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     The Bible! What an odd name for a book.  Generally, books have titles that at least allude to their contents, but the title “Bible,” tells us nothing of its subject matter.  The word, “Bible,”is a transliteration of the Greek word biblia, meaning “books” which adequately describes the Bible’s physical makeup as it is composed of 66 writings called books of the Bible, but says nothing of its content.
     Because of the Bible’s influence in American society in the past four centuries, the word “bible” has been used as titles for other books, e.g. Shooters’ Bible, The Vitamin Bible, or more recently in the computer world, “The Word Perfect Bible.”  The word “bible” is used to denote it as the all inclusive book of knowledge on the Word Perfect computer program.  The reason is the same for the title “Vitamin Bible” – all you could ever wanted to know about vitamins is in it.  In other words, we use “bible” to say there is nothing more that can be said on the subject because an “XYZ Bible” has said it all.
     The Bible makes the same type of claim – “...as His divine power has given us all that pertains to life and godliness...,” (2 Peter 1:3).  Note, the Bible, claiming to be God’s word, states in this passage that it contains everything that is essential for “life and godliness.”  Thus the Bible’s great claim is that it has all that is necessary for man to become what God wants him to be.
     With such a claim, it’s no wonder that the Bible is the world’s perennially most popular book.  The Bible’s popularity is reflected by the distribution of about 115 million Bibles and 105 million New Testaments throughout the world from 1997 to 2002 by Bible societies (in addition to those that have been printed for commercial sales).  However, how do we know the Bible is in fact God’s word?
     The Bible makes the bold claim that “All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.” (New Testament, 2 Timothy 3:16-17).  Notice that this verse also claims to make man “complete,” meaning lacking in nothing.  Note again, the Bible says “All scripture is inspired of God...”  What is inspiration?  It’s one thing to claim inspiration and entirely another to prove it.  And how can we know the Bible is inspired by God?

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