Validity of the Bible
Who is Jesus? If you ask ten different people, it is highly plausible that you will receive ten different answers. Among differing religions there is an idea of who Jesus is, even when those ideas contradict one another’s. But who the Bible says He is, is God in the flesh (John 1:1, 1:14) who loved the world so much He came to save it by His death and resurrection. And through that, and believing in Him, we could receive eternal life. There is nothing we can do to deserve that reward of life after death, opposed to deserved eternal punishment—no good work, or right moral character that could give us an entrance to heaven, only by the payment He has already compensated on the cross in our place for our sin. (John 3:16) Jesus Himself even claimed to be God. (Luke 5, Mark 12) But what do all these claims, and descriptions of who Jesus is matter if there is no proof for the validity of the Bible? These assertions are then reduced to fairytales, and a good moral standard to be followed. But it does not end there with mere high hopes of the contrary; for there is proof, and evidence for the authority, legitimacy, and validity of the Bible being internally consistent, historically, scientifically, and prophetically exact.
Many believe the writings of the Bible to contradict itself, and that the stories and writings have been changed from when they were originally written. But the contrary can actually be proven. From Genesis to Revelation, the entire book is consistent. As Charlie Campbell put it,
Now you might think that that fact alone does not prove the divine origin of the Book, plenty of books are internally consistent. And while that is true, some specific things that should be considered with that last statement in mind, is how there are 66 different documents; 39 books in the Old Testament, and 27 in the New. And among those 66 different books, they were written by about 40 different authors, from different educational and cultural backgrounds, in 3 different languages, over a period of 1,500 plus years, covering 60 plus generations.
So these authors were separated by years and years of time, by hundreds of miles, and yet, with all of these factors included, we still find the Bible to be absolutely, unswervingly, consistent.
Some, including the Mormons and Muslims, believe that the Bible has undergone changes throughout the years as it was copied and translated from language to language. [Facts as specified by Charlie Campbell] Yet, today there are still more that 25,000 partial and complete handwritten manuscripts of the New Testament alone, then, on top of that, hundreds of Old Testament manuscripts that date back to the 3rd century B.C. One can physically view these manuscripts personally at the British Museum, the Smithsonian Institute, Oxford University, and the National Library at Paris, just to name a few. These documents allow scholars, and critics, to go back and verify that the translated version we have of the Bible today, is exactly the same as the one the church had over 2,000 years ago.
One of the specific apparent contradictions often brought up in criticism of the Bible, is the location of Jesus when He healed a blind man. Luke 18 says Jesus healed this blind man as He was entering, or coming near Jericho, while Mark 10 says that Jesus healed this blind man as He was going out of Jericho. And so, the critics state how either Luke or Mark made a mistake, which would make the Bible not consistent, which would mean it couldn’t possibly be divinely inspired. Which would seem the case. Until you see that a German archaeologist, Ernest Selling, while excavating in Israel from 1907-09, discovered that “there were the “twin-cities” of Jericho in Jesus’ time; the old city of Jericho, and the new Roman city of Jericho about a mile away.” Obviously, Luke was referring to one of the cities while Mark to the other. Like this seemingly conflicting passage, it can be guaranteed that there is a logical explanation for all supposed inconsistencies. If merely searched out more in-depth, you could be assured to find the absolute harmony of the Book as a whole.
As we have looked at the discovery of the twin cities, to move onto our next evidence to be examined in checking the validity of the Bible--archeology. As widely stated, archaeology could not prove the divine inspiration of the Bible, but it can help build a case for the reliability of it historically. Over the last, almost 200 years, every time the Bible has been checked out archaeologically, it has been found 100% accurate. This has only helped in verifying the precise factualness of the Bible’s records of events, customs and locations. One of the world’s greatest archaeologists, Nelson Glueck, said, “No archeological discovery has ever [overturned] a Biblical reference. Scores of archeological findings have been made which confirm in clear outline or in exact detail historical statements in the Bible. And, by the same token, proper evaluation of Biblical descriptions has often led to amazing discoveries.” Some of those specific, tangible items to be found that have helped establish the validity of the Bible, are the ruins of the pool of Siloam, evidence for an Erastus in Corinth, and Pontius Pilate.
The third evidence to be looked at for the credibility of the Bible, is how it was never written or intended to be seen as a scientific book, yet all of its statements regarding any kind of ‘science’ have never been found to contain any scientific errors. Not only is it correct in all its ancient, scientific proclamations, but it also states many accurate scientific facts about the universe thousands of years before our modern scientists even discovered them. Some examples of that are the sun. The Bible teaches in Psalm 19:6 how it is actually on a circuit throughout space. And also, the shape of the earth- when the rest of the world thought the earth was flat, Isaiah (in chapter 40:22) affirmed that it was in fact round. There is absolutely no way these men could have positively known these things, especially when the rest of the world was declaring otherwise, apart from divine inspiration. Again, helping build the case for the authority, legitimacy, and validity of the Bible.
The final idea to be looked at in checking the legitimacy of the Bible is its fulfilled prophecy. There are, as of today, a total of 26 religious books people believe to be divinely inspired. The Vedas, the Qur’an, the Book of Mormon, just to name a few. Of these books not a single one contains any specific fulfilled prophecies… except the Bible, which is filled with hundreds of specific, detailed prophecies written hundreds of years before they were fulfilled. The Old Testament prophesied of specific details of the Messiah’s ancestry, that He’d be born of the seed of Abraham, (Gen 12 & 22) of the tribe of Judah, (Gen. 49) and of the house of David. (2 Sam. 7) It told of the city where He would be born, (Micah 5) and that He would come while the temple was standing, (Malachi 3) The Old Testament also foretold the exact time in history when He would die, in Daniel 9:24-26, which was fulfilled to the precise year. And many more prophecies, hundreds of which have been literally fulfilled. Now it is always a question if Christians inserted those prophecies back into the Old Testament after Jesus lived. But we can phlegmatically know that to be false by the existence today of hundreds of manuscript copies of the Old Testament that predate the time of Christ’s birth. These copies verify that the prophecies about the Messiah were already in place, even during the 3rd century B.C. As told by the Smithsonian Magazine,
In 1947 a shepherd boy in Qumran, northwest of the Dead Sea in Israel, made an amazing discovery. In a hillside cave that had laid untouched for nearly 2000 years, he found an ancient collection of hand written copies of the Old Testament. These scrolls and writings, now known as the Dead Sea Scrolls, represented every book of the Old Testament except the book of Esther…
Teams of scholars determined the scrolls age, which indeed date back up to 100 B.C. This proves, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that the Old Testament and its prophecies about the Messiah were completed before Jesus was ever born.
As we see this evidence for the Bible, then that means who the Bible says Jesus is, is true. And anything that says contrary cannot be. If your beliefs are based off of only feelings, and no facts, I would urge you to reconsider, and take a deeper look into the validity, and value of that belief. In all my searching, the Bible has been the only book, religion, and relationship that can quench my questioning heart with logical, realistic, reasonable, authoritative, and valid answers. If this paper has not convinced that the Bible can be taken as fact, through looking at the evidence for proving the truth of the Bible through the manuscripts, archeology, science, and prophecy, what are you going to do to be assured of your stance on the matter, one way or the other? Even if you do not agree with, what there is sufficient proof to be assuredly convinced of, I think it is dire to find out what it is you believe. And when you do start to search, it can be guaranteed that you will not find any kind of proof like there is for the legitimacy of the Bible.
