For years, people have pointed to the fact that Bible is thousands of years old as a means of disputing its authenticity as the Word of God. Other doubters have pointed to the fact that the words that we read today were written by humans who were just as fallible as we are as a way to cast doubt over the truth of God’s Word.
Our belief that the Bible is God’s divinely inspired Word for His people across the generations is one of the cornerstone principles of the Christian faith. The foundation of our faith is rooted in the fact that the Bible is true, the Bible is pure, and the Bible is a living, breathing copy of God’s will for all of humanity.
The truth is, there will always be doubters and skeptics. There will always be people who refute the fact that the Bible has been supernaturally preserved through the years and continues to be a divinely inspired copy of God’s Word. A look at God’s Word (the document in which we put our faith) and other empirical data can help dissuade any doubts you may be experiencing in relation to the viability of God’s Word.
The Faith Test
First and foremost, believing in God the Father, Jesus, His Only Begotten Son, and the Holy Spirit is the most basic principle of the Christian faith. We believe that we are a part of God’s family because we have built our faith on the promise that Paul made to the church at Rome.
Romans 10:9 (TPT)
And what is God’s “living message”? It is the revelation of faith for salvation, which is the message that we preach. For if you publicly declare with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will experience salvation.
Our faith is based on the premise of this verse. We have believed that Jesus was God’s Son, that He was crucified and miraculously resurrected. Once we believed that, we told someone that we believed that. At that point, we experienced God’s glorious salvation. If we believe that verse and all of the other verses that declare and secure our salvation in Christ, shouldn’t we also believe what the Bible says about itself?
2 Timothy 3:16 (TPT)
Every Scripture has been inspired by the Holy Spirit, the breath of God. It will empower you by its instruction and correction, giving you the strength to take the right direction and lead you deeper into the path of godliness.
As a Believer in Christ, you have already made the decision to put your trust in the promises contained in the Bible. Yes, a great deal of our Christian faith does require that we believe in a God who we have never seen with our eyes, touched with our hands or interacted with tangibly. However, that is the part of Romans 10:9 that discusses “believing in your heart.”
As we prepare to take a look at more scientific and archaeological data, allow yourself to embrace the fact that you believe God’s Word. If you believe the promises of God’s Word that contain the truth about God’s healing, His provision and all of His other promises, you can believe the promise of 2 Timothy 3:16 that declares that every Scripture has been inspired by the Holy Spirit.
The Bibliographical Test
According to Josh McDowell, one of the most trusted names in the study of apologetics (the study of why we believe what we believe), no literary work in all of history has been as carefully copied as the Old Testament. McDowell points to the fact that in ancient times, the role of the “scribe” was a role that had the most rigorous standards of virtually any occupation on earth. Why? Because the people who wanted copies of the Old Testament distributed to others insisted that the copies were completely accurate.
While most of our modern Bibles are based off a thousand-year-old manuscript, the accuracy and authenticity of those source copies were confirmed by the finding of the Dead Sea Scrolls between 1947 and 1956. Those scrolls, which were dated back to roughly 250 B.C. confirmed the fact that the manuscripts that were being used to publish the Bibles we still use today were more than 99% accurate.
Additionally, archeologists have discovered more than 5800 copies of the New Testament that were originally written between 50 and 100 A.D. The first of those manuscripts was found in A.D. 130 and matches the words found in the other 5800-manuscripts to the letter. God’s ability to supernaturally preserve His Word has been proven nearly 6,000 times by archeologists who uncovered these ancient copies of the New Testament.
The Test of External Evidence
One of the best ways to determine whether or not a literary piece is accurate is to use proof from other sources to test its accuracy. An archeologist named Nelson Glueck spent much of his illustrious career examining archaeological pieces that pertained to the Bible. Glueck, who was widely respected enough to have a university named after him made the following statement when asked about the correlation between Biblical accuracy and archeological findings:
“It may be stated categorically that no archeological discovery has ever controverted a single biblical reference. Scores of archeological findings have been made which confirm in clear outline or in exact detail historical statements in the Bible.”
Additionally, we can point to the fact that more than 25% of the Bible is prophetic text. That is to say that one quarter of the Bible discusses events that had not happened at the time of their writing. Incredibly, more than 66% of the prophecies contained in the Bible have come true. That includes Old Testament prophecies that pointed to events that were to take place during New Testament days. For instance, the prophet Micah declared that Jesus would be born in the city of Bethlehem. The fact that Micah prophesied Jesus’ birth in a tiny town like Bethlehem is made even more incredible when you realize that the prophecy was given roughly 700 years before Christ’s birth.
The Test of Internal Evidence
When experts want to put an ancient piece of literature to the test, they will also rely on the test of internal evidence. That means that they will scour through the text and try to find contradictions within the text. Remarkably, the Bible doesn’t contain any.
A collection of 66 books that was written over the course of 1500 years by 45 different authors who lived on three continents and spoke three different languages does not contain any contradictions!
Making the decision to put your trust in the promises contained in the Bible does require you to “blindly” trust God. Yes, there are skeptics and scholars who do everything they can to try to tear down the reputation of the Bible, but their findings simply don’t line up with those of men and women who have spent hundreds of combined years researching, studying, digging and deciding for themselves that the Bible is still God’s Holy Word for His people.
Is the Bible the Word of God? According to the Scriptures, yes, it is. According to archeological discoveries that have been made over the last century, yes, it is. According to external and internal evidence, yes, it is.
So, what do we do with that truth? We do everything we can to line up our way of living, our belief system and our pattern of behavior with the teachings of Scripture. If we believe that the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ is the basis for our faith, then we put our confidence in the Book that contains that narrative.
A Closing Prayer:
God, thank You for providing me with a written copy of Your Word. I know that rulers and kings have tried to outlaw it, but it prevailed. I know that the forces of evil have tried to destroy it, but it remained. I know that people today try to make me doubt it, but I believe that Your Word has been preserved over the centuries. Thank You for providing me with the Words that I need to find encouragement, hope, joy and peace. Help me to more fully trust Your Word and to live my life according to its teachings. In Christ’s name, Amen!