Can We Trust the Bible? - Episode 13

Can we really trust the Bible? Isn't it just a book of myths and fairy tales? You may surprised to know that there is actually a ton of evidence to back up the reliability of the Bible.

...Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who ask you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect...

1 Peter 3:15

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:13

Can we trust the Bible? Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Reason Why podcast. Here we learn what Christians believe, why they believe it, and whether we can know if it's true or not. We've just wrapped up book two of Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis in our chapter-by-chapter study. And before we move into book three, where Lewis shifts into Christian behavior, I want to pause and talk about something foundational and also really cool. Because throughout the last five chapters, we've referred to something more than once that is actually a really big deal. How can we know that the Bible is reliable? We've talked about or we've mentioned the eyewitness accounts, the historical record, the reliability of what Jesus said and did. And at some point, especially if you're skeptical or just intellectually honest, you might ask, okay, but can we actually trust the Bible? And that's what today is about. Let's zoom out for just a second and recap. In book one, Lewis claims that there's a real moral law. Humans consistently fail to live up to it, that moral law points to a moral lawgiver. In book two, he argues that the world is not the way it's supposed to be. In fact, it has been invaded. Christianity is the most reasonable view to have of the world, and that this lawgiver entered history in the person of Jesus. But all of that hinges on one massive question. Are the accounts of Jesus reliable? Because if the documents are legendary, exaggerated, or corrupted over time, then the whole argument can collapse. So before we move forward, we need to determine is the Bible historically trustworthy? So what do we mean by the reliability of the Bible? Well, first let's clarify something. When we talk about the reliability of the Bible, we're not talking about our feelings about what's in the Bible. We're asking things like: were these documents written close to the time of the events? Were they based on eyewitness testimony? Were they accurately preserved? Did they align with history? What about with archaeology? And that's how historians evaluate ancient documents. And the books of the New Testament actually hold up remarkably well to those standards. Okay, what we call the four gospels, that's the first four books of the New Testament, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, are basically ancient biographies of Jesus. The book of Acts, after the Gospels, continues the story of the early church and was written by a professional historian. Now, not all four Gospel writers were direct eyewitnesses in the same way. Matthew and John were disciples of Jesus and personally walked side by side with him, so they did witness everything directly. Mark is closely tied to Peter's firsthand testimony. Essentially, Mark was Peter's scribe and confidant because not everyone knew how to write or write well in those times. Now, Luke explicitly states he carefully investigated eyewitness testimonies. He's the professional historian who gathered numerous eyewitness testimonies from the three decades of Jesus' life and the believers afterwards. He was physically present for the growth and expansion of the Christian church after Jesus. So he's an eyewitness to all of that. And fun fact, Luke was also a physician, so very interesting man. At the beginning of Luke's gospel, he said he compiled his account from eyewitness testimonies so that readers could know the certainty of what they had been taught. That's not myth language, that's investigative reporting language. Speaking of investigative reporting, Lee Strobel was a successful investigative journalist for more than a decade and also an atheist. When his wife became a Christian, he set out to prove her and the Bible, specifically the eyewitness accounts and the gospels, wrong. He utilized his particular set of skills to break it all down methodically. And at the end, he couldn't deny the scripture's reliability. He had to become a Christian. His book, The Case for Christ, is awesome. Maybe we'll do it on the next season of this podcast. There's also a movie adaptation, and he's written many, many more books. But plug over, seriously though, really great content coming from Lee. But let's talk about what makes an eyewitness account accurate. Well, when historians are evaluating eyewitness testimony, they look for things like proximity to the event. So how close were they to the thing they're claiming they saw? If you are claiming that you heard what someone said, your accuracy will be significantly different if you were right next to them versus 200 yards away. Secondly, they look for multiple independent sources. If there's only one eyewitness, it's not going to be as reliable than if there were, say, four. Because then you can cross-reference those, you can compare them to each other, and though they all may differ in slight ways, you can get a clear picture of what really happened. Thirdly, this one was interesting to me, the inclusion of embarrassing and difficult details. So if you're inventing a religion, you don't write yourself as cowardly or confused. But the gospels include things like Peter denying Jesus and the disciples misunderstanding him constantly or being scared. Also, they include women as the first witnesses to the resurrection, which in the first century Jewish world was not a strategic move if you were fabricating a story. Next, historians will look at cultural and geographical accuracy. These accounts in the Bible contain specific names, locations, and cultural details that have been repeatedly confirmed through archaeology and other historical writings, not affiliated with Christianity. Fifth and lastly, a lack of legendary embellishment over time. Think American Tall Tales, like John Bunyan and his giant blue ox. So these accounts are not fairy tales that begin with once upon a time. They're accurately anchored in time and place. Another major factor is how early these documents were written. Most scholars, even non-Christian scholars, date the Gospels within the first century, well within the lifetime of the eyewitnesses. That means if something wildly inaccurate had been written down and started to circulate, people who were alive at the time could and would have challenged it. And