Why we believe and trust in the Bible

Why we believe and trust in the Bible

People have asked me how I can or why I can believe and trust the Bible. Why do I believe what it says is true, and that is not just a bunch of made-up stories and crazy dreams? Do I believe with blind faith and with no evidence? Here are seven reasons why we can trust the Bible.

Reason #1: My number one answer has always been the testimony of Prophecy—Fulfilled Bible prophecy verifies the truthfulness of God’s Word, and it gives us confidence that the future is in His hands.

The Bible’s most astonishing claim to accuracy is not merely that it records history correctly, but that it predicts history—often centuries in advance—with specific, verifiable detail that defies coincidence.

 If you study (not a cursory read) even the most basic & simple prophecy, such as found in Daniel chapter 2, you will quickly find that the detail and accuracy are so astounding that it had to be divinely given. For it to have taken place in history so precisely, and confirmed by secular history, a divine being had to have been involved in it.

 There is no way that any mortal man could have predicted the history of the world powers from Daniel’s time forward to today and beyond without divine insight.

 Then to look at the 70 week & 2300 day prophecies found in Daniel 8 & 9 with their intricacies and detail, all confirmed by secular history, will completely astound you. This confirmed once again that the Bible is inspired and truthful, worthy to be trusted. This was my conclusion at the culmination of a three-month, three nights a week study of both the books of Revelation and Daniel.

 But I only looked at two of the prophecies in the Bible; there are so many more, approximately 1,800–2,000 prophecies in the entire Bible (Old + New Testaments), with the understanding that roughly half have already been fulfilled and half await future fulfillment.

 Over 300 prophecies concerning the Messiah were fulfilled in the life of Jesus alone. Micah 5:2 (c. 700 BC) named Bethlehem as His birthplace. Isaiah 7:14 (c. 740 BC) foretold a virgin birth. Psalm 22 and Isaiah 53 (centuries before crucifixion was invented) described piercing of hands and feet, gambling for clothing, and death among criminals—details matched exactly in the Gospels. Daniel 9:24-26 (c. 530 BC) calculated the precise timing of the Messiah’s appearance and death before the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70. These are not vague oracles; they are specific predictions fulfilled in one man at one moment in history.

 Nations and cities also fell exactly as foretold. Tyre (Ezekiel 26, c. 586 BC) would be scraped bare and thrown into the sea—fulfilled when Nebuchadnezzar destroyed it and later Alexander the Great built a causeway, scraping the ruins into the Mediterranean. Babylon’s utter desolation (Isaiah 13:19-22; Jeremiah 50-51) was mocked as impossible while it was the world’s greatest city; today it remains an uninhabited ruin. Nineveh, Sidon, Edom, and Gaza—all judged in detail—stand as archaeological witnesses to fulfilled prophecy.

 Even the restoration and regathering of Israel (Ezekiel 36-37; Deuteronomy 30), written while the Jews were scattered and their land desolate, has been fulfilled in the modern era: a nation reborn in a single day (1948), speaking Hebrew again, with Jerusalem once more its capital—events predicted 2,500 years earlier.

 No other book in history contains such a volume of specific, dated, and historically verified predictions. Chance, forgery, and lucky guesses cannot account for this record. The testimony of fulfilled prophecy stands as powerful evidence that the Bible is not merely accurate history—it is history written in advance by the One who governs it.

 I concluded that if all this has been foretold and so far has completely, to the letter, become history as documented in secular history books exactly the way it was foretold in the Bible, and even to this day, are being fulfilled that I had better look into the rest of this incredible book and find out what else it has to say to me. That was the next common-sense step to take.

 This was my introduction to the Bible, which I previously believed was a bunch of made-up stories that were nice stories to read, that had some moral implications, but had no other significance than that. I also believed that it could not be trusted because it had been translated so many times that it could in no way be correct any longer. That it had no bearing on my life. Not until I studied it deeper did I find out how arrogant, ignorant, and wrong I was.

 Let’s talk a bit about Bible Transmission and Translation

The Bible we read today is remarkably close to what was originally written, due to three main lines of evidence:

Unparalleled Manuscript Evidence

The New Testament survives in over 5,800 Greek manuscripts, plus more than 20,000 copies in other languages (Latin, Syriac, Coptic, etc.), many dating within decades or a couple of centuries of the originals. By comparison, the average classical Greek or Roman work has fewer than 20 surviving manuscripts, often copied 800–1,400 years later. The time gap for most New Testament books is under 150 years, and textual critics (both Christian and non-Christian) agree that we can reconstruct the original wording with over 99.5% accuracy. The remaining variations are almost entirely spelling differences, word order, or minor omissions that do not affect any core doctrine.

