t merely record history with perfect accuracy; it showcases God’s direct involvement with history.

Archaeology is a study of the past through physical artifacts. So far, we have found a minimum of 25,000 archaeological finds in the Middle East, and not one of them disagrees with any statement made by Scripture. We’ve found countless things that perfectly match the Biblical account. We have a tomb that matches Joseph in Egypt. We have Jericho in the exact condition Joshua describes. We have found historical records of the people and places Luke describes including the officers as they climbed their ranks. Now we haven’t found absolutely every little thing, obviously, but there is not one thing we have found that contradicts the Bible. Any claims of contradictions nearly always deal with the dating, which is actually the least reliable aspect of archaeology. Everything about that find matches the Bible perfectly, except the date. Well, perhaps the date should be re-evaluated.

The skeptic often will then pull the “Spiderman Fallacy.” The Spiderman Fallacy is this: Spiderman takes place in New York City; we have a real New York City, therefore, Spiderman was a real person. So, the argument thus says: “So what that we found Jerusalem, or a coin with David’s sign on it? That doesn’t mean it actually happened.” The Bible has a history that could be compared with Tolkien’s Middle Earth. It’s got the full genealogies, the royal lineages, prophecies, a “Christ-figure” (Gandalf), a Satan-figure (Sauron or Morgoth if you go further), an origins myth, an ending, just about everything. So skeptics try to compare the Bible to these fictional narratives in order to discredit it and dismiss it. But there is a major problem with this thinking. None of these fantasy stories ever reference real people or real events. On occasion a fiction story may describe pop-culture such as a movie or a book, but it will not cite a real person or a real historical event. Any that do are called “non-fiction” books. The Bible records the history of His dealings with man. God is the main character of this grand story called history.

When I deal with origins, this is one of the key issues I face with atheists and old earthers. There is an adamant stance against treating Genesis 1-11 as history. And the few old earthers who do treat parts of it as history diminish the claims it makes about history. Where do they get these ideas from? The answer is simple: false scholars who try to use the Ancient Near East mythologies to say the Bible’s origins story is also a mythology, not history. Then, they try to play educated with us and try to tell us we need to look at the culture back then and try to understand how the Ancient Near East would have understand the passage, not in our modern 21st century scientific mindsets. Let me say this straight up: these people are liars and they are doing the exact opposite of what they claim. THEY are the ones looking at Genesis from a 21st century mindset (thinking our modern science should make us re-think what the Bible actually says). What is more is that by these arguments, they show they have NEVER studied the Hebrew culture, the primary audience who heard and read Scripture. They studied the Babylonians, the Persians, the Hittites, the Egyptians, but not the Hebrews.

If you want to know what the Hebrews thought, try reading their Holy Books. Read the Bible. It tells you how they thought. And a key to their thinking is everything about their faith is rooted in history. Their image of God being a Savior, a saving God, is rooted in the REAL Exodus from REAL slavery from a REAL Egyptian power. They considered themselves as God’s people because of a real, physical father of their faith, Abraham. They believed in a real Creator with a real Creation, and to this day they run their calendar as though Genesis 1-11 is actual, literal history.

The Hebrews then took it further. All the spiritual truths they believed and taught flowed out of the literal, historical events. This is what the skeptics and OEC teachers don’t see. Their arguments say that we need to look at the spiritual side of things and ignore the history. All that matters is the spiritual lessons. Really? This is actually a variation of Gnostic teachings that the physical reality is bad, and the spiritual reality is good. It puts everything in the ethereal and “out there,” but nothing concrete, tangible, and something we can grip. Now, we are to live by faith and not by sight, but faith is something concrete. It comes with evidence and it’s something firm we hold onto.

The Hebrews didn’t just tie their spiritual understandings to history, they also used their history as images and as pictures of their future. That’s why they looked to a military commander to rescue them from Rome – because all their saviors in the past saved them from physical enemies. They thought Rome was the next one to be taken out. They failed to see the spiritual images involved with their history. Todd Friel has a spectacular book called Jesus Unmasked, and in it he goes through the Old Testament – the history, the Tabernacle, the miracles, the Exodus, the manna, the Temple, everything – and shows how all of it is pictures and images of Jesus. God used the Hebrew understanding of how their history played a big role in how they thought to present Jesus Christ and the Gospel.

Now let me make this clear. The spiritual meanings in Scripture DO NOT work unless you understand the physical meaning first. Jesus told that to Nicodemus. If I speak to you of earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I speak about heavenly things? A number of the Young Earth Creation organizations use this verse to point out that if we don’t understand Genesis, how can we understand the cross? There is validity to this. The physical images are what makes the spiritual images concrete, and they also keep the spiritual lessons from getting off base.

I will also ask this to those who only want the “spiritual lessons” out of Genesis: “Is your salvation just spiritual? Or is it real?” It is a real Creator, with a real historical creation, who dealt with a real Adam and Eve who committed a real original sin, who issued a real divine judgment and curse upon creation and man, and who then set out the chain of events to establish His plan for a real salvation, by sending Jesus as a literal man, to die on an actual cross, to pay for the actual sin debt, taking on the real wrath of God, and making a real salvation available to all man. He is also going to bring all real things to a close, make every person face real judgment, and then set our fate to a real Heaven or a real Hell. Everything about the Bible is real because its Author is real. The Author of Scripture, God, is not a distant idea out there. He is a real, actively and intimately involved, sovereign God, who loves us and holds us responsible for our choices and actions.

We are called to a real faith. To be actually saved. To be a literal new creation. To be reconciled to the real God. We live in a real world, under the authority and sovereignty of a real God, who recorded actual history through actual authors of Scripture. Is your faith real? Or is it some distant quasi-religious feeling? I preach a message on reality and I proclaim a real, historical Jesus who is still real today. And I proclaim a real salvation from a real Hell, because that is what the Bible teaches. Is your faith real? Is it rooted in history? Or is it just a “spiritual experience”?

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