How can we know the Bible is true?
Legitimate questions deserve legitimate answers, is everything the Bible says true and can we be absolutely sure of that? First, let’s go over some of the claims that the Bible makes
1: Jesus is God
(John 10:30, John 5:8) The Bible says that Jesus and God are one, no other world religion accepts that, in fact, what separates Christianity from every other religion is who Jesus is (more on that in another post!)
2: No other religions are correct and Jesus is the only way to Heaven
(John 14:6, Acts 4:12, John 3:16) When you look at all religions you come to the logical conclusion that they all can’t be correct at the same time only one can be correct and you can’t pick and choose what you want to believe (basically a melting pot of attributes from different religions) because you have no basis for what you choose against what they all individually consider as God’s word or gods(plural) word. They all say different things will happen at the same time.
3: Everything (obviously in the correct context) the Bible says is true and is sufficient for life and more importantly eternity
(2nd Timothy 3:16, Matthew 24:35) The Bible claims everything it says is true (in a proper context like I said) and given what it says it has an eternal impact for every single person alive, yes eternity forever.
With those mentioned, first and foremost, we can now look at facts. First, when most people are asked what religion is, most answers are “it’s an explanation of how you get to the afterlife” most cases being heaven others may say you reincarnate into something else better or worse(depending on the life you lived) or you turn into a god, etc. Furthermore, when asked by what means do get to or reach that better state or place taking when looking at the biggest religions (Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddism) they all claim you must do good works to get into Heaven or reincarnate better than what you are -all accept one- that is Christianity, Christianity teaches that there is no way to work off sin because no matter what you do it won’t be enough, i.e. you cannot cancel out a sin by doing something good. Simply put if I were standing before a judge for the crime of raping a woman and then stealing her car, l will not be acquitted based on the fact that I helped an old lady cross the street and picked up trash at the park, my crime still happened, and I cannot counter it. You did the crime now you serve the time and the time is dependent on the severity of said crime.
Now we can take a look at Christianity’s beginnings and where it is now. The Bible says in Genesis 1:1 “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” That is where it all began with the first human Adam and first Woman Eve you know the story, Adam sinned bringing sin, death and suffering into the world. We are created in God’s image God is Holy and does not sin, therefore being created in his image we have gravely misrepresentation it, God is eternal and sin against an eternal God merits eternal punishment hell so in total sin has us understand that sin equals eternal punishment because we are created in His image but God has mercy. From there humanity is promised a savior to come that is Jesus. Fast forward through the old testament for now and Jesus is born of Mary the virgin(which was prophesied somewhere nearly 1,000 years before it happened Isaiah 7:14), lives a perfectly sinless life and then is grotesquely murdered and dies. Three days later He rises from the dead thus proving He is God, appearing to people, then groups of people and then ascending into Heaven. The basis of Christianity and the Bible’s truth falls on whether or not Jesus died and rose from the grave because this is not a natural event and it cannot happen on its own *especially if someone dies and is dead for three days and then has life again not to mention that Jesus wasn’t in a “hospital” or anything even close to that nature. With that, we look at the facts of Jesus’ death and resurrection
Jesus died at the hands of Pontius Pilot and the Roman persecutors given genealogies in the Bible this was about 2,000 years ago approximately 30 A.D. Sources outside of the Bible, Annals of Imperial Rome, Flavius Josephus and other mentions all have mentions of Jesus and note that He lived and died on the cross by crucifixion. His dead body was taken down later.
That is a historical fact, now we get to the part where people like to argue when there shouldn’t be. I will say first that the reason people like to argue is that they do not want to acknowledge the existence of God because if they do they know they have a responsibility for their actions, all of them. But I digress the reason the Bible is true over any other religion or any other belief is because {coined by Dr. Voddie Baucham} The Bible 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 fulfillment of specific prophecies and claim their writings are divine rather than human in origin.
2nd Peters 1:16-21:16 For we did not follow cleverly devised tales when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of His majesty. 17 For when He received honor and glory from God the Father, such an utterance as this was made to Him by the Majestic Glory, “This is My beloved Son with whom I am well-pleased”— 18 and we ourselves heard this utterance made from heaven when we were with Him on the holy mountain.
19 So we have the prophetic word made more sure, to which you do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star arises in your hearts. 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.