Rigorous Jewish and Early Christian Copying Practices

The Hebrew Old Testament was copied by professional scribes (e.g., the Masoretes) with obsessive precision: they counted every letter of each book, noted the middle verse, and destroyed any scroll with even one mistake. The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls (1947) proved this fidelity—Isaiah’s scroll from ~100 BC matches today’s Hebrew text in 95% of cases, with the differences being mostly spelling and minor style. Early Christians, though less centralized, treated Scripture as sacred and quoted it extensively; the Church Fathers of the 2nd–4th centuries alone contain enough quotations to reconstruct nearly the entire New Testament even if all manuscripts were lost.

Translation Oversight and Transparency

Modern translations (NIV, ESV, NASB, etc.) are done by large committees of scholars from multiple denominations who work directly from the best Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek critical texts (e.g., Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia, Nestle-Aland/UBS Greek New Testament). These critical editions document every significant manuscript variant in footnotes, so readers can see exactly where uncertainty exists (and it is minimal). Literal translations (NASB, ESV) stay extremely close to the wording of the originals, while even dynamic ones (NIV, NLT) are checked against them by scholars who publish their methodology openly.

In short, no ancient document comes close to the Bible in the quantity, earliness, and scrutiny of its copies. The transmission process was guarded by people who believed the text was divinely inspired, and modern scholarship confirms that what we hold today faithfully represents what the prophets and apostles originally wrote.

What about interpretation? I get the “No one can really know what the Bible Means because the verse that you interpret this way, I interpret another way, the opposite of you. There are so many different interpretations, so you can really never know its meaning.”

Why Can We Trust That Today’s Bible Interpretation Is Reliable?

Translation vs. Interpretation

Translation = “What do the words say?” → We can trust this with very high confidence (see the previous answer). Probability we have >99.5% of the exact original wording: ≈ 99.9%

Interpretation = “What do the words mean?” → This is never 100% certain for any ancient text, including the Bible. Good interpretation requires historical context, literary genre, original languages, and humility.

Why Interpretation Is Still Trustworthy? (Though Not Infallible)

Extraordinary historical continuity: Core Christian doctrines (the Trinity, the deity and humanity of Christ, salvation by grace, the resurrection, etc.) were already being taught and defended in the 1st–4th centuries—long before any single group controlled the Bible. You can read the same beliefs in Ignatius (c. 107 AD), Irenaeus (c. 180 AD), Athanasius (c. 350 AD), Augustine (c. 400 AD). The creeds (Apostles’ Creed, Nicene Creed) simply summarize what the early church already believed the Bible taught.

Global and cross-denominational agreement on the essentials: Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, and Protestants all agree on the big-ticket items listed above, even though they differ on secondary issues (church government, Mary, sacraments, etc.). If the Bible were truly ambiguous on the central claims of Christianity, we would expect far more divergence than we actually see.

Jewish interpretation of the Old Testament: Judaism has preserved a remarkably consistent reading of the Torah for over 2,500 years (e.g., one God, ethical monotheism, the importance of the covenant). The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Septuagint show that first-century Jews read the same Hebrew text in essentially the same way we do today.

Where Uncertainty and Disagreement Exist

Honest Christians admit disagreement on secondary matters: baptism method, predestination vs. free will, spiritual gifts, end-times details, etc. These differences usually arise from:

Difficult passages that are genuinely ambiguous in the original languages.

Different hermeneutical principles (literal vs. symbolic, how much weight to give church tradition, etc.).

Cultural or theological presuppositions we bring to the text.

Safeguards That Keep Interpretation Reasonably Reliable

The original languages are still accessible; anyone can learn Hebrew and Greek and check the work of scholars.

Thousands of ancient manuscripts prevent any one group from secretly altering the text.

The “rule of faith” (the core gospel) was public and widely attested from the earliest centuries, making large-scale corruption of meaning extremely difficult.

The Bottom line on Bible Transmission and Translation

We can trust that we have the right words (translation) with extraordinary certainty, 99.5%

We can trust the historic Christian (and Jewish) interpretation of the main message with very high confidence, because it has been believed and defended consistently for 2,000+ years across continents and cultures.

On secondary issues, responsible disagreement exists—but the essentials that “define” Christianity are not seriously in doubt among those who take the text seriously.

