Can You Trust the Bible? Here’s the Proof – Episode 513

Let’s examine some of the reasons we can trust the Bible:

• Unmatched Biblical Manuscripts
  

  The New Testament manuscripts are the most frequently copied and widely distributed works of antiquity. Compared to other ancient texts, the Bible stands out with over 66,000 manuscripts and scrolls combined. Just the Greek New Testament alone has 2.6 million pages of text.
  • ✦ If you stacked all the New Testament manuscripts, it would reach one mile high—compared to just four feet for the average classical writer!
    
    

• The Bibliographic Test
  

  Scholars use the bibliographic test to measure how reliably ancient texts have been transmitted. The New Testament passes with flying colors, with early manuscripts and thousands of copies making it easier to reconstruct the original text accurately. If we reject the Bible, we’d have to reject every other ancient text—it’s that reliable.
  
  

• Sources Outside the Bible
  

  Non-Christian historians like Josephus (Jewish) and Tacitus (Roman) confirm Jesus’s life, death, and even the persecution of early Christians. These extra-biblical accounts add even more credibility to what Scripture says.
  
  

• Early Creeds of Faith
  

  Before the Bible was even written, early Christians recited creeds to summarize their beliefs about Jesus’s death, deity, and resurrection. Examples of these early creeds are found in Scripture:
  • ✦ 1 Timothy 3:16
    “He was manifested in the flesh, vindicated by the Spirit, seen by angels, proclaimed among the nations, believed on in the world, taken up in glory.”
  • ✦ Philippians 2:5-11
    “Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus… Therefore God exalted Him to the highest place and gave Him the name that is above every name…”
    
    

• Fulfilled Prophecies
  

  Jesus fulfilled over 300 Old Testament prophecies, proving without a doubt that He is the Messiah.
  • ✦ Born in Bethlehem → Micah 5:2, Fulfilled: Matthew 2:4-6
  • ✦ Betrayed for 30 pieces of silver → Zechariah 11:12, Fulfilled: Matthew 27:3-10
  • ✦ Death on a cross → Psalm 22, Fulfilled: Matthew 27
    
    
• To put this into perspective: the odds of Jesus fulfilling just 8 of these prophecies are 1 in 100 quadrillion—it’s mathematically impossible unless He truly is the Messiah.
  
  

• Unity of the Bible

• Written over 1,600 years, across three continents and three languages, by over 40 authors—yet the Bible tells one unified story of redemption through Jesus. How incredible is that?!