Can We Trust the Bible?

The veracity of the Bible is being questioned and attacked like never before. Every Christmas and Easter numerous television specials and documentaries will be shown over and over that question and even seek to disprove the historic orthodox understanding of Christianity. They seem especially to delight in casting doubt on the Canon of Scripture, (the 66 books of the Old and New Testament) that Christians have built their faith on. Popular culture is even getting into the act, with Dan Brown’s novel The Da Vinci Code flying off the shelves and the movie burning up the box office. Both the television producers and Mr. Brown base their stories on the so called “Lost” or “Gnostic” gospels such as the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Phillip, The Gospel of Mary etc. The basic argument is that “since we have all of these other books that contradict the four gospels of orthodox Christianity, how do we know which ones to believe?” The attackers of the Bible would have us believe that the canon of scripture that we have in the Protestant Bible were cobbled together at the Nicene Council of 325 A.D. by a few men determined to increase the power and authority of the Roman Catholic Church. Cherry picking only those writings that supported their aims while excluding all others. This is a serious accusation that needs to be examined. So let’s cut through all of the rhetoric and clutter and simply look at facts.

Fact number one: The Nicene Council consisted of over 300 Bishops/Church leaders from all points of the Roman Empire called together by the Emperor Constantine who had legalized Christianity in 313 A.D. with the edict of Milan. Far from a compact focused group of conspirators, the participants of the council held a number of diverse doctrinal views and came from various backgrounds. One of the few things they did have in common was a commitment and desire to take their job very seriously, as can easily be determined from even a cursory glance at their writings, something the conspiracy theorists apparently fail to do (Of course that would hurt book sales and television ratings wouldn’t it). These men considered all of the existing various “Christian” writings in order to determine which were inspired and which were not. The major criteria used were: Are they accepted by the majority of the churches? Do they present a consistent message with each other and with the Hebrew Scriptures (Old Testament)? Is the authorship in doubt? Was the author an eyewitness or close associate of an apostle? Nowhere in the record of proceedings or in the memoirs of the participants is there any inkling that anyone used other more sinister criterion in their deliberations. What came out of this council were the 27 books of the New Testament which along with the 39 books of the Old Testament makes up the Protestant Bible that we have today.

Fact number two: None of the excluded gospels or epistles had wide spread acceptance among the churches. Virtual unanimous acceptance (even among scholars today) that the excluded documents are pseudo graphic, meaning the claimed author is not the actual author. For instance no serious researcher believes that the Gospel of Thomas was written by the Apostle Thomas as it claims of itself. As a matter of fact, the majority of textural critics and manuscript historians believe that these documents date from the 2^nd and 3^rd century,

^* as opposed to the 1^st century date of all 27 books of the New Testament.

Fact number three: The excluded documents are also called Gnostic for a reason. This word comes from the word Gnosis meaning knowledge, and is used to indicate followers of a belief system that denies either; the deity of Christ, the crucifixion, the sufficiency of faith for salvation, the bodily resurrection, the need for holy living or any combination of these. All Gnosticism commonly teaches that there is “secret” knowledge that is necessary to experience “real spirituality and that only their adherent’s can posses this knowledge. Additionally, most teach that by possessing this secret or hidden knowledge not only will we find salvation but we can actually become like Jesus ourselves. Perhaps the best example of a current Gnostic religion is The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, (Mormons) who teach that Joseph Smith received additional revelation (including that Jesus was a created spirit brother to Satan and that both Jesus and Satan offered God a plan of redemption but Jesus’ plan was accepted. Mormon Doctrine, p. 193; Journal of Discourses, vol. 6, p. 8) from the angel Maroni and some glowing stone tablets, which provided previously hidden directions that allow those who know and follow these new revelations to become gods of their own world.

The truth is that Gnostic beliefs are obviously contradictory to the teaching of Jesus and the apostles, as a matter of fact the Apostle John wrote 1, 2, and 3 John primarily to refute the Gnosticism that was emerging late in the 1^st century. As such these Gnostic gospels and writings were correctly excluded from the canon of Scripture during the Nicene Council.

Now that we have determined that the members of the Nicene Council correctly chose the writings for the Bible; we need to ask ourselves two questions. How can we be sure that we have what was originally written? And, are the Scriptures simply a collection of stories or did God actually inspire the words that we have?

First things first. Surely through 2000 years of copying numerous errors and mistakes have crept into the pages of our modern bible! That’s what the skeptic will tell you, but is this actually the case? Let’s indulge in a little critical thinking for a moment. Suppose I ask you to copy this paper by hand, and then destroy the original. How sure could someone be that the copy you made was 100% accurate? Not very sure! You are human and make mistakes after all. Suppose I asked ten people to make copies and then destroyed the original. By comparing all ten copies we could be fairly certain that we could accurately reconstruct what I originally wrote. After all, the chances that all ten people would make the exact same mistake are slim to say the least. How about if we had 300 people make copies? We could know with certainty that we had what I originally wrote! How certain could we be with 5700 copies? That is how many early first and second century copies of the New Testament that exist!

There is no doubt in any reputable scholar’s mind that the New Testament you buy at the bookstore today is 99.7% accurate to what the original authors wrote. Anyone who tells you otherwise is simply being dishonest and hoping that you will not bother to do your own research. Critics of the Bible will try to confuse the issue by announcing that there are thousands of “mistakes” in the manuscripts! Of course there are, the copiers were human. But what they fail to divulge is that 99.5% of these supposed mistakes or differences are simple spelling variations or the absence of a conjunction etc... Additionally these “mistakes” do not appear in all or even a majority of manuscripts. Very, very few words are in doubt and the ones that are do not affect any of the doctrines that are the hallmark of Christianity.