Interpretation is a human process and therefore fallible, but the combination of textual stability, early consensus, and ongoing scholarly scrutiny gives us stronger grounds for confidence than for almost any other ancient document’s meaning.

 Reason #2: The testimony of Internal Consistency—Though the Bible seems to be one book, it is in reality a codex of 66 little books put together. These 66 books are divided into two testaments (the old and the new). It was written by over 36 different authors who lived on 3 different continents, from a variety of different backgrounds, over a period of 1,500 years. They wrote about the most controversial topic in the world —God and Truth. Yet, considering all these factors, we find that there is internal harmony and consistency in their writings. This is remarkable in light of the fact that there were no fax machines, conference calls, or emails in that time period. The harmony within the Bible gives us evidence that its message can be trusted. Where there seem to be contradictions, these contradictions lie only within our own interpretation or understanding of the Bible and not in the Bible itself.

Reason #3: The testimony of History—Historical evidence verifies the accuracy of the Bible. Non-Christian Historians as well as Christian Historians.

The Bible is not merely a book of faith; it is a document rooted in real history. Its accuracy has been repeatedly confirmed by archaeological discoveries and the writings of ancient historians—both Christian and non-Christian—who lived closer to the events than any modern skeptic.

 Non-Christian sources provide some of the strongest external corroboration. The Roman historian Tacitus (c. AD 116) wrote of Jesus’ execution under Pontius Pilate during the reign of Tiberius (Annals 15.44). Josephus, a first-century Jewish historian, mentions Jesus twice—once noting His crucifixion under Pilate and once referring to James as “the brother of Jesus who was called the Christ” (Antiquities 18.3.3; 20.9.1). Pliny the Younger, Suetonius, and even the Babylonian Talmud acknowledge the existence of Jesus and the rapid spread of early Christianity. These writers were not believers; several were hostile to the faith, yet they treat Jesus and key biblical figures as historical realities, not myths.

 Christian historians like Eusebius and early church fathers preserved eyewitness traditions and quoted sources now lost, but their core claims align with the independent testimony of pagan and Jewish writers. When Tacitus, Josephus, and the New Testament all agree that Jesus was crucified under Pilate in Judea, the convergence of friendly and hostile sources carries extraordinary weight.

 History does not prove every miracle or theological claim of Scripture, but it repeatedly demonstrates that the Bible is not a collection of legends invented centuries later. From the existence of obscure kings and governors to the timing of major events, the testimony of history—both Christian and non-Christian—continually verifies the Bible’s reliability as a document grounded in real space and time. The record stands.

Reason #4: The testimony of Archeology—Modern archeological discoveries, such as the Dead Sea Scrolls, continue to confirm the Bible’s historical accuracy and preservation. As well as thousands of other archaeological discoveries.

Here are some of the most significant and widely recognized biblical archaeology discoveries that provide external corroboration for people, places, events, and cultural details described in the Bible. These do not “prove the Bible is true” in a theological sense (faith claims about God, miracles, etc., lie outside archaeology), but they do demonstrate that the biblical texts are rooted in real history and are remarkably reliable when they touch on verifiable historical matters.

Here are just a few of the top discoveries (roughly in chronological order by biblical period)

Merneptah Stele (1208 BC) – Cairo Museum  

   - Earliest extra-biblical reference to “Israel” as a people (not just a place).  

   - Confirms Israel was already an established entity in Canaan by the late 13th century BC, matching the general time frame of the Exodus and Conquest narratives.

Tel Dan Stele (mid-9th century BC) – Israel Museum  

   - First extra-biblical reference to the “House of David”).  

   - Confirms David was a historical king and founder of a dynasty, refuting earlier minimalist claims that David was mythical.

Moabite Stone / Mesha Stele (c. 840 BC) – Louvre  

   - Mentions King Omri of Israel and the God Yahweh (YHWH).  

   - Parallels 2 Kings 3 extremely closely (Moab’s revolt against Israel).  

   - One of the clearest cases of direct confirmation of a biblical king and event.

Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser III (c. 841 BC) – British Museum  

   - Depicts Jehu, king of Israel (or his envoy), paying tribute to Assyria.  

   - Only known contemporary picture of an Israelite king.

Sennacherib’s Prism / Taylor Prism (701 BC) – British Museum & Oriental Institute.  

   - Describes Sennacherib’s campaign against Judah exactly as in 2 Kings 18–19 and Isaiah 36–37, including the siege of Jerusalem and Hezekiah paying tribute.  

