It seems as if everything that pertains to Christianity is under fire. Including the Bible. Many people are asking, “Can you trust the Bible?”
This is an important question to answer because the Bible is THE FOUNDATION of our Christian life. It is the first step to becoming a bold Christian.
We are saved by grace through faith, but where does that faith come from? Our faith is a gift from God that comes to us from the Word of God – our Bible. (Romans 10:17) Without the Bible, we can have no faith.
Even after we are saved, the Bible is essential to our Christian life. Without it, how can we know the great and precious promises God has given us?
According to 2 Peter 1:3-4, these promises come through the knowledge of Him. Where does our knowledge of God start? By His revealing of Himself to us through our Bible.
We Must Know We Can Trust the Bible
As believers, we must know our current Bible can be trusted. Otherwise, our faith is shipwrecked, and our hope is in vain. The purpose of this article is to show you evidence for why you can trust the Bible.
At the end of the article, I will also tell you where you can find more resources supporting why you can trust the Bible.
Historical Evidence for Trusting the Bible
To answer the question, “Can you trust the Bible?”, I think the best place to start is with the evidence outside of the Bible. Just as if we were atheists and can’t trust what the Bible says about itself.
Therefore, let’s look at the historical evidence that proves you can trust the Bible. Historical evidence from both archeology and non-Christian writers confirms the validity of both the Old and New Testaments.
Here are what scholars once believed:
Moses Couldn’t Have Written the First Five books of the Bible
The Bible states Moses wrote the first five books of the Bible. Scholars once believed this was impossible because writing was unknown during his day of around 1300 BC. Archeology proved the scholars wrong when it unearthed the Code of Hammurabi written around 1700 BC. Then followed the discovery of the Lipit-Ishtar code written about 1860 BC and the Laws of Eshnunna written about 1950 BC. It is now well proved that writing existed long before Moses’ time.
The Hittite Empire Never Existed
Critics used to believe the Hittites never existed because there was no evidence outside of the Bible. The Bible mentions the Hittite Empire around 40 times, so this proved the Bible was a work of fiction. Then, in 1906, archaeologist discovered the Hittite capital. Now it we know the Hittites were a very prominent civilization. Once again, proving the veracity of our current Bible.
King David Was a Fictional Character
Critics of the Bible used to believe that King David was a legendary fictional character made up by the writers of the Bible. They pointed to the lack of archaeological evidence showing King David as a historical figure. All this changed in 1994 when archaeologists uncovered a stone slab in northern Galilee that had inscribed references to King David and the House of David. No longer is King David a fictional character.
The Acts of the Apostles
In the book of Acts, Luke the author mentions 95 people, nine actual islands, thirty-two countries, and fifty-four cities. Many critics believed the book of Acts was not correct. To prove the Bible is not the inspired Word of God, Sir William Ramsey, a renown historical scholar and archaeologist, set out to prove the book of Acts was historically inaccurate.
Yet, after thirty years of research in the Middle East, Ramsey concluded Luke was a “historian of first rank.” And “his statement of facts is trustworthy.” Sir William went on later to write a book about the trustworthiness of the Bible that was based on his research. He also became a Christian because of his research.
First Century Crucifixion
Critics claimed there were no crucifixions in Israel at the time of Jesus because there was no evidence. In 1968, a crew of builders uncovered an ancient cemetery holding the remains of men that were killed in the Jewish revolt of AD 70. Crucifixion killed one of these men. This was determined by the iron nail driven through the bone of his heel. Because the Romans could not remove this nail, we now know that people were nailed to the cross in first century Israel.
Other Archaeological Finds
1. Meesha Stele or Moabite Stone proves the genuine history of Israel’s kings and their interactions with foreign kings. It mentions King Omri, possibly the House of David (some contest this) and even Yahweh, the unique name for the God of Israel.