Let me give you a quick illustration showing the disparity in the treatment ancient documents receive. No one questions Homer’s Illiad when we only 643 copies the earliest of which dates to 400 years after the original. We only have 7 copies of Plato dating 1300 years after the original. 19 copies of Livy’s History of Rome from 1000 years after it originally was written. None of these works are questioned, but are accepted as genuine by the very same scholars who question the New Testament’s 5700 copies dating between 50 - 250 years from the originals! Doesn’t seem that they are using the same standard does it? The reason for that is because of the uniqueness of the message the Scriptures contain, which brings us to our next question.

What is so special about the Bible? No book has been attacked and denigrated like the Bible. Why? Because the Bible claims to be the very Word of God, stating that God Himself guided the pens and quills and minds of the authors. This is why those who refuse to believe in God desire to discredit the Scriptures.

But let’s see what the Bible is all about. First; what should we expect from a book that truly is the Word of God. We could expect it to be historically accurate, to be scientifically accurate, to be consistent throughout, and to accurately predict the future.

Although it is not a history book the Bible is uncannily accurate in even the smallest historical details. Dr. Robert Wilson, former professor of Semitic Philology (the study of language in historical settings) at Princeton University states: “After 45 years of scholarly research in Biblical textual studies and in language study. I have come now to the conviction that no man knows enough to assail the truthfulness of the Old Testament. Where there is sufficient documentary evidence to make an investigation, the statements of the Bible, in the original text, have stood the test.” Dr. J.O. Kinnaman said “of the hundreds of thousands of artifacts found by other archaeologists, not one has ever been discovered that contradicts or denies one word, phrase, clause, or sentence of the Bible, but always confirms and verifies the facts of the Biblical record” These are very strong statements that support the historicity of the Scriptures. This in itself does not make it the Word of God but it is what we would expect if He wrote a book.

We would also expect a book God wrote to be scientifically accurate since He is after all the creator. Again, we find that the Scriptures stand up to scrutiny. 2000 years before humans made the discovery that the world was round and is suspended in space, the Bible told us in Job 26:7 and Isaiah 40:22, that this was the case. 4000 years before Hubble “made” the discovery that the universe is expanding, the reader of the 104^th Psalm could have told him this. The ocean currents that modern shipping uses were discovered when Matthew Maury decided to take Isaiah 43:16 seriously when it spoke of a pathway through the ocean and subsequently discovered and mapped the ocean currents. When mankind in all its wisdom thought the stars numbered in the thousands the Bible told us they were uncountable! (Jeremiah 33:22) We now know that there are billions of galaxies containing billions of stars each. A number that is literally uncountable! The Bible told us that the air around us has weight in Job 28:25 millennium before barometric pressure was discovered. The Bible describes both the first and second Laws of Thermodynamics (Genesis 2:23, Psalm 148:6, Peter 3:3-7, Psalm 102: 25-26 etc...) Again this doesn’t prove that the Bible is the word of God but it’s what we would expect if it was.

We would also expect that if the Bible is the word of God then it would be consistent throughout. Is this the case? Space will not permit the examination of each and every Biblical Doctrine so let me address this issue with a principle and encourage you to do your own study. I often tell those that I teach that each passage of Scripture needs to be understood in three ways; Historical/Literal, Applicable, Prophetic. When you do this, the continuity of the Bible becomes crystal clear. Let me give you an example. In Genesis chapter 22, God tells Abraham to go sacrifice his son Isaac on Mt. Moriah. As Abraham is just about to slay his son, God stops him and provides a Ram (Male lamb) as a substitute sacrifice. Now, apply the three principles: historically this is exactly what happened. It is applicable, not in the fact that God wants me to sacrifice my son, but that I should trust and obey Him no matter what He tells me to do. But most of all the meaning of this passage is Prophetic; it points us to Jesus the “Lamb of God”, God’s very own son who was sacrificed for us on that very same Mt. Moriah many centuries later. Jesus himself tells us in John 5:46 that the Old Testament is about Him. This same concept holds true whether you read about Adam and Eve’s fig leaves, Joseph’s colorful coat, David and Goliath, or Ruth and Boaz. They are all ultimately teaching us about Jesus. You see Jesus Christ is the consistent theme of all 66 books of Scripture. We’re getting pretty close to proving it is God’s word after all.

That brings us to prophecy. Some even some “Christians” will erroneously tell you that Christianity requires one to have a “blind” faith. Nothing could be farther from the truth; in 1 Thessalonians 5:21 the Scripture says to “Test everything. Hold to the good.” God does not expect us to blindly follow Him without evidence. So, what evidence would God use that would prove that He and only He had inspired the Bible? The answer is prophecy. Only an all knowing God, one who exists outside of time would be able to, with 100 % accuracy foretell the future. As a matter of fact the Bible consists of over 180 prophecies concerning future events, all of which have been fulfilled. The odds of this happening by chance are conservatively calculated to 1 chance in 10¹¹⁸ (1 followed by 180 zeros). There are also more than 200 messianic prophecies in the Old Testament that Jesus fulfilled perfectly. The odds of one man fulfilling just 30 of these 200 are 1 in 10⁸⁵ (1 followed by 85 zeros). How do you like those odds in Vegas? Now we’re zipping right past “this maybe or this probably is the Word of God” and have jumped right into “wow, I really can trust the Scriptures”! After all these fulfilled prophecies in the Bible were placed there by an all-knowing God for one reason; to provide you and me with all the evidence we need to confidently place our faith in Him, in His word and His wonderful offer of redemption.

^* Stylistic differences are primarily the reason for this. Languages and word selection/meaning evolve over time. The excluded writings invariably use 2nd and 3rd century language patterns. The included ones invariably use 1st century patterns.