Can I Really Trust The Bible?

Bible background: 2 Timothy 3:15-17

From a talk by Dr. Jim Stout

A few years ago. I had an opportunity to meet Barry, a junior at Florida State University. He was majoring in English. Barry had taken a few religion courses that year. That summer, he and I spent many evenings discussing some of his courses. He was confused. He'd read books like The Passover Plot, Why I Am Not a Christian, and others that disbelieved in the validity of the Bible and Christianity. He had scores of questions about the Bible and Christianity. One evening, he asked me,

Jim, is the Bible really God's Word? Or is it simply another great and inspired book written by men?

Think about that question. It's got a lot of implications for you and me.

Barry spoke of his professors teaching various theories about the origin of the Bible, its authorship, and its historical dating. He said,

Jim, it seems to me that either the Bible is what it claims to be, or it's just a collection of legends and myths filled with numerous mistakes and contradictions. How about it? Is the Bible really God's words, or fabrications made up by well-meaning religious people?

Do questions like this ever run across your mind?

• Can you trust the Bible's teachings?
• Is it historically factual?
• Is it scientifically accurate?
• Is it the benign production of some well-meaning individuals over the centuries?
• Can a well-educated person trust the Bible's claim to be divinely inspired?
• Can an individual maintain intellectual honesty and academic integrity while believing in the validity of the Bible?
• Is the Bible truly God's authoritative written words to man, or isn't it?

Let me say right from the start that, while there is strong evidence, I cannot prove conclusively that the Bible is the written words of God. God's Spirit will have to bring conviction to your heart that the Bible is the Word of God. Nevertheless, I believe there are very substantial reasons for believing the Bible is the written Word of God.

Let's begin by asking the question, How do we know God even exists?

Some people believe that nature reflects the existence of God, citing phenomena such as sunrises, sunsets, picturesque mountains, beautiful lakes, and oceans. Viewing nature, people observe,

There must be some kind of a divine force to have created all that.

However, as beautiful as the natural world is, it also has its share of disasters, including hurricanes, wildfires, and floods, which can destroy and cause loss of life. So, when we look at nature, we don't get a clear picture of what God is like. Neither can we understand God's character from looking within ourselves, trying to discover meaning in the universe and in life.

In every culture around the world, humans have an intuitive belief in something greater than themselves. A God or gods. But what this God is like differs in every culture. So how do we really know what God is like?

Fortunately, God took the first step. He has already revealed Himself to us.

How had God shown Himself to us? Throughout history, as the God of the universe acted in the lives of His people, He did so through the writings of His prophets, who were His spokesmen. But all of God's self-disclosures culminated in one cataclysmic act of human history.

God entered human history in the form of a person, a male human being, the Messiah, Jesus Christ. And He walked among us. He lived and taught. He performed miracles. He was executed on a cross. Three days later, Christ came back to life—to prove He was God in human flesh.

This is the central message of the Christian faith, the Gospel— the Good News that Jesus Christ came to die for our sins and give us a new life of purpose and peace.

How else do we know anything about this God-Man, Jesus Christ, apart from the pages of Scripture? Our reasoning? Our imagination? What we have been told by other people?

That's why John, one of the writers of the Bible, declares,

But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name. (John 20:31)

That is why the early church father in the fourth century, Cyril, taught,

This salvation of ours by faith is by proof from the sacred Scriptures.

How else do we know that,

• Humans are cut off from God because of sin?
• God is continually seeking after His human creations?
• Christ paid the penalty for our sin to restore us to God?

This is why I preach and teach from the Bible as the Word of God. It is my only authority.

Oh, I have strong opinions on many subjects. But everyone has opinions. That's why I base all my messages on what God says, instead of what I think.

I believe the Bible, in both the Old and New Testaments, speaks either in principle or in a specific way to every single circumstance you will ever face.

On what basis can a sophisticated person have this kind of confidence in the Bible? Several reasons:

1. THE BIBLE CLAIMS TO BE THE WORD OF GOD

The first reason for believing that the Bible is the Word of God is that the Bible itself claims to be the written Word of God. In several places, the Bible itself asserts:

All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God[a] may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. (2 Timothy 3:16,17)

We also thank God continually because, when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as a human word, but as it actually is, the word of God, which is indeed at work in you who believe. (1 Thessalonians 2:13)

For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God. For "All people are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field; the grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of the Lord endures forever." (1 Peter 1:23-25)

Nearly 3,808 times throughout the Bible, the writers claim they are writing under divine authority. Dotting the pages of the Bible are quotes like:

Thus saith the Lord, God says, The Scripture says, and countless other times.

Jesus quoted at least 24 books of the Old Testament. He taught about the eternal veracity of the Bible's words,

Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.

So closely is the Bible identified with the voice of God that phrases like Thus saith the Lord and Scripture says are used interchangeably. Both are seen to be identical and authoritative.

The Old Testament book of Exodus says:

God says to Pharaoh, For this very purpose I raised you up to demonstrate my power in you.

