The Bible is the most read and yet likely the most assaulted book to ever have been written. Many assume, along with popular opinion, false notions about the Bible. Many of those who reject the Bible affirm such comments as, “the Bible is riddled with contradictions,” or “The Bible is only a fairytale written to control people with religion.” Many others assume that because science is true the Bible must be false. Often times statements such as these are espoused by individuals who have done no homework in this arena. These people are simply regurgitating opinions heard by popular media sources such as Bill Maher or other ultra-cynics void of good research on the matter. Popular as they may be, many individuals who hold such cynical views of the Bible ironically have never opened up one of its pages. When one honestly approaches the Bible in an intellectual way, specifically the New Testament, one will find mountains of support across the board in the fields of science, archeology, history, and manuscript evidence. The evidence for the reliability of the New Testament continues to increase as experts continue to analyze ancient manuscripts, delve further into the human genome, build bigger telescopes to explore our cosmos, and dig up yet another layer of buried ancient artifacts. Presuppositions of the Bible being false are crumbling as these discoveries continue. One needs to explore these findings and weigh the evidence honestly to see if there are good reasons to believe the scriptures to be reliable. If the Bible is the Word of God, than an eternal consequence awaits the skeptic who does not at least take the time to see if their assumptions may be in error.
One of the most impressive and convincing proofs to corroborate the writings of the New Testament is what is called manuscript evidence. Skeptics often assume that since the Bible is so old it could not have preserved what the original authors intended. The assumption is that it was likely distorted centuries later by megalomaniacs of the Roman empire. This could not be further from the truth. One way to test an ancient document like the Bible is by comparing the copies of the documents made across the centuries and across geographical barriers to see how similar they are. One would need to cross-examine and analyze the copies of the New Testament that were written following the times of Jesus Christ.
The number of copies is also an important factor with manuscript evidence because, if there are only a few copies dated centuries later, for example, then the likelihood of the copies being distorted increases immensely. The Quran for example does not even have a manuscript in possession that is dated prior to the eighth century.
On the other hand, the Bible has literally thousands of such manuscripts, and when compared to the Quran’s big zero you can evaluate the likelihood of the Quran having not been well preserved from the original. There is no other ancient text which even compares to that of the Bible in the area of manuscript evidence. “While Christianity can claim more than 5,300 known Greek manuscripts of the New Testament, 10,000 Latin Vulgates and at least 9,300 other early versions, adding up to over 24,000 corroborated New Testament manuscripts still in existence (McDowell 1990:43-55), most of which were written between 25-400 years after the death of Christ (or between the 1st and 5th centuries) (McDowell 1972:39-49), Islam cannot provide a single manuscript until well into the eighth century (Lings & Safadi 1976:17; Schimmel 1984:4-6).”
One may say at this point, “Who cares; I am sure that the copies are all full of mistakes, distortions, and manipulations.” This assumption is also false. The men who copied these ancient texts carried on the traditions-of-old in copying sacred texts that made any significant errors or distortions virtually impossible. Modern day textual scholars have inspected these copies letter-by-letter to investigate if indeed Roman megalomaniacs wrote-in their political agendas. Surely the later copies would bare the marks of distortions when compared to the earlier copies. These assertions are utterly false. Secular and non-secular experts of ancient manuscripts hold the New Testament up as the pinnacle example of a well preserved ancient document. The only errors made across the board of these 24,000 plus manuscripts involve minor errors such as a spelling error here or an inserted participle there and the manuscripts all agree to a 95% to a 99% level of accuracy. There was no funny-business involved when it came to the copying of the New Testament.
In addition to all the manuscript evidence are thousands of quotes preserved from early church fathers who knew the apostles and followed directly under their tutelage. There are so many quotes preserved by these ancient writings that the entire New Testament could be reconstructed by these quotes alone. A serious skeptic could look at these early quotes and see if they cross-referenced well with the manuscripts of the first few centuries. As it turns out, they all line up magnificently. Yet again the Bible triumphs as an ancient document of impeccable integrity. When one honestly looks at the facts surrounding the ancient document of the New Testament, one must conclude that at the very least, it is an incredibly well preserved account of early Christianity.
At this point a person may assume something else about these early writings like, “Didn’t these writings get passed down so long after Jesus’ death to be tainted with folklore and myth?” This assumption is based on extreme liberal scholarship and very minority opinion among experts. Most respected scholars who study the New Testament concede that the New Testament was written by primarily first-hand eyewitnesses. Also, all 27 books of the New Testament are dated within the first century. With the exception of Luke, who intended to make an “orderly” and accurate account of interviewing first-hand eyewitnesses, the gospels and the remainder of the New Testament were written by men who followed Christ personally, or in Paul’s case claimed to have personally met the risen Christ through a supernatural encounter. These men then wrote down their eyewitness testimonies soon after having witnessed the teachings and life of Christ.
A skeptic may be impressed with the thousands upon thousands of manuscript copies for the New Testament and decide to drop their preconceived negativity they carry against the Bible. The area of science however, still limits many skeptics from believing the Bible’s claims. Many atheist and agnostic individuals have enormous hangups over the Bible because they assume that the scientific community, specifically those who promote evolutionary biology, is giving the most likely and accurate explanation for man’s origin. The Bible is thus thrown out as outdated religion and science is ushered in as the new means of establishing truth claims. We must at this point ask, “Are science and the Bible diametrically opposed to one another?” Can both science and the claims of the bible coexist as truth, or can an individual not have one without throwing out the other? This must be carefully evaluated by the skeptic because if they have miscalculated their assumptions then judgment may await them if they are indeed wrong. Such an error should be carefully examined.
