Q Is the Bible reliable?
A Lewis Sperry Chafer,
former president of Dallas Theological Seminary, said that the
Bible was “not such a book a man would write if he could,
or could write if he would.” All you need do is read a fairly
good sized portion of it to see that it could not have been put
together by “village idiots or lunatics.” On the other
hand, the Apostle Paul said, “But the natural man does not
receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness
to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned”
(1 Corinthians 2:14). So no one can understand the Bible without
personally knowing God who is its author. Humans wrote the Bible,
but they wrote down either what God specifically told them to
write or what He lead them to write. They used their own personalities
and style, but He guided the words. 2 Peter 1:20 says, “for
prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke
as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.”
But, of course, will anyone believe this? I don’t know
if anyone ever believes it if someone just tells them. I think
more often people come at the Bible looking for an answer to
their sin problem and, when they find the answer in the Bible,
they are so impressed by how it meets their need that they are,
at the same time, convinced of the truth and reliability of the
Bible. You, however, have asked a fair and honest question, and
I will attempt to answer it. I would also encourage you to study
the page “How To Know You Are Going To Heaven” on the
web site. It may answer more important questions for you.
Whole books have been written on the reliability of the Bible
so all I will be able to do is hit the highlights. If you would
like to really study this issue, I would recommend Josh McDowell’s
“Evidence That Demands a Verdict,” available through various online bookstores. First of all, just consider some facts. The Bible
was written over a period of 1500 years by 40 plus human authors
from various countries on three continents (Asia, Africa, Europe)
in two languages (Hebrew and Greek). In spite of all that, it
has a masterful unity that defies logic. No contradictions have
ever been proven, in spite of efforts by thousands of skeptics
and some of the finest minds ever. From first to last, the Bible
speaks on the same unified theme: God glorifying Himself by redeeming
sinful mankind. Again, you would need to read large portions
of it to back up what I say.
One major proof of the reliability of the Bible is the accuracy
of its texts. The New Testament, for instance, is based on over
5,000 manuscripts and thousands of testimonies from other sources,
a total of about 13,000. Many people make a great deal of the fact
that there are about 200,000 variants between these manuscripts.
But the vast majority of the variants have to do with spelling,
word order, and grammatical construction. In fact, of the New
Testament’s approximately 20,000 lines, only about 40 lines
are in doubt (or 400 words). None of these involves any important
doctrine or practice. Now, compare this testimony to the New
Testament text with works of secular ancient literature. The
Iliad, for instance, has more manuscript evidence than any other
piece of ancient literature and that is only 643 compared to
the NT’s 5,000. The Iliad has around 15,000 lines and 764
of those are in doubt. That is a 5 per cent rate of textual corruption
compared to the NT’s one per cent. There are only a handful
of copies of any other piece of ancient literature. Name Plato,
Tacitus, Caesar, Pliny, Sophocles, and Aristotle and you’ll
find no more than 20 copies. And the disputed readings are even
worse--even Shakespeare, a few hundred years old, has a hundred
or so disputed readings in each of the 37 plays.
Another aspect of reliability of any text is how close are
its manuscripts to the actual date of composition. We have one
fragment of the Gospel of John dated 130 A.D., and it is from
Egypt, not Asia Minor, where the Gospel was written. Other small
portions exist dating from 150-200 A.D. and even the earliest
complete manuscripts are from about 325-350 A.D. Even the latest
of manuscripts date into the year 900 or so A.D. How does this
compare with the famous secular ancient manuscripts? Of the same
authors mentioned earlier, their EARLIEST copies date no sooner
than 750 years after the time of writing! Most are 1500 years
after the time of writing. It is clear from the normal tests
for reliability of early manuscripts that if the New Testament
is to be rejected, then all the well-known secular ancient manuscripts
must be rejected even more strongly. I haven’t mentioned
the Old Testament manuscripts because, although there are not
as many as the NT, their quality is still better than secular
literature and there are even fewer variants than the NT because
of the Jewish reverence for the written word.
The quality of the eyewitness testimony is another proof for
the reliability of the New Testament. The gospels were written
by eyewitnesses or those who relied on eyewitnesses, the number
of eyewitnesses is astonishing, and their evident sanity is verified
by the diversity of eyewitness accounts (for instance, of the
resurrection and later appearances of Christ). The quality of
the NT author’s testimony is verified by their historical
statements. No error of history has been found in the New Testament.
The other major proof of the reliability of the Bible is archaeology.
Nelson Glueck is a renowned Jewish archaeologist and is not a
believer in the inspiration of the Bible, yet he has said, “no
archaeological discovery has ever controverted a biblical reference.”
William F. Albright, a skeptic at the beginning of his career,
has said, “There can be no doubt that archaeology has confirmed
the substantial historicity of Old Testament tradition.”
Someone once said that with every turn of the archaeologist’s
spade the Bible was confirmed. Here are some examples:
In general, approximately 25,000 geographic localities of
the Bible have been confirmed by archaeology.
Archaeological findings confirmed that movement of the Hebrew
patriarchs out of the land of Mesopotamia as Genesis states.
There is archaeological confirmation of the Horites, in Esau’s
genealogy in Genesis, as prominent warriors of that time. The
Hittites, formerly questioned as a real nation by critics, have
been discovered in what is now Syria.
The name Abraham is verified in Babylonia for the time of
his existence. Also the social customs the Bible describes can
be attested by archaeology in patriarchal times.
Articles such as those described in the Bible, such as the
brass mirrors of the laver in the tabernacle, have been found
dating to the correct period.
The New Testament findings of archaeology are even more specific.
For instance, at one time the events surrounding Luke’s
account of the birth of Jesus were said to be inventions or mistakes,
especially the census, Quirinius as governor of Syria, and returning
to one’s ancestral home to be taxed. All have now been confirmed
by recent discoveries of inscriptions and papyri. On locations
mentioned in Luke’s writings in Acts, Luke disagrees with
the Roman historian Cicero. Monuments and other archaeological
findings have proven Luke to be correct. In Romans 16:23, Paul
mentions a city treasurer named Erastus of Corinth. Excavations
in Corinth in 1929 found an inscription that appears to attest
to this very man. Luke especially has been proven correct over
and over in his use of technical terms, descriptions of government
positions and place names.
Add to all this the effect the Bible has had on people, history,
language and culture, its being ahead of its time on hygiene
(if the Old Testament rules for disposal of human waste had been
followed in the middle ages, there would have been no black plague!),
and the phenomenal number of Bibles published, and you have evidence
that the Bible is obviously supernatural.