Paul quotes this same statement from Exodus in Romans, Chapter 9, but he writes:

"the Scripture says" instead of "God says."

Scripture and God's voice are often used interchangeably.

Without question, from the time of Jesus Christ through the middle of the 16th century, the Church accepted that the Bible was literally the Word of God.

Every believer accepts the Bible as divinely inspired and authoritative.

Despite all the theological differences, Christians agreed for the first 16 centuries that the Bible was uniquely the Word of God.

THEN CAME THE REFORMATION AND ITS INFLUENCE ON THE BIBLE AND CHRISTIANITY

Rationalism emerged as the prevailing philosophical climate of the time. Soon, the miracles and supernatural elements of the Bible came under attack, replaced with naturalistic explanations. Many began to believe the Bible was merely man's word about God, not God's Word to man.

From that point forward, the Bible faced increasingly devastating attacks from every direction.

THE MIRACLE OF THE BIBLE'S SURVIVAL

The second piece of evidence supporting the Bible as God's Word is the miracle of its survival throughout the centuries.

Consider what the Apostle Peter writes:

The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God endures forever. (Isaiah 40:8)

Every century, men have been tortured and killed simply for owning a copy of the Scriptures. Voltaire, the famous French agnostic, once declared,

In 100 years, Christianity and the Bible will be curiosity pieces in museums.

Yet fifty years later, the very house where he made that statement became the headquarters of the Geneva Bible Society! Incredibly, the same press he used to publish anti-Christian material was later used to distribute Bibles across Europe.

The Bible has consistently been a bestseller. In 1971, a paraphrased version called The Living Bible was published. Within just a year and a half, over 7 million copies were sold.

To my knowledge, the Bible remains the best-selling book of all time.

Some years ago, Look and Time magazines claimed the Bible had been outsold by both The Communist Manifesto and Gone with the Wind. But according to biblical statisticians, The Communist Manifesto and Gone with the Wind failed to account for the fact that over 90 tons of Bibles had been distributed for free, far more than Gone with the Wind had been published.

Consistent with the findings of noted historians, the Bible has been translated, re-translated, and paraphrased into more languages than any other book in human history. For example, Shakespeare's works, as revered as they are, have been translated into just 24 languages. The Bible has been translated into over 1,300 languages and dialects. What a profound confirmation of its truth:

The word of our God endures forever. (Isaiah 40:8)

THE UNIFYING THEME

The third reason to believe the Bible is the Word of God is its unifying theme.

Imagine choosing ten writers, all 40 years old, all from the same city—say Newport Beach, California. They all studied English at the same university (UCLA) under the same professors. Now ask them to write a ten-page paper on one controversial subject, such as suffering. Collect their papers and compile them into an anthology. Would they agree? Maybe a few would. But all ten? Very unlikely.

Consider this: The Bible has 40 different authors, written over a span of 1,500 years. Most never knew each other. They lived in different centuries, wrote from different places, and under a wide range of circumstances: some in joy, some in deep despair. Among them were farmers, fishermen, scholars, doctors, and statesmen. Yet their writings share a unifying thread covering controversial themes such as peace, war, the meaning of life—all tied together by a single narrative: the love of a God seeking after rebellious people.

THE BIBLE'S IMPARTIALITY

A fourth reason to believe in the Bible's divine origin is its impartiality.

If I were writing a religious book, I'd likely polish the image of its heroes. But the Bible does not whitewash its characters. It reveals the good, the bad, and the ugly truths about its characters and heroes.

The Bible tells it like it is. It records Moses' temper and his killing of an Egyptian. It recounts Abraham's lies, Noah's excessive drinking, and David's adultery. It lays bare the disciples' lack of faith, cowardice, and their petty arguments. Likewise, the early churches are portrayed with their flaws.

THE BIBLE'S ACCURACY

The fifth reason to believe the Bible is the Word of God is its astonishing accuracy.

In the 1800s, the French Institute of Paris released a paper claiming there were eighty-two errors in the Bible. Their goal was to discredit Christianity. Today, all eighty-two supposed errors have been disproven.

Seventy-five years ago, 92% of the Old Testament's towns and villages were unknown to archaeology. Skeptics claimed archaeological inaccuracies made the Bible untrustworthy. Today, respected scholars estimate that all but approximately 3% have been identified, and those matches the Bible's descriptions precisely.

The Bible names eighty-seven kings. A century ago, only five could be confirmed. Today, all eighty-seven have been verified, listed in perfect chronological order, with accurate spellings.

Critics once claimed the Hittites never existed, despite being mentioned forty-eight times in the Old Testament. Again, the Bible's records have been proven correct: in 1906, archaeologists unearthed vast Hittite ruins and inscriptions.

The Documentary Hypothesis, championed by Wellhausen, asserted that the first five books of the Bible were compiled centuries after Moses by unknown authors. This theory also claimed that writing as we know it today did not occur in Moses' time. However, archaeologists later discovered the Law Code of Hammurabi, dated more than 300 years before Moses, which proved that writing was well established in the time of Moses.

