# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1886_S43
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

of the Ev. Luth. Synodical Conference of North America. 1886. 43

with all Jews it is grown into them from the first origin to call them teachings of God and to abide by them and, if it should be, to die for them gladly." (Contra Apionem I, m. p. 1036 sq.)

According to Matthew 2:6 the high council at Jerusalem gives its king information from the Old Testament about the place of Christ's birth. In the humble synagogue up in Galilee the prophet Isaiah is read. According to Acts 17:17 the believing Jews in the Dispersion study the Old Testament. The mother and grandmother of little Timothy instruct him in the holy Scripture of the Old Covenant. The same holds also of the New Testament. From the first days of Christendom to our day the witnesses have never ceased. And their testimony was not given in circumstances in which it could count as prudent to do so in order to attain honor, standing and prosperity, but under disgrace, mockery, torture and threat of death, so that many, when called upon to hand over the holy Scripture, rather shed their blood.

How wonderful, finally, is the preservation of the Bible. According to Rom. 3:2 the Jews were entrusted with what God has spoken, that is, the Old Testament. But what an unreliable, refractory people this very people was, riven into sects and parties; what fates it has had to undergo; how it has been scattered! And all these fortunes the Old Testament has lived through with this people. But wherever this book is found, whether in India or China, in Africa or in this country: it is everywhere exactly the same book, despite its having been copied a thousand times. Exactly the same was the experience of the New Testament. And yet we still have the Bible complete today, and it is spread more from day to day. It is there and remains there, the same old Word of God, which is to outlast even the destruction of the structure of the world.

But however heavily all this weighs, these are not the real foundations on which we base our certainty of the divinity of Holy Scripture. We can also only thank God that these proofs are not necessary for the conviction of the divinity of the Bible. For then many dear Christians would be badly off, who know very little of the historical course that the Bible has taken, who do not even know the names of the church fathers and just as little the enemies of the Church, who by their testimony confirm its origin.

But even if all the writings of the church fathers had been lost and we had otherwise not a line for the divinity of Holy Scripture, and had only Scripture itself, that would be enough for conviction of its divine origin.

Of course no one is then convinced if he remains in his old mind and nature and nothing new is wrought in him. "For the natural