Is The Bible Trustworthy: Part 1

Is the Bible trustworthy? Throughout the ages, skeptics and believers alike have questioned the integrity of the Bible. While their reasons for doing so may vary, the result is always evident. The Bible maintains its trustworthiness. You may be wondering how this is so—when people like Richard Dawkins, a leading figure of New Atheism, criticized the Bible as “a chaotically cobbled-together anthology of disjoined documents, composed, revised, translated, distorted and “improved” by hundreds of anonymous authors, editors, and copyists, unknown to us and mostly unknown to each other, spanning nine centuries.”[1] Dawkins’ remarks, though harsh as it may be, point to some significant questions that need answering. In this blog, I will provide a brief history of the Bible and the integrity of its manuscripts. 

What is the Bible?

Wegner, the author of The Journey From Texts to Translations, defines the Bible as “a collection of books that have been considered authoritative by the Christian church and have been used to determine its beliefs and doctrines.”[2] The Christian Bible is comprised of a total of 66 books written by over 40 authors. Jerome, the renowned 4th-century monk responsible for translating the Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek texts into Latin, referred to the Bible as “the divine library.” The Bible employs a wide range of literary styles, such as metaphor, narrative, letters, poetry, and more. Authors of Scripture hail from a diversity of backgrounds, including one gentile writer, Luke. Some authors, such as Amos were a simple farmer, while others, like Daniel, were statesmen with power only second to the king. The Bible's unique composition in authorship, location, and literary style make it not simply a collection of ancient writings but a composition of divine origin.[3] 

What Does the Word Bible Mean?

The term Bible is a derivative of the English word Scripture. The term Bible is also a later translation of the Latin word biblion (book), another deviation of byblos, which also means papyrus. In ancient times, papyrus, a common reed plant of the Nile River, was used to construct a form of writing paper that was rolled up into a scroll. The maximum length for a scroll was 33 feet, as confirmed by a scroll discovered at the archeology site of Qumran. 

As techniques in scroll-making advanced, sheets of papyrus were stacked upon each other and folded in the middle making for a book or codex. Originally, the word codex referred to a tree trunk, and then later, it referred to tablets of wood that were bound together to create a book. It was later discovered that using parchment (animal skin) was the best alternative to creating books because of its lightweight and durability in comparison to wood and papyrus.[4]  

Is The Bible A Difficult Book to Believe?

Contrary to what skeptics and some Christians may say about the believability of the Bible, the Bible is actually not that difficult. It is only difficult to believe when people try to make the Bible do things it wasn’t meant to do.[5]. For example, demand the Bible give precise scientific descriptions of celestial events or demand the Bible conform to modern-day standards of grammatical correctness. The Bible was written in ancient times by men inspired by God. In 2 Peter 1:21, it says, “No prophecy has ever been produced by the will of man but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.”Now the consensus regarding the definition of inspired varies among Christians. For myself, I lean towards the Verbal Plenary Theory because it makes the most sense bibically. Below, I have provided Robert L. Plummer’s theories of inspiration as defined in his book 40 Questions About Interpreting The Bible.

The Intuition Theory: According to this view, the writers of the Bible exhibit a natural religious intuition that is also found in other great philosophical or religious thinkers, such as Confucius or Plato. 

The Illumination Theory: This view holds that the Spirit of God in some way objectively impressed himself upon the consciousness of the biblical writers but not in a way that is essentially different from the way the Spirit communicates with all of humanity. Only in degrees is the Spirit’s influence different, not in kind. 

The Dynamic Theory: This view asserts that God gave definite, specific impressions or concepts to the biblical authors but that he allowed the writers to communicate those concepts in their own words. That is, the exact phrasing of Scripture is due to human choice, while the main tenor of the content is determined by God.

The Dictation Theory. This view holds that God dictated the exact words to the human authors. Like court stenographers, the authors of Scripture exercised no human volition in the composition of their writings. 

The Verbal Plenary Theory: This view asserts that there is a dual authorship to the Scriptures. While the authors of the Bible wrote as thinking, feeling human beings, God so mysteriously superintended the process that every word written was also the exact word he wanted to be written—free from all error.

Each word in the Bible is the word of a conscious human author and, at the same time, the exact word that God intends for the revelation of himself.[6]

How Do We Know the Manuscript Evidence Is True and Accurate?

