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 One objection that skeptics of Christianity often have is that “The Bible was written thousands of years ago, it is not reliable or meaningful for us today.” Is this true? As Christians, we say it is absolutely meaningful because it is the divine word of God. Though it was written by men, they were inspired by God. 2 Peter 1:21 says “For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.” Many of us would say that we know this to be true, but in an increasingly skeptical world, it is important to understand why we know this. So how do we know that the bible is reliable?   

First, it is important to consider the timeline of when the bible was written. The gospels were written 40-60 years after Jesus’s death. Paul’s letters were written 15-25 years after Jesus’s death. If what was written about Jesus was a lie, then the people who were alive at that time would have quickly discarded what was written. It never would have spread like wildfire if it was all just a made up story. But the fact that it was endorsed by people who saw Jesus alive shows us that we can truly trust it. Secondly, there have been more than 5,000 copies of the entire original New Testament manuscripts preserved. This is remarkable considering that we have less than 700 copies of Homer’s Iliad and only a handful of copies of any one work of Aristotle. You would think since these works are so famous we would have more, but we don’t. The bible is the most preserved work in the history of literature by a long shot. Third, there is the fulfillment of Prophecy. Out of the 2,000 prophecies in the Old Testament, all were fulfilled either in the person of Jesus or in historical events. No other religious writing contains predicted prophecy that has been fulfilled.   

Fourth, the bible is too detailed to be classified as fiction. In other fiction books that were written during the time of the New Testament, details were spare. They didn’t include details if they weren’t important to the storyline, such as the weather outside. But the biblical authors used tremendous detail. For example, Mark 4:38 says that Jesus was asleep on a cushion at the stern of the boat, and John 21:11 says that Jesus miraculously helped the disciples catch 153 fish. These types of details set the bible apart because they don’t fit with the style of ancient fiction, therefore we know it isn’t just another work of fiction. Last, we must look to the dead sea scrolls, which were discovered in caves by the dead sea in 1947. These scrolls contained original fragments of every Old Testament book except for Esther. These fragments were almost 100% word for word identical with the new modern version we have today, except for a few minor spelling and grammatical differences.  

These are just several reasons as to why we can be certain that the bible is reliable. All scripture is breathed out by God and inspired by God, and we know that God is perfect and cannot lie. So if God cannot lie, what he says must be perfectly true.