Mankind has asked, “Is The Bible Trustworthy?” or similar questions for thousands of years. To know if something is trustworthy or not, it is wise to consider not only what it appears to be today but also be aware of its verifiable history.
What were the earliest languages and written translations of the biblical scrolls? Many Pastors and umpteen Deacons could probably answer that with a fair degree of accuracy. But the rest of us may have only been able to conjure obscure ideas on this topic. Was the Bible written in one of those “dead” languages, like ancient Greek? Maybe even Latin, perhaps? What was the original written language, and how did today’s Bible come to be what it is?
The Bible is essentially a history of spiritual matters and prophecies fulfilled and those to be consummated in the future. Even those who wrote the Bible made it clear it was not meant to be a secular chronicle, even though secular events are frequently referenced. It is a book about God and his relationship with man. Our Bible has two main parts, the Old Testament and the New Testament. Both of those are composed of several books cobbled together by several different authors. The Bible is the amalgamated result of many scrolls revealing the Old and New Testament books. Among all the works ever written, the Bible has the most remarkable qualities. Within the thirty-nine Old Testament and twenty-seven New Testament Books, there is a unity of the overall message despite having forty (or so) authors writing over a period of roughly 2,000 years. These sixty-six books were written in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. Writing from prisons, palaces, and wilderness camps, the authors had wide-ranging professions. They were trailblazers, shepherds, kings, physicians, fishermen and even a despised, most likely corrupt tax collector.
Despite its wide variety of themes and contributors, the Bible exhibits an internal consistency that reinforces the various theological messages.
Originally, the Oral Law of the Jews was not transcribed on scroll or papyrus. Instead, it was passed by word of mouth from father to son or taught by a male teacher to the students. Ancient Hebrew is a Semitic language that dates back past 1500 BC. Its alphabet consisted of 22 characters, all of which were consonants. Don’t worry; vowels were eventually added. Hebrew was the tongue of the ancient Israelites and is written from right to left. How the Word of God has traveled through languages and cultures is simply amazing.
As far as written languages are concerned, non-biblical cuneiform and Egyptian hieroglyphs were used thousands of years before Jesus walked this earth. The Sumerians from Mesopotamia developed a system of writing called cuneiform and quickly began keeping records of many aspects of their lives. Not long after, the Egyptians began using hieroglyphics and also kept extensive records. Many of these ancient records survived and have been translated. Cuneiform markings are one of the earliest records of writing, distinguished by its wedge-shaped marks on clay tablets, made through the tip of a blunt reed used as a stylus.
Judah ha-Nasi, a 2nd century Rabbi, warned because of the Exile and continuing persecution of the Jews that the details of the Jewish oral traditions would be forgotten if not recorded. He, therefore, assembled the scholars of his generation and compiled his known collection of oral teachings. This 1st Century AD written collection is called the Mishnah.
If you research Biblegateway dot com on the internet, you will find there are more than fifty versions of the Bible available. While I frequently utilize several of them in my research, the New King James Version is my preference.
So, let's study the modern NKJV Bible reflected against three standards of trustworthiness:
Is the Bible Historically Faithful?
Is the Bible Scientifically Correct?
Have Biblical Prophecies Been Fulfilled?
Is the Bible Historically Faithful?
The Bible was not written to be a history book, it was written to tell us of God's plans and handiwork from before the very beginnings of our earth. Even so, within the Old Testament scripture, a substantial number of historical facts are presented.
Up until the latter portion of the 19th century, some scholars ridiculed the idea that Moses wrote the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible. These “expert” scholars scoffed, “In the days of Moses men didn't know how to write. So how could he have written the Pentateuch?” However, in 1887, in northern Egypt, a few of the Tell el-Amarna Tablets were discovered by a lady tilling her garden. Others searched for and gathered up more of the clay tablets and sold them to antiquities dealers. When a more structured search was conducted, a total of 382 tablets were unearthed.
Cuneiform was mainly used for records of assets like cattle and grains or other items of intrinsic value. Hieroglyphs were mainly used to report tales of Egyptian kings and their self-proclaimed status as gods. Accounts from Egyptian pharaohs were written by scribes and sent out. Return tablets were received from the kings of Assyria, Babylonia, and Cyprus, and other outlying governmental officials, but the majority corresponding tablets came from rulers in Syria and the eastern Mediterranean coastal areas during a brief 25-year span in mid-century, thirteen hundred BC.