Science has limits, which need to be carefully examined before throwing out the Bible as a possibility for truth. Science, for example, cannot prove or test in a laboratory whether or not a historical event actually happened such as the Holocaust or a car accident three weeks ago. Evolution therefore is severely limited by scientists who wish to test in a laboratory all the events that took place over what they claim to be billions of years. Studies such as multiplying fruit flies in a laboratory thousands of times have been conducted to reach some observance of mutations in an effort to test and witness evolution, but no conclusive evidence has resulted. Extrapolating these results of fruit flies to then deduce that every organism is a result of natural selection, punctuated equilibrium, or a cambrian explosion is a far cry from science in the sense of the scientific method. The jury is still out when it comes to whether or not the evolutionary theory is indeed true. Cataloging billions of years of history is extremely problematic for scientists, and the holes remain too profound for one to jump into the evolutionary camp presumptuously. One would need to suspend judgment on the theory of evolution and explore other plausible explanations. Further study is needed to explore the lack of transitional forms, the empty fossil record of these forms, and biological concepts such as irreducible complexity. Many biologist and geneticists are turning to an ideology of intelligent design in response to what science has discovered in the past few decades.
Are there any reasons to believe that the Bible supports science? The field of science was birthed out of Christian men seeking to explore and understand God’s creation, so perhaps there is something that the Bible and science can share. The Bible does in fact make many scientific statements of how our world operates and actually aligns with scientific knowledge in a miraculous manner. For example, Dr. Lisle in his article “Taking Back Astronomy” writes how the Bible has said for centuries facts about our cosmos that we have only known about for a few hundred years or less. “It is interesting that many of the Bible’s statements about astronomy went against the generally accepted teachings of the time. Undoubtedly, many of these verses would have seemed counterintuitive, and may have been difficult to believe when they were first written. However, modern science has confirmed what the Bible has taught”
(Lisle, 2008). Lisle goes on to describe verses in the Bible that talk about the earth being round, suspended in the universe, and how our universe is expanding. Such knowledge was unheard of in the times the prophets wrote some of these things. He also writes about the stars in the sky being innumerable. This was never a believed concept by the scientific community until our recent age. The stars in the sky were not only numbered, but named. Scientists counted them all and had a fixed number, which went against the Bible. This, however, as we know was debunked with the discovery of a telescope, and science now aligns quite well with the Bible when it says that the stars are more than can be numbered.
Antagonists of the Bible have also often times spoken out about the places and people listed in the Bible being contrived out of colorful myths to later have their mouths stopped by a man or woman who dug something up in Biblical lands. The archeological discoveries made in the last two centuries that agree with the scriptures have reached the thousands and are growing almost daily. Artifacts are unearthed to prove places, people, ancient customs, dates, and events of the ancient world that all coincide perfectly with the biblical account. There have in fact been no archeological discoveries to contradict scripture, which is a profound notch on the Bible’s historicity belt. Other religions such as the Book of Mormon have been utterly embarrassed by the fact that none of the peoples, places, or events have ever been discovered in the archeology of the Americas. Whole civilizations are simply nowhere to be found by archeologists. This lack of support destroys the credibility of the Book of Mormon almost utterly. The findings of the Bible on the other hand greatly increase its credibility of events being based in good history and accurate geography. The Bible has been used by more than one archeologist as a map of sorts to find certain locations. It is truly a remarkable book of history and can be verified through these archeological finds. A list of some of these cities can be read in detail in Carm.org’s documentation.
An example of how the Bible has been proven in its history and archeology is with the people called the Hittites. The Hittites are described in the Bible as a whole race of people. For decades up until the 19th century, Bible antagonists have touted the Hittites to be proof that the Bible is made-up folklore. There was nothing known about this civilization except for what was in the Bible. The Hittite nation was first discovered by a British archeologist named A.H. Sayce in 1876. In the years to follow, the archeologists unearthed thousands of artifacts including stone tablets containing information such as a treaty between a Hittite king and King Ramses II.
A whole Hittite city was unearthed and the Hittite people were put on the map officially through this monumental find. The Bible was confirmed once more by archeology.
Sodom and Gomorrah is another example of a ridiculed Bible story getting discovered. The land was unearthed through the early and mid 1900’s by renowned archeologist Dr. William Albright. The discovery confirmed the Biblical account of a city being burned by fire when they unearthed a massive layer of ashes and burned bodies throughout the city. Though skeptics may mock the Bible with such accounts of a city burning down as a judgement against sinful people, the evidence of modern discoveries actually confirms this account as being legitimate, factual, and historical. Archeology has proven thousands of places and people in both the Old and New Testaments. Archeology has given enormous credibility that the stories in the Bible are not merely stories of tradition, but a recording of what took place in real time; in literal, physical history.
If skeptics would decide to give the Bible a chance and search to see if its claims are reliable, then they would likely conclude that the men of the New Testament did see Jesus die on a cross and come back to life three days later. It is likely that their reports of supernatural miracles actually did happen. The places and times of the Bible can be visited today, and if one looked at the facts with an objective lens and an open heart for truth, then the New Testament would be a document that would likely lead a willing soul to new life found in placing their faith in Jesus Christ. Through manuscript evidence, scientific agreement, archeology, and history one would be wise to trust the New Testament as a valuable recording of Biblical times. If the testimonies of the New Testament are in fact true then the result would mean all men everywhere would need to repent and put their trust in the living, risen Savior.
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