The most important question any Christian should be able to answer is why we choose to believe the Bible. The standard fallback answer given by many is “I was raised that way”. The problem with this sentiment is that many things that we were raised to believe turned out to be false. For example, our parents told us if we went outside with wet hair, we would catch a cold. As adults we learned that a cold is a virus.
Another answer often given is “I tried the Bible and it worked for me.” This answer certainly opens up a huge logical hole when based on a personal experience. Malcolm X changed his life, he tried the Nation of Islam and it “worked for him”. He later denounced his beliefs in Islam and was killed for it. What about the changed life of a Mormon or a Jehovah Witness.
Our response, as Christians, should sound something like this…
“I choose to believe the Bible because it is a reliable collection of historical documents, written by eyewitnesses during the lifetime of other eyewitnesses, reporting supernatural events that took place in fulfillment of specific prophecies and claimed their writings are Divine in nature and not of human origin.”
Dr. Voddie T. Baucham, Jr., Dean of the School of Divinity at African Christian University in Lusaka, Zambia
A detailed examination of Dr. Baucham’s thesis:
A reliable collection of historical documents
- The Bible is comprised of 66 individual books
- Written by 40 differenr authors
- Written in 3 different languages (Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic) over a span of 1500 years
- Books and pieces of books found over 23,000 archaeological digs, where not one is disputed. Luke 1:1-4
- Many historical references in scripture not found anywhere else – only later to be proven true through archaeological discovery.
- Includes specific names, places and people that are all verifiable.
written by eyewitnesses, during the lifetime of other witnesses
- Many witnesses telling the same story and likely can be believed.
- Too many witnesses (several hundred) who would have disputed basic facts
- I Corinthians 15 – By the time Paul wrote I Corinthians, there were at least 300 eyewitnesses to the resurrection that were still alive at the time.
they report supernatural events
- Audible voice of God [2 Samuel 22:14, Job 37:4-5]
- The man with the withered hand [1 Kings 13:4]
- Jesus walking on water [Mark 6:48-53]
- Crucified, dead, buried. Third day rose again. [Matthew 27]
- Healings and miracles
that took place in fulfillment of specific prophecy
- Written by men 1000 years before Jesus was born by a man who never once saw a crucifixion (it had not yet been invented at the time)
- Psalm 22 – “My God, My God, why has thou forsaken me?”
claim their writings are divine, not of human origin
- The authors of the Bible claim it is God speaking directly to and through them
- All books written by man. Do we throw them all out because they were written by man?
- Men of science today cannot believe by blind faith. The fact that we have the Bible mitigates that fact.
There are common arguments made against the authenticity of the Holy Bible. One such argument is that it has changed over time. Some say that the Bible has been translated so many times over the years that it is now unreliable. This approach would only be valid if the newer translations were made from other translations as the source material. This, of course, is not the case. Modern translations have been made from the original Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic manuscripts.
Another argument is the overzealous monk argument. The theory is that Constantine limited the Council of Nicaea to 66 books and those books had been doctored to present Jesus in a certain divine way. The problem is, we have about 6000 manuscripts or portions of manuscripts in our hands today. Overzealous Monks would have to find all 6000 manuscripts, change the text, hide their ink work, not get caught and put all the manuscripts back in place from whence they were stolen. In the first and second centuries, texts were not written with spaces between words, rather a single dot which would have made it nearly impossible to add or take away words. Also, different groups spoke very different languages, Monks would also be required to lie in Syriac, Coptic and Latin languages as well as Greek and Hebrew
All of the manuscripts known to mankind today were written only 2 1/2 decades after the original writings. Here are some examples of ancient texts that don’t possess nearly the same attributes.
- Julius Caesar Galic Wars – about 250 texts exist, earliest copy written over 1000 years after the original
- Aristotl Poetics – less than 10 copies exist, 1400 years after the originals
- Socrates – no manuscripts exist, all we know about him was written by Plato
- Homer’s Iliad – about 1800 years after the original.
Additionally, according to American Biblical scholar Bruce Metzger, 95% to 98% of the New testament can be re-created through writings of the early church fathers. except for 11 verses. New research has shown that those 11 verses can now be re-produced with new findings from archaeological digs.
Some sceptics of the Bible attempt to apply the scientific method to prove historical events surrounding the Bible. This argument is easily disproven because the scientific method involves observable, measurable and repeatable events. In other words, we cannot prove that George Washington was our first president. In the case of biblical events we use the evidentiary method, like what you would use in a court of law. You need witnesses who are reliable, whose stories are corroborated. What does that look like… 66 books, 40 authors, three continents, three languages over 1500 years; internal consistancy, external corroboration through the likes of Philo (a Hellenistic Jewish philosopher who lived in Alexandria, in the Roman province of Egypt) and Josephus (a historian who lived from 34 AD to about 100 AD) in addition to the early church fathers.
