Can We Trust The Bible?
Yes! And we can trust the God who wrote it!
The burden of proof / unjustified scepticism? - Why wouldn’t we trust it?
A very important question – central to Christianity, big claims, life changing, eternal significance
World’s best selling book - both revered and rubbished – popular rejection / ignoring of the Bible (myths, legends, fairy tales, maybe moral or theological truths but not history)
The basic Christian view of the Bible / what the Bible claims about itself:
Historic / traditional consensus of the church: God’s words – inspired (2 Timothy 3:16) - God’s Word Written – What the Bible Says, God says – God’s Word reflects the character of God - true / authoritative / reliable in all that it affirms – inerrant / infallible (no errors)
Not just believe the Bible because the Bible tells you to (not a circular argument)!
Some reasons to trust the Bible:
Main argument (for Christians!):
Jesus is Lord and Jesus viewed the Bible as God’s trustworthy Word and therefore so should we. He accepted the Old Testament as God’s words and authorised the Apostles to write the New Testament
E.g. John 10:34-36; Matthew 5:17-18; 19:4-5; 22:29-32; John 14:26; 16:12-16
à Are Jesus’ claims about his own identity and authority convincing? E.g. the quality of his life and teaching, the evidence for the resurrection
Supporting arguments:
We can be confident we know what the original manuscripts said since the evidence for the original text of the Bible is very strong. The original text is very well preserved in our Bibles. Relatively few texts are disputed and no major doctrine hangs on any of the mostly trivial disputed texts
Manuscript Evidence for Ancient Writings
| Author / Work | When written | Earliest fragment / copy | Time span between writing and copy | Number of manuscripts |
| Caesar | 100 – 44 BC | AD 900 | 1000 years | 10 |
| Plato | 427 - 347 BC | AD 900 | 1200 years | 7 |
| Thucydides | 460 - 400 BC | AD 900 | 1300 years | 8 |
| Tacitus | AD 100 | AD 1100 | 1000 years | 20 |
| Suetonius | AD 75 – 160 | AD 950 | 800 years | 643 |
| Homer (Iliad) | 900 BC | 400 BC | 500 years | 643 |
| New Testament | AD 40 – 100 | AD 125 | 25 – 50 years | 24000 |
(from Orr-Ewing, p43)
The Gospels were written very close to the events they describe by eyewitnesses or drawing on eyewitness evidence
E.g. Luke 1:1-4; John 20:29-31; 21:24-25; 1 John 1:1-4
The Apostles clearly believed Jesus was who he claimed to be, since they were willing to be persecuted and killed for trusting in him. Christianity is not a fraud job by the disciples!
The extraordinary unity of the Bible – agreement of 66 books, over 40 different authors, written over a period of ? about 1600 years
Where the Bible can be checked, it has proved to be accurate e.g. by archaeological discoveries of inscriptions confirming previously questioned details from the book of Acts
Many Bible prophecies have been remarkably fulfilled (e.g. history of
Professor Peter Stoner took just 11 fulfilled prophecies from the Old Testament and tried to calculate the probability of them being fulfilled by chance. He reckoned it was 1 in 8X10^63 (Blanchard, p28 citing Stoner, Science Speaks, Moody Press, pp67-96).
The Bible is remarkably realistic and insightful on many matters, makes psychological sense, interprets our experience. It is a work of supernatural genius
The Bible has the ring of truth about it (J. B. Phillips), it speaks with convincing power
Countless peoples have met with Jesus and been transformed by reading the Bible
à Try reading it (perhaps one of the Gospels in a modern translation) and pray that God would show you whether it is true or not
Further reading:
Paul Barnett, Is The New Testament History? (originally Hodder & Stoughton, 1986; Paternoster, 1998)
John Blanchard, Why Believe The Bible? (Evangelical Press, 2004) – only 40 pages
Craig Blomberg, The Historical Reliability of the Gospel (IVP, 2nd ed. 2008)
F. F. Bruce, New Testament Documents: Are they reliable? (Eerdmans / IVP, 1943)
Walter Kaiser, Old Testament Documents: Are they reliable and relevant? (IVP, 2001)
* Top Recommendation? * Amy Orr-Ewing, Why Trust The Bible? Answers to 10 tough questions (IVP, 2005) – includes consideration of some more modern and postmodern type objections e.g. the Bible on sex, matters of interpretation
J. B. Phillips, Ring of Truth: A Translator’s Testimony (Hodder & Stoughton, 2nd ed. 1978)
John Wenham, Christ and the Bible (Baker) - deals with a number of supposed "difficulties" with the text. Argues, as above, that Jesus thought of the Bible as the authoritative Word of God and so should we
Brian Edwards, Why 66? The Canon of Scripture (Answers in Genesis, DVD, 2008) - how do we know we have the right books in the Bible?
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