In 1974, a shepherd discovered a set of ancient scrolls in Qumran, an area adjacent to the Dead Sea, hence its name, the Dead Sea Scrolls. These scrolls were dated between 200 B.C. and 70 A.D., making their discovery the oldest scrolls of the Bible to date. Prior to this, the oldest manuscripts of the Old Testament were the Leningrad Codex and the Aleppo Codex, which were dated to around 1000 A.D. The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls proved the integrity of the text’s transmission. According to Dr. Howe, professor of Old Testament Interpretation at Boyce College, “95% of the manuscripts we have of the Old Testament were in the Dead Sea Scrolls.”[7]

Interestingly enough, the process by which the manuscripts were copied shows the meticulous standards for its transmission. In the Hebrew Bible, scribes would provide a list of statistics at the end of each book. These statistics mentioned how many words and verses were in a book. They even noted the verse that marked the midway point of the book. Furthermore, the scribes would add notes to the side margin. These notes would document if a word was spelled abnormally, with comments from the scribe about it. These scribal remarks showed the careful process that scribes took to preserve the accuracy and reliability of the text. 

In the New Testament manuscripts, there is a mountain of evidence surrounding the reliability of the text. The Greek New Testament alone has over 5,700 manuscripts. This does not include the other 23,000 New Testament manuscripts written in Latin and Syriac. When we compare the New Testament manuscripts to other ancient manuscripts such as the Homer’s Iliad, the Homer’s Iliad only has 700 manuscripts.[8] This means that the more manuscripts there are of a book, the more evidence there is to verify the integrity of the text. While this wealth of evidence is staggering, this is not the only means by which we can trust the Bible. 

According to Pauline theology, the natural man cannot accept the things of God (1 Corinthians 2:14) and needs the Holy Spirit to illuminate God's truth to us (1 Corinthians 2:13). Today, we can see the truth of these passages played out in non-Christians who are scholars of the Bible but have no knowledge of God's truth and cannot accept it as truth. Dr. Howe says, "It's the Spirit of God that convinces us that it's true and accurate, and while we may have a lot of tangible evidence, this is certainly less tangible, but it's no less important to how we know the Bible is true." [9] It is also important to remember that the Bible is no regular book but a book of divine origin that can only be fully understood by the Holy Spirit's power. The Bible is a spiritual book, and to merely understand it in a physical sense is missing the mark. 

Lastly, the Bible is true because God is true. If we base our faith solely on physical evidence such as archeology and history, such evidence can be disputed, and the Bible proved wrong. The Bible is the ultimate standard of itself because God is the ultimate standard of himself. There is no one greater than God or even like God (Jeremiah 10:6). God is the standard by which all of creation and humanity measure themselves. It's only when we rebel against God and his created order that chaos ensues, and we reap the consequences of our rebellion with death, sin, evil, and suffering. In an age of shifting truth, God's truth will prevail, and it will continue to prevail into eternity because truth is a person, and that person is Jesus Christ, the Son of the Living God. Every word written in the Bible is flawless (12:6) and eternal (Psalm 119:89). We can fully depend on his words (2 Peter 1:19). 

The information that I have provided in this blog is far from extensive but I hope it peaks your interest in biblical truthfulness and shows you that the Bible is supported by a variety of evidences. Next week, we will finally answer the question, “Is the Bible Trustworthy" and elaborate more on the myths and false assumptions about the literature of the Bible.

If you would like to learn more about the veracity of Scripture, read my blog post “The Doctrine of Inerrancy.” There, I provide an extensive analysis on this subject. Thank you, and God bless!

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Footnotes:

[1] Timothy Paul Jones, Why Should I Trust the Bible (Fearn: Christian Focus, 2019), 10.

[2] Paul D. Wegner, The Journey From Texts To Translations: The Origin and Development of the Bible (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 1999), 27.

[3] Paul D. Wegner, The Journey From Texts To Translations, 27.

[4] Paul D. Wegner, The Journey From Texts To Translations, 30.

[5] Timothy Paul Jones, Why Should I Trust the Bible, 152.

[6] Robert L. Plummer, 40 Questions About Interpreting The Bible (Grand Rapids: Kregal Academic, 2021), 35-37.

[7] Howe, “How Do I Know The Bible Is True?” Boyce College, November 10, 2023. YouTube video, 6:51, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzbShd7f4uU&t=411s.

[8] Howe, ‘“How Do I Know The Bible Is True?”’

[9] Howe, ‘“How Do I Know The Bible Is True?”’

Resources:

Howe. “How Do I Know The Bible Is True?” Boyce College. November 10, 2023. YouTube video, 6:51. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzbShd7f4uU&t=411s.

Jones, Timothy Paul. Why Should I Trust the Bible. Fearn: Christian Focus, 2019. 

Plummer, Robert L. 40 Questions About Interpreting The Bible. Grand Rapids: Kregal Academic, 2021. 

Wegner, Paul D. The Journey From Texts To Translations: The Origin and Development of the Bible. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 1999. 

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Bao Vang is a wife and mom of two amazing daughters. When Bao's not serving her local church, she likes to write and spend time with her family. Bao received her MA in Theological Studies from The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and she is currently working on a PhD in Bible Exposition at John W. Rawlings School of Divinity at Liberty University. Bao is also a member of the Evangelical Theological Society and the Society of Biblical Literature.