The Veracity of the Bible

[JudgeRightly]

Most Christians accept the Bible as God's word, and that the teachings and stories contained within it are true. But how can we verify that it is true, when so many people say things like, *it's just a collection of stories/myths, but it has no real accuracy?

This thread is designed to explore the question, "How do we know the Bible is true and that it is God's word?"
[MENTION=2589]Clete[/MENTION] [MENTION=15338]Right Divider[/MENTION] [MENTION=4167]Stripe[/MENTION] [MENTION=17501]ok doser[/MENTION] [MENTION=12969]Sherman[/MENTION]

 

[JudgeRightly]

One way we know that, at the very least, the Bible is true, and not just a collection of stories or myths, is through archaeological finds which provide evidence of the events, locations, and people of the Bible.

For example, this article from Phys.org came across my newsfeed recently.

https://phys.org/news/2019-08-evidence-babylonian-conquest-jerusalem-mount.html

 

[Bradley D]

I believe it is God's Word by living it.

 

[JudgeRightly]

I believe it is God's Word by living it.

It's one thing to believe God's word. It's another to study it, and even another to be able to explain why it, being God's word, is true.

The latter is the purpose of this thread.

 

[Gary K]

It's one thing to believe God's word. It's another to study it, and even another to be able to explain why it, being God's word, is true.

The latter is the purpose of this thread.

I like Bradley's response. If we look at the lives of the disciples after Jesus' resurrection we see changed men who truly believed God's word because they lived the truth of it. Jesus said basically the same thing when He said others would know we were his disciples because we loved one another. That is the confirmation of the truth of His word, and it is recognized by the world. A common criticism of Christianity that is used to demonstrate that Christians don't really believe what they profess to believe is because we often don't live the truth of God's word.

The changed life is the greatest testimony there is to both the love and the truth of God's word.

 

[JudgeRightly]

I like Bradley's response. If we look at the lives of the disciples after Jesus' resurrection we see changed men who truly believed God's word because they lived the truth of it. Jesus said basically the same thing when He said others would know we were his disciples because we loved one another. That is the confirmation of the truth of His word, and it is recognized by the world. A common criticism of Christianity that is used to demonstrate that Christians don't really believe what they profess to believe is because we often don't live the truth of God's word.

The changed life is the greatest testimony there is to both the love and the truth of God's word.

I agree. Yet most who reject God will ignore that.

This is more of a thread for evidence (such as the link I shared above) that shows that the Bible itself isn't just a collection of stories, that it truly is God's word.

The relationship aspect is a somewhat separate matter. I'm focusing (in this thread) more on the evidence for the Bible, rather than for the relationship with God.

Does that make sense?

 

[JudgeRightly]

https://patternsofevidence.com/

The Exodus of the Israelites from Egypt is one of the many events that cause people to reject the historicity of the Bible.

Interestingly enough, there are some bits of evidence that people will use to support the existence of Moses, and the historicity of the Exodus, even though it may not line up with the widely accepted position.

https://www.ancient-origins.net/history-famous-people/moses-0012411

 

[Cntrysner]

The prophetic word of God proves its veracity.

 

[JudgeRightly]

The prophetic word of God proves its veracity.

Now defend that idea.

Can you?

 

[JudgeRightly]

The prophetic word of God proves its veracity.

Now defend that idea.

Can you?

In other words, just asserting something doesn't make it true, nor will it convince anyone.

God, several times throughout the Bible, said that by two or three witnesses a matter is established. He was mostly talking about establishing guilt of a crime, but it's true in other circumstances as well.

If I say, and this is a simple example, that all clovers have 4 leaves, and then give you a single four-leaf clover as evidence, the person I'm speaking to, who has never seen clover before, won't believe me, because I only have one example, one witness, and so he goes out to test my claim, and finds that my claim is false, because he mostly finds 3-leaf clovers, each of those 3-leaf clovers acting as a witness against my claim.

In the same way, asserting that the Bible is true because you live what it teaches, or that it proves itself, isn't a very strong witness, because the former is anecdotal evidence, and the latter assumes that the Bible is true already, and both are only circumstantial witnesses, which even put together, aren't very convincing (remember, God said "two or three," because weighing the evidence is also important).

And so, this thread is intended to collect the evidence for the Bible, for anyone to use, that lends credence to the Bible being true.

 

[Clete]

Most Christians accept the Bible as God's word, and that the teachings and stories contained within it are true. But how can we verify that it is true, when so many people say things like, *it's just a collection of stories/myths, but it has no real accuracy?