2. The Nabonidus Cylinder proves the validity of Daniel 5:16. For many years, critics of the Bible claimed the book of Daniel to be wrong. They said Belshazzar was never king in Babylon and his father wasn’t Nabonidus. This cylinder proved them wrong. With Belshazzar being a crown prince of Babylon, this would make Daniel the third ruler.
3. There is also the ossuary of Caiaphas, the high priest who presided over Jesus trial and then there is the Pilate dedication stone proving Pilate was the Prefect of Judea.
There is More
This is only a small part of the archaeological evidence proving the validity of our Bible. The archaeological evidence alone is overwhelming in supporting both Old and New Testaments.
The renowned archaeologist Dr. William F. Albright also asserted the accuracy of the Bible’s history in his book History, Archaeology, and Christian Humanism (Edinburgh: Adam & Charles Black, 1965), pg. 293:
Thanks to modern research we now recognize its substantial historicity. The narratives of the Patriarchs, of Moses and the Exodus, of the Conquest of Canaan, of the Judges, the Monarchy, Exile, and Restoration, have all been confirmed and illustrated to an extent that I should have thought impossible forty years ago.
Can You Trust the Bible in its Scientific Accuracy?
How does our Bible do in the arena of the sciences? Can it be trusted in that area too? I believe so.
The Bible presents an understanding of the universe and the existence of life in a plausible and objective way. Evolution is only a theory and as a theory has constantly evolved since Darwin’s day. This evolving of Darwin’s theory has not always happened to better understand the theory, but to continue to support the theory despite the scientific evidence to the contrary. But I will let you wrestle with that on your own.
Studying creation helps explain how our earth became the way it is. Someone produced everything and that someone is God. First, we have the creation of earth in six days and later a great flood that shaped the earth to what it is today.
The Science of Hydrology
The study of the cycle of water, which consists of evaporation, condensation, and precipitation, is the science of hydrology. The rain drops out of the sky and makes its way into our creeks and rivers to finally make its way to the sea. It evaporates and rises into the atmosphere only to condensate and fall back to the earth.
Our Bible described this process long before the science of hydrology was ever known. Ecclesiastes 1:7 says, “All the streams flow to the sea, yet the sea is never full; to the place where the streams flow, there they flow again.” (CSB)
Isaiah 55:10 tells us, “For just as rain and snow fall from heaven and do not return there without saturating the earth and making it germinate and sprout, and providing seed to sow and food to eat.” (CSB)
Job, possibly the oldest book in our Bible, says, “For he makes waterdrops evaporate; they distill the rain into its mist, which the clouds pour out and shower abundantly on mankind.” (Job 36:27-28 CSB)
All this was written long before science discovered the process.
The Earth Moves Around the Sun
Copernicus astounded the scientific community in the 1500s when he presented the idea that the sun stayed in the same place and the earth rotated around it. People had believed the earth was a flat disc and you could fall off the edge. Galileo and Kepler gave birth to modern astronomy in the seventeenth century. At that time, it was thought there was about one thousand stars, because some scientists had counted them. When Galileo first turned his telescope to the heavens, he discovered the earlier count was way off.
Only God knows how many stars are in our universe. Science has only cataloged a few million of the stars that are estimated to run in the sextillion. That is numbers with 23 zeros behind them.
Jeremiah wrote, “Even as the stars of heaven cannot be counted, and the sand of the sea cannot be measured.” (Jeremiah 33:22 CSB)
Copernicus was right about the earth moving around the sun, but wrong about the sun being stationary. Modern telescopes have shown us the sun moves in a circuit around the Milky Way galaxy. Of course, God knew this when He had David pen Psalm 19:6, “It rises from one end of the heavens and circles to their other end; nothing is hidden from its heat.” (CSB)
The Shape of the Earth
Job 26:10 tells us, “He drew a circular horizon on the face of the waters, At the boundary of light and darkness.” (NKJV) This was long before the Greeks discovered the world was round. The scientific authorities of that day, the Egyptians, Babylonians, and Chinese believed the world was flat.