In other words, centuries before Moses was born. Not only did a wide range of people of many nationalities know how to write, but also they had a form of transportation service that allowed them to correspond back and forth. Moses, raised as a prince in the royal family, would certainly have been educated enough to have the capability to write the Pentateuch. This also proves the opinions of “experts” could be wrong. In fact, in the Old Testament Book of Daniel, a story was written that mentioned “the handwriting on the wall.”
A Smithsonian Department of Anthropology report referring not to spiritual teachings but actual accounts of history documented in other ways, said, “Much of the Bible, in particular, the books of the old testament are as accurate of historical documents as any we derive from antiquity and are in fact more accurate than many of the Egyptian, Mesopotamian, or Greek histories. These Biblical records can be and are used as are other ancient documents in archaeological work. For the most part, the historical events described took place, and the people mentioned really existed. This is not to say that names of all peoples and places mentioned can be identified today. Nor does this say that every event reported in historical books happened exactly as stated.”
Dr. George Stuart, the National Geographic Society staff archaeologist, said, “Archaeologists do indeed find the Bible a valuable reference tool and use it many times for geographical relationships, old names, and relative chronologies.”
Sodom and Gomorrah, located on the plain of Jordan, are prime examples of God’s wrath recorded in the Old Testament. Their destruction has been categorized as a mere myth or fable of two cities razed to the ground. Because they were so sinful, their names become shorthand for places or actions that are wickedly irredeemable. Genesis 19:24 reports: Then the Lord rained brimstone and fire on Sodom and Gomorrah, from the Lord out of the heavens. Those cities were destroyed by fire from heaven in the time of Abraham and Lot. The city's wickedness and destruction became proverbial warnings to those who reject the gospel, so says (Matthew 10:1, 2 Peter 2:6; and Jude 1:7).
For centuries, scholars and skeptics alike argued that Sodom and Gomorrah never actually existed. If they had, their catastrophic destruction would have been recorded in secular documents outside the Bible. In fact, their total devastation was recorded by an Assyrian who inscribed the entire event on a clay tablet. That tablet baffled translators until scientists filled in the missing piece of the puzzle in 2008. The clay “Planisphere” tablet, inscribed around 700 BC, is in the Nineveh library of the Assyrian royal palace.
That tablet describes the travels of a massive meteor that streaked a trail of fire and smoke through the Earth’s atmosphere before exploding in the air or actually striking the ground. The land beneath the meteor’s destruction was super-heated to temperatures some scientists believe were comparable to the surface of the sun. To make matters worse, the explosion of the asteroid would have sent flaming chunks of rock crashing down onto cities near the Dead Sea and forced a wave of super-salty water out of the Dead Sea and over the once-fertile fields. Crops will not grow in high-salinity soils.
As recently as April 20, 2022, under a layer of ancient earth, archaeologists claim to have found evidence of an apocalyptic event: Fused and melted rooftops housed disintegrated pottery. The clay pottery archaeologists unearthed had been heat-blasted to the point that it became almost glass-like. The unusual patterns in the previously liquefied rock formations, associated with intense heat, caused 100 acres of soil to lay fallow and unproductive. For another three to six centuries after 1650 B.C., the settlement’s 100 acres lay fallow.
When Steven Collins, the senior archaeologist at Tall el-Hammam, considered all the discovered evidence, he stated that the incineration matched the geographical area and timing of the Bible's account of Sodom and Gomorrah. His statements, though backed up by facts, caused his opinion to be the center of an academic hell-storm.
Some people who like to debate against the Bible go ballistic when new evidence is found that opposes their published or publicly held speculations.
Certainly, there are many additional examples that the Bible is historically faithful, but let's now segue to studying if the Bible can be viewed as scientifically correct?
Is the Bible Scientifically Correct?
In ancient days, there was no scientific way to confirm biblical scrolls were the true Word of God. In later years, because the Bible was viewed as a collection of myths and fables, it was generally assumed that it contained no scientific facts. How often have you heard on the nightly news that we should “follow the science?”
God's Word does not change! But, bear in mind, many of the “scientific facts” of yesterday have been eradicated by modern day discoveries. Science is constantly changing. Let's review a few examples.
One of the most fundamental scientific facts that you and I should agree on is that our earth is constantly revolving around our sun, and our entire planetary system is but a small part of our galaxy, which, as a unit, moves through space. Ancient astronomers did not know this. The Egyptians praying to false gods used to believe the earth was supported by pillars. The Greeks believed the world was carried on the back of a giant whose name was Atlas. And the Hindus believed something even more ridiculous—that the earth was resting on the backs of gigantic elephants. That was the science of those bygone eras!
