The last lesson appealed to your heart. This lesson will appeal to your head. Before we can pursue the God of the Bible, we need to examine the Bible itself. How do we know that we can trust what it says? Why should we listen to its truth claims? That’s what we’ll cover in this lesson.
The Bible is the best-selling book of all time, and it’s unlike any other book written in history. It has changed individual lives and shaped entire cultures. It’s an ancient text that claims to have been written by God himself, and the proof of its reliability is surprisingly strong. Here are three reasons we can trust what it teaches:
Historical Evidence
Ancient manuscripts and archeological digs have stacked up in favor of biblical reliability. The Bible was written thousands of years ago, long before printing presses and modern technology. Manuscript fragments of the biblical text have endured wars and weather throughout the ages, and the scraps that remain represent just a fraction of the originals. Are those remnants enough to provide a reliable testimony for modern-day readers? And how can we be sure that the message hasn’t been corrupted over the millennia? The good news is that the God who inspired the scriptures was also powerful enough to preserve those writings through the ages.
Consider the manuscript evidence. Manuscript copies in the ancient world were painstakingly hand-written, and not all of them survived the ravages of time. Reliability of ancient writings is determined by the number of copies (or partial copies) of the work in existence. So how does the Bible stack up? See for yourself:
- Today we have only 49 copies of Aristotle’s writings.
- Homer’s “The Iliad” does a little better, with 643 copies in existence.
- The New Testament wins by a landslide, with almost 5700 Greek copies and over 19,000 copies in other languages!
The New Testament clearly has more manuscript evidence than any other ancient work. But how do we know that those manuscript copies are faithful to the originals? What if human authors changed the message, intentionally or otherwise? Modern archeology helps us answer this question, thanks to the Dead Sea Scrolls. In 1947 a shepherd boy discovered some ancient scrolls hidden away in remote caves in the Middle East. This led to even more discoveries in the area, and in the end almost 1000 manuscripts were recovered. Parts of almost every book of the Old Testament were found, and some of those fragments proved to be almost 1000 years older than the oldest manuscripts known at the time.
This offers a perfect test for the reliability of our modern translations. The book of Isaiah provides the most compelling example, since the Dead Sea Scrolls contained a complete copy of the prophet’s writings. When compared to the Masoretic Text (the oldest copy previously known, dating back to about 800 AD), the Isaiah manuscript from the Dead Sea Scrolls was 95% identical! And the only differences were minor, often just variations in spelling.
So the historical evidence stacks up in favor of the reliability of the Bible. But there’s more:
Textual Evidence
The Bible is the most impressive writing project in the history of the world. It contains 66 books written by 40 different authors over the course of 1500 years, and yet it tells one unified story. Think about it: Moses, a Jewish slave raised in the house of a Pharaoh, wrote the first five books. John, a fisherman-turned-revolutionary, wrote the last four books. In between were books and letters written by shepherds, kings, prophets, tax collectors, doctors, and more. And the most prolific author in the New Testament was Paul – a religious Pharisee who zealously persecuted the Jesus followers before joining them.
Most of these authors never met each other, and many of them were unaware of the other books and letters that would eventually be included in the Bible. Their writings spanned different cultures and languages over the course of 15 centuries, and yet the Bible amazingly reads as one story. From beginning to end it’s about Jesus, and the fulfilled prophecy is the glue that holds it together. Let’s take just a few examples:
- Of the 12 tribes of Israel, Judah was surprisingly predicted to be the one through which Jesus would come – which is exactly what happened. Genesis 49:10, Matthew 1:1-3
- It was prophesied that Jesus would be born in Bethlehem, and that’s how it happened – even though his mother didn’t even live there. Micah 5:2, Luke 2:1,4
- Prophets wrote with shocking accuracy about the torture and death of Jesus hundreds of years before it happened – exactly as predicted. Psalm 22, Isaiah 53
It was because of these kinds of prophecies that Jesus spoke these words to the religious leaders of his day:
John 5:39 You search the Scriptures because you think they give you eternal life. But the Scriptures point to me!
The Bible amazingly tells one story, centered on Jesus, because it was ultimately inspired by the God of human history.
Personal Evidence
The Bible is ultimately about Jesus, and the changed lives of his followers is the most compelling proof of its message. Let’s just take three examples from the New Testament, starting with Peter. When Jesus was on trial before his crucifixion, a servant girl noticed Peter and accused him of being a follower of Jesus. Peter denied it three times, walking away with an incredible sense of guilt and shame (Luke 22:56-59). But that’s not the end of his story, because days later the resurrected Jesus sat down to breakfast with Peter and reinstated him – three times (John 21:15-19). Peter went on to be a pillar of the Christian church, eventually giving up his life for Jesus.
Or consider “doubting” Thomas. He missed out on meeting the resurrected Jesus with the other disciples and expressed his doubt that they really saw the risen Christ. But soon enough he met Jesus for himself and professed his faith in him (John 20:25-28). Thomas, too, ended up dying for his faith.
And then there’s Paul, a self-righteous Pharisee (Philippians 3:5) whose life mission was to persecute the followers of Jesus. Then he met Jesus and joined that very group of misfit disciples. Paul made it his life’s mission to spread the Good News about Jesus and he, too, died a martyr’s death.
There’s no way to explain away these changed lives except to conclude that the message about Jesus, along with every word in the Bible, truly is inspired by God.
But no amount of evidence can overcome an unbelieving attitude. At the end of the day, trusting the reliability of the Bible comes down to your willingness to believe in the God behind the Bible. Jesus made this point one day as he taught in the Temple courts:
John 7:16-17 My message is not my own; it comes from God who sent me. Anyone who wants to do the will of God will know whether my teaching is from God or is merely my own.
If you’re unwilling to submit to God’s will, your pursuit is over before it has even started. But if you are willing to come to God on his terms and take him at his word, then Jesus promises that you’ll discover the truth. The teachings of Jesus, and indeed all of the teachings in the Bible, are from God, not man. And so we can trust the Bible in our pursuit of God.