Section one: The Bible is a reliable collection of historical documents (2nd Peters 1:16) first of all Peter is saying that there were no myths or fairy tales that were followed when they were witnessing the supernatural, no, they wrote what they saw and were inspired by the Holy Spirit. Peter wants to make sure we know that the things they wrote are events that all transpired and were recorded for us making sure there is no mistake, no confusion among any reader about what is written. So we have a reliable collection of historical documents written down by eyewitnesses during the lifetime of other eyewitnesses.
When we read the Bible we have corroborating eyewitness testimony Paul said in 1st Corinthians 15 that after Jesus resurrected He appeared to Peter then the 12 disciples, then to all the 12 disciples at once and then He appeared to over 500 brethren at one time. Then Paul says these words “Most of whom remain until now”. When 1st Corinthians was written there were over 300 eyewitnesses at least, who were still alive while Paul was writing. And today even the most atheistic scholars date the writing of 1st Corinthians to almost immediately after Jesus death and “supposed” resurrection so first, the hypothesis of some sort of mass hallucination is not true because hallucinations happen to people, not groups and the hypothesis of legendary development, meaning something happened but over time the story changed and became overblown into something greater (like the game of telephone). Yeah, that theory is out the window because 1st Corinthians was written directly after Jesus’ resurrection. What we know is that there are hundreds of people most of whom have no relationship with each other prior who witnessed Jesus at different times and places and also in groups and if I haven’t said it already, most of them don’t know each other. “Most of whom are still living” almost as if Paul is writing saying you go ask them yourself. There were many people who were utterly convinced, without a doubt that they had seen this man Jesus alive interacting with them. Now we have the question: what can account for that? Because we know definitely it happened. No matter what anyone believes it is a historical fact so much as the Punic wars (264 BC to 146 BC) or the Pyrrhic war (280 BC – 275 BC) is a historical fact because of eyewitnesses, writing down exactly what they saw. It is historical fact because there were multiple eyewitnesses most of whom did not know each other writing down corroborating stories and they were collected together. That is what the Bible is a collection of historical documents written down by eyewitnesses in the lifetime of other eyewitnesses. Same as other historical documents I reiterate but reporting the supernatural. Furthermore, the Bible has the answer to the gap of Jesus’ death and then appearances to individuals and then groups at one time of which scholars realize there is no answer without God, the only answer is what the Bible says the resurrection of Jesus. Not only that, the resurrection was prophesied years and years before any of it was even close to happening writers were inspired by the holy spirit and did not know exactly what was going to happen and they wrote not knowing what they were alluding to but it was discovered there was a deeper meaning later by Apostle Paul and others with the fuller picture present. Acts 2.29-32, the story of Jonah and the whale in Hosea 6 and others Nonetheless the fact is, It is historical fact that Jesus died and then rose from the dead three days later. not only so it was prophesied almost 2,000 years before it would happen right there in the Bible. That, in essence, proves the truthfulness of the Bible and because of the events that happened the only way they could have happened is because God supernaturally acted and the Holy Spirit inspired man to take pen to paper and it was written 66 books 3 different languages, Greek Hebrew, Aramaic, 3 Continents Asia, Africa, and Europe, over 40 authors most of whom never met each other, writing over a period of about 1,500 years into one singularly woven story. But there is even more and more fact that continues to prove the Bible true. If your heart is still hard towards God and His mercy I want to go over the only theory or “refutation” of how the bible can possibly exist without God’s hand over it
Conspiracy refutation
There is this myth that the manuscripts that we have now are younger, meaning farther from the event of Jesus’ resurrection and were made to look so by a group of monks who changed the story to look supernatural rather than what the story actually was, so a conspiracy. The fact that we do not have the original manuscripts is what normally ties the theory together. There are 3 main issues with this theory.
Number 1: They would have to have a massive manuscript conspiracy when talking about just the new testament alone there are over 6,000 manuscripts or portions of manuscripts. That may not sound like a lot to you but for example, Julius Caesar’s gallic wars, that is how we know about Caesar’s, conquests we have around 10 manuscripts. Aristotle poetics? We have around just 5 manuscripts, the writings of Hortus? we have less than 10 manuscripts, Homer? Less than 10 manuscripts of all his different writings. But the New Testament? We have over 6,000 manuscripts or portions of manuscripts, nowhere comparable to these other writings. With the Bible, we can get earlier than A.D. 120 with some of the manuscripts but for Julius Caesar’s gallic wars the closest thing we have was written 900 years after the original manuscript but no one is screaming at educators because they are reading Caesar. Aristotle, the closest thing we have was written 1,400 years after the original. When it comes to the New Testament we can put our hands on manuscripts that were written within decades of the original. So if these monks wanted to alter what the Bible says, they would have to find over 6,000 manuscripts and portions, change every single one of them, not show any type of ink work, put them back all were they stole them from and never tell anyone what they did not to mention if there are over 6,000 there aren’t just going to be 3 guys no there would have to be hundreds of people who all collectively would have had told absolutely no one or had it leaked in any way until they all died. That’s just issue number 1.
