Dr. Tony Jeffrey
Why do we believe that the Bible is actually the word of God? Jim Denison, PhD, founder and CEO of Denison Ministries, tackles this question in his Biblical Insight to Tough Questions.
Who of us hasn’t wondered at times why we believe this ancient book is the revelation of the God of the Universe? Think about it for a moment: The Creator of all that exists reveals himself to a small group of Egyptian slaves and their descendants in a remote corner of the globe. Not to kings or to scholars in leading universities, but to shepherds and refugees. On documents that no longer exist, so that we must depend on the copies which history has handed down to us.
Why should we believe it is the Word of God?
The Bible claims to be the word of God. This fact does not settle the issue. The Qur’an claims to be the word of Allah, the Book of Mormon claims to be the revelation of God. But at least we know that Christians do not believe something about the Bible that it does not claim for itself. Paul was convinced that “all Scripture was breathed out by God” (2 Timothy 3:16-17). He meant the Old Testament, which was the Bible of his day. Jesus believed his words to be divinely inspired: “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away” (Luke 21:33).
Now, let‘s turn to objective evidence. No original manuscript of any ancient book exists today. The materials used in that era could not stand the effects of the elements and time. For instance, we have only nine or ten good copies of Caesar’s Gallic Wars, none made earlier than 900 years after Caesar. Tacitus, the greatest ancient Roman historian, wrote 14 books of his histories. We possess only four and a half, none made earlier than the 10th century AD. We can only find five manuscripts of any work of Aristotle, none copied earlier than 14 centuries after Aristotle wrote the originals.
By contrast, we possess 5,000 ancient Greek manuscripts of the New Testament and 10,000 copies in other ancient languages. Fragments and parts of these copies date back as early as only 30 years after the originals were written. Complete versions of the Gospels, Acts, Paul’s letters, and Hebrews date to the early part of the third century and Revelation to the latter half of that century. Complete volumes of the New Testament date to the fourth century. Extensive quotations of Scripture in the letters of early Christians date to AD 100. “Textual Critics” who work with biblical texts believe that the Old and New Testaments we possess today are virtually identical to their originals.
There are strong evidential reasons to believe the Bible is God’s word. But the best test comes from personal experience. Try living the Bible. Accept its Lord as yours. Make its principles the guideposts of your life. And you’ll learn for yourself that its words are the word of God.
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