1 Timothy 4:13 – “Until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation, to teaching.”
Have you ever heard someone say, "I don't believe in the bible." It isn't historically accurate and is filled with many myths and tales that can't be validated by historical standards. This is frustrating since the basis of our very belief falls on the credibility of the Bible. After alot of study and research, I have found those statements about the falseness of the scripture to be meritless and to quote others, "it takes more faith in the unknown to discount the accuracy and historicity of the bible than to believe it."
Josh McDowell and Lee Strobel both give a similar statement. "The contents of the Bible were written over a period of 1600 years, by 40+ authors from every walk of life: kings, fisherman, statesmen, poets, philosophers and even peasants. Some wrote in the wilderness, others in dungeons, some in a palace, and other while on military campaigns. They wrote in three different languages, Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek." The question arises: "Can a book so uniquely written really be factual and historically accurate or is it a manmade tale like any work of fiction or is it truly an inspired Word by the very God that built the universe."
Dr. Howard Vos states: "the case for the reliability of the New Testament alone is infinitely stronger than for any other record of antiquity." Simply put, when the Bible is compared to other ancient, accepted documents such as the Iliad, and the writings of Josephus Antiquities, Tacitus Annals and Pliny Letters the Bible stands head and shoulders above the rest in terms of historical accuracy and archaeological verifiability. In fact, there are only twenty manuscripts that remain of the Roman historian Tacitus. Of Pliny the Younger, only seven manuscripts survive. Of Aristotle, only 49 manuscripts. Of the Greek historian, Herodotus, only eight manuscripts survive. Of the Iliad, 643 manuscripts exist. But of just the New Testament, scholars have confirmed the existence of 24,633 manuscripts!
Critics used to believe … the Bible was wrong because they felt that King David was a legendary, mythical character. They pointed to the fact that there was no archaeological evidence that King David was an actual historical figure. But then … in 1994, archaeologists discovered an ancient stone slab in northern Galilee that was inscribed with the references to King David and the "House of David."
Critics used to believe … the Bible was wrong because there was no evidence (outside of the Bible) that a group of people called the Hittites ever existed. The Hittite civilization is mentioned approximately 40 times in the Old Testament, thus skeptics were convinced that this proved the Bible is a mythical creation of ancient Hebrew writers. But then … in 1906, a German archaeologist named Hugo Winckler was excavating in Boghaz-Koi, Turkey, and discovered the capital city of the ancient Hittite empire, the entire Hittite library and 10,000 clay tablets documenting the Hittite history. Scholars translated these writings and discovered that everything the Bible said about the Hittite empire was true.
Critics used to believe … that a king named Belshazzar never really existed, thus calling into question the historicity of the book of Daniel, which mentions this Babylonian king.
But then … in 1854, Henry Rawlinson discovered an inscription in Iraq that named Belshazzar as the oldest son and co-regent of King Nebonidus, who would often leave Belshazzar in charge of Babylon while he traveled. This discovery also helped to clarify Daniel 5:29, which states that Daniel was elevated to the “third highest ruler in the kingdom.”
Critics used to believe … the book of Acts was not historically accurate. Then a man named Sir William Ramsay, who is well known to be one of the greatest historical scholars and archaeologists in history, decided to try to disprove the Bible as the inspired Word of God by showing that the book of Acts was not historically accurate. But after 30 years of archaeological research in the Middle East, Ramsay came to the conclusion that “Luke is a historian of the first rank; not merely are his statements of fact trustworthy … this author should be placed along with the very greatest historians.” He later wrote a book on the trustworthiness of the Bible based on his discoveries and converted to Christianity. Sir Ramsay found no historical or geographical mistakes in the book of Acts. This is amazing when we realize that in the book of Acts, Luke mentions 32 countries, 54 cities, nine Mediterranean islands and 95 people and he did not get one wrong. Compare that with the Encyclopedia Britannica. The first year the Encyclopedia Britannica was published it contained so many mistakes regarding places in the United States that it had to be recalled.
Critics used to believe … the Old Testament simply could not be reliable because they felt that over a long period of time the Old Testament writings would have been changed, altered, edited or corrupted. But then … in 1947, the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered. These scrolls contained, among other writings, every book in the Old Testament (except Esther). Until the Dead Sea Scrolls were found, the earliest copy of the complete Old Testament was from A.D. 900. Scholars compared this copy with the Dead Sea Scrolls (produced around 1,000 years earlier) and found that the Old Testament had been handed down accurately through the centuries.
We also have recent evidence of the historicity of Jesus of Nazareth by the Pilate Stone, the Caiaphas Ossiuary, the recently found pool of Siloam, Jacob's well and the Nazareth Inscription. Additionally the writings of accepted ancient historians refer to Jesus who was crucified by Pilate and describe Jesus as a Messiah and Healer. The New Testament accounts were written in a period of 50 years of his crucifixion. To some that may be a long gap but put in perspective, the closest version we have of all other non-biblical historical documents is closer to hundreds of years. There is a 50-year gap between the New Testament and the autographa — but a 500-year gap with the Iliad!
The Smithsonian Institution’s Department of Anthropology has offered the following statement about the historical reliability of the Old Testament: “ … the historical books of the Old Testament are as accurate historical documents as any that we have from antiquity and are in fact more accurate than many of the Egyptian, Mesopotamian, or Greek histories. These Biblical records can be and are used as are other ancient documents in archaeological work.”
While there is empirical evidence for the birth, death and resurrection of Christ as outlined in books like "The Case for Christ" by Lee Stobel and Evidence that Demands a Verdict by Josh McDowell, there is one simple thing that shows the evidence of the power of the scriptures in the Holy Bible. The commitment of men and women to study and read these ancient documents.
The Bible is the most read, most published and most believed book ever written. It has changed more lives than any other book and brought more people to a changing knowledge of their faith than any other document. In short, there is no book that has impacted so many people in so many ways. It has outlasted the Bagada Vita, the Koran, teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautam and even Dianetics. The Books were historically the most important and widely used sources of information, education, and entertainment. And even now, in the day of the internet and television, books remain widely popular, with many millions of buyers every week and the bible is downloaded more frequently than any other book in print.
The Bible is the best-selling book of all time, having sold around 5 billion copies to date. The next closest by statistic is the Koran with 800 million copies. The Bible primarily serves as the basis of the world’s largest religion: Christianity and reveals more about the God that created us than any other document, book or oral tradition. Regardless of the evidence for the reliablity of the Bible, hidden within the scripture is the character of God and an explanation of His grace. The internal reliability of the scripture shows it to be 99.5% consistent in message and content.
Voddie Bauchaum raised in a Buddhist home says, "I choose to believe the Bible because it is a reliable collection of historical documents written down by eyewitnesses, during the lifetime of other eyewitnesses. They report to us supernatural events that took place in fulfilment of specific prophecies and claim that their writings are divine rather than human in origin."
Like Voddie Baucham, I believe because I choose to believe! The Bible has directly impacted my life in so many ways. There is a change in who I am, how I act and what I do every day resulting from my belief in the Christ described in the Bible and a study of the inerrant Word of God. I have learned more about myself, the world and others by a study of His word. My evidence comes out of my personal experience.
The Bible. It's worth the read...
Much love
Preach