The boundary of light and dark is where evening and morning meet. It is not a straight line, it is circular. Why? Because the earth is round. Another verse is Isaiah 40:22, “God is enthroned above the circle of the earth…” (CSB)
But let’s not stop there. Long before modern astronomy was born the Bible says, “He stretches the northern skies over empty space; he hangs the earth on nothing.” (Job 26:7 CSB) modern scientists are still trying to figure this out. The book of Job was written at the time when Hindus believed the earth was supported by elephants standing on a turtles back in a vast sea. They believed earthquakes happened when the elephants shifted positions.
The Final Analysis of Archaeological and Scientific Evidence
The bottom line is that no one has ever proved anything written in the Bible as wrong. Sure, Joshua wrote the sun stood still, but that was from his earthly point of view. We speak of sunrise and sunset, which are unscientific terms. To be correct, we should comment on how wonderful the earth’s rotation is.
What I have written is only a tiny part of the archaeological and scientific evidence. Let’s continue to uncover even more evidence the Bible was written by God through the hand of inspired men.
Can You Trust the Bible When It Was Written by Men?
Now that is a valid question. The answer is an absolute, “Yes!” The common idea is that because the ancient manuscripts were copied by hand, there must be many errors and changes. The idea is that there was the original manuscript; it was copied and changed; the copy was copied and changed; that copy was copied and changed.
Yet, actual evidence is to the contrary. What people label as “errors” are actual “variants”. A variant is when there is a variation between one copy and another. This may be differences in word order, spelling, punctuation, grammar, or a difference in the actual content.
The New Testament
There are 10,000 variants in the New Testament. The vast majority of these are word order and spelling. In less than forty places, is there uncertainty of which reading is the original. None of these affect the central doctrine of our faith.
We have 24.000 manuscripts of the New Testament. The oldest copies of the New Testament were done less than 50 years after the original was written. This enormous number of manuscripts allows us to verify the veracity of our current New Testament. In fact, the textual corruption of the New Testament is .05%.
Homer’s Iliad for Comparison
Compare the New Testament with its next closest secular word, The Iliad by Homer. The ancient Greeks considered The Iliad to be sacred. It was written about 900 BC, yet the oldest manuscript in existence is a partial text and dates to 400 BC – a 500-year gap. There are only 643 manuscript texts of the Iliad, with a 5% variance, yet it is considered completely reliable as history and literature.
External Manuscripts
You can trust the Bible through the enormous number of external documents written about the New Testament. The early church fathers so thoroughly quoted the New Testament that we can recreate the whole New Testament from their writing alone.
Dr. Carl Pinnock said on page 58 of his book, Set Forth Your Case, “There exists no document from the ancient world witnessed by so excellent set of textual and historical testimonies and offering so superb array of historical data on which an intelligent decision may be made. An honest [person] cannot dismiss a source of this kind. Skepticism regarding the historical credentials of Christianity is based upon an irrational [i.e., anti-supernatural] basis.
Can You Trust the Old Testament?
There is not the wealth of manuscripts for the Old Testament as there is for the New Testament. Yet, it has been verified we can trust our current Old Testament has also stayed unchanged by man.
At the time the King James Bible was written, the oldest manuscripts of the Old Testament were the Masoretic Text from 916 AD. This all changed when the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered in 1947.
This discovery provided texts which were written as far back as 125 BC. Careful study revealed the dates of the Dead Sea Scrolls. The experts studied several things to determine the age of these scrolls:
1. The weave and pattern of the cloths used for the manuscripts.
2. The spelling of the words.
3. How the various characters (letters) were written for each of the three languages.
4. The type of pottery that held the scrolls.
5. Hundreds of coins found with the scrolls that were minted from 135 BC to 68 AD.
With a careful comparison of the Masoretic Text against the Dead Sea Scrolls, the experts found there was negligible difference between the two. Once again, it was spelling, punctuation, and word order differences. How can this be?