Genesis 11 recounts the story of the Tower of Babel, a time when the world shared a single language. Critics mocked this. Yet renowned philologists, including Max Müller, have traced evidence of a single original human language.

Critics once ridiculed the Genesis account of Abraham taking camels into Egypt, claiming that camels did not exist at that time. However, in 1935, camel bones and rope made from camel hair were discovered, dating back to approximately 2500 B.C.

The same disbelieving cynicism applied to the existence of a city named Jericho. Archaeologists have now found Jericho's ruins—and the walls did indeed fall outward, exactly as the Bible describes.

OLD TESTAMENT PROPHECIES THAT HAVE COME TRUE

There are at least 333 prophecies in the Old Testament that foretold the coming Messiah's birth, life, death, teachings, and resurrection.

You might find five or ten of these fulfilled in any one person by coincidence. But all 333? Statisticians say the odds of this are staggering: more difficult than winning the California Powerball lottery. Yet Jesus Christ fulfilled every single one of them.

As Scripture says:

No matter how many promises God has made, they are "Yes" in Christ. (2 Corinthians 1:20)

NEW TESTAMENT ACCURACY

Dr. William F. Albright, the renowned archaeologist from Johns Hopkins University, affirmed the Bible's trustworthy precision:

There can be no doubt that archaeology has confirmed with substantial historicity the Old Testament tradition.

Some critics claim that there's no historical evidence of Jesus at all, and that the New Testament distorted Jesus' teachings.

Sir William Ramsay, a respected archaeologist, set out to disprove the Gospel of Luke. He believed Luke 2:1–3 contained more factual errors than any other passage:

At that time, Caesar Augustus issued a decree ordering a census to be taken of the entire Roman world. (This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.) And everyone went to their own town to register.

Ramsay claimed:

• No such census occurred.
• Cyrenius was not the governor then.
• People did not return to their ancestral homes for censuses.

But Ramsay's research disproved his claims:

• The Romans did conduct censuses every fourteen years.
• Cyrenius was the governor twice—the first time during Jesus' birth.
• Ancient Roman records confirm people had to return to ancestral towns to register.

Ultimately, Ramsay commended Luke for his meticulous attention to historical detail.

For centuries, skeptics denied the Roman headquarters location of Jesus' trial before Pilate, known as Gabbatha. Then Dr. Albright uncovered the court ruins in the Tower of Antonia, the Roman military headquarters in Jerusalem.

RELIABILITY OF MANUSCRIPTS

How do we evaluate ancient texts?

Ancient philosopher-historians like Plato, Aristotle, Homer, and Tacitus, all have surviving copies. But the number is small: the most we have of any of these is twenty.

For the New Testament, we have over 150 complete manuscripts—and more than 3,000 partial ones. The time gap between original composition and surviving copies for secular texts is 900 years (e.g., Tacitus' Annals).

For the New Testament, it's as little as 150 years.

A fragment of Mark's Gospel has been dated as early as A.D. 40–48!

By the standards used for all other ancient literature, the Bible is far more reliable.

So if we discard the Bible on historical grounds, we must also discard every other ancient document.

As I Kings says,

According to all that he promised, there hath not failed one word of all his good promise, which he promised by the hand of Moses his servant. (1 Kings 8:56)

LIVES TRANSFORMED BY READING THE BIBLE

Another reason to trust the Bible is the lives it has transformed.

Charles Wesley, Martin Luther, and St. Augustine all came to know Christ through the study of Scripture.

General Lew Wallace, a friend of the atheist Robert Ingersoll, set out to disprove Christianity. Wallace studied libraries across Europe, then finally turned to the Bible to examine the primary source. But as he read, Wallace became convinced that Jesus Christ was real, and Wallace surrendered his life to Christ. One result of Lew Wallace's conversion to Christ? He later wrote Ben-Hur, one of history's most powerful novels about Christ, and it was also adapted into an inspirational film.

Probably the best reason I can give for believing the Bible is its power to change my and your life.

Some who criticize the Bible do so to avoid its demands. The Bible isn't a buffet where we pick and choose what suits us. God asks us to accept it all: His love and His justice, the natural and the supernatural.

As the Bible says: All Scripture is inspired by God. Not just some of it.

If you have doubts, I encourage you to sincerely pray something like this:

God, I honestly don't know much about you and your ways. I don't know if the Bible really is your Word. But if it is—and if you can help me, please reveal yourself to me as I read."

Amen.

After all my decades of study, I've concluded that the Bible is utterly trustworthy. And more than ever, I believe that,

All people are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field; the grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of the Lord endures forever. (1 Peter 1:24–25)

To conclude, my wish for both you and me is what the psalmist declares,

I rejoice in following your statutes as one rejoices in great riches. I meditate on your precepts and consider your ways. I delight in your decrees; I will not neglect your word. (Psalm 119: 14-16)

May God bless you as you explore your relationship with God and the Bible.

On the journey with you,

Jim