How do we know the Bible is really God’s Word?
Over the centuries thousands upon thousands of people have challenged the Bible as to whether it was true Word of God or not. And the question is….is it true? Is it a reliable Holy book? Can we trust the copies that we have today are true to the originals? How can we know as Christians that we can believe that the Bible is the 100% true Word of God and that God through His Holy Spirit, inspired men to write it?
How much of the Bible do you think is totally true?
A. 50% B. 5% C. 100% D. 90%
1. God tells us that it is His Word
2 Timothy 3:16
______ % of the scripture is inspired by God.
Matthew 4:4
In order to survive what we really need is
_____________________________________________________________________.
2. God communicates scriptures to his prophets and servants
Jeremiah 1:4
The reason Jeremiah knew that God knew him even before he was created in his mother’s womb
is because ____________________________________________________________.
II Samuel 23:2
______________________________________ was able to speak through King David.
3. Jesus confirms that the Bible is true
Luke 16:16-17
Jesus said that it would be easier for Heaven and Earth to be destroyed than for one part (tittle) of
the Word of God to ___________________.
The Science Arguments
Many people will try to say the Bible is false by using science. Yet the Bible, even though it was written thousands of years ago, makes scientific statements that scientists did not discover until centuries later
Information about the Earth
4. Isaiah 40:22
The Bible describes the shape of the Earth as a _______________________________________.
Now understand: the book of Isaiah was written in 681 B.C. Scientists did not “prove” or even suspect the Earth was round (they thought it was flat) until hundreds of years later.
Information about outer space
5. Job 26:7
The Bible says that Earth is held up in space by _____________________________________.
This verse is describing what we call in science class the force of _________________________.
Information about weather
6. Job 36:26-28
God is able to make ______________________ pour down on people. And it comes from
__________________________________________________.
This is from a science website: Clouds are water. As you probably know, we can find water in three forms: liquid, solid and gas. Water as a gas is called water vapor. Clouds form when water vapor turns back into liquid water droplets. That is called condensation.
This is exactly what this verse is describing, how we get rain. And Job is the oldest book in the Bible.
Prophecy Evidence
Another way of knowing the Bible is true is by its many prophecies. Even God uses this as a standard of who is telling the truth.
7. Isaiah 46:9
God tells us that there are _________________________________________ like Him. And He
is unique because He ____________________________________________________________.
Prophecies of Jesus
8. Isaiah 7:14
This prophecy was fulfilled because ________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________
9. Micah 5:2 AND Matthew 2:4-6
This prophecy was fulfilled because ________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________
And there are many more. For example look at Psalm 22 and think about what that’s describing.
Attacks on the Bible
1. How do we know some dude did not just make up the Bible all by himself?
For one, we have the reasons listed above to know that the Bible was not just made up. Also, the Bible was not written by one person or at one time. The books of the Bible were written by 40 authors written over 2,000 years. The oldest books of the Old Testament were around for centuries before other books and the New Testament was written 1,000 years after the first books of the Bible. So there is no way one person could have ever written it.
2. The Bible is so old, how do we know someone has not changed it around over the years?
This is a great question. Any ancient book or writing is judged by its oldest copies or manuscripts. This means a historian will take the oldest versions of a book and look at it to see if they match up with newer versions. They will also look at how many copies of the oldest version exist because the more copies there are all over the Earth the easier it is to see if they are all the same and then we know no one’s changed them around.
Number of Manuscripts of some famous works
Book When Written # of Manuscripts
The writings of Julius Casear 1,000 years after his death 10
Homer (author of the Illiad) 500 years after his death 643
The writings of Plato 1,200 years after his death!!! 7
The New Testament 25-50 years after Jesus’ death 26,0000
YES, there are currently 26,000 ancient manuscripts and portions of the New Testament that archeologists have discovered. When it comes to which of these “great works” are historically reliable, it’s not even close. The Bible has them beat by a long shot.
3. Aren’t there other books in the Bible that aren’t included in the “official version”?
Recently, there has been an explosion of attacks on the Bible which bring up this point. That there were “other” books of the Bible that have been banned or hidden so we would not know the “real truth.” These “gospels” like the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Mary or even the Gospel of Judas are known as the Gnostic Gospels. Books and movies like the Davinci Code have made these books super popular and are again just trying to make the Bible look false.
Bu the only thing false is the DaVinci Code itself. It’s full of fake history to make Jesus seem like an ordinary guy (who got married and never died on the cross) and not God. The reality is that Jesus was in fact without sin and did die on the cross. And history supports this.
4. Well what non-Christian historians have ever written about Jesus?
Yes. 2 of the greatest ancient historians wrote about Jesus
Josephus
Secular history supports the Bible. For example, in The Antiquities of the Jews, book 18, chapter 3, paragraph 3 the famous historian Flavius Josephus writes:
“Now, there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man, for he was a doer of wonderful works—a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews, and many of the Gentiles. He was [the] Christ; and when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him, for he appeared to them alive again the third day, as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him; and the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day.”
Tacitus
In 115 AD, P. Cornelius Tacitus wrote the following passage that refers to Jesus (called “Christus,” which means “The Messiah”) in book 15, chapter 44 of The Annals:
“Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judaea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre and become popular. Accordingly, an arrest was first made of all who pleaded guilty; then, upon their information, an immense multitude was convicted, not so much of the crime of firing the city, as of hatred against mankind. Mockery of every sort was added to their deaths. Covered with the skins of beasts, they were torn by dogs and perished, or were nailed to crosses, or were doomed to the flames and burnt, to serve as a nightly illumination, when daylight had expired.”
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