How do we know the Bible is the truth?
The Bible is a provable supernatural book. The 66 books in the Bible were written by more than 40 authors over a span of at least 1600 years. Yet, it is a coherent, unified message. (Try that with an encyclopedia or any other “human” book. Those need to be updated every year). Additionally, many passages of the Bible were written by “ready writers,” the equivalent of ancient court-stenographers: “My tongue is the pen of a ready writer” (Psalm 45:1). In fact, the apostle Matthew was a tax collector who had to take skilled shorthand to do his job for the Romans. In other words, he wrote down the very words of Jesus from the Sermon on the Mount, verbatim, word-for-word. An “Amanuensis” or “ready writer” who took dictation was an important job. See 1 Peter 5:12, Romans 16:22 and Acts 13:5 for other references.
There are over 300 specific prophecies about Jesus in the Bible proved to have been written hundreds of years before his birth. In addition, the Bible contains over 2500 prophecies. 2000 of those have been literally fulfilled and 500 are yet to be fulfilled. Astonishing!
Added to that, there are more than 25,000 archaeological finds proving true the historical, geographical and cultural accounts found in the Bible. Plus, there are thousands of additional prophecies concerning peoples, nations and world events – some coming true before our very eyes today. No other religious or prophetic book in world history claims this kind of verifiable, miraculous accuracy.
What about “contradictions” in the Bible? All too often what appear to be contradictions are just minor errors or difficulties in translation. Remember, the Bible was written in ancient Hebrew, Greek and Aramaic languages. Sometimes translators make mistakes or don’t translate passages clearly. Finding out what the original Greek or Hebrew really said usually clears up those supposed problems.
Dating of manuscripts? Before 1947 our oldest copy of the Old Testament was dated to 1,000 A.D. But, after the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1947, containing all of the Old Testament except for the Book of Esther, scholars now date the Old Testament to hundreds of years before the birth of Christ. Finally, the ancient Dead Sea Scrolls copy of that Old Testament is almost identical to the 1,000 A.D. copy. The only changes are a few “ands” or something like an “e” added to a few words. That’s virtually NO change in over 1,000 years! Beware: a few dishonest scholars claim that things like “ands” or added “e” spellings prove at least 400 “variants” between manuscripts. Don’t be fooled. Do your homework.
How do we know Jesus really existed? We have his lengthy genealogy listed in the book of Matthew (which is an ancient birth certificate and form of I.D.). Plus, there are at least 39 historical sources outside of the Bible that attest to the life and deeds of Jesus. No credible historian doubts that Jesus was a real person. (Photo is a computer-generated portrait from image on the Shroud of Turin, History Channel’s “The Real Face of Jesus”).
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Suggested On-line References:
AlwaysBeReady.com
Reasons.org.
JohnAnkerberg.org.