Can the Bible be trusted?

What the Bible says

The Bible says two things about itself. One is that it is a word given by God. The other is that it rests on the testimony of people who saw real events. First, Paul writes to Timothy:

All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for instruction, for conviction, for correction, and for training in righteousness

2 Tim 3:16

Peter says it did not come from human invention.

For no such prophecy was ever brought forth by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.

2 Pet 1:21

People often take this to mean that God dictated the words. But the text says that men "spoke." The church's understanding is that the authors wrote with their own language, experience and personality, and that the Spirit guided the whole process.

Next, testimony. Luke is open about his method.

Therefore, having carefully investigated everything from the beginning, it seemed good also to me to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught.

Luke 1:3-4

He has already said the story was "handed down to us by the initial eyewitnesses and servants of the word" (Luke 1:2). John's letter has the same attitude.

That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our own eyes, which we have gazed upon and touched with our own hands — this is the Word of life.

1 John 1:1

Peter is more direct still: "we did not follow cleverly devised fables … but we were eyewitnesses of His majesty" (2 Pet 1:16).

Finally, look at how Jesus treated Scripture. He received the Old Testament as the authoritative word of God.

For I tell you truly, until heaven and earth pass away, not a single jot, not a stroke of a pen, will disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished.

Matt 5:18

In an argument Jesus said, "the Scripture cannot be broken" (John 10:35). For many Christians the most basic reason to trust the Bible is that the risen Lord treated it this way.

The church's witness

The church received the Bible as the book in which God has spoken. The Nicene Creed confesses that the Spirit "has spoken through the prophets" and that Christ "rose again in accordance with the Scriptures" The Nicene Creed. The New Testament canon was not fixed overnight. The earliest list naming exactly today's twenty-seven books is in Athanasius's Easter letter of 367 Athanasius, Festal Letter 39. See How did we get the Bible?

Chrysostom, commenting on Luke's preface, notes Luke's attitude: the Evangelist "was so far from being content with his single testimony, that he refers the whole to the Apostles, seeking from them a confirmation of his words" Chrysostom.

Matthew Henry says of 2 Timothy 3:16, "The Bible is a sure guide to eternal life" Matthew Henry.

An honest distinction is needed here. The church agrees that the Bible is the word of God. But Christians differ on how to explain inspiration and how widely to understand the claim that Scripture is without error. Some hold that in its original writings Scripture is without error in all that it affirms, history and the natural world included, when it is read according to its kind of writing and purpose. Others hold that it is without error in what it teaches about salvation, faith and life, which was God's purpose in giving it. Questions such as how to read Genesis 1 are answered in various ways within both views. This essay takes no side. All agree that the Bible is the word of God to be trusted and followed.

In the original languages

"God-breathed" in 2 Timothy 3:16 is theopneustos (θεόπνευστος), a compound of "God" and "breath." It says where Scripture comes from: words that God's breath has touched. The church has understood this breath not to erase the human writers but to give God's word through their writing.

Another word is asphaleia (ἀσφάλεια), translated "certainty" in Luke 1:4. It means security that does not shake. Luke wrote so that Theophilus could know whether what he had been taught could be relied on. The Bible asks for conviction after examination, not blind belief.

Common objections

"It has been copied so many times that the original must have changed." The doubt is fair. No originals survive, the manuscripts differ among themselves, and some passages are suspected of being later additions. Mark 16:9-20 and John 7:53-8:11 are missing from the earliest manuscripts, and many Bible translations mark them. More than five thousand Greek manuscripts of the New Testament survive, far more material for comparison than for any other ancient writing. Many manuscripts means many differences, but it also means that the copies can be set against one another to work back to the original text. Scholars judge most of the differences to be small matters like spelling and word order, and many say that no core teaching of the faith hangs on one uncertain reading alone. For the Old Testament the Dead Sea Scrolls help greatly. A complete Isaiah scroll from about the second century BC is nearly identical to the Masoretic text a thousand years later Dead Sea Scrolls, the Isaiah scroll. But "nearly" should be taken exactly. There are small differences, and textual criticism goes on. Accurate transmission also does not by itself prove inspiration. It shows only that the text we read is close to the text first written.

"Wasn't it all written long after the events?" There is something right in this. Many scholars date the Gospels roughly thirty to seventy years after Jesus' death, and the exact dates are debated. Between the events and the writing lay a period of oral telling. But some things are worth setting beside this. Paul's letters come from the 50s, earlier than the Gospels, and many scholars regard 1 Corinthians 15:3-5 as a confession formed within a few years of the crucifixion (1 Cor 15:3-5). Paul could also say that most of the more than five hundred who saw the risen Jesus were still living (1 Cor 15:6). Ancient histories were usually written decades after the events, so the gap is not unusual. Archaeology cannot prove faith, but it does confirm that the settings the Gospels describe match the real world. An inscription found at Caesarea shows that Pilate was governor of Judea. At the same time, archaeology has not settled everything, and the dating and interpretation of some Old Testament events remain disputed.

"The Bible says it is God's word, so isn't that circular?" It would be, if the authority of the Bible rested on one verse saying it was inspired. That is why the order matters. First, examine the Bible as a historical document and ask whether its testimony is credible. Second, weigh the resurrection of Jesus that this testimony reports. If the risen Lord received Scripture as God's word, then trust in the Bible flows from trust in him. This is not proof. Trust is built on evidence, but at the end it calls for a decision. Christians also say the Spirit confirms the truth of the word in the reader. That belongs to faith, and a reader may not accept it. Apparent disagreements within the Bible are taken up in Does the Bible contradict itself?

Going further

The question whether the Bible can be trusted is best answered by reading it. John says why he wrote his Gospel: "these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in His name" (John 20:31). The Bible was not written to be worshiped. It was written to lead to Christ.

You might ask yourself some questions. Am I asking this after reading the Bible, or judging by what I have heard? What evidence would lead me to trust this book? Why not read one Gospel from beginning to end?

To read further, see How should we read the Bible? and Did Jesus really exist?