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John Price
Oct 23, 20184 min read

Can We Trust the Bible?



A common misconception of the Bible is that it is archaic, irrelevant, and no longer accurate due to the passing of thousands of years and faulty interpretation of the manuscripts (copies) that we have today.


That is a valid concern, which naturally causes us to ask the question, "Can we trust the Bible?" According to what the Bible says about itself it is an inspired, inerrant, and eternal book that was “breathed out by God” (2 Timothy 3:16-17). Those are some really ballsy claims made by a book, but can it be trusted?


If we can't trust the Bible, then it is archaic, irrelevant, and is no longer accurate or applicable to our lives. It does not matter what it claims about itself, what Jesus-followers say about it, or what some pastor says on social media or from a stage. If we can not trust the Bible, then it serves no other purpose than being an ancient piece of history that can help us understand the world in which it was curated.


However, if we can trust the Bible and the claims that it makes about itself, well that changes everything! A book that is over 3400 years old is still relevant for the world we live in, applicable for our lives and how we choose to live them, then that must mean that the Bible is entirely authoritative because it has to be divine. There is not other explaination than that, because a book that has over 40 authors from different places and times, that took over 1500 years to write, to still be accurate, relevant, and authoritative, then it must be divinely inspired like it claims to be. So can we trust the Bible?


In order to answer this question, we will have to prove or disprove the historical accuracy of the Bible and determine whether it is something that we should trust or discard. Really, we need to test the Bible, like any historian would.


When a historian comes upon a document, they run several different tests in order to determine if that discovered document, whether it be a fragment of a page or an entire library, is historically accurate and something that we can trust as an actual reflection of the past.


For the following #TheBibleSeries, we will use the same tests that every historian uses to determine whether a document is historically accurate and trustworthy. The three tests that historians use are:

1. The Bibliographical Test 2. The Internal Test 3. The External Test


Using these three different tests, we will be able to prove or disprove the historical accuracy of the Bible. Within these three broad tests historians, archaeologists, and textual critics are able to verify several different areas regarding whether the Bible (or any document) is historically accurate or inaccurate. These areas are as follows:

1. The Bibliographical Test

  • Time-Gap between the Originals (autographs) and the Copies (manuscripts)

  • Number of Manuscripts

  • Quality of Manuscripts

2. The Internal Test

  • Contradictory Statement Within the Biblical Documents

  • Eyewitness Proofs

  • Contemporary Critics

3. The External Test

  • Evidence from Other Early Christian Writers

  • Evidence from Other Early Non-Christian Writers

  • Archaeological Evidence

Before we begin our investigation, we need to first understand what all of these categories mean in relation to testing the historicity of the Biblical data:


The Bibliographical Test determines how well a document has been preserved since it was originally written. This test will determine whether or not we have what the original authors wrote by evaluating the reliability of the manuscripts we have by looking at the gap of time between when the author allegedly wrote their work and the earliest existing copies that we have today. It also looks at the number of manuscripts that we have and evaluates the quality of those discovered and collected copies or manuscripts.


These three tests, will prove or disprove the historical accuracy of the Bible.

The Internal Test analyses what is written within the text so that it can determine whether or not we can trust what the author wrote. This test also examines any given document to see if there are any contradictory statements within the text, therefore making it untrustworthy. And it examines if there are any eyewitness testimonies and contemporary critics within the text which will verify its historical authenticity.


We need to understand that the Bible can actually be trusted.

The External Test looks outside of the document in order to compare and contrast the results of the internal test with what other writers (Christian or Non-Christian) say about the textual document. This test also uses archaeological evidence in order to verify or nullify the document that is being examined, in this case the Bible.

So in order to test the historicity of the Bible and therefore prove whether it is something to be trusted, we will be looking at each of the above subcategories in forthcoming posts. So stay tuned for more content of #TheBibleSeries.

Sources

The above content is largely based on the book Defending Your Faith: A Twelve Lesson Series on Apologetics – Leader’s Guide which I used during my undergrad at God’s Bible School and College. The author, Dr. Mark Bird is the Theology Professor at God’s Bible School and College. You can purchase Defending Your Faith and access all of Dr. Bird’s materials at Answers in Genesis.


FURTHER STUDY

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