The Bible - Fact or Fiction?

Before going into whether the bible is true or not, it is important to recognize what the bible is not. It is not the only book you ever need to read. Nor is it an exhaustive encyclopedia of every ounce of knowledge ever. It is not a book of information that we could learn on our own. Instead, it is a book that tells us about the one thing that we have no other way of knowing about – who God is. It is a book of spiritual truth.

But how can we know that the Bible is true? Unfortunately, especially in these days, even in this country where we are supposed to presume innocence until proven guilty, the Bible (and its proponents) has always been considered guilty until proven innocent (or better – false until proven true). We always are on the defensive, needing to come up with proofs and looking for ways to defend what we call the word of God.

It’s interesting that the world feels this way about the Bible, because they certainly don’t feel that way about other books. To find a biography of even great people written during their lifetimes are extremely rare. Example - The Universal History of Diodorus contains the earliest work on Alexander the Great. It was written in the First century BC or approximately 200 years after his death in 323BC. That’s like us having the first biography of George Washington written today. We do not usually doubt the written biographies of ancient people, even when they are written hundreds of years after their deaths. Yet we have four books written about Jesus within 30 years of his death…and there is doubt.

But, what that proves is that the Gospels and the New Testament are more likely to be true than other written histories. What other proofs are there? One of the arguments made by scholars for the truth of the Bible is the manuscript proof. There are no originals left, but what we have are thousands of manuscript copies (over twenty-thousand copies!). How do we know these were copied properly? When there are so many copies, it is easy to find discrepancies. However, it also becomes easy to tell what the discrepancies are because where one manuscript might say one thing, many others will have what was originally written. The Dead Sea Scrolls, among others, give us a good understanding of what the originals looked like. There is more manuscript support for the Bible than any of the other works of classic literature like Homer, Plato, Aristotle, etc.

What else? There is the archeological record. Just recently a find was made in the Middle East. An ossuary was found. This is a container for the bones of the deceased. The ossuary had written on the side, “James, the son of Joseph and brother of Jesus”. Also found were the Elba tablets, found in Syria in the 1970’s which show that Canaan existed as well as other names and places mentioned in Genesis. This has been a debate for years, with opponents of the Bible saying that there was no proof that many if not all of the cities mentioned in Genesis were stories, not real places, such as Sodom and Gomorrah . The Elba tablets also give us the names of people ( Abraham, Israel, Esau), and people tribes such as Sumerians, Hittites, Amorites. Finally there have been finds regarding found records of Solomon’s wealth, King Sargon of Assyria (in Isaiah) and a palace was found with writings on the walls that verify Isaiah’s history. The most interesting part of the archeological record is that never has something been found that creates a discrepancy with the Bible.

Next is the fulfillment of prophecy. Only the Bible has the ability to say that it has properly predicted the future without any failures. Does any other book do this? (And don't say Nostradamus! In the words of one expert - saying Nostradamus was accurate is like shooting a bullet into a wall and then drawing a bullseye around it!) Alexander the Great, when he was passing through Israel, was presented with Daniel’s prophecy that showed that he, Alexander, would come to reign. After seeing this, Alexander treated the Jews with great respect. Additionally, there are over 300 prophecies that were fulfilled by Jesus as Messiah, including his birth, his life and his death. Isaiah 53 is a great example of this. Additionally, Daniel 9 describes precisely when Jesus would be crucified. This has been mathematically calculated to be 84X10123!

So what we see is tremendous evidence for the Bible’s truth. What does this mean to us today? One of the things we see in the Bible is that from the beginning of time, we see God leading history towards redemption through Jesus. And if we believe that the Bible is rooted in truth, then we need to recognize what the Bible is telling us. We are told the Jesus is the Way…by grace are we saved…

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Last modified: Feb 18, 2007