I believe that the Hebrew Bible is inspired by God, but with an declining grade of inspiration.
The Torah, the five books of Moses, have the highest grade of inspiration. After those come the prophetic books, with a lower grade of inspiration, and after those come the “writings”, which are books like Esther, Proverbs, Job, Chronicles, etc. The writings start with the Psalms, and they have the lowest grade of inspiration.
When using simple logic, we see that the additions to the Hebrew Bible, like the NT, are not divinely inspired, and are therefore rejected.
The Koran, partially based on the NT, collapses together with the NT.
But why should we believe that the Hebrew Bible is divinely inspired?
Well, maybe because half the world (that is 2 billion Christians and 1 billion Muslims) believe that it is divinely inspired? The law of the big numbers?
Queen Victoria of England once asked her prime minister, Benjamin Disraeli: “Give me a proof that God exists.” The answer was: “The Jews, your Majesty!”
The history of the Jews should be enough proof of divine intervention with that people. They left an enormous mark on the history of mankind, and are still doing so. Mark Twain wrote about that the following:
“To conclude. – If the statistics are right, the Jews constitute but one per cent. of the human race. [the correct number is only 0,2%] It suggests a nebulous dim puff of star-dust lost in the blaze of the Milky Way. Properly the Jew ought hardly to be heard of; but he is heard of, has always been heard of. He is as prominent on the planet as any other people, and his commercial importance is extravagantly out of proportion to the smallness of his bulk. His contributions to the world’s list of great names in literature, science, art, music, finance, medicine, and abstruse learning are also away out of proportion to the weakness of his numbers.
He has made a marvelous fight in this world, in all the ages; and has done it with his hands tied behind him. He could be vain of himself, and be excused for it. The Egyptian, the Babylonian, and the Persian rose, filled the planet with sound and splendor, then faded to dream-stuff and passed away; the Greek and the Roman followed, and made a vast noise, and they are gone; other peoples have sprung up and held their torch high for a time, but it burned out, and they sit in twilight now, or have vanished.
The Jew saw them all, beat them all, and is now what he always was, exhibiting no decadence, no infirmities of age, no weakening of his parts, no slowing of his energies, no dulling of his alert and aggressive mind. All things are mortal but the Jew; all other forces pass, but he remains. What is the secret of his immortality?”
The whole story of Mark Twain, “Concerning the Jews” can be found here: http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1898twain-jews.html
The Jewish people make up about 0.2% of the world population.
Of all the Nobel price winners is about 30% Jewish. A 150 fold over-representation.
Of all the official world chess champions is more than 50% Jewish. A 250 fold over-representation. Or, put in a percentage: A 25,000% over-representation.
Somebody on a religious message board started a discussion with the following message:
“In the Bible it is written that whoever blesses the Jews, will be blessed by God, and that those whom curse the Jews, will be cursed themselves.
Isn’t that proven in the ancient and modern history?
When a country was good for the Jews, that country was doing well. And when the authorities turned against the Jews, than that country went downhill fast.
When you look in the present, then you see: America supports Israel, en their own Jewish Americans; America is economically and military a superpower.
Europe: Sometimes positive, mostly neutral or critical towards Israel and the Jews: Second rate economic superpower, and military dwarf.
Moslim countries: Very hatefull towards Israel, and to Jews in general. Economically, military and culturally very backward.
What do you think about this?
An example: In the sixteenth century the Spanish deported all the Jews. They were welcomed by the Netherlands and in the Ottoman Empire. Culturally en economically it went from there downhill with the Spanish, this despite their colonial empire. The Dutch and the Turks had from then the wind in the back.”
On this I answered: The above is simply a fact.
This is also confirmed by an enormous anti-semite, the founder of the car factories; Henry Ford. He wrote a terribly anti-semitic book, titled: “The International Jew”, and in there he confirms the above. Here is an excerpt from that book:
“There is a curious fact to be noted in connection with the persecution and consequent wanderings of the Jews about Europe and that is: wherever they wandered, the center of business seemed to go with them. When the Jews were free in Spain, there was the world’s gold center. When Spain drove out the Jews, Spain lost financial leadership and has never regained it. Students of the economic history of Europe have always been puzzled to discover why the center of trade should have shifted from Spain, Portugal and Italy, up to the northern countries of Holland, Germany, and England. They have sought for the cause in many things, but none has proved completely explanatory. When, however, it is known that the change was coincident with the expulsion of the Jews from the South and their flight to the North, when it is known that upon the Jews’ arrival the northern countries began a commercial life which has flourished until our day, the explanation does not seem difficult. Time and again it has proved to be the fact that when the Jews were forced to move, the center of the world’s precious metals moved with them.”
