Is the Bible Reliable?

Grant Partrick teaches on the reliability and consistency of Scripture, reminding us that God isn’t afraid of our questions; He invites them in to prove further the miraculous wonder of His breath on a page.

Scripture is a miracle.

Would our appetites change if we remembered how much of a miracle it really is? Would we be more likely to pour time into meditating on it?

As we are reminded of the awesome wonder that lives inside God's living and breathing Word, we must consider its reliability.

How do we know that the words we hold in our hands are the actual words of God? How can we have confidence that this book is trustworthy, true, and reliable?

Read 2 Peter 1:16-21.

1. You don't have to turn your brain off to be a person of faith. In fact, you are commanded by the central figure of our faith not to.

Read Matthew 22:35-38.

Verse 37-38 reads, "Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment."

Love the Lord your God with all your mind.

If you want to unlock deep worship and confidence in God, create space to think deeply about him.

Busyness keeps us from thinking deeply, but worship would erupt if we accepted that we did not know and sought answers anyway.

God is not afraid of our investigation.

One of the key arguments for the reliability of the Scripture is historical proof through archaeological evidence.

Archaeology continues to confirm the scriptures. Archeologist Nelson Gleuck said, “It may be stated categorically that no archeological discovery has ever controverted a biblical reference.”

As you investigate, God is not in heaven pacing back and forth, biting his nails, worried that you’ll discover something that disproves His story.

As you investigate, you won’t discover and disprove; you will simply uncover and confirm truth after truth, leading you to a deeper place of worship.

2. The question about the trustworthiness of God's Word is not a new question.

Not only is it not a new question, but it was the first question ever asked. Read Genesis 2:16–17 and Genesis 3:1–5.

The first lie from the enemy was an attack against the words of God. “Come on, did he really say that?”

As Eve replies to the question, she makes three errors in quoting God's words. Those three errors erode her confidence in God's words and open her up to a lie that ultimately leads to a colossal mistake in the garden.

Here are a few arguments for the reliability of the Scripture. There are many, many more than this. You can do more investigation on your own. But we should be exposed to these arguments and be given some tools as we love God and His Word with our minds.

Arguments for the reliability of Scripture:

1. Internal Consistency

• It’s not a book but a collection of 66 books written by 40+ authors over 1,500 years, on three continents, in 3 languages.
• It would be hard for a group of 40 people in a church to agree on one thing. Yet, here we have one story, one redemption plan, one hope, and one end outcome.

2. Manuscript Reliability

• This is the most vetted, criticized, and scrutinized book of all time.
• Don't be afraid of differences in Bible translations. Scripture was written in three languages, none of which are English. These translations each have committees of over a dozen Greek and Hebrew scholars who work to translate every single word, contemplating which would be the best fit.
• The Bible is the most reliable piece of historical literature in existence.
• You look for a couple of things—the number of manuscripts we have and how close to the source we can get. The shorter the span between the original writing and the earliest copy available, the more reliable the manuscript.

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Plato. Date written 427-347 BC. Earliest copy AD 900. 1,200 years. # of copies: 210.

Caesar. Date written 100-44BC. Earliest Copy AD 900. 1,000 years. # of copies: 251

Homer. Date Written 900BC. Earliest copy 400BC. 500 years. # of copies: 1,757.

New Testament- Date written AD 50-100. Earliest copy AD130. 40 years. # of copies: 5,795. That’s just Greek manuscripts. According to Daniel B Wallace, if you include all languages, we have 25,800 manuscripts.

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It doesn’t prove that the Bible is inerrant, but it does prove that it is the most reliable piece of historical literature in existence.

When the topic of variants comes up, what critics won’t tell you is that of the hundreds of thousands of variants or disagreements from our manuscripts:

• 70% are spelling differences that do not affect meaning.
• 29% are untranslatable phrases—viable but not meaningful or meaningful but not viable.
• 1% are meaningful and viable, but 0% impact orthodox Christian belief.

None of the variants impact our ability to think rightly about the claims of Jesus and the Word of God.

3. Prophecy Probability

• What are the odds of you winning the Masters lottery? 1 in 200.
• What are the odds of you getting struck by lightning? 1 in 15,300.
• What are the odds of you winning the Georgia Powerball? 1 in 292, 200,000.

In the Bible, 300 prophesies come to pass. Peter Stoner, a professor of mathematics and astronomy, decided to calculate the odds of these prophecies with 600 of his students. They determined that for eight prophecies to come true, the odds are 1 in 100,000,000,000,000,000. For 300+ prophecies to come to pass, it would be an odds of 1 in 10 to the 2000th power.

“Much of the Bible, in particular the historical books of the Old Testament, are as accurate historical documents as any that we have from antiquity and are in fact more accurate than many of the Egyptian, Mesopotamian, or Greek Histories.” – The Smithsonian Institute.

This book is a miracle! It is the breath of God on a page! It’s trustworthy and true. And it’s worth us standing on and in.

Read Proverbs 30:5, Psalm 12:6, Psalm 119:89, Psalm 119:160, John 17:17, Psalm 19:7–9, 1 Peter 1:25, and John 3:16

It is one story. One problem. One redemption plan. One hope. And one end outcome.