   - Remarkably, Sennacherib boasts of shutting Hezekiah up “like a bird in a cage” but never claims to have captured Jerusalem—consistent with the biblical claim of miraculous deliverance.

Hezekiah’s Tunnel & Siloam Inscription (c. 701 BC) – Jerusalem  

   - The 533-meter water tunnel described in 2 Kings 20:20 and 2 Chronicles 32:30.  

   - The Siloam Inscription (discovered 1838, re-found in situ 2004) describes how two teams dug from opposite ends and met in the middle—written in perfect late-8th-century paleo-Hebrew, exactly matching the biblical period.

Cyrus Cylinder (539 BC) – British Museum  

   - Confirms Cyrus the Great’s policy of allowing exiled peoples to return and rebuild their temples (cf. Ezra 1:1–4; Isaiah 44–45).  

   - Not a direct quote of the biblical decree, but it corroborates the historical context.

Ketef Hinnom Silver Scrolls (c. 600 BC) – Israel Museum  

   - Two tiny silver amulets containing the priestly blessing of Numbers 6:24–26.  

   - Oldest known fragments of the biblical text (predating Dead Sea Scrolls by ~400 years).

Pontius Pilate Inscription (26–36 AD) – Caesarea Maritima (Israel Museum)  

   - Limestone block bearing the name “[Pontius Pilatus, Prefect of Judea.”  

   - Confirms Pilate was a real historical governor of Judea, exactly when the Gospels place him.

Caiaphas Ossuary (1st century AD) – Israel Museum  

    - Ornate bone box inscribed “Joseph son of Caiaphas”—widely accepted as the high priest mentioned in the Gospels (John 18; Matthew 26).

Gallio Inscription (Delphi, Greece; 51–52 AD)  

    - Confirms Lucius Junius Gallio was proconsul of Achaia exactly when Acts 18 says Paul appeared before him in Corinth.  

    - One of the most precise chronological anchors for New Testament dating.

 Pool of Siloam (John 9) – Excavated 2004–2005 in Jerusalem  

    - The actual stepped pool where Jesus sent the blind man to wash, exactly matching the description in John 9.

Nazareth Inscription (1st century AD, possibly from Caesarea)  

    - Marble slab with a Roman edict against grave-robbing, threatening death penalty.  

    - Some scholars link it to the resurrection controversy.

Summary of What These Discoveries Show

- Dozens of biblical kings (from Shishak to Nebuchadnezzar to Cyrus) once dismissed as legendary are now confirmed by inscriptions.

- Numerous once-questioned individuals (David, Hezekiah, Pilate, Caiaphas, Gallio, etc.) are now archaeologically attested.

- Specific events and cultural details (tunnels, sieges, tribute payments, priestly blessings) match the biblical narratives with striking precision.

- The oldest biblical texts predate the Dead Sea Scrolls by centuries, showing textual stability.

Archaeology cannot prove divine inspiration or miracles, but it has repeatedly overturned 19th–20th century scholarly skepticism about the Bible’s basic historicity. The trend over the last century has been one of increasing, not decreasing, corroboration. 

Reason #5: The testimony of Science—The true study of the sciences, such as biology, geology, cosmology, human anatomy and physiology, etc. continues to give evidence to support the claims of the Bible. 

Here are some key areas where rigorous, peer-reviewed scientific research continues to align with or provide intriguing support for specific claims or implications in the Bible. These are not "proofs" of the Bible (science doesn't work that way), but they are cases where modern evidence has moved in the direction of biblical statements that were once dismissed as mythical or impossible by 19th- and early 20th-century skeptics.

A definite beginning of the universe (Cosmology)  

   Genesis 1:1 – “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”  

   The Big Bang model (supported by cosmic microwave background radiation, Hubble/Lemaître expansion, abundance of light elements, Planck satellite data, JWST observations) establishes a finite age (~13.8 billion years) and an absolute beginning—something 19th-century science rejected in favor of an eternal steady-state universe. The Borde-Guth-Vilenkin theorem (2003) further shows that almost all inflationary models still require an initial singularity or boundary.

Universe governed by precise laws and constants (Physics/Cosmology)  

   Implied in Genesis 1 (creation by fiat, ordered days) and Job 38–39, Psalm 19.  

   Fine-tuning of constants (gravitational constant, strong nuclear force, cosmological constant, etc.) is now mainstream physics. The probability of life-permitting values arising by chance is estimated by physicists such as Roger Penrose at <1 in 10^10^123. This is widely acknowledged even by non-theist physicists (Martin Rees, Paul Davies, Luke Barnes).

