Is the Bible Reliable?

Another foundation issue: If the Bible is not reliable it certainly calls into question the things written in it as well as everything written here. That’s the only honest way to answer the question. You may have serious questions about the bible’s reliability. This is an overview of the biblical claims and the science of manuscript evidence. For a deeper dive into manuscript evidence please refer to the links at the bottom of this page.

In fact there is far more evidence in favor of the reliability of the Bible texts than against it. Let’s consider four relevant issues.

1. The Claim: What does the Bible say about itself?
2. The Evidence: Has the Bible Validated itself in any way?
3. The Writings: The Manuscript Evidence
4. The History: The Canon and preservation of the Bible.

What does the Bible claim about itself?

As we will demonstrate below, the Bible claims to be God-breathed, (θεόπνευστος) which is translated into English as ‘Inspired’. A God-breathed Bible is also an Inerrant Bible, as long as we have sufficient ancient manuscripts, and we do. This is of foundational importance to the job of interpretation. Theologians define the term inspiration in different ways, but for our purpose here we will concentrate on the idea of inerrancy. Anything less than that is a slippery slope towards an unbiblical belief on how our Bible was communicated, and eventually a license to deny all kinds of critical teachings of the Bible.

Leaving us to use our imperfect human intellects to determine truth with no written account, or worse, a corrupted account seems like an obvious fail, and it is. So the Bible’s own claims about how the communication worked through supernatural inspiration is the most sensible idea, especially when active over Millennia. Even today with the digitization of all data, we still write and interpret written words in documents, emails, texts, etc. so it is a common skill.

Isaiah 1:18 –  “Come now, and let us reason together,” Says the LORD

Many religious groups today claim to have some unique truth apart from the Bible, such as the Mormons. Some have decided that the Bible is wrong, or was written for some other time, and that they have come to the truth by using their human wisdom and intellect. Either the Bible is the standard or it is not. It can’t be both. A partial-truth standard actually invalidates itself.

Biblical Inerrancy

2 Timothy 3:16… “All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.”

The Apostle Paul believed that all of the Bible and the scripture he was writing was God-breathed. 

2 Peter 1:20… “men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.”

I’m not sure how this could more clear.  

1 Peter 1:10… ” As to this salvation, the prophets who prophesied of the grace that would come to you made careful search and inquiry, seeking to know what person or time the Spirit of Christ within them was indicating as He predicted the sufferings of Christ and the glories to follow. It was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves, but you, in these things which now have been announced to you through those who preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven—things into which angels long to look.”

2 Peter 1:20… “But know this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture is a matter of one’s own interpretation, 21 for no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.”

Hebrews 4:12… “For the Word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

Joshua 1:8 – “This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it; for then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have success.”

Isaiah 40:8 – “The grass withers, the flower fades, But the word of our God stands forever.”

A Bible that is Not without error (in the original manuscripts) is not of value in the ways described above. It won’t lead to success, it won’t have a unique power to it, and it will not equip anyone to do every good work, for it will fail as long as it contains errors and misleads the reader.

The Predictive Nature of Bible Prophecy

Bible prophecy itself is one of the key evidences to validate the authenticity of the Bible. Miracles served the same function at various times in history. The mercy of God has included these many prophecies to give evidence to all.

There are many Messianic prophecies fulfilled by Jesus, even the place of his birth – kind of hard to fake that. This prophecy in the Old Testament book of Micah predicts not only the place of the Messiah’s birth but his pre-existence. 

But as for you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, too little to be among the clans of Judah, from you One will go forth for Me to be ruler in Israel. His goings forth are from long ago, from the days of eternity.” (Micah 5:2)

The Bible mentions historical figures and places. When it is predictive, often there are details like a number of days or months or years, such as an exile that will last for 70-years, or a future regathering of Israel. No one will be able to say to God that he left no evidence of himself to this world. In fact he left the whole bible. Go ahead and validate the historical references in the Bible.

Luke 2:1-2

Now in those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus, that a census be taken of all the inhabited earth. This was the first census taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria.

John 8:58

Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was born, I am.” Therefore they picked up stones to throw at Him

Look up Quirinius on WikiPedia.

The Canon and Manuscript Evidence

The Canon is the collection of the books admitted into the Bible, Old Testament and New. These are the books of the bible considered to be inspired by God. Completed in the 4th century A.D. and validated by consent and tradition.

Based on the nature of God and the manuscript evidence, we believe that God protected His word, guiding the process to allow for the correct books to be part of the completed Bible that we have today, tested for decades by the early church. The Canon, or the present 66 books of the Bible were put together during the first centuries of the early church. If God did not guide this process, then we certainly can make claim that He does NOT interact in human history. For if He could not keep His own word pure, as the OT states that it is, then there is no way to know truth. We could assume that He doesn’t really care or doesn’t get that involved.

On the contrary, God has made it clear that He does care – by protecting the manuscripts and communicating with us. This is not to say that every translation from the original language is perfect. The words are God’s, penned by human authors in the original languages, and on the original manuscripts. It is true that we don’t have any original manuscripts, but we do have thousands of very early manuscripts that agree on all major points of doctrine. There are some minor differences that were introduced by copying mistakes made by scribes. (They had no copy machines or printers) The debates over which manuscripts are best will continue, but it doesn’t lead to the conclusion that our Bible is not accurate. The fact that the thousands of existing manuscripts agree is proof that we have the correct text in our Bible. This cannot be said for many other (non-religious) ancient manuscripts that are accepted as the actual works. Of Course with the Bible we need greater manuscript evidence, and we have it.

Also important to note is that different Bible translations have different objectives, like easier to read vs. word for word literal translation, and may therefore come out with some wording that will seem slightly different. This is unavoidable when translating from one language to another, and especially in this case where one of the languages, Koine Greek, is not spoken in the same way.

Our Bible is reliable. This is provable statistically. The prophecies of the Bible validate its supernatural origin. 

This subject is not the focus of Endtimes.org but as it is foundational, please see links to more detailed works below.