That book can be found here: http://www.biblebelievers.org.au/intern_jew.htm
For my quote go to the end of chapter 13.
These remarkable facts are the sign which God has put in the Jewish people.
God made a covenant with the Jewish people. About that covenant the Jewish people said: “Everything the LORD has said, we will do and hear”. Ex 24:7.
Implied in that covenant is a blessing and a curse. When the Jews break the covenant, the curse is poured out upon them.
When they uphold the covenant, beautifull blessings will be bestowed upon them.
Like this it is written about the curse:
Leviticus 26:14-39: “But if you will not listen to Me and will not perform all of these commandments, if you consider My decrees loathsome, and if your being reject My ordinances, so as not to perform all My commandments, so that you annul My covenant, then I will do the same to you; I will assign upon you panic, swelling lesions, and burning fever, which causes eyes to long and souls to suffer; you will sow your seeds in vain, for your enemies will eat it. I will turn My attention against you, you will be struck down before your enemies; those who hate you will subjugate you, you will flee with no one pursuing you.
If despite this, you do not heed me, then I shall punish you further, seven ways for your sins. I will break the pride of your might; I will make your heaven like iron and your land like copper. Your strength will be spend in vain; your land will not give its produce, and the trees of the land will not give its fruit.
If you behave casually with Me and refuse to heed Me, then I shall lay a further blow upon you; seven ways, like your sins. I will incite the wildlife of the field against you and it will leave you bereft of your children, decimate your livestock, and diminish you; and your roads will become desolate.
If despite these you will not be chastised towards Me, and you behave casually with Me, then I too, will behave toward you with casualness; and I will strike you, even I, seven ways for your sins. I will bring upon you a sword, avenging the vengeance of a covenant, you will be gathered into your cities; then I will bring pestilence among you and you will be delivered into the hand of your enemy. When I break you the staff of bread, ten woman will bake your bread in one oven, and they will bring back your bread by weight; you will eat and not be sated.
If despite this you will not heed Me, and you behave toward Me with casualness, I will behave toward you with a fury of casualness; I will chastise you, even I, seven ways for your sins. You will eat the flesh of your sons, and the flesh of your daughters you will eat. I will destroy your lofty buildings and decimate your sun-idols, I will cast your carcasses upon the carcasses of your idols, and My Spirit will reject you. I will lay your cities in ruin and I will make your sanctuaries desolate; I will not savor your satisfying aromas. I will make the land desolate; and your foes who dwell upon it will be desolate. And you, I will scatter you among the nations, I will unsheathe the sword after you; your land will be desolate and your cities will be a ruin. . The survivors among you; I will bring weakness into their hearts in the land of their foes. The sound of a rustling leave will pursue them, they will flee as one flees the sword, and they will fall, but without a pursuer. They will stumble over one another as in flight from the sword, but there is no pursuer; you will not have the power to withstand your foes. You will become lost among the nations, the land of your foes will devour you. Because of their iniquity, your remnant will disintegrate in the land of your foes; and because the iniquities of there forefathers are with them as well, they will disintegrate.”