It is due to the Hebrews reverence towards copying God’ Word. They had extremely strict rules of how it had to be done and how the copy was to be verified as accurate. For instance, the scribes could not copy even one character from memory. They had to look at the scroll for each character they copied. It is through all these strict guidelines for copying and verification that have provided us with a carefully preserved Old Testament.
You Can Trust the Bible Because it is Supernatural
All these proofs, history, science, archeology, and the manuscripts themselves, show us the Bible is supernatural. There are no other ancient documents so carefully copied and preserved as there are for our Bible.
It shows the supernatural hand of God has been upon His Word for centuries, preserving what He actually said for each generation. This makes sense, for we are told that faith comes from hearing the Word of God (Romans 10:17).
When we open our Bible, we are reading and studying what God really said.
The Various Translations
What is not as trustworthy is all the translations. We know the manuscripts are accurate, but the translations are not always so. You can be sure, that if you stick to one of the major translations, you are getting a correct representation in English of what the original manuscript says.
The Transparency of Scripture
I am amazed that so many of the failures of the people in the Bible are written down. Even the Father of Our Faith, Abraham, has his failures written in the Bible. Human beings have the tendency to show themselves in the best light, not point out their shortcomings and failures. The Bible doesn’t do this. God has them write about their shortcomings and failures so we can learn from them.
The Bible’s Transforming Power
The Bible has transformed millions of lives. It has been the catalyst for much good to be done in our world. Christians have built universities, hospitals, and orphanages all around the world.
The slave trade was abolished primarily through the work of a Christian and Parliament member, William Wilberforce. Innumerable outreaches to the poor and downtrodden have been done due to the power inherent in the Word of God.
The Moravians traveled the world to preach the Gospel – even to the point of selling themselves into slavery in order to preach to the slaves. Many have endured hardship to reach remote villages with the Gospel. Some of them even died doing so.
Then there are the millions of people just like me that were once godless sinners and are now transformed by the inherent power of God’s Word.
Hebrews 4:12 says, “For the word of God is living and effective and sharper than any double-edged sword, penetrating as far as the separation of soul and spirit, joints and marrow. It is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.” (CSB)
The Final Uniqueness of the Bible
The final bit that makes the Bible so unique is God’s challenge to all the other religions of the world and their false gods. The God of the Hebrews and Christians makes no pretense that there is any validity to any other religion. He challenges them.
“Submit your case,” says the Lord. “Present your arguments,” says Jacob’s King. “Let them come and tell us what will happen. Tell us the past events, so that we may reflect on them and know the outcome, or tell us the future. Tell us the coming events, then we will know that you are gods. Indeed, do something good or bad, then we will be in awe when we see it.” (Isaiah 41:21-23 CSB)
God outright challenges any other religion to say what happened in the past, when the world was created. He challenges them to predict the future. Only the Bible has done this. It takes an all-knowing God to have this ability. The God of the Bible is the only one that has done this.
“I am the Lord. That is my name, and I will not give my glory to another or my praise to idols. The past events have indeed happened. Now I declare new events; I announce them to you before they occur.” (Isaiah 42:8-9 CSB)
The Lord, the One Only and True Living God, has accurately predicted the future. Over 20% of our Bible was prophetic at the time it was written. It has come to pass 100% of the time. Don’t you think that the prophecies yet to be fulfilled will happen? Jesus will return and He will rule the earth.
Therefore, believers will live with Him forever and those that reject Him will live in hell and then the lake of fire forever.
The Challenge
Learn why you can trust the Bible and use it to:
- Bolster your personal faith and confidence
- Show the doubters the Bible is accurate even though it is copies of copies. Most doubters have no evidence of why they believe the Bible is inaccurate.
It is time we stand up for our bold view of God’s Word. God is still on the throne and is still doing the impossible. We must show the world this is true today.
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