Luke Long

Can We Trust The Bible?

20 June, 2024

8 Reasons the Bible is Evidentially True

Why would anyone actually believe the Bible’s message?

Is there compelling evidence to support Biblical claims?

Is the Bible True?

Wasn’t the Bible just written by men? Hasn’t it been mistranslated? What about contradictions? These are reasonable questions many ask when the Bible is brought up. What compelling evidence is there that the Bible is reliable, true and from God? Here are 8 evidences many are not aware of…

1. PREDICTIONS FULFILLED

Among the world’s religious texts the Bible alone has hundreds of specific, detailed predictions about events over which the writers had no control, most of which have already come to pass. The Bible stands alone in being 100% accurate in the predictions it contains.

The Bible predicted…

  • …Jesus Christ would be a descendant of Abraham (Gen. 12:1-3, 22:18),
  • …of the tribe of Judah (Gen 49:10),
  • …in the lineage of David (2 Samuel 7:12f),
  • …born in Bethlehem (Micah 5:2),
  • …born of a virgin (Isaiah 7:14),
  • …heal the blind, the deaf, the crippled (Isaiah 35:5-6),
  • …be rejected by His own people (Psalm 118:22).
  • …the precise time in history when Jesus would die (Daniel 9:24-26),
  • …how He would die (Psalm 22:16-18, Isaiah 53; Zechariah 12:10),
  • …and that He would rise from the dead (Psalm 16:10)
  • …along with hundreds more predictions.

The odds of only eight of these predictions being fulfilled in one man are calculated to be 100 quadrillion to one (Peter W. Stoner, “Science Speaks”, chapter 3). A word picture to understand how difficult this is to do:

Imagine filling the state of Texas two feet deep with silver dollars. Paint one red, blindfold someone, let them go anywhere in Texas and see if they pick out that red silver dollar the first time!!

How could ordinary men have known these events would come true in one person? The only logical answer is that they had to have been given this knowledge by someone who knew the future, GOD. Fulfilled predictions set the Bible apart from every other religious book. No other book comes anywhere close to the Bible’s predictive accuracy. None.

2. ARCHAEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE

Thousands of archaeological discoveries have verified the historical reliability of the Bible.

“It is remarkable that where confirmation is possible and has come to light, the Bible stands investigation in ways that are unique in all literature. Its superiority to attack, its capacity to withstand criticism, its amazing facility to be proved right after all, are all staggering by any standards of scholarship. Seemingly assured results “disproving” the Bible have a habit of backfiring. Over and Over again the Bible has been vindicated. (Clifford Wilson, “Archeology – the Bible and Christ”, volume 17)

3. INTERNAL CONSISTENCY (HARMONY)

The Bible is a collection of 66 different documents written in three different languages by 40 authors of varying backgrounds separated by hundreds of miles on three different continents over a 1600 year time span.

Despite writing about highly controversial subjects that could easily have different opinions, the Bible is consistent and perfectly harmonious. Even passages that appear to contradict each other fully harmonize upon closer study. This internal consistency is powerful evidence the authors of the Bible were being guided by God when they wrote the different books of the bible. In this sense the Bible was written THROUGH men inspired BY God (2 Peter 1:21).

4. EXTRA-BIBLICAL WRITINGS

The Bible’s records of different persons, places, and events are verified as historically accurate in Assyrian, Babylonian and Roman documents. There are more than 30 collaborative sources outside the Bible, written within 150 years of Jesus’ life that attest to more than 100 facts regarding Jesus’ life, teachings, crucifixion, and resurrection.

5. SCIENTIFIC ACCURACY

When it comes to known, testable, verifiable facts, the Bible has been found to be in perfect harmony with reality. The Bible was written long ago and yet does not contain any scientific errors.

Here are some of the hundreds of Biblical references to phenomena long before they were discovered:

  • Hydrological cycle (Jeremiah 10:13)
  • Spherical Earth (Is 40:22) rests on nothing (Job 26:7)
  • Light movement (Job 38:19-20)
  • Air having weight (Job 28:25)
  • Washing to prevent disease contamination (Lev 17:11)
  • Innumerable stars as the sand of the sea (Jer 33:22) Astronomers continue to discover an ever increasing quantity of galaxies currently estimated at more than 100 billion containing trillions of stars.

How could the writers of the Bible have known these facts in some cases millennia before being discovered even though contrary to prevailing understanding?

The Bible tells us how they knew these things in 2 Peter 1:2. “Holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.” God inspired the writing of the Bible so that what He wanted written, was written while allowing the writer’s own personality to be expressed.

6. MANUSCRIPT EVIDENCE

What is a manuscript? A manuscript is any surviving hand-written copy of an ancient document that predates the invention of the printing press in 1452.

Today there survives approximately 25,000 ancient handwritten manuscript copies of the New Testament, some partial and some complete, as well as thousands of copies of the Old Testament. With the discovery in 1947 of the Dead Sea scrolls we have copies of the Old Testament that are older than the time of Jesus. Manuscripts like the Dead Sea Scrolls have allowed Biblical scholars and textual critics to go back and verify that the Old Testament bible we have today is the same Bible the early church had 2,000 years ago.