Deuteronomy 28:15-69: “But it will be that if you do not hearken to the voice of the Lord your G.d, to observe, to perform all His commandments and all his decrees that I command you today, then all these curses will come upon you and overtake you: Accursed will you be in the city, and accursed will you be in the field. Accursed will be your fruit basket and your kneading bowl. Accursed will be the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your ground, the offspring of your cattle and the flocks of your sheep and goats. Accursed will you be when you go in and accursed will you be when you go out. The Lord will send in your midst attrition, confusion, and worry, in your every undertaking that you will do, until you are destroyed and until you are quickly annihilated, because of the evil of your deeds, for having forsaken Me. The Lord will attach the plague to you, until it consumes you from upon the ground to which you are coming, to possess it. The Lord will strike you with swelling lesions, with fever, with burning heat, with thirst and with sword; and with wind blasts and with withering, and they will pursue you until destruction. Your heavens over your head will be copper and the land beneath you will be iron. The Lord will make the rain of your land dust and dirt; from heaven it will descend upon you until you are destroyed. The Lord will cause you to be struck down before your enemies; on one road you will go out against him, but on seven roads you will flee before him; and you will be a cause of terror to all the kingdoms of the earth. Your carcass will be food for every bird of the sky and for every beast of the field and nothing will frighten them. The Lord will strike you with the boils of Egypt, with hemorrhoids, with wet and dry boils, of which you can not be cured. The Lord will strike you with madness and blindness, and with confounding of the heart. You will grope at noontime as a blind man gropes in the darkness, but you will not succeed on your way; you will be only cheated and robbed all the days, and there will be no savior. You will betroth a woman, but another man will lay with her; you will built a house, but you will not dwell in it; you will plant a vineyard, but you will not redeem it. Your ox will be slaughtered before your eyes, but you will not eat from it; your donkey will be robbed from before you, but it will not return to you; your flocks will be given to your enemies, and you will have no savior. Your sons and daughters will be given to another people, and your eyes will see and pine in vain for them all day long, but your hand will be powerless. A nation unknown to you will devour the fruit of your ground and all your labor, and you will be cheated and downtrodden all the days. You will go mad from the sight of your eye that you will see. The Lord will strike you with a foul boil, on the knees and the legs, that cannot be cured, from the sole of your foot to your crown. The Lord will lead you and your king whom you will set up over yourself to a nation that you never knew, neither you nor your forefathers, and there you will work for the gods of others, of wood and stone. You will be a source of astonishment, a parable, and a conversation piece, among all the peoples where the Lord will lead you. You will take abundant seed out to the field, but you will harvest little, for the locusts will devour it. You will plant vineyards and work them, but you will not drink and gather in, for the worm will eat it. You will have olive trees throughout your boundaries, but you will not anoint with oil, for your olives will drop. You will bear sons and daughters, but they will not be yours, for they will go into captivity. All your trees and the fruits of your ground, the chirping locust will impoverish. The stranger who is among you will rise higher and higher, while you will descent lower and lower. He will lend to you, but you will not lend to him; he will be a head, but you will be a tail.
All these curses will come upon you and pursue you and overtake you, until you are destroyed, because you will not have listened to the voice of the Lord your G.d, to observe all His commandments and decrees that He commanded you.
They will be a sign and a wonder in you and your offspring forever, because you did not serve the Lord your G.d amid gladness and goodness of heart, when everything was abundant. So you will serve your enemies that the Lord will send against you in hunger and in thirst, in nakedness and without anything, and He will put an iron yoke on your neck, until He destroys you. The Lord will carry against you a nation from afar, from the end of the earth, as an eagle will swoop, a nation whose language you will not understand, a brazen nation that will not be respectful to the old nor gracious to the young. It will devour the fruit of your animals, and the fruit of your ground, until you are destroyed; it will not leave you grain, wine, or oil, offspring of your cattle or flocks of your sheep and goats, until it causes you to perish. It will besiege you in all your cities, until the collapse of your high and fortified walls in which you trusted throughout your land; it will besiege you in all your cities, in all your land which the Lord your G.d has given you. You will eat the fruit of your womb, the flesh of your sons and daughters, which the Lord your G.d had given you; in the in the siege and distress that your enemies will distress you. The man among you who is tender and very delicate will turn selfish against his brother and the wife of his bosom, and against the remaining children that he has let survive, not to give even one of them of the flesh of his children that he will eat, not leaving anything for him, in the siege and distress that your enemy will distress you in all your cities. The tender and delicate woman among you, who had never tried to set the sole of her foot on the ground, because of delicacy and tenderness, will turn selfish against the husband of her bosom, and against her son and daughter, against the after birth that emerges from between her legs, and against the children that she will bear; for she will eat them in secret for lack of anything, in the siege and distress that your enemies will distress you in your cities.