that means that we're not dealing with this person told this person and then they told this person and so on and so on for several hundred years until someone finally wrote it down. We're talking about the actual people that lived through this wrote it down, either themselves or a hired professional scribe, before all the details got hazy or lost or twisted in time. And then there's manuscript evidence. So compared to other ancient works like those of Plato, Tacitus, and Homer, the New Testament has an astonishing number of early manuscript copies. We're not dealing with one fragile document copied centuries later. We're dealing with thousands of manuscripts, many remarkably early, that allow scholars to cross-check and reconstruct the original text with high confidence. And that's because what the churches would do when they received a letter from Paul or Peter or whoever, they would make a professional copy of it, probably more than one, and then send the letter on to the next church so that everyone could benefit. What this practice did unknowingly for us is that it left us with so many copies to compare. And what we find is that while the might be used instead of a or something insignificant like that, these copies match. And it means that if and when, because it did happen, that a forgery or false claim or letter tried to come on the scene, the churches were able to spot it quickly and easily and boot it out of there. Not only that, but many of these church leaders had met and knew the author of the letters, so they would know if something was off. In terms of textual transmission, the New Testament is one of the best attested ancient documents in existence. Now let's talk about archaeological discoveries, and I'll try not to geek out too much on this. Archaeology continues to confirm details in the biblical record. Cities once thought fictional have been uncovered. Political figures mentioned in passing have been verified. Cultural practices described in the text match what we know of time. Now, archaeology doesn't prove everything, but it consistently affirms that the writers knew what they were talking about when it came to real places, real people, and real events. They were writing real accounts, telling real-life stories, not mythology and fiction. Archaeological discoveries show that they were rooted in history. One of my favorites is the site of Mamre. We read about it in Genesis in the story of Abraham. The Bible tells us that Abraham built an altar to the Lord at Mamre. And archaeologists have since discovered this very site and can see how it was set apart and protected and honored throughout centuries and millennia. That just wouldn't happen if Abraham was just a myth. Here's one from Jesus' lifetime. The site of the Church of the Annunciation in the city of Nazareth. Annunciation means announcement. So this modern-day church is built on the site where the angel Gabriel told Mary that she would give birth to the Messiah, Jesus. Now, this site is so fascinating. They have uncovered layer upon layer of buildings. And from the top down, there's a modern Christian church. The next layer is a Christian church from 1730 that got destroyed in 1954. The next layer down was a church that the Crusaders built in the 1100s. Then under that is a church from the Byzantine period during the first millennia. The second to the last layer is where it gets really good. Archaeologists can tell that the building was a Judeo-Christian synagogue, meaning they were Jews that worshiped Jesus as Messiah. It dates from 100 BC to 600 BC. So then the very earliest layer that they have discovered under that was a first-century house. Absolutely nothing special, fitting with what we know about Mary, that she was a poor Jewish girl from a small town in Galilee. And it's so cool. It makes perfect sense. We know Luke was a historian and interviewed Mary later in her life. They would have known where her house was or the location of where she got this announcement from the angel Gabriel. And it would have been a special place to early Christians. So I promised I wouldn't geek out too long. So moving on, another layer, and we'll only touch on this briefly because I want to keep this episode short, is prophecy. The Old Testament contains many, many descriptions, details, and prophecies of Jesus, the Messiah, and his coming to earth, and also his second coming when he will judge the world. There's actually more prophecies about that. But it also has prophecies of kingdoms, empires, and other historical events centuries before they actually happened. Now, prophecy is a bigger conversation and topic than we can fully explore today, but it's another piece of the cumulative case of why we can trust the validity of the Bible. So why does this matter? Because if the Bible is historically reliable, especially regarding Jesus, then we can't dismiss him as legend or just another interesting character from history. We may reject him, we may wrestle with him, but we can't casually brush him off as a myth. And that's exactly why Lewis felt justified in pushing readers and listeners toward a decision. He wasn't asking people to take a blind leap or have blind faith. But he believed the evidence supported the claim. Now here's where we're headed next. In book three, Lewis shifts from is Christianity true? to if it is true, how should we live? And that's where many may want to tune out. Because behavior, morality, holiness, it can start to sound restrictive. But here's what I want to say before we go there. Christian behavior isn't about rule keeping to earn God's love, it's about transformation. It's about what happens when the moral lawgiver actually changes you from the inside out. If Christianity is true, then it doesn't just explain reality. It reshapes humanity. So even if you're skeptical, I'd encourage you not to tune out when we start talking about behavior. Because Lewis doesn't start with try harder. He starts with what kind of creature you were meant to become. So before we move forward, here's the question I'll leave you with. If the Bible is historically credible, if the eyewitness accounts hold weight, if the documents have been carefully preserved. What do you do with that? We'll keep building from there. Next episode, we will begin book three and step into what Lewis calls Christian behavior. And I assure you, it it's not what most people expect. Thanks for listening today. You can find more resources and content on my website and social media pages at Seek Truth Here. If this was helpful, share with someone who's curious or skeptical because the truth is worth knowing and sharing. I'll see you next time. God bless.