The Bible: Is it Really Accurate and Reliable?
Is the Bible historically accurate? For a skeptic like me, this question demanded an answer. After all, I was being asked to base my entire life on a book written over 2,000 years ago. It is not like I could find eye witnesses to Jesus’ death and resurrection and ask them to give me an account of what they saw and heard and then compare notes. Somehow, I needed to determine whether the Bible was historically accurate and not just made-up stories. The only thing I had to rely on was what was written in the Bible, and I was not yet convinced that the Bible was a reliable source of truth. I needed to understand why so many people were convinced that the Bible was historically accurate and reliable. So I began searching and here is what I found: THE BIBLE, AN ANCIENT TEXT The Bible is an ancient, historical collection of books. The first book was written around 3,400 years ago and the last book around 1,900 years ago. Historians who study ancient texts like those written by Homer, Plato and Aristotle use certain criteria to determine their reliability. This same criteria can also be (and has been) applied to the Bible. There are three tests that historians commonly use to test the reliability and accuracy of ancient documents: 1. The bibliographical test2. The internal evidence test 3. The external evidence test When these tests are applied to the Bible, there is no doubt that the Bible is an accurate and historical document. BIBLIOGRAPHICAL TEST HAS THE BIBLE BEEN TRANSMITTED ACCURATELY? The bibliographical test helps one determine whether the Bible has been transmitted accurately. This test compares the date the original text was written to the date of the earliest copies found of that same text. The closer these two dates, the more reliable the copies. The New Testament was written between A.D. 50 and A.D. 100. So far, the earliest copy of the New Testament found is dated A.D 130. This means that there is less than 100 years between the original manuscript and the first copy that was found! Compare this to Plato, where the time span between the original and the first copy was 1,200 years and to Homer (Iliad) where there is a 500 year difference. Historians consider Plato and Homer to have been transmitted accurately. Using this same test, the accuracy of the Bible far exceeds the accuracy of these other ancient texts, a fact historians cannot deny. Dead Sea Scroll Before the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the earliest copy of the Old Testament was dated around 90 A.D., which means there was a time gap of around 1,300 years between the first book written and the earliest copy discovered. This is about the same as Plato, who is considered reliable by an overwhelming majority of historians. In addition to the length of time between the original text and the earliest copy, Historians relied on how the Old Testament was transmitted to bolster its accuracy. The Old Testament was transcribed by Hebrew scribes who were bound to strict laws on how they transcribed the text, meaning mistakes in transmission were very unlikely. But until the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, no one knew exactly how accurate these transcriptions were. The Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered in 1947 in a cave in Qumran. The scrolls contained fragments of every book of the Bible except Esther and were dated anywhere between 250 B.C. and 50 A.D. The entire book of Isaiah, dated 75 B.C., was part of the Dead Sea discovery. This discovery closed the gap between the original text of Isaiah and the earliest copy found. In addition, when scholars compared the previous oldest copy of the book of Isaiah to the Dead Sea Isaiah, they found 95% consistency. Of the 5% variation, most variations involved omitted letters and misspellings. Scholars can confidently assert that the scribal process resulted in a very accurate transmission of the Old Testament. Another facet of the test involves the number of copies found. The more copies found, the more accurate the text is. Seven copies of Plato and 1,757 of Homer (the Iliad) have been found, whereas over 5,500 copies of the New Testament written in Greek have been found. When you add versions written in other languages to those written in Greek, there are over 24,000 copies of the New Testament. Even more impressive is that after comparing these copies, the New Testament was found to be 99.5% accurate! Only 40 lines of the New Testament are in doubt. Historians consider Plato and Homer reliable texts. The bibliographical test shows the Bible to be much more reliable than both Homer and Plato. If Homer and Plato’s authenticity has not been questioned, then why should we question the historical authenticity of the Bible? Internal Evidence Test ARE THE BIBLICAL AUTHORS CREDIBLE? The internal evidence test helps us determine whether the authors of the Bible are credible. An author’s credibility is directly related to their proximity to the reported events and the time between the event and their report. In the case of the New Testament, the authors were either eyewitnesses to the event or relaying the testimony of an eyewitness to the event. John, a disciple of Jesus, was an eyewitness to all he wrote in the Gospel of John. He said in John 21:24, “This is the disciple who testifies to these things and who wrote them down. We know that his testimony is true.” Other authors of the New Testament wrote based on eyewitness accounts. John Mark, the author of Mark, was Peter’s translator. Mark’s gospel records the teachings of Peter, who, as Jesus’s disciple, had first-hand knowledge of Jesus, his teachings, and his life. Another way to determine an author’s credibility is to examine whether he had any motivation to lie. Early Christians were persecuted and killed for proclaiming Jesus. Their enemies were numerous. Why would the New Testament authors risk their lives
The Bible: Is It the Inspired Word of God?