This thread is designed to explore the question, "How do we know the Bible is true and that it is God's word?"
[MENTION=2589]Clete[/MENTION] [MENTION=15338]Right Divider[/MENTION] [MENTION=4167]Stripe[/MENTION] [MENTION=17501]ok doser[/MENTION] [MENTION=12969]Sherman[/MENTION]

The Bible is comprised of books written by approximately forty different authors from three different continents over a period of about 1500 years and in three different languages and yet it tells one cohesive story with one consistent theological worldview.

The preservation of the Bible is unlike any other book in history. The Dead Sea Scrolls prove that the Old Testament scripture we have today is the very same as that read by Jesus.

The circulation/distribution of the Bible is unlike any other book in history. It was not only the first significant book to ever be printed on a press but since then it has been printed billions of time - yes billions with a 'b'. The Bible and portions of the Bible (e.g. New Testaments and whole books of the Bible) continues to be printed hundreds of millions of times every year. And the Bible has been written about and quoted so profusely for millennia that if every single Bible in the world were destroyed it could be recreated many times over just from where it's been quoted by other authors and that's post printing press quotations. We also have thousands and thousands of ancient manuscripts that quote the Bible such that we could recreate the Bible just from them! Compare that with the writings of Plato, of which we have eight manuscripts. That's 8, not 80 or 88 or 8008 just 8 manuscripts of Plato vs the 24,970 hand written manuscripts we have of all or part of just the New Testament alone! And finally, if the Wycliffe Bible society succeeds in it's current translation efforts which it expect to complete in less than twenty years, the Bible will become the first and only text to ever be universally translated since God made multiple languages at the Tower of Babel.

Speaking of languages. There are approximately 7000 known language which we know came from about 100 languages all of which appeared not only suddenly but also as fully formed complex languages that evolved from nothing, which, of course, is what the Bible tells us happened. And that's just one of hundreds of archeological evidences that the Bible is a reliable source of history.


Everything I just said is taken from a sermon given by Bob Enyart and then later aired on his radio show back in August of 2015. There's another one Bob did on the history contained in the Bible. Here are the links...

Theology Thursday: The Bible is True

Theology Thursday: The Bible is a History Book

And then there is one of Bob's very best teaching series on "What We Believe and Why We Believe It" where Bob spends the first session in that series discussing the Bible.

What We Believe and Why We Believe It

 

[JudgeRightly]

What We Believe and Why We Believe It

Man, that's a BARGAIN! It's gotta be worth, what, 10 times that much!

 

[Clete]

Man, that's a BARGAIN! It's gotta be worth, what, 10 times that much!

It's a gigantic amount of material and its a video and so I totally agree that it's well worth the price. He has, or at least he had an audio version and then updated it with the video version. I've only listened through the audio version (called Christianity 101) so I don't know if they are exactly the same or if he just totally redid the series on video or what but regardless, it is very thorough and very much worth the time to listen to (or watch). My bet is that the audio only version would be a lower cost way of getting the material for those who can't afford the video, assuming he still has it available.

Clete

 

[Sherman]

There is archaeological evidence of its veracity.

 

[Aimiel]

Historically: there is no document in antiquity which bears the authenticity of the Holy Scriptures. There has yet to be any historic fact in the Bible to be proven false. Same goes for scientific facts stated therein. Before the discovery of micro-organisms, a doctor in England studied Scripture and found instructions for handwashing and began demanding that all doctors wash their hands before and after treating patients. Immediately: the number of deaths from childbirth and other treatments dropped dramatically.

Dr. Simon Greenleaf, a law professor and one of the founders of Harvard Law School, widely considered to be the world's foremost authority on evidence in jurisprudence at the time, who was a staunch atheist was challenged to use the rules of evidence and take the New Testament apart by those rules. He took on the challenge and found not only that The New Testament is reliable, but also came to the conclusion that Jesus Christ is Lord and God. He posited that the Apostles were reliable in their testimony for several reasons, not the least of which being their agreement in what they saw; but more importantly, he thought that the fact that each of them were honest enough to speak of their own faults and error that they were being honest about what they saw. Had they been writing fiction they would have tried to make themselves look good or at least omitted their own faults to try to appear to be more reliable. They wanted men to focus on Jesus, not on themselves. Dr. Greenleaf wrote a book, "Testimony of the Evangelists," about his findings. It's available, free, on the internet.

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/34989/34989-pdf.pdf