But the Bible, without the assistance of any modern day devices, was very scientifically correct. Perhaps one of the oldest piece of biblical literature known to man is Job. Job 26:7 reads, He (God) stretches out the north over empty space; He hangs the earth on nothing.
Nowadays, we also take for granted that the earth is round. But that was not always the case. Even as late as the 1492 seafaring journey of Christopher Columbus, people did not think that the earth was round. Yet, Isaiah, in a portion of 40:22, wrote “. . . it is He who sits above the circle of the earth.” Proverbs 8:27-33 says something similar, “When He prepared the heavens, I was there, When He drew a circle on the face of the deep, When He established the clouds above, When He strengthened the fountains of the deep, When He assigned to the sea its limit, So that the waters would not transgress His command, When He marked out the foundations of the earth, Then I was beside Him as a master craftsman; And I was daily His delight, Rejoicing always before Him, Rejoicing in His inhabited world, And my delight was with the sons of men.”
Those were mighty insightful and inspirational verses, considering they were written more than nine centuries before Christ was born of the Virgin.
The number of stars in our galaxy is beyond our ability to calculate. You and I would think it absurd to try to count the stars, for there are hundreds and thousands of millions and billions of stars! No fool would ever dare try to count the stars—now! But, around 140 BC, there was one man, who after a full night of study, counted all the stars. Or so he had thought. This man's name was Hipparchus, and he was the leading astronomer of his era. His study resulted in his tabulation of 1,022 stars, after which he charted them. That was “modern” science back then! For 250 years, his findings were accepted as accurate, then along came Ptolemy who said, “Only 1,022 stars? How absurd—there are 1,056 stars.” His count was then touted as the “gospel” of astronomy.
A mere 150 years after the new world was discovered, a young Italian astronomer, physicist and engineer named Galileo di Vincenzo proved Ptolemy wrong. In the spring of 1609, he heard that an instrument had been invented in the Netherlands showing distant things as though they were nearby. By trial and error, he quickly figured out the secret of that invention and made his own three-powered spyglass from lenses acquired at a nearby spectacle maker's shop. Though crude, when his telescope was turned to the heavens, there were more stars than he could count. Once again, old science was superseded by new technology.
So had Hipparchus, Ptolemy, and Galileo read Jeremiah 33:22 they could have learned: “As the host of heaven cannot be numbered, nor the sand of the sea measured, so will I multiply the descendants of David, my servant, and the Levites who minister to Me.”
Job says the earth floats in space and Jeremiah says you can't count the number of stars. Why not trust the Bible? There is no science that can save your soul. Only the blood of Jesus Christ can!
But blood, our blood, is another thing the scientific experts of the past got wrong. We take for granted that our blood pulses from our hearts throughout our bodies. As the heart beats, it pumps blood through our circulatory system of blood vessels. This vast system, over 60,000 miles in total length, pumps blood to the tips of our extremities and back again to the heart.
However, it wasn't until 1628 that William Harvey, MD, discovered that the blood circulates throughout the body. A study of the heart will reveal that blood carries nutrients and oxygen to fuel each one of our estimated 10 trillion individual cells. Then our blood fights disease and maintains our body at a relatively constant temperature. This detailed knowledge of our circulatory system was derived only recently. In days past, when someone got sick, it was “bad blood” that got the blame. Often, sick people's blood would be bled out in order to attempt to make them well. Sometimes they would put leeches on them to suck the blood, as people thought they needed to be rid of the bad blood to be healed. That's why outside many olden butcher's shops (“butcher's shops” is not a typo of barber shops) there was a pole striped red, white, and blue signifying the letting of blood as a “medical” procedure. Red for the color of blood, blue being the color of many veins, and the white stripe represented bandages.
Can you envision draining a few pints of a person's blood to cure them? Well, it is still a method practiced today both in enlightened and primitive countries. Also, you may remember hearing how George Washington died? The father of our country was so sick that he was bled three times by his “expert” physicians. They bled him to death! Today, George would have received a blood transfusion and probably would have lived a few years longer. As far as science goes, verse 14 of Leviticus 17 was far ahead of its day when it stated: “For it [blood] is the life of all flesh. Its blood sustains its life.”