The second issue, Jesus said in Mark 16:15: And He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation.” Within the first few generations, the Bible was translated into Syriac, Coptic, and Latin, so now these monks on top of finding the 6,000 greek manuscripts changing them and not showing any type of ink work would have to also go out and find manuscripts that were translated into Syriac, Coptic, and Latin, change those to match the lies they told in a different language and then get them back where they were stolen from. That’s issue Number two
Issue number 3 is that early Church fathers nearly unanimously wrote commentary in the New Testament, so much so that if all we had of was the commentary of the New Testament we would be able to reproduce over 95% of it. So somehow these monks would have to find over 6,000 manuscripts and portions of manuscripts steal them change them not show their ink work put them back from where they were stolen from without anyone finding out, find the Syriac, Coptic, and Latin manuscripts change them to match the lies they told in Greek get them back where they stole them from not showing any ink work and without anyone having any clue, then somehow find all of the writings of the early Church fathers change those to match the lies they told in Greek and 3 different languages not show any ink work, get them put back, never let anyone know what they did, and then never ever get caught. God help you if you believe that happened. The Bible 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 fulfillment of specific prophecies and claim their writings are divine rather than human in origin.
So people ask how can we trust the Bible because it was written by man and you can’t trust everything written by a man. By that logic you can’t trust math, Pythagorean theorem, prime number theorem, none of it, it was all written down by a man and thus my Algebra 2 teacher cannot tell me I got a math problem wrong because what he says was written down by man. That’s incorrect, the correct question to ask is, is the text reliable? Is it consistent? And is it corroborated? The Bible written over 3 different languages, Greek, Hebrew, Aramaic, 3 Continents Asia, Africa, and Europe, over 40 authors most of whom never met each other, authors who wrote over a period of approximately 1,500 years into one singularly woven story with absolutely no contradictions. That is 1 reliable, 2 consistent, and 3 corroborated. And that is how we know the Bible is true.
Conclusion
Ultimately you have an understanding of the Bible and about how it is true you may have questions, generations have tried to tear down the Bible as destructive or violence-inducing or maybe even homophobic in other blog posts I will thoroughly go over specific attacks and explain why they are probably misconceptions based on false assumptions. Until then about any of these topics or you think there is a contradiction in the Bible whatever it is, send me an email bkinternationalministries@gmail.com and I’ll have a response for you and a detailed post here later. For people who are of other religions and you are reading this you probably have different feelings right now it’s likely you grew up with that religion and maybe you’re not sure what to do presented with these facts. The Bible says all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God Romans 3:23 there is no way to work off sin by good deeds or anything else the Bible says our good works are of filthy rags, there is nothing we can do to repay our sins and because of that, we cannot be with God in Heaven, but by the sacrifice of Jesus Christ and grace of God we can spend eternity in heaven with God, that is the good news of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. God calls all to repent of his sin, that means to change your mind about sin and what it is and fully realize what Jesus actually did for you. And trust in Jesus as your Lord and savior. Find yourself a quiet place and call out to the name of the Lord, ask Him to reveal Himself to you and in one way or another He will and you will be saved. Get a Bible and read it don’t know where to start? I recommend the 4 Gospels starting there open up to Mathew and start reading find a Pastor at a local Church who will guide you! Just know I am praying for you.
All text was written by Kwabena Duku sourced from God’s expressed word the Bible, among other sources I cite Dr. Voddie Baucham’s sermon on why the Bible is true find it on youtube, RZIM, answersingenesis.org/,gotquestions.org/ and other sources are great resources!
Find me Twitter and Instagram @official_bkim Youtube BKIM (click the youtube icon down below) or email bkinternationalministries@gmail.com
I thought it would be cool to call myself an author lol
Bible Answers by Bra Kwabena 
6 thoughts on “How do we know the Bible is true?”