How do we know the bible is true

Try downloading another browser like Chrome or Firefox. Your gift is doubled! Partner with us to reach more people for Christ. If you already have an account, Sign in. A number of Christians have tried to answer this question.

Unfortunately, not all of those answers have been as cogent as we might hope. Some answers make very little sense at all. The Bible is an extraordinary work of literature, and it makes some astonishing claims. If true, this has implications for all aspects of life: how we should live, why we exist, what happens when we die, and what our meaning and purpose is. But how do we know if the claims of the Bible are true? Others have some merit but fall short of proving the truth of the Bible with certainty.

Some Christians have argued for the truth of the Scriptures by pointing to the changes in their own lives that belief in the God who inspired the Bible has induced.

Receiving Jesus as Lord is a life-changing experience that brings great joy. However, this change does not in and of itself prove the Bible is true. People might experience positive feelings and changes by believing in a position that happens to be false.

At best, a changed life shows consistency with the Scriptures. We would expect a difference in attitudes and actions given that the Bible is true.

Although giving a testimony is certainly acceptable, a changed life does not by itself demonstrate the truth of the Scriptures. Even an atheist might argue that his belief in atheism produces feelings of inner peace or satisfaction. This does not mean that his position is true. Faith is the confident belief in something that you cannot perceive with your senses Hebrews Likewise, when I believe in God whom I cannot directly see, I am acting on faith. We should indeed have faith in God and His Word.

Since faith is a belief in something unseen, the above response is not a good argument. He simply believes it. It is a non-answer.

Such a response is not acceptable for a person who is a follower of Christ. The Bible teaches that we are to be ready to give an answer to anyone who asks a reason of the hope that is within us 1 Peter Saying that we have faith is not the same as giving a reason for that faith. Some have cited 2 Timothy as proof that the Bible is the inerrant Word of God.

That is, every writing in the Bible is a revelation from God that can be trusted as factually true. Clearly, if the Bible is given by revelation of the God of truth, then it can be trusted at every point as an accurate depiction. The problem with answering the question this way is that it presupposes that the verse itself is truthful—which is the very claim at issue.

In other words, how do we know that 2 Timothy is true? But how do we know the Bible is true? It must first arbitrarily assume the very thing it is trying to prove. Circular reasoning of this type while technically valid is not useful in a debate because it does not prove anything beyond what it merely assumes. After all, this type of argument would be equally valid for any other book that claims to be inspired by God. How do we know that book X is inspired by God? On the other hand, some Christians might go too far the other way—thinking that what the Bible says about itself is utterly irrelevant to the question of its truthfulness or its inspiration from God.

This, too, is a mistake. After all, how would we know that a book is inspired by God unless it claimed to be? Think about it: how do you know who wrote a particular book? The book itself usually states who the author is. Most people are willing to accept what a book says about itself unless they have good evidence to the contrary. So it is quite relevant that the Bible itself claims to be inspired by God. It does claim that all of its assertions are true and useful for teaching.

Such statements do prove at least that the writers of the Bible considered it to be not merely their own opinion, but in fact the inerrant Word of God. However, arguing that the Bible must be true solely on the basis that it says so is not a powerful argument. Yes, it is a relevant claim. But we need some additional information if we are to escape a vicious circle.

Another argument for the truthfulness of the Bible concerns its uniqueness and internal consistency. The Bible is remarkably self-consistent, despite having been written by more than 40 different writers over a timespan of about 2, years. Moreover, the Bible is uniquely authentic among ancient literary works in terms of the number of ancient manuscripts found and the smallness of the timescale between when the work was first written and the oldest extant manuscript thereby minimizing any possibility of alteration from the original.

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See All Blog Posts. Thank You! The historical accuracy of the Scriptures is likewise in a class by itself, far superior to the written records of Egypt , Assyria , and other early nations.

Archeological confirmations of the Biblical record have been almost innumerable in the last century. Nelson Glueck, probably the greatest modern authority on Israeli archeology, has said:. Scores of archeological findings have been made which confirm in clear outline or in exact detail historical statements in the Bible. And, by the same token, proper evaluation of Biblical descriptions has often led to amazing discoveries.

Another striking evidence of divine inspiration is found in the fact that many of the principles of modern science were recorded as facts of nature in the Bible long before scientist confirmed them experimentally.

A sampling of these would include:. Paramount importance of blood in life processes Leviticus It is significant also that no real mistake has ever been demonstrated in the Bible—in science, in history, or in any other subject. Many have been claimed, of course, but conservative Bible scholars have always been able to work out reasonable solutions to all such problems.

As far as the history of Jesus is concerned, as far as we know any history, we want to check the stories of Scripture using those means by which historical evidence can be tested—through archaeology, for example. There are certain elements of the Scripture, such as historical claims, that are to be measured by the common standards of historiography.

I invite people to do that—to check it out. Second, we want to test the claims of truth through the test of rationality.

We examine the content of Scripture to see if it is coherent. One of the most astonishing things, of course, is that the Bible has literally thousands of testable historical prophecies, cases in which events were clearly foretold, and both the foretelling and the fulfillment are a matter of historical record. The very dimension of the sheer fulfillment of prophecy of the Old Testament Scriptures should be enough to convince anyone that we are dealing with a supernatural piece of literature.