What about the Bible-Is it a reliable source?

This is a challenging question to answer. The flow of our culture would say no, the Bible is just filled with made up stories, embellished folk tales and is not of relative importance to modern man. This is a major hurdle when we are sharing our faith in evangelism. When we quote bible verses that are important and make sense to help people see the light of God, they may have the presumption that the bible does not hold any authority.

Now please don’t get me wrong, I am not saying that the scriptures are not important when we are actively sharing with those who do not believe. They are vital. However, it can be helpful for us to know in advance that many people hold the opinion of being skeptical about the reliability of the scriptures. This may become a gateway to healthy conversation on the subject at hand.

Today I would like to display that the Bible is reliable. Prodigious, award winning author Norman Geisler states “There is more evidence that the Bible is a reliable source than there is for any other book from the ancient world.” He lists two major factors to back up this statement. First, he looks for archaeological evidence that confirms both events and geographical places found in both the Old and New Testaments.  His second premise is that there is evidence of divine origin woven throughout the scriptures.

Concerning archeological evidence, the significance of the number of ancient biblical texts that we have found compared to other age-old works is staggering.  When comparing the numbers, most of the other texts have 50 or fewer copies. Concerning the Bible, we have uncovered over 24,000 of them. Why is this so important? The main reason is that the size of the body of this literature allows us to cross reference the accuracy of the texts against each other to show that the integrity of what was written has not changed over time.

Other archeological discoveries about geographical places found in the scriptures are numerous (in the thousands). Geisler lists many, too much for this short blog. However, I will detail the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. “The destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah was thought to be mythological until evidence was uncovered that all five of the cities mentioned in Genesis were, in fact, situated just as the Old Testament said. As far as their destruction goes, there is permanent evidence of a great conflagration that occurred in the long distant past.”

Another example would be life of Jesus and the early Christians. Not only does the New Testament accurately document the history and geography, there are also other ancient texts outside of the Bible that chronicle the life of Jesus and his early followers.

The second premise of Divine origin woven throughout the Bible begins in the very first sentence in Genesis. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Everything that has a beginning has a beginner. Therefore, the other examples of supernatural miracles that we see are examples of the divine overriding of the laws of nature.

There are also many examples of prophetic confirmations that occur many generations after the person who recorded the predictive events to take place. According to the Encyclopedia of Biblical Prophecy, “there are 191 predictions in the Old Testament about the coming of Christ including his ancestry, the city in which he would be born and the exact time that this would take place.” The probability of one person fulfilling all of these predictive events is staggering, particularly events that Jesus did not personally control, such as his side being pierced by a spear and the soldiers gambling over his garment.

 All of these events confirm that Jesus was divine.