How Can We Know the Bible is Reliable?

Trusting in a document which started over two millennia ago can be a very difficult thing to do. To trust in something we must look at the evidence for and against it, evaluate such evidence, and draw a conclusion from our evaluations. The Christian Bible is one of these documents we must follow this process for. The Bible is broken into two sections; an Old Testament, containing thirty-nine books, and a New Testament, containing twenty-seven books. Each of these testaments can be individually shown to be reliable, more reliable in fact, than almost every trusted document from their respective periods.

The Old Testament was written as an account of the beginnings of time up until Jesus Christ's birth. After the original copies of the books were written, they were copied, by hand, by scribes, all of whom believed they were copying the divine word of God. They demanded perfection from themselves. In the 10th Century AD the Massoretes made copies of the Old Testament. These copies have very little deviation from the earlier copies we have since found. The Dead Sea Scrolls (The oldest Hebrew manuscripts we have found, dating back to 100 BC) are an almost exact match to the 10th Century Massoretic text. The Septugint (The oldest Greek translation of the Old Testament we have to date, dating back to 200 BC) is also an almost exact match to the Hebrew manuscripts we have. From these findings it can be rationalized that our current copies of the Old Testament are in form almost a precise match to the original texts.

The New Testament was written starting in the 1st Century AD. Many of the authors of the New Testament books lived during all of the events they referenced. We have found more than 4,000 different Greek manuscripts of the New Testament, many written of different materials. During the time the New Testament was written, parchment was a material that was very rare, and expensive. Because of its supply and price issues, it was used only for important documents. We have two complete copies of the new testament, scribed on parchment, which date back to the 4th Century AD. Thus, it can be reasoned that these two copies were considered important documents, even in the 4th Century. Along with these copies, there are considerable portions of more than fifteen books , and complete manuscripts of more than ten, that were found on papyrus dating to approximately 200 AD. The earliest manuscript found is one which contains portions of the Gospel According to John, and dates to 130 AD. Along with the more than 4,000 Greek manuscripts, more than 9,000 manuscripts of the New Testament have been found in other languages. Some Latin manuscripts date to 400 AD. The verses in the New Testament aren't only found in Biblical manuscripts; about twenty New Testament verses have been found in writings of clergy dating between 100-450 AD. From the evidence we can rationalize that the documents we have are valid, and correct to the way the course of events played out.

In conclusion, the evidence for the Bible's validity is more than any other document of its time. The span between the events of the Bible and the earliest manuscripts we have for the Gospels and all of Paul's letters is less than 200 years. More than ten other ancient documents trusted without question have a span of 500 or even 1,000 years, and far fewer manuscripts. We have entire manuscripts within 500 years of the time Jesus walked the Earth. Many manuscripts were around when first and second-hand witnesses were still alive, the manuscripts wouldn't have survived to the 21st century if they weren't true accounts. To not believe the Bible is valid, you would have to doubt all of ancient history since the Bible is attested for bibliographically far better than any other ancient document.

Research Sources:

http://www.leaderu.com/orgs/probe/docs/bib-docu.html