Over the last few weeks, we’ve been digging into the question of “is there a god?”
In our first lesson, we learned that the fact that things exist period suggests there has to be a creator. In the second lesson, we learned that because the universe and the world are so finely tuned, the creator must be intelligent and intentional in creating the world. In our third lesson, we learned that, since there seem to be common moral standards across humanity, their source must have come from the creator.
Amid this, we’ve seen that the creation of the universe, being something that was brought into existence from nothing, rules out polytheism (belief in multiple gods), pantheism (the idea that god is just nature), and Eastern beliefs that life exists in a loop. This leaves us with the logical belief in a monotheistic (one God) faith. That leaves you with faiths such as Christianity, Islam, Sikhism, and Judaism.
But how do we know which of those faiths is the right one?
As Christians, we believe the Bible, both the Old and New Testaments, is verbally inspired of God and is the revelation of God to man—the infallible, authoritative rule of faith and conduct. For us to point not just others to Jesus, but to anchor our own personal faith in Jesus, we have to be able to say that we trust what’s written in our Bibles. If the “blueprint” is wrong, the whole building falls down.
So the question we have to answer today is: “Is the Bible Reliable?”
Let’s start with identifying what the Bible is and is not.
It’s not a singular book pieced together by some mysterious committee that met 300 years after the death and resurrection of Jesus for the sake of creating new doctrines or manipulating control. What it is, however, is 66 books written over 1600 years, across 3 continents, by 40-plus authors, in 3 languages.
39 of these books make up our Old Testament. They are largely written in Hebrew, with roughly 11 chapters being written in Aramaic. The collection was solidified roughly 450 years before the birth of Jesus. At one point, a committee composed largely of Jewish scholars translated it into Greek, ensuring accurate translation of the Hebrew thoughts and ideas. The other 27 books are what we call the New Testament, most of which were widely accepted by the early church and quoted by early church fathers. All of these books also connect together and complement each other.
Accurate Copies?
What we have today isn’t a copy of a copy of a copy either. Meaning someone didn’t take the Greek, then translate that into Latin, then someone translated the Latin into German, then someone translated the German into French, then someone translated the French into English. If that were the case, then we’d have a major breakdown of what was said. What we have today, while yes, they do look at historic translations, is a look back at early manuscripts of the scriptures.
While we do need to look at translations, we have to first look at the transmission of the Bible—basically, how it was passed down through the centuries.
What we discover is that the early church was super passionate about spreading the Gospel. Every time they received a letter or a Gospel (like Matthew, John, or the letters to the Corinthians), they didn’t just tuck it away; they painstakingly copied it and passed it along. Today, we’ve found more than 5,000 Greek New Testament manuscripts, with the earliest fragments dating back to 100 AD.
What this means is that the Bible isn’t like the old “Telephone Game.” In that game, one person whispers to the next in a single line, and it’s easy for the truth to get distorted. But the Bible was passed out like a web. Because we have thousands of copies from all over the ancient world, we can compare them to each other. If one copy has a smudge or a typo, we have 5,799 others to check it against!
To put this in perspective, look at how the Bible compares to other famous ancient writings that historians don’t even question:
- The Iliad (by Homer): Written in 800 BC. The earliest copy we have is from 400 BC—a 400-year gap. And we only have 643 copies to work with.
- Plato: He wrote in 400 BC, but our earliest copies date back to 900 AD. That’s a 1,300-year gap, and we only have 7 copies to compare!
- The New Testament: Written between 50–100 AD. We have fragments from 100–125 AD. That’s a gap of only 25–75 years, with thousands of copies.
The accuracy of the scriptures is unparalleled. Some people still wonder if what we read today is a “corrupt” translation, but archaeology says otherwise. Take an ancient document called P66. It dates back to the late 200s AD and contains a large portion of the Gospel of John. When you compare P66 to the Bible you have on your phone or in your lap today, it reads EXACTLY the same.
But there do appear to be some errors in the Bible. These are what we call textual variants. The vast majority of these variants are issues with grammar, spelling, or missing words. The extremely few places where we see verses that weren’t in original manuscripts do not change our major doctrinal understandings at all.
So we see our modern translations are accurate replicas of the original versions. But how can we trust the information inside? How true is it?
The locations listed are accurate, and history has supported these claims.
Luke, who wrote the books of Luke and Acts, was a doctor sent to investigate the claims of Christ and the beliefs of Christians. In Luke 3:1-3, we see this:
“In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea, and Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip tetrarch of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene, 2 during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John the son of Zechariah in the wilderness. 3 And he went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.”
For many years, skeptics claimed that Luke was not accurate because of the claims about Lysanias being a Tetrarch of Abilene during that time frame. But what we’ve discovered in the last 15 years is evidence of two individuals, likely family, who were the Tetrarch of Abilene.
In Mark 6, Jesus feeds 5000 individuals, then in 8 he feeds 4000. Skeptics say that this is a case of repeated stories, and the details are proof of errors. But when you look at the word “basket” used in each, you discover something interesting. In Mark 6 the word specifically describes a basket used by Jews, and Mark 8 uses a word to describe baskets used by Gentiles. When you read the surrounding verses, you see that those words match up with the locations of where Jesus was feeding people.
Not just that, but details from book to book work together to confirm each other. In John 6, Jesus asks Philip where to buy bread. Why would he ask Philip specifically where to buy bread?
Luke’s version of that story tells us that the disciples were in Bethsaida. Earlier in the book of John, we learn that Philip was from Bethsaida. Meaning Jesus asked Philip where to buy bread, because he was a local of that area! If the Bible were a random assortment of books that weren’t connected or untrue, this connectivity wouldn’t have happened.
Another proof that the scriptures can be trusted and make sense is found in the names of people. The commonality of names varies from place to place and year to year. Example: the most common names for boys born when I was born were Michael. Growing up, I knew a ton of Michaels. To the point, we had to find ways to distinguish them. Big Mike, Little Michael, Red Head Michael, Michael with the nose. The Scriptures had to do the same. Look at the names of Jesus’ disciples in Matthew 10:2-4
The names of the twelve apostles are these: first, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother; James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother; 3 Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas and Matthew the tax collector; James the son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus;[a] 4 Simon the Zealot,[b] and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him.
Studies of shown that the most common names for men in the era of the disciples were Simon, James, Matthew, and Judas. You’ll hear stories about what we call false gospels. One of which is the Gospel of Philip. One proof that it’s fake is that the names of the people used are all strangely popular names found in Egypt in the year 300… which is where we date that fake gospel back to.
Adventures in Student Ministry 