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

The Bible is under siege with many fundamentalist on the left, like professor Bart Ehrman of the University of North Carolina of Chapel Hill, and even President Barack Obama, without hesitation take pot shots at the Good Book, making fallacious arguments against the inerrancy of the text. Hank Hanegraaff, president of the Christian Research Institute and host of the Bible Answer Man radio broadcast, responds to these assertions in his latest book Has God Spoken? Proof of the Bible’s Divine Inspiration. Has God Spoken? is an invaluable resource on demonstrating that the Bible is divine rather than human in origin. In this book, Hank explores the manuscript evidence, which demonstrates that we can say with confidence that the text of the Scripture was faithfully transmitted to us. What we have now is an accurate and faithful reproduction of what was written by the biblical writers. The way archeology corroborates the peoples, places, and things mentioned in the biblical narrative is also explored in Has God Spoken. Hank highlights key archeological discovers to demonstrate that the Bible is not just a book of fairy tales; rather, it faithfully narrates what had happened in the history of the ancients. Predictive prophecy is likewise evidence that the Bible is divine rather than human in origin. One of the highlights of the prophecy section of Has God Spoken is Hank’s take on the success of nations and abomination of desolations in the Book of Daniel. The Bible Answer Man makes a well reasoned case that God had revealed to Daniel in the 6th century BC things concerning the grand scheme of history that could not have been known otherwise. The Book of Daniel essentially predicted the rise and fall of four great empires (Babylon, Media, Persia, and Greece), the abomination of desolations in the second temple witnessed by the Jewish people during the reign of Antiochus IV Epiphanes, and a glimpse of the coming first century Christ. Hank also demonstrates how the Old Testament points forward to Jesus Christ in both typological and predictive prophecy. All the facts demonstrating the Bible is divine rather than human in origin are complimented in the final section on Scriptural L-I-G-H-T-S, which offers helpful principles on biblical interpretation. God has indeed spoken; yet, the people need also to learn to read the Bible for all its worth so that they can understand what God has said. The most helpful element of Hank’s new book is the abovementioned points follow the easy to remember acronym MAPS, which stands for Manuscript COPIES (Copyist Practices; Oral Culture; Papyrus and Parchment; Internal Evidence; External Evidence; Science of Textual Criticism), Archeologist S-P-A-D-E (Steles and Stones; Pools and Fools; Assyrian Archaeology; Dead Sea Scrolls; Epic of Gilgamesh), Prophetic S-T-A-R-S (Succession of Nations; Typological Prophecy; Abomination of Desolation; Resurrection; Superstar ABCs), and Scriptural L-I-G-H-T-S (Literal Principle; Illumination Principle; Grammatical Principle; Historical Principle; Typology Principle; Synergy Principle). Has God Spoken is certainly a book worth a read and something to be kept as a handbook and tool for reading and understanding God’s Word. — Warren Nozaki

Has God been disproven? Is the Bible really true and if so what proof is there that it has not been changed over the course of time? Hank Hanegraff has written "Has God Spoken?" to prove Scripture's divine inspiration. In Part One of his book, Hanegraff looks to manuscript evidence to solidify trust in the Christian Bible. He highlights cultural aspects including how stories and Scripture would have been handed down at first, practices for scribes, and the evidence that aligns with Scripture. In Part Two, Hanegraff moves on to discuss archaeological evidence. From discussing discovered burial grounds of those people in Scripture to the Dead Sea Scrolls, there are numerous archaeological accounts for trusting Scripture. In discussion of The Epic of Gilgamesh, many skeptics tend to use this as testimony to Israel plagiarizing the flood story, yet Hanegraff and others point out that it really leads to the conclusion that the flood actually occurred. In Part Four, Hanegraff focuses on fulfilled prophecies. Daniel predicted Christ down to the date though he wrote six centuries prior. The second temple was destroyed, and Jesus' place of birth foretold. What's more, and likely the greatest evidence of a risen Christ is the fact that no one has ever discovered his body. There is conclusive evidence that Jesus existed, but Christianity is also testable. Find our God and you can disprove the entire religion. But, it has not happened. In Part Four, Hanegraff concludes his M-A-P-S acronym with Scripture. Hanegraff maintains that the Bible is more than just a literal historical account, but it is also literature, thus we read it as such. To understand what he means by this, you will need to pick up a copy of your own. This is not a highly academic book, meaning that it is written in an understandable way. Hanegraff covers a lot of ground and his research is good and dependable. This is an excellent book for one who wants to gain an overview of the historical context of Christianity, archaeological data, and to be strengthened in your faith. If you are looking for the silver bullet argument to carry out with your atheist friends, this is not the best resource. However laypersons who have a considerable amount of responsibilities will be blessed by this book. I received this book free from the publisher through the BookSneeze® book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.” -Stuart Warren (The Blogging Apologist)