Why Trust the Bible?Sample

What is the Bible and why should I trust it?

Questions about the Bible can cause Christians to doubt and seekers to reject the faith before encountering Jesus, so over the next six days, we’ll tackle six of the most common ones. Today we’re asking: What is the Bible and why should I trust it?

Let’s start with the fact that the Bible isn’t just one book written by one person but a collection of sixty-six books (divided into the Old and New Testaments), written over 1,600 years, by more than 40 authors from diverse walks of life, on three continents, in three languages. This is important for understanding why we can trust the Bible, because the integrity of any ancient writing is determined by factors related to those facts.

1. The number of documented manuscripts which still exist – The translation of a book into multiple languages (like the Bible) and its availability in multiple places (again, like the Bible) attests to its success and authenticity. In terms of ancient manuscripts, the Bible is by far the best attested, with over 5,100 handwritten manuscripts in Greek alone.
2. The connection between the events and the person recording them - The four gospel writers were right there, in on the action. What’s more, historians of the day give the same accounts of the events of Jesus’ life.
3. The timeline of transmission - How close in time to the original events are the manuscript witnesses? Is there enough time and space for change to creep in or legend to supersede historicity? The oldest manuscript fragment of John’s gospel is dated at around 125 AD. John died around 90 AD. A couple of decades wouldn’t have been long enough for myth to distort the historical truth John attested to.

Beyond the facts above, there is another reason the Bible is one of the most trustworthy ancient documents: The care with which the Bible’s text was scrupulously preserved is remarkable. Where there are variations in the manuscripts (differences in spelling or word order), the translators put these in the footnotes for all to see. This points to the integrity of the text. There’s been no top-down agency editing or controlling it, which makes the Bible unlike the holy books of other religions. There’s something radically organic and grassroots about this book, which is fitting, since it’s about a God who took on flesh to meet us in our real world.

Christians believe the Bible to be so much more than just a fascinating book that has stood up to historical, psychological, and literary scrutiny. We believe God chose to reveal Himself to us by collaborating with human writers, inspiring them to record and carefully preserve His truth. In Paul’s letter to Timothy, he described scripture as “God-breathed.”

Don’t let textual scepticism or cultural unfamiliarity put you off considering for yourself whether this is a book not just of historical and cultural importance, but a book through which God can be encountered – a living word that will impact your life in profound, powerful ways. If it is true that Jesus of Nazareth was God in the flesh, his life matters. The accuracy of the records of his life matters. On that front, can the Bible be trusted? I believe it can, and external evidence supports that position.