Even if we did not have any manuscript copies of the New Testament, there is another way of verifying that we have accurate copies, and that is by examining the writings of the church fathers, the early leaders in the church during the first three centuries A.D., following Jesus’ original disciples. Men like Justin Martyr, Eusebius, Tertullian, Polycarp. These men, in their writings and correspondence with one another, and in their letters to different churches, quote the Old and New Testament more than 86,000 times. The writings of the Church fathers are available right now online at https://www.earlychristianwritings.com/churchfathers.html where you can see for yourself their numerous quotations of both the Old and New Testaments. (While you’re there, verify how the apostles were tortured and killed.)

There are enough quotations from the early church fathers that even if we did not have a single manuscript copy of the Bible, scholars could still reconstruct most of the New Testament today just from their writings.

7. BIBLE REVEALS CHARACTER FAULTS

Unlike the authors of other religious writings, the authors of the Bible did not seek to cast themselves in good light or to elevate themselves at all. Of course, this doesn’t prove that the Bible is true, but it does help strengthen the cumulative case that the Bible appears to be an honest work.

Here are a few examples from the Bible:

  • David’s adultery with Bathsheba and subsequent murder of her husband Uriah (2 Sam 11)
  • Abraham lying in two different situations about Sarah being his sister (Genesis 12:13, 20:2)
  • The nation of Israel rejecting God on numerous occasions to worship other false gods (e.g. the Book of Judges). Who gave us the Scriptures? The Jews. Is this the kind of thing they would make up?
  • Moses’ murder of a man in Egypt (Ex 2:11-12). He tells us about his failures in his own writings. These sound like the words of someone who was committed to communicating the truth.
  • Paul’s confession that he was a “wretched man” (Romans 7:24) and the “chief” of sinners (1 Timothy 1:15)
  • Peter denying that he knew Jesus, after promising that he would never do such a thing (Matthew 26:72)
  • The disciples running away to save themselves when Jesus was arrested (Mark 14:50).

Why would the writers include these embarrassing statements in the text? Professional historians will tell you that statements like these help to authenticate the text. Do these sound like the words of men who were lying to try to make themselves look good? Not at all.

If you add to this evidence the fact that these men imparted to the world the highest standards of conduct the world has ever seen, the case is only strengthened.

8. THE PERSECUTION OF JESUS’ EYEWITNESSES

In addition to the Bible’s forthrightness about sins and failures, Eusebius, Tertullian, Flavius Josephus, and other independent extrabiblical historians record that Jesus’ apostles suffered intense persecution and death rather than deny the truth of what they had PERSONALLY WITNESSED about Jesus. (Jeffrey, Grant R., “The Signature of God, p. 254-257)

  • Jude was shot to death with arrows
  • John was tortured and then banished to the island of Patmos (Rev. 1:9)
  • Thomas was run through the body with a spear in southeast India
  • Matthew was slain with an axe in a city of Ethiopia
  • Mark was cruelly drug to death through the streets of Alexandria
  • James, the brother of John, was beheaded in Jerusalem (Acts 12:2)
  • Luke died by hanging in Greece
  • James the Less was thrown from a pinnacle of the temple and then stoned
  • Philip was hung up against a pillar in Hierapolis and then stoned
  • Bartholomew was flayed alive
  • Andrew was bound to a cross and left to die
  • Matthias was stoned and beheaded
  • Paul, after a variety of tortures and imprisonments, was beheaded in Rome
  • Peter was crucified upside down in Rome

Why would these men who were EYEWITNESSES of what Jesus said and did be willing to die excruciatingly painful deaths if they were lying? Why would they die for a lie? They endured persecution, torture, and martyrdom, claiming all the way to the end that the Messiah, Son of God and Savior of the world, Jesus, lived among them, performed many miracles to confirm His Divinity, became a sacrifice for our sins, and that He rose from the dead.

The Bible Is Reliable and True…this is why it matters

Why was it written? So that you can know your Creator, His promises and have a right relationship with Him. The Bible says that one day you will stand before God to give an account for your life. All the sinful and immoral behavior you have ever done will be revealed including those things you thought no one knew (see Matthew 12:36, Revelation 20:12). Furthermore, the Bible makes it clear that good deeds cannot take away sin. This leaves us in a desperate condition of guilt before God. But this is exactly why God made a rescue plan to save us! He sent His Son, Jesus, into our world to take the guilt and penalty for our sin. He died on the cross and rose from death to provide a way for us to be forgiven and have new life! We receive this offer by putting our trust, not in ourselves, but in Jesus alone as our Savior.

Look how the most well-known verse in the whole Bible says it:

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” John 3:16 (ESV)

There is nothing more important for you than where you spend eternity. God loves you and offers you complete forgiveness if you will put your trust in Jesus Christ who took the punishment for your sins. He wants you to be with Him forever.

Right now, think about your sins and the incredible willingness of Jesus Christ to take the punishment for YOUR sins upon Himself. Tell Him that you realize you can’t save yourself and put your trust in Him as your rescuer. The Bible says that He will adopt you into His family and begin to change you from the inside out so that you will hate sin and love what is right. Take this step today, while you are still able, then read the Bible and attend a Bible-believing Church to grow in your faith.

 

 

 

 

[Thanks for reading. Much of the material in this article was taken from the article “Can We Trust The Bible” by Charlie Campbell, available at www.alwaysbeready.com ]