Why trust the Bible?

Our journey of trust in the Word of God starts with a choice of Faith.  (Hebrews 12:6). We could stop with that sentence alone, however, there are logical reasons to trust the Bible.

Reasons to trust the Bible

God gave us a brain and he expects us to use it or at least use the research of others.  There are some very logical reasons to trust the Word of God and it is good to do some research for yourself if you can. Some of the logical reasons to trust the Bible are:

1. Consider the honesty of the writers in scripture.  Would you record your own failures in a story that was not true?  The disciples fell asleep when Jesus asked them to remain awake and pray, Peter denied Jesus three times, Samson could not keep his hands off the local girls and Moses murdered someone. The honesty of the writers is incredible.
2. Unlikely inclusions: It would be unlikely, in the culture of the day, to record women as being the first to validate the resurrection of Jesus if it was a made-up story because Christianity rests on the resurrection. (1 Corinthians 15:12-20)
3. Archaeological evidence: Time and again, archaeological digs have proven the Word to be true.  On an increasing basis, numerous digs in Israel and around the Middle East have provided significant evidence, supporting historical details reported in scripture.  Visit https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/ for more information.
4. Documentary Evidence.  There is more documentary evidence (copies of original & early texts) supporting the scriptures than any other historical event or figure of a similar time period.  Typically there is a gap of at least 800 yrs between original manuscripts and the earliest copies available.  Secondly, there is usually only 7-10 copies of these earliest manuscripts.  In the case of the New Testament, the gap is < 100 years between the original and the earliest text held and there are 5600+ copies of early manuscripts in the original language.  https://carm.org/manuscript-evidence.  In addition, there are approximately 19,000 early texts in other languages.
5. Self-referencing internal integrity.  The scriptures have internal integrity that is beyond amazing.  It is written over a period of about 1500 yrs by 40 authors and yet it comes across as one integrated message. For example, a significant number of Old Testament verses point consistently to Jesus.  One example is the sacrifice of innocent lambs all pointing to the future sacrifice of the innocent Jesus the “lamb of God”. The New Testament, in turn, comments about historical events recorded in scripture like that of Noah and Jonah as real events.  An excellent and more detailed example of this self-referencing integrity can be found at Chuck Missler’s KHouse site: http://www.khouse.org/articles/1996/44/   There is no equivalent writing comparable to the Bible in all of History.
6. The prophetic content of scripture:  2 Peter 1:19-21.  “As GotQuestions” states:

“To declare that the Bible is untrustworthy means we must find another reasonable explanation for its miraculous nature. For example, of the nearly 2,500 prophecies given in the Bible, hundreds or thousands of years beforehand, 2,000 of them have been fulfilled, with the remaining 500+ unfolding with time. The probability of all these prophecies being fulfilled without error is roughly one in 10²⁰⁰⁰⁰. So, to trust that the Bible is not a miraculous book is mathematically inconsistent.”   https://www.gotquestions.org/trust-the-Bible.html

The primary example of prophecy fulfilled is the life of Jesus and the hundreds of details (> 300) foretold in the Old Testament about His life as recorded in the New Testament. Example:

Psalm 22 describes Christ on the cross written approximately 1000 yrs before Jesus was born and several hundred years before crucifixion was invented.

      A more recent example is the restoration of the Jewish people to the land of Israel culminating in the official re-establishment of the nation on May 14 1948, as prophesied in a number of Old Testament scriptures:

Jeremiah 23:7-8 / Isaiah 66:8-9 /Amos 9:14-15 and others prophesy the return of the Jewish people to the Land after exile approximately 2700 yrs before it occurred. We see this fulfilled with the establishment of Israel on 14 May 1948.

You can do further research at Got Questions: https://www.gotquestions.org/trust-the-Bible.html

Contradictions?

There are those who look for inconsistencies and contradictions in scripture.  It is worth visiting Got Questions to help address this issue. The challenge usually comes from people who are looking to disprove the Word of God rather than those who have studied it. Sometimes it is based on a lack of understanding of the historical and cultural context. These possible inconsistencies are few and far between and do not impact the central message of scripture.

In terms of disputed New Testament passages, there are only 2 passages longer than 2 verses  (Mark 16:9-20 + John 7:53-8:11). If we exclude them we lose nothing in terms of belief.

The ultimate question is what are you looking for?  Are you looking for life-changing truth?

Next steps

In a world where it is increasingly difficult to trust everything we are told, we have the Word of God which has proven itself over centuries and, can be trusted as Truth to bless our lives today.

Psalm 119:160

“All your words are true; all your righteous laws are eternal.” 

The next step is to choose to trust God’s word as Truth