Within this paper, we barely nick the surface of the many medical and scientific truths contained in the Bible. The Bible is truly a Godsend and has always proved itself to be ahead of man's knowledge! Isn't it wonderful that the Bible and modern science don't always agree—for science changes, but God remains constant!
Have Biblical Prophecies Been Fulfilled?
The third reason we can know the Bible is trustworthy is to review the biblical prophecies that have been fulfilled.
From a small town outside Jerusalem, an 8th century BC prophet had the courage to come forward and chastise the sinful, “big city” people of Jerusalem. Now, we all know how receptive the sophisticated, smart population of a large thriving metropolis is to receiving advice from a countrified outsider. Like the other prophets, Hosea and Amos, Micah a minor prophet boldly proclaimed how harsh judgments from God would fall upon Samaria and Jerusalem due to their sinful ways. All this proved to be true, as evidenced by secular history and the Bible. But he also told them God's grace would provide restoration and Jerusalem would become divinely great. Even though that city prospers now, in the future it will be God's hometown.
However, Micah's most significant prophecy was announced more than 700 years before Jesus Christ was born. Micah 5:2 speaks plainly of the coming Messiah. “But you, Bethlehem Ephratah, though you are little among the thousands of Judah, Yet out of you shall come forth to Me the One to be Ruler in Israel, Whose goings forth are from of old, From everlasting.”
As awesome as it was when Micah predicted the birthplace of Jesus, it was far from the first prophecy about Jesus. Genesis 3:15, with God speaking to the serpent, it is told; the Messiah, would be born of a woman: And I will put enmity between you and the woman, And between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, And you shall bruise His heel.”
Isaiah 7:14 of 685 BC, prophesied the Messiah would be born of a virgin: Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call His name Emmanuel. Isaiah 53:5 also proclaimed the Messiah would be mistreated and become a sacrifice for our sins. “But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; The chastisement for our peace was upon Him, And by His stripes we are healed.”
The Book of Malachi, of 430 BC, the last of 12 books of the Hebrew Bible, prophesied that a messenger would precede Christ. Chapter 3, verse 1 states, “Behold, I send My messenger, And he will prepare the way before Me. And the Lord, whom you seek, Will suddenly come to His temple, Even the Messenger of the covenant, In whom you delight. Behold, He is coming.” When you consider how opposed to Jesus Christ the Jewish priests of His time, this prophecy is even more earth-shaking.
Not all the prophecies were as grandiose as those. Zechariah 9:9, of 520 BC, provided a minor detail many might think of as so insignificant it was unforeseeable. “Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your King is coming to you; He is just and having salvation, Lowly and riding on a donkey, A colt, the foal of a donkey. And Psalm 69:21 foretold; They also gave me gall for my food, And for my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.
Who, without divine intervention, could foresee and fore speak Psalm 22:18, which said: They divide My garments among them, And for My clothing they cast lots.
Actually, Psalm 22, written by David a thousand years before the birth of Christ, when read in its entirety, describes the crucifixion of Jesus Christ written from the viewpoint of Christ or a man standing at the foot of the cross. Throughout the passage, we read about the sufferings—and praises of the crucified Messiah. So, I present Psalm 22 below in its entirety:
My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me? Why are You so far from helping Me, And from the words of My groaning? O My God, I cry in the daytime, but You do not hear; And in the night season, and am not silent.
But You are holy, Enthroned in the praises of Israel. Our fathers trusted in You; They trusted, and You delivered them. They cried to You, and were delivered; They trusted in You, and were not ashamed.
But I am a worm, and no man; A reproach of men, and despised by the people. All those who see Me ridicule Me; They shoot out the lip, they shake their head, saying, “He trusted in the Lord, let Him rescue Him; Let Him deliver Him, since He delights in Him!”
But You are He who took Me out of the womb; You made Me trust while on My mother’s breasts. I was cast upon You from birth. From My mother’s womb You have been My God. Be not far from Me, For trouble is near; For there is none to help.
Many bulls have surrounded Me; Strong bulls of Bashan have encircled Me. They gape at Me with their mouths, Like a raging and roaring lion.
I am poured out like water, And all My bones are out of joint; My heart is like wax; It has melted within Me. My strength is dried up like a potsherd, And My tongue clings to My jaws; You have brought Me to the dust of death.
For dogs have surrounded Me; The congregation of the wicked has enclosed Me. They pierced My hands and My feet; I can count all My bones. They look and stare at Me. They divide My garments among them, And for My clothing they cast lots.
