“I Can’t Trust the Bible”

That statement, or some version of it, is one of the major reasons why people either reject Christianity, refashion it to suit their tastes, or leave the whole concept of “religion” in the realm of comfortable incomprehensibility. But with Easter just behind us, this question comes into sharp focus. The death and resurrection of Jesus is the center of Christianity. Without it, there is no Christianity. We receive the account of the resurrection from the Bible, which many, including myself, believe to be inerrant in its originals. But you don’t even have to go as far as I do in order to consider whether the Bible is reliable. You just have to consider the resurrection of Jesus. So, back to the question: can we trust the Bible? To whet your appetite, let’s look at the question in 5 specific and common ways it’s asked:

1. Can we trust in translations, especially since there are so many different ones?
   Absolutely! The fact that we have so many translations can actually be a wonderful thing. I hate to break it to you, but the Bible wasn’t originally written in ye olde English of His Majestie King Jimmy. It was written in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. But we don’t speak those languages, so we can compare our English translations and see how dedicated scholars worked hard to bring long-dead languages (ancient Hebrew and Greek) into English. There are many faithful ways to say something; think about all the different ways to say “Hello” in English – Hi! Yo! Hey! Howdy! Welcome to Henderson! etc. In fact, reading multiple translations is a good thing.
2. Can we trust that copyists transmitted what the original authors wrote?
   It’s true, we don’t have the actual pieces of papyrus upon which Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Paul, Peter, and Jude wrote. But we have over 5,000 copies of their writings, and many that reach wayyyyy back to within what could be lifespan of the original writings. When you want to protect an important document on your computer, you tell it to save a backup copy. God in his providence has given us thousands, and in those thousands of hand-written copies (imagine how hard that is!) we have a remarkably stable text. There simply isn’t another ancient book in the world with that many copies and consistency. Not Caesar’s Gallic Wars, Livy’s Histories, Homer’s Iliad, or anything else from antiquity has that kind of support. True, there are some minor disagreements among the copies, but the number of copies and the gift of deductive reasoning allows biblical scholars to arrive at confident conclusions about what the Holy Spirit inspired the original authors to write. 
3. Can we be confident that we should read these books instead of others?
   If you’ve read the book or watched the movie The Da Vinci Code, you might have the idea that the Bible was formed when a pagan Roman emperor got a bunch of mean old men together to pick their favorite books out of a sea of “Christian writings.” Not at all! The Old Testament had been settled as Scripture for centuries at that time, and books that make up the New Testament were quickly recognized by the church. The other books that aren’t in your Bible are very different and were written much later. The early Christians didn’t pick the books either – they used words like “received” or “were handed down” to describe how they got them. Just like you didn’t choose your parents but recognized them before you even really knew to do so, the early church came to recognize that the books of the Old and New Testament were the Word of God. In the case of the New Testament, they had great reasons to believe this too – those books were the oldest, endorsed by the apostles (those closest to Jesus), agreed with what was already known to be true, and had been accepted by many churches all over.
4. Can we trust that the original authors are trustworthy?
   Well, they certainly said they were trying to be trustworthy (Luke 1:1-4, John 20:30-31). Also, when you read the Bible, you notice that the authors do things liars wouldn’t be liable to do. The Bible authors make themselves look foolish, and they make claims that could have easily been refuted if they were false.  In places where their stories contain different details, there’s a good reason why. In much the same way that two people witnessing the same event might describe it in factually accurate but quite different ways, so the Biblical authors each involved their own personalities, purposes, and perspectives in their writings. In fact, one way to spot liars is to see if their stories match in an artificial, concocted way. You won’t find that in the Bible. 
5. Can we trust that the authors saw what truly happened?
   Skeptics may say the miracles recorded in Scripture are impossible – after all, it is contrary to all of our experiences to see a person come back to life after being dead for three days! But we can look at that line of thought skeptically too. For the sake of argument, consider this amusing thought: imagine that there’s a penguin in Antarctica who hears from another penguin that there exists a furry marsupial in the Far North who carries its young in a pouch instead of laying eggs and who plays dead instead of swimming in the icy water. The incredulous penguin cannot accept this story and refuses to believe in the existence of possums in rural North Carolina. The penguin is wrong, but his ability to know the truth depends on something beyond himself. His knowledge depends upon either (a) trusting in what he’s been told, (b) someone taking him to the previously mentioned possum, or (c) bringing a possum down to him. Against what can otherwise be known as a fact based upon eyewitness testimony, the penguin chooses to trust his own experience against what has been revealed to him. That’s a faith-judgment. To deny the existence of possums, or miracles, and in particular the resurrection of Jesus, is a leap of faith.

Well, there’s more to it than that, but maybe that’s a helpful encouragement, or at least a start, in taking the Bible seriously. I’m convinced that when you put it all together, there’s not a better explanation than that the Bible is true. Jesus rose from the dead, showed up in-person, and people saw him. And if Jesus rose from the dead, what he says must be taken seriously. Jesus claimed to be the Son of God, who alone can offer forgiveness of sins, a relationship with God, and eternal life. Jesus taught and believed that the Bible was God’s Word, from which not an iota or dot would pass away. When you think about it carefully, willingly, and honestly, you can be confident to rest your life on Him. ^[1]

^[1] Much of this material is adapted from Why Trust the Bible? by Greg Gilbert. For a brief introduction, this work is very helpful, but I (and Gilbert) realize that each of these questions has nuances and sub-questions that merit further conversation. If you’d like to talk more about this, I’d be happy to keep the conversation going!