What’s unique about the Bible?
It’s a collection of 66 individual books written by many different persons over a span of nearly 1500 years. Yet, it is one book, sharing one life-changing message. The Bible says that its message is from God Himself. More than 2600 times the writers of the Bible claim to speak or write God’s Words– not their own.
How did we get the Bible?
Books of the Bible were written by different individuals and reflect their individual styles and circumstances. Yet the words they penned accurately convey the message God intended to communicate.
The first 39 books of the Bible are called the Old Testament. They were mostly written in Hebrew, although parts of Daniel and Ezra were written in Aramaic, a related language. The Jewish people regarded these books as sacred, and they meticulously copied them word for word, with every care taken to avoid transcription errors. About a hundred years before Christ, the Old Testament was translated into Greek.
The 27 books of the New Testament were written in Greek between about AD 40 and AD 95, and they were quickly recognized by believers as sacred. A number of individuals authored these books. Chapter and verse divisions were added much later to make it easier to find and remember the location of specific teachings. Most modern English translations of the Bible take great care to accurately express in our language the meaning of the Hebrew and Greek so we too can understand God’s message.
Can we really trust the Bible?
The answer to that question is yes. No other source claiming to provide knowledge about God was written by so many different authors over so many centuries– and yet conveys a totally consistent message. No other religious or secular source contains the hundreds of predictions about the future provided in the Bible. And in no other source has prediction after prediction been exactly fulfilled, often hundreds of years after they were made. The only way this is possible is that God who alone can declare “the end from the beginning” (Isaiah 46:10 NKJV), revealed the future.
Yet perhaps the most compelling reason to trust the Bible is that through this unique books millions have established a personal relationship with God and find strength, joy, and peace in Him. As we establish and live in a trust relationship with the God of the Bible, we learn by experience that we can rely on this book, which truly is God’s Word.
“The Bible is not really one book; it is 66 books. There are 39 books in the Old Testament and 27 books in the New Testament. If you were to print them on average 20-pound paper, with average margins, use an average size font, put them in an average binding, they would fill an average shelf. They were written over a period of about 1500 years by at least 40 different authors, and in at least three different languages. They were written by people of all walks of life. Some were poets. Some were shepherds. Some were kings. Some were herdsmen. Some were farmers. Some were prophets. Some were preachers. And some were priests. In many instances the one had not read what the other had written. Yet when you gather these materials together, they don’t read like 66 books. They read like one book. How is that possible? God planned His Book from the beginning. ‘Holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.’ (2 Peter 1:21)” –Howell Ferguson, Bells, Tennessee
Can one rely on the Bible?
Yes, absolutely. While we do not have an original copy of the Bible, it has been faithfully handed down from one generation to another.
Just as the writings of Shakespeare can be reproduced by comparing the many and varied copies of that author’s work, so we can verify the Bible by comparing its manuscripts and translations. In fact, there are far more serious discrepancies among other works than among Bible manuscripts.
Compare the span of time and the number of manuscripts of the sacred text with other ancient writings:
• The ancient classical history of Caesar’s Gallic War was composed about 58-50 BC with the oldest known manuscript dating to about AD 850. Thus a gap of 900 years exists between composition and copies. Only ten manuscripts of the history are known. Yet all scholars accept these as reliable history.
• The Roman History of Livy was written between 59 BC to AD 17, but its oldest known manuscripts were made about AD 300. Only 35 copies are known to exist. Yet it is accepted without question.
• The History of Thucydides, written 460-400 BC, is reproduced from only eight manuscripts which were produced 1300 years later (AD 900). Again, it is not disputed.
• The History of Herodotus (450-425 BC) is translated from only eight copies which were made from the original 1300 years later- about AD 900. It is accepted without question.
How do these compare with the New Testament? Revelation (its final book) was written by AD 96.
A span of only 250 years brings us to AD 350, the date of the widely accepted Bible codices. In addition, we have 4000 papyrus fragments written from AD 130 to AD 250. This puts us within 30 to 150 years of the book of Revelation. Further, practically from the time John penned the original autograph, early “church fathers” began quoting the New Testament (AD 90 to AD 160), and we have their writings.
There are literally thousands more copies of Sacred Scriptures which enable comparison, and give us assurance of a more accurate text for the New Testament, than there is of any text of Shakespeare. Jesus said, “My words shall not pass away” (Matthew 24:35). –Flavil Nichols
How I know the Bible is the Word of God:
Suppose a vast building were to be erected, the stones for which were brought from the quarries in Rutland, Vermont; Berea, Ohio; Kasota, Minnesota; and Middletown, Connecticut. Each stone was hewn into final shape in the quarry from which is was brought. These stones were a variety of shapes and sizes– cubical, rectangular, cylindrical, and so forth– but when they were brought together every stone fit into its place, and when put together there rose before you a temple absolutely perfect in every outline, with its domes, sidewalls, buttresses, arches, transepts– not a gap or flaw anywhere. How would you account for it? You would say: “Back of these individual workers in the quarries was the mastermind of the architect who planned it all and gave to each individual worker his specifications for the work.”
So in this marvelous temple of God’s truth which we call the Bible, whose stones have been quarried at periods of time and in places so remote from one another, but where every smallest part fits each other part, we are forced to say that back of the human hands that wrought was the Mastermind that thought. –Dr. R.A. Tory
“The foundation of God standeth sure…” 2 Timothy 2:19