But You, O Lord, do not be far from Me; O My Strength, hasten to help Me! Deliver Me from the sword, My precious life from the power of the dog. Save Me from the lion’s mouth And from the horns of the wild oxen! You have answered Me.
I will declare Your name to My brethren; In the midst of the assembly I will praise You. You who fear the Lord, praise Him! All you descendants of Jacob, glorify Him, And fear Him, all you offspring of Israel! For He has not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted; Nor has He hidden His face from Him; But when He cried to Him, He heard.
My praise shall be of You in the great assembly; I will pay My vows before those who fear Him. The poor shall eat and be satisfied; Those who seek Him will praise the Lord. Let your heart live forever!
All the ends of the world Shall remember and turn to the Lord, And all the families of the nations Shall worship before You. For the kingdom is the Lord’s, And He rules over the nations.
All the prosperous of the earth Shall eat and worship; All those who go down to the dust Shall bow before Him, Even he who cannot keep himself alive.
A posterity shall serve Him. It will be recounted of the Lord to the next generation,They will come and declare His righteousness to a people who will be born, That He has done this.
This one psalm contains dozens and dozens of specific prophecies fulfilled at Calvary's Cross, even though, when David wrote this psalm—stoning was the form of Jewish capital punishment, not crucifixion.
But many other important prophecies, ones that light the perfect path of salvation for all believers are also revealed in the Old Testament. For example, Psalm 16:10 and Psalm 49:15 predict Christ would be resurrected from the dead. Psalm 24:7-10 foretold the Messiah would ascend to heaven, and Psalm 110:1 foretold the Messiah would be seated at God's right hand.
The Bible stands alone as the most important book ever written. Both the Old Testament and the New Testament tells us that long before the world began, God had planned that the crucifixion of Jesus would be the complete and final eraser of our sin and He is the only payment that would reconcile all believers, sinful though they be, to a holy and loving God.
1 Peter 1:19-20, “He paid for you with the precious lifeblood of Christ, the sinless, spotless Lamb of God. God chose Him for this purpose long before the world began, but now in these final days, He was sent to the earth for all to see. And He did this for you.”
Down through history, God has used the Bible to provide a road map towards redemption. He foretold various signs and miracles through many prophets. These prophets spoke of things that mankind should watch for so that all humanity could recognize and believe in both God Almighty and Jesus Christ. These prophecies were given to us in the Old Testament section of the Bible written before Jesus was born on earth. All the Old Testament books were completed before 420 BC, hundreds of years before Jesus. In fact, they offer more than sixty details about the Messiah in nearly 200 prophecies which were fulfilled by Jesus Christ through His life, death and resurrection.
The New Testament was scribed and compiled after the death of Jesus Christ. Archaeologists have found thousands of scrolls. In terms of historical reliability, the Bible is superior to other ancient writings because its reliable historical verification and accuracy lifts the Bible above any other recorded book.
The Bible is miraculous and offers reliable evidence of God's Word. God gave us these prophecies to build our faith and point the way to His Son. The Bible's overall purpose is to reveal the majesty and the glory of God! The Bible has one overall theme—redemption through salvation by the Lord Jesus.
The narrative of Jesus Christ’s crucifixion, burial, and resurrection forms the backbone of the Christian faith. Without Christ’s death, there would have been no resurrection, and without His resurrection, there would be no reason to believe in Christianity. Consequently, there is great importance in proving or disproving that the Gospel accounts of His death and resurrection are completely straightforward.
Luke 24:44-47 tells us of the Scriptures being opened to the eyes, ears, hearts, and minds of the disciples. Christ said to them, “These are the words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things must be fulfilled which were written in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms concerning Me.” And He opened their understanding, that they might comprehend the Scriptures. Then He said to them, “Thus it is written, and thus it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day, and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.
Often, in today's world, a lot of our information comes from sources that are not credible. As far as the Bible books go, many of the writers were actual eyewitnesses and two writers, James and Jude were thought to be half-brothers of Jesus Christ Himself as they were born of Mary through the seed of Joseph.
Today, Bibles are readily available in virtually every spoken language in the world. In its beginning, that was not so. Those Old Testament and New Testament prophecies, often in magnificent detail, mark the Bible as not only trustworthy, but prove the Bible is the inspired Word of God. The prophesied events of this world, plus all that was fore-written about Christ could only be predicted and accomplished by God.
And, thank God, the best is yet to come!
The End.
