HOW DO WE KNOW THE BIBLE IS TRUE

How do we know that anything is true? We acquire knowledge through our own eye witness accounts, the testimony of other eye witnesses; or from others who have accepted the testimony of eye witnesses. For example, your great-great-grandfather was born in Poland, then moved to the US and told your great-grandfather that he is of Polish descent. Then he tells your grandmother that she is of Polish descent, then your grandmother tells your mother that she is of Polish decent; and then your mother tells you. Similarly, most of us have never seen an atom with our own eyes; so, we rely on the oral or written testimony (textbooks) of others who have seen an atom. Even the authors of your science textbooks have never seen an atom. They are relying on someone else’s testimony, who in turn is relying on someone else’s testimony, that atoms exist.

We have to be consistent and apply the same standards of knowledge with the Bible, as we do with any other knowledge of historical facts; or facts that rely on testimony. If not we are being biased which is inconsistent and does nothing to promote truth; which is what we should be seeking.

So, this is how most of the knowledge we have, is transmitted. In epistemology (the study of knowledge) we refer to this as “testimony”. And being grounded in sense perception, this is considered empirical knowledge. Even genetic testing for family ancestries is grounded in testimony. There is no Polish or Jewish gene, but rather, researchers have accepted the testimony of individuals who claim to have family histories dating back to ancient Poland or Israel. These researchers then use their DNA as a baseline; and compare other samples with the baseline DNA looking for unique similarities. Nobody has a specimen of the DNA from the first generation Polish people, nor the 12 patriarchs of the tribes of Israel. This example demonstrates that many scientific investigations, are ultimately grounded in testimony, and other presuppositions.

STUMBLING BLOCK FOR THE CRITIC

The same exact criteria of testimony, is relied upon for all historical events. We come to know biblical truths in the exact same way. Eye witness accounts of the miracles in the Old & New Testaments; the words that Jesus spoke, and the miracles He performed. Most notably, the over 500 witnesses who saw Him alive after His resurrection. These eye witness accounts were then orally and literally transmitted down through the ages, and supported by thousands of manuscripts, art, archeology, secular historians; and the impact on civilization. We have much more proof for Christ’s resurrection and the Bible, than any other person or writings in antiquity – by a long shot. As we dive into the justification for the Bible, we will review the evidence, and the standards for evidence for all historical facts. We will discover that by any standard of evidence, there exists an abundance of empirical proof for the claims of the Bible. Critics might not like the message of the Bible, but challenging the epistemic soundness of the Bible, is a fool’s errand.

Secondly, challenging Christianity based on the Bible, is not as strong an argument as one would think. Christianity is not dependent on the Bible, though it is a great means of grace to aid the Christian. God’s plan for salvation has been orally transmitted down through the ages from the beginning of time. His Holy Spirit has spoken to His people through nature (creation), rabbis, prophets, pastors, apostles, teachers, and evangelists for centuries. The average Christian never even owned a Bible until the 17th century; not to mention the low literacy rate up to the 18th century. In fact, I became a Christian in 1980, when another Christian told me about 1 single verse in the Bible, viz. John 3:3. So, I too was converted through oral testimony. Let’s now take a look at the evidence for our canon of scripture.

JUSTIFICATION FOR BIBLICAL VERACITY

The Bible is a collection of 66 books written by 45 separate authors over 1,000 years, and maintains an uncanny coherence and consistency among the books. There are over 1,200 prophecies in the Old Testament of which most have been fulfilled. The 300+ messianic prophecies have been fulfilled; 27 of them as Christ hung on the cross. We have over 25,000 New Testament transcripts dating back to the 2nd century. The next leading book in antiquity with such evidence, is Homer’s Iliad, of which 643 manuscripts exist; the earliest dating to the 10th century. Regarding the writings of famous men such as Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, maybe a dozen manuscripts exist.

There were scores of eye witnesses to the accounts reported in the New Testament. We could reconstruct 99% of the New Testament just from the writings of the early church leaders alone. No book in the history of the world has had such an impact on mankind as the Bible. Evidence for the veracity of the Bible is beyond reproach, and doubting the chain of evidence is a tall-order.

LET’S TAKE A CLOSER LOOK

My goal is to present evidence and demonstrate it’s reasonable to believe that the Bible is more likely true than not, the same goal as science. To deduce an inference to the best explanation, for that which is being studied.

Today’s Bible was compiled using copies of the original text transmitted in some cases, over 1,000+ years. The first tool I’ll use is the bibliographical test – how do we know that the text of the Bible has been transmitted accurately over the centuries?

The ancient scribal process was exacting. The professional scribe copied a document letter by letter. At the end of a parchment (page) he would count the number of letters and spaces. If it didn’t match the original exactly, the page was thrown away and the scribe started again. Even so, over 1,000+ years is it reasonable to assume that there must have been some textual corruption or compounded errors? In 1948, a shepherd boy accidentally discovered hundreds of ancient scrolls in the Qumran Caves near the West Bank. These scrolls contained parts of every book in our Old Testament, with the exception of the book of Esther. These scrolls date from about 250 BC – 68 AD. Prior to the discovery of these scrolls, the earliest surviving copies of the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) – the Aleppo Codex – was dated to approximately 930 AD. Many of the Dead Sea Scrolls are dated nearly 1,000 years earlier. When linguistic experts compared the old scrolls with the new scrolls, there was word-for-word accuracy of +/-95% after more than 1,000 years of transmission. That makes a strong case that the Bible we have today is indeed the Bible as it was in its original form.

