Is The Bible Reliable?
Since the Bible claims to be true, we can measure it’s accuracy by checking it’s record of history.
- Is this what was originally written?
- How accurate is the text, historically?
- Any outside evidence to back it up?
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL TEST
Since we do not have the original documents, how reliable are the copies we have in regard to the number of manuscripts and the time between the original and existing copies?
INTERNAL EVIDENCE TEST
Is the written record credible?
Aristotle’s Dictum: a document is to be considered truthful unless it is known to be impossible, improbable, corrupting, or contradictory to known facts.
- Truthfulness = nearness GEOGRAPHICALLY and CHRONOLOGICALLY to the events being recorded.
- They often said they were writing what they had seen and heard.
WHAT IF THEY LIED?
- They appealed to common knowledge
- The disciples could not afford to risk inaccuracies because they would have been exposed as frauds and the message would not have spread.
- Christianity spread faster in the lifetime of eye witnesses than any other time.
- There is no explanation for the martyrs if it were a hoax.
EXTERNAL EVIDENCE TEST
What sources outside of the document verifies its accuracy?
“All radical schools in the New Testament criticism which have existed in the past or which exist today are pre archeological and are therefore antiquated today”. – William F. Albright
“Archaeology has confirmed countless passages which have been rejected by critics as unhistorical or contradictory to known facts”. – Joseph Free
“for Acts the confirmation of historicity is overwhelming. Any attempt to reject its basic historicity even in matter of details must not appear absurd. Roman historians have long taken it for granted.” A.N. Sherwin-White
“Luke is a historian of the first rank…This author should be placed along with the very greatest of historians.”
“There exists no document from the ancient world witnessed by so excellent a set of textual and historical testimonies and offering so superb an array of historical data on which an intelligent decision may be made. An honest [person] cannot dismiss a source of this kind. Skepticism regarding the historical credentials of Christianity is based upon an irrational (anti-supernatural) bias.”