No Ordinary Book The Bible is not just any ordinary book. Its message has caused people from all generations, all walks of life, and all nationalities to change the direction of their lives radically. Written words on their own do not have this kind of power. However, if the Bible is the inspired word of God, then its words have the weight and power to affect such profound change. In The Bible: Is It Really Accurate and Reliable?, we concluded that the Bible is truth and not fiction – that it is historically reliable and its authors are credible. For those reasons, we can look to the Bible to answer the question: Is the Bible the inspired Word of God? God Breathed The Bible was written by ordinary men with no extraordinary power or authority. The authors did not claim the words they wrote as their own, but rather attributed them to God. Paul, in 2nd Timothy 3:16 says that “All scripture is inspired by God.” Inspired comes from the Greek word theopneustos, which means God-breathed. Over and over again, both the Old and the New Testaments refer to Scripture as the Word of God. Prophecy In the Old Testament, God spoke through prophets like Moses and Jeremiah. God chose these prophets to communicate His message to the world. Jeremiah provides a great example of how prophets were chosen and used by God. Jeremiah 1:5-10 says: “The Lord said to me, ‘Before I formed you in your mother’s womb I chose you…I appointed you to be a prophet to the nations.’ I answered, ‘Oh, Lord God, I really do not know how to speak well enough for that’…The Lord said to me…’But go to whomever I send you and say whatever I tell you…’ Then the Lord reached out his hand and touched my mouth and said to me, ‘I will most assuredly give you the words you are to speak for me. Know for certain that I hereby give you the authority to announce to nations and kingdoms that they will be uprooted and torn down, destroyed and demolished, rebuilt and firmly planted.” The Old Testament is filled with prophecies relating to the rise and fall of nations and kingdoms. Prophecies in the Old Testament were written hundreds, if not thousands, of years before they came to pass. An example of an Old Testament prophecy relating to the fall of a nation is recorded in Ezekiel. Between 587 and 586 B.C. Ezekiel predicted that many nations would come against the city of Tyre and that eventually Nebuchadnezzar would destroy it. In Ezekiel 26:12, Ezekiel predicted that the stone, timber, and rubble of the ancient City of Tyre would be thrown into the sea. “They will plunder your wealth and loot your merchandise; they will break down your walls and demolish your fine houses and throw your stones, timber and rubble into the sea.” This prophecy came to pass when Alexander the Great attacked Tyre in 333-332 B.C. His armies threw the stones, timber and rubble of the City into the sea to make a land bridge. This bridge is still there. There are hundreds more prophecies recorded in the Old Testament that later came to pass. The accuracy of these prophecies is uncanny and the likelihood of them coming to pass is low, unless of course, they were given by God to the prophets supernaturally. In addition to prophets predicting the rise and fall of people and nations, the prophets predicted the coming of Jesus Christ. There are over 300 prophecies concerning Jesus. Some prophecies tell when he would be born, “A period of seventy sets of seven has been decreed for your people and your holy city to finish their rebellion, to put an end to their sin, to atone for their guilt, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to confirm the prophetic vision, and to anoint the Most Holy Place. Now listen and understand! Seven sets of seven plus sixty-two sets of seven will pass from the time the command is given to rebuild Jerusalem until a ruler—the Anointed One—comes…” Daniel 9:24-25 his lineage, “When your days are over and you rest with your ancestors, I will raise up your offspring to succeed you, your own flesh and blood, and I will establish his kingdom. He is the one who will build a house for my Name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. I will be his father, and he will be my son. When he does wrong, I will punish him with a rod wielded by men, with floggings inflicted by human hands. But my love will never be taken away from him, as I took it away from Saul, whom I removed from before you. Your house and your kingdom will endure forever before me; your throne will be established forever.’” 2nd Samuel 12-16 that he would die and rise again. “I keep my eyes always on the Lord.With him at my right hand, I will not be shaken.Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices;my body also will rest secure,because you will not abandon me to the realm of the dead,nor will you let your faithful one see decay. You make known to me the path of life;you will fill me with joy in your presence,with eternal pleasures at your right hand. Psalm 16:8-11 Can One Man Fulfill All These Prophecies? What are the chances that one man would fulfill these prophecies? College students decided to conduct a scientific study to help answer this question. They used only 8 of the prophecies concerning Jesus. Upon completion of the study, they determined that the chance that one man would fulfill just 8 of these prophecies was 1 in 1017. I have trouble imagining that number, so I’m going to use the visualization that Peter Stoner, in his book Science Speaks, used:Imagine that we took 1017 silver dollars and laid them across the entire state of Texas. By the time we got done, they covered all of Texas