If you will not be careful to perform the words of this Torah that are written in this Book, to fear this honored and awesome Name; Y-H-W-H your G.d, then The Lord will make extra ordinary your blows and the blows of your offspring; great and faithful blows, and evil and faithful illnesses. He will bring back upon you all the sufferings of Egypt, of which you were terrified, and they will cleave to you. Even any illness and every blow that is not written in this Book of Torah, the Lord will bring upon you, until you are destroyed. You will be left few in number, instead having been like the stars of heaven in abundance, for you will not have hearkened to the voice of the Lord your G.d. And it will be that just as the Lord rejoiced over you to benefit you and multiply you, so the Lord will cause them to rejoice over you to make you perish and destroy you; and you will be torn from the ground to which you come to posses it. The Lord will scatter you among all the peoples, from the end of the earth to the end of the earth, and there you will work for the gods of others whom you did not know, you or your forefathers, of wood and stone. And among those nations you will not be tranquil, there will be no rest fore the sole of your foot; there the Lord will give you a trembling heart, longing of eyes, and suffering of soul. Your life will hang in the balance, and you will be frightened night and day, and you will not be sure of your livelihood. In the morning you will say: “Who can give back last night!” And in the evening you will say: “Who can give back this morning!” – because of the fright of your heart that you will fear and the sight of your eyes that you will see. The Lord will return you to Egypt in ships, on the road of which I said to you: “You shall never again see it!” And there you will offer yourselves for sale to your enemies as slaves and maidservants; but there will be no buyer. These are the words of the covenant that the Lord commanded Moses to seal with the Children of Israel in the land of Moab,”
And like this it is written about the blessings:
Leviticus 26:1-13; “If you will follow my decrees and observe my commandments and perform them, then I will provide your rains in their time, and your land will give its produce and the tree of the field will give its fruit. Your threshing will last until the vintage, and the vintage will last until the sowing; you will eat your bread to satiety and you will dwell securely in your land. I will provide peace in the land, and you will lay down with none to frighten you; I will cause wild beasts to withdraw from the land, and a sword will not cross the land. Five of you will pursue a hundred, and a hundred of you will pursue ten thousand; and your enemies will fall before you by the sword. I will turn my attention to you, I will make you fruitful and increase you; and I will establish My covenant with you.
You will eat very old grain and remove the old to make way for the new. I will place My Sanctuary among you; and My Spirit will not reject you. I will walk among you, I will be G.d unto you and you will be a people unto Me. I am The Lord (Y-H-W-H), your G.d, Who took you out of the land of Egypt from being their slaves; I broke the staves of your yoke and I led you erect.”
Deuteronomy 28:1-14; “It shall be that if you hearken to the voice of The Lord, your G.d, to observe, to perform all of His commandments that I command you this day, then The Lord your G.d will make you supreme over all the nations of the earth. All these blessings will come upon you and overtake you, if you listen to the voice of The Lord your G.d: Blessed shall you be in the city, and blessed shall you be in the field. Blessed shall be the fruit of your womb, and the fruit of your ground, and the fruit of your animals; the offspring of your cattle and the flocks of your sheep and goats. Blessed shall be your fruit basket and your kneading bowl. Blessed shall you be when you come in, and blessed shall you be when you go out. The Lord shall cause your enemies who rise up against you to be struck down before you; on one road they will go out toward you and on seven roads they will flee before you. The Lord will command the blessing for you in your store houses and your every undertaking; and He will bless you in the land that The Lord , your G.d gives you. The Lord will confirm you for Himself as a holy people, as He swore to you; if you observe the commandments of The Lord your G.d, and you go in His ways. Then all the peoples of the earth will see that the name of The Lord is proclaimed over you, and they will revere you. The Lord shall give you bountiful goodness, in the fruit of your womb, and in the fruit of your animals and the fruit of your ground, on the ground that The Lord swore to your forefathers to give you. The Lord shall open for you His store house of goodness, the heavens, to provide rain for your land in its time, and to bless all your handiwork; you shall lend to many nations, but you shall not borrow. The Lord shall place you as a head, and not as a tail; you shall only be above, and you shall not be below; if you hearken to the commandments of The Lord your G.d, that I command you today, to observe and to perform; and you do not turn away from any of the words that I command you today, right or left, to follow gods of others, to worship them.”
These curses and these blessings are a sign in the Jewish people forever.
And that these blessings and curses come true, time and time again in the Jewish people, even a blind person can see that.
There is no other people in the world whose members rise time and time again to such extreme heights, and there is no people in the world which is time and time again so horribly persecuted as the Jews.
The non-Jews know there is something different about the Jews. That is clear because of the abnormal fixation of the whole world on the Jews.
That is clear because of the fact that the holy books of a small shepherd tribe from the Middle East are considered divinely inspired by half the world.
It is clear that the miracles which God is working in the Jews, both in the past and in the present, are a positive proof for the existence of the Jewish God.