866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org
Bill Cooper (1947-2021) was a prolific writer and speaker, with a gift of cutting through the fog of biblical criticism to defend the infallible, plenary, verbal inspiration of Scripture, the six-day creation, and the Masoretic Hebrew and Received Greek texts. He was a council member of the Creation Science Movement and the Tyndale Society and an adjunct professor for the Institute for Creation Research’s Master Faculty. His most popular book is After the Flood which gives evidence for the historicity of Genesis 10 based on ancient, little known British and European genealogies. He published a series of books entitled “The Authenticity,” which included The Authenticity of the Book of Genesis, Joshua, Judges, Esther, Daniel, Jonah, the Gospels, Acts, the Epistles, and Revelation. In The Forging of Codex Sinaiticus, Cooper gave evidence to support his thesis that Sinaiticus is a forgery.
Cooper was a careful researcher, an independent thinker, and a brave defender of God’s eternal truth. He accomplished this in spite of suffering serious illnesses, including leukemia, the last two decades of his life. We can’t agree with all of his conclusions; at times he seems to be dogmatic when the evidence isn’t absolute; there is an occasion or two when he might have been led astray by Jewish mysticism; but everything we have read from his pen is well worth considering.
If you want to be encouraged in your faith in the divine inspiration of Scripture, read Bill Cooper.
Not all of his books are currently available in print, but all of them are available in Kindle format from Amazon.
___________
To confound them [Bible critics] though, there are many small, almost unnoticeable, items of internal evidence within the Book of Daniel which tell plainly of its antiquity, and which no forger would have thought of, no matter how ‘pious’ or well-intentioned he may have been.
Daniel 10:4 contains one such: “And in the four and twentieth day of the first month, as I was by the side of the great river, which is Hiddekel....” The use of the name Hiddekel is most interesting. The Persians knew that river as the Tigra, and Greeks knew it as the Tigris. No post-Persian Greek-speaking Maccabaean forger of Daniel would have used the river’s ancient Hebrew name.
Daniel 5:2 contains another powerful indicator of early authorship: “Belshazzar, whiles he tasted the wine, commanded to bring the golden and silver vessels which his father Nebuchadnezzar had taken out of the temple which was in Jerusalem; that the king, and his princes, his wives, and his concubines, might drink therein.” The Lord is in the detail here. Notice how women were allowed to be present and to partake of royal feasts under the Babylonians. That was never allowed under the Persians. Women were banished to their own quarters. The Book of Esther records the fact:
The mathematics of the Book of Daniel is another indicator of the 6th-century BC authorship of the book. In Daniel 3:1, the writer describes in sexagesimal dimensions the image which Nebuchadnezzar set up on the Plain of Dura (of which more later). The Babylonians used a sexagesimal system of mathematics. But how would our Maccabaean forger have known this? The Persians and Greeks had for 400 years past used the decimal system, the same one that we use today. The sexagesimal system would have been entirely unknown to him. In Daniel 8:2, we are told, “...I was at Shushan in the palace, which is in the province of Elam...” The curious thing here is that Shushan belonged to Elam in Babylonian times and even earlier, but not in the 2nd century BC, nor in the preceding three centuries. Then it was considered to belong to, and indeed was, the capital of the province Susiana.8
There are many other indicators in the Book of Daniel showing a 6th-century BC authorship, along with a most intimate knowledge of Babylonian culture and affairs. We shall be considering more of them as we proceed. Suffice it here to say that such points as we have considered are entirely ignored by the critics, or are passed over without comment.
- Receive these reports by email
- www.wayoflife.org
______________________
Sharing Policy: Much of our material is available for free, such as the hundreds of articles at the Way of Life web site. Other items we sell to help fund our expensive literature and foreign church planting ministries. Way of Life's content falls into two categories: sharable and non-sharable. Things that we encourage you to share include the audio sermons, O Timothy magazine, FBIS articles, and the free eVideos and free eBooks. You are welcome to make copies of these at your own expense and share them with friends and family. You may also post parts of reports and/or entire reports to websites, blogs, etc as long as you give proper credit (citation). A link to the original report is very much appreciated as the reports are frequently updated and/or expanded. Things we do not want copied and distributed are "Store" items like the Fundamental Baptist Digital Library, print editions of our books, electronic editions of the books that we sell, the videos that we sell, etc. The items have taken years to produce at enormous expense in time and money, and we use the income from sales to help fund the ministry. We trust that your Christian honesty will preserve the integrity of this policy. "For the scripture saith, Thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn. And, The labourer is worthy of his reward" (1 Timothy 5:18). Questions? support@wayoflife.org
Goal:Distributed by Way of Life Literature Inc., the Fundamental Baptist Information Service is an e-mail posting for Bible-believing Christians. Established in 1974, Way of Life Literature is a fundamental Baptist preaching and publishing ministry based in Bethel Baptist Church, London, Ontario, of which Wilbert Unger is the founding Pastor. Brother Cloud lives in South Asia where he has been a church planting missionary since 1979. Our primary goal with the FBIS is to provide material to assist preachers in the edification and protection of the churches.
Offering: Offerings are welcome if you care to make one. If you have been helped and/or blessed by our material offerings can be mailed or made online with with Visa, Mastercard, Discover, or Paypal. For information see: www.wayoflife.org/about/makeanoffering.html.