Another of the bibliographical tests involves the number of actual manuscripts that are currently in existence. It is sensible to think that the more manuscripts of a work in antiquity, the more likely it is to be authentic. There are more than 25,000 manuscripts for all or part of the New Testament of the Christian Bible. Let’s compare that to other writers of antiquity, such as Plato, Aristotle, Caesar, or Tacitus (Homer being the exception with 643 manuscripts of his Illiad). No credible historian doubts that these are the works of authentic historical figures, but in contrast, the number of existing manuscripts for these eminent men ranges from but 1-20. Not nearly as convincing!

INTERNAL EVIDENCE

Let’s move on to what is called the internal evidence test. In this test we ask, “What claims does the Bible make about itself?” First, it must be said that the Bible is not a book; it is a library containing 66 books, written by 45 different authors, over a span of more than 1,500 years, on 3 different continents (Asia, Africa, Europe), and in 3 different languages (Hebrew, Greek, Aramaic). In spite of this, there are no unresolved contradictions contained in the pages of the Bible.

Some argue that using the Bible to prove the Bible is using circular reasoning. However, we are actually examining the stories and claims of all of the authors, allowing them to speak for themselves. We know that the bulk of the Bible was written by people who were eyewitnesses of the events they recorded; eyewitness testimony is key in determining truth. The gospel accounts in the New Testament (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John) are filled with multiple independent attestations of the people and events surrounding the ministry of Jesus. Simply speaking, this means that there are numerous eyewitness accounts for much of what is contained in the gospels. A passage or a story that appears in two or more sources is likely to be authentic. These stories are often told from similar, yet individual perspectives; yet another reason to believe the Bible to be true.

Much of the New Testament was written 25-50 years after the death and resurrection of Jesus. This is important for a couple of reasons. Many critics claim that the early church distorted the life and ministry of Jesus. In reality, there just wasn’t enough time from the actual events to their recordings by the authors of the gospels for myths to develop. More importantly, a multitude of eyewitnesses to the events recorded in the gospels were still alive at the time of the writings, allowing for challenges to any inaccurate reports. The entire New Testament can be derived from the writings of the early Church Fathers of the first two centuries with over 99% accuracy.

EXTERNAL EVIDENCE

Let’s now take a look at the external evidence test. The external evidence test looks outside the texts themselves to ascertain the historical reliability of the historical events, geographical locations, and cultural consistency of the biblical texts. Unlike writings from other world religions which make no historical references or which fabricate histories, the Bible refers to historical events and assumes its historical accuracy. The Bible is not only the inspired Word of God, it is also a history book — and the historical assertions it makes have been proven time and again.

Many of the events, people, places, and customs in the New Testament are confirmed by secular historians who were almost contemporaries of New Testament writers. Secular historians like the Jewish Josephus (before AD 100), the Roman Tacitus (around AD 120), the Roman Suetonius (AD 110), and the Roman governor Pliny Secundus (AD 100-110) make direct reference to Jesus or affirm one or more historical New Testament references. Early church leaders such as Irenaeus, Tertullian, Julius Africanus, and Clement of Rome — all writing before AD 250 — shed light on New Testament historical accuracy. Even skeptical historians agree that the New Testament is a remarkable historical document. Hence, it is clear that there is strong external evidence to support the reliability of the Bible’s manuscript.

The Bible is filled with prophecies of people and events that would take place at some time in the future. The final test we will apply to demonstrate the trustworthiness of the Bible will be a review of fulfilled prophecy. The Bible records predictions of events that could not be known or predicted by chance or common sense. Surprisingly, the predictive nature of many Bible passages was once a popular argument (by liberals) against the reliability of the Bible. Critics argued that the prophecies actually were written after the events and that editors had merely dressed up the Bible text to look like they contained predictions made before the events. Nothing could be further from the truth, however. The many predictions of Christ’s birth, life and death (see below) were indisputably rendered more than a century before they occurred as proven by the Dead Sea Scrolls of Isaiah and other prophetic books as well as by the Septuagint translation, all dating from earlier than 100 BC.

Here are just a few of the many examples of fulfilled prophecies. As we look at these, I will turn to science to provide the mathematical probability of the prophecy that was fulfilled. There are more than 300 prophecies that point directly to the Messiah that have already been fulfilled by Jesus. Let’s just take a look at 8 of these prophecies:

1. The time of His birth (see the Daniel 8 & 9 timeline)
2. He would be born in Bethlehem. (Micah 5:2)
3. He would be born of a virgin. (Isaiah 7:14)
4. He would be betrayed for 30 pieces of silver. (Zechariah 11:12)
5. He would be mocked. (Psalm 22:7,8)
6. He would be crucified. (John 3:14)
7. He would be pierced. (Psalms 22:16)
8. He would die with the wicked, but He would be buried with the rich. (Isaiah 53:9)
9. Christ fulfilled 27 prophecies during His Passion alone.

The mathematical probability of just these eight prophecies being fulfilled by one man in history is 1×1028. In other words, these prophecies present a case for the trustworthiness of the Bible beyond any reasonable doubt.

I’ll provide one more incredible example of fulfilled prophecy. Sometime before 500 BC, the prophet Daniel proclaimed that Israel’s long-awaited Messiah would begin his public ministry 483 years after the issuing of a decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem (Daniel 9:25-26). He further predicted that the Messiah would be “cut off” and killed, and that this event would take place prior to a second destruction of Jerusalem. Abundant documentation shows that these prophecies were perfectly fulfilled in the life (and crucifixion) of Jesus Christ. The decree regarding the restoration of Jerusalem was issued by Persia’s King Artaxerxes to the Hebrew priest Ezra in 458 BC, 483 years later the ministry of Jesus Christ began in Galilee. The destruction of Jerusalem occurred some four decades later. What’s the probability of this occurring in history? 1×105. And the list goes on and on. Consider how this one-man Jesus changed the world!