Earth as a sphere hanging on nothing (Geology/Cosmology)  

   Isaiah 40:22 – “He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth”; Job 26:7 – “He hangs the earth on nothing.”  

   Pre-scientific cultures depicted the earth as flat or resting on pillars/water. The spherical earth suspended in empty space matches modern understanding and was not obvious in antiquity.

The hydrologic cycle with ocean currents and atmospheric circulation  

   Ecclesiastes 1:7, Job 36:27–28, Amos 9:6, Psalm 135:7.  

   The full water cycle (evaporation, condensation, precipitation, river return) and “paths of the seas” (Matthew Maury in the 1850s credited Psalm 8:8 for motivating his discovery of major ocean currents) were described centuries before scientific confirmation.

Stretching of the heavens (Cosmology)  

   Multiple passages (Isaiah 40:22, 42:5, 44:24, 45:12, Jeremiah 10:12, Zechariah 12:1) use the phrase “stretching out the heavens.”  

   Modern cosmology describes the expansion of space itself (metric expansion) confirmed by redshift data, Hubble, and now JWST deep-field images.

Entropy and the second law of thermodynamics  

   Psalm 102:25–26, Isaiah 51:6, Romans 8:20–22 (creation subjected to futility/decay).  

   The universe is running down; total entropy is increasing. This was unknown before the 19th century.

One human race from a single source (Genetics)  

   Acts 17:26 – “From one man he made all the nations…”  

   Mitochondrial DNA and Y-chromosome studies trace all modern humans to a single female ancestor (“Mitochondrial Eve”) ~100–200 kya and a single male bottleneck (“Y-chromosomal Adam”), consistent with a single origin rather than multiple independent hominin lines evolving into humans.

Blood as the basis of life  

   Leviticus 17:11 – “For the life of the flesh is in the blood.”  

   Long mocked when bloodletting was common, now foundational: oxygen transport, immune function, clotting, etc. William Harvey’s circulation discovery (1628) vindicated this centuries later.

Quarantine and sanitation laws (Epidemiology/Microbiology)  

   Leviticus 13–15 (detailed rules for infectious skin diseases, bodily discharges, mold, etc.).  

   These predate germ theory by 3,000 years yet align remarkably well with modern infection-control principles.

Soft tissue in dinosaur fossils  

    While not directly biblical, the discovery of original biological material (flexible blood vessels, osteocytes, proteins, and DNA fragments) in Cretaceous fossils (Mary Schweitzer, 2005 onward) has dramatically shortened the claimed preservation window, making the young-earth timeframe more biologically plausible than previously thought possible under strict uniformitarian assumptions.

Geological evidence of rapid, catastrophic processes  

    Catastrophic plate tectonics models, runaway subduction, megaflood features (Channeled Scablands, Missoula floods), rapid canyon formation (e.g., Burlingame Canyon, Texas formed in days), and polystrate fossils all show that massive geological change can happen quickly, supporting the plausibility of a global flood mechanism.

These alignments do not “prove” the Bible in a mathematical sense, but they repeatedly show that biblical authors described reality in ways that were far ahead of their time and that modern discovery has tended to confirm rather than refute. Many statements once ridiculed by skeptics (the universe had a beginning, earth floats in space, one human race, life in the blood, hydrologic cycle, etc.) are now textbook science.

Reason #6: The testimony of Relevancy— The Bible is often dismissed as an artifact of a bygone era: a collection of texts written between roughly 1400 BC and AD 100, shaped by nomadic tribes, agrarian societies, and first-century Jewish and Greco-Roman cultures. Its narratives feature shepherds, kings, prophets wandering in deserts, and a Messiah executed under Roman law. Yet century after century, millions of people from every continent, social class, and historical moment have opened its pages and heard a voice that speaks directly to their own moment, as if the words were written yesterday. This enduring relevance is one of the strongest internal testimonies to the Bible’s divine origin. It is still the best-selling and most translated book up to the present time.

Reason #7: The testimony of a Changed Life—Unlike other books, the Bible not only can influence our thinking and change our behavior, but it has the power to completely transform our lives from the inside out!

Among the countless books that claim to offer wisdom, self-improvement, or moral guidance, the Bible stands alone in its ability to do far more than inform the mind or adjust behavior. It possesses a unique, supernatural power to regenerate the human heart and completely transform a life from the inside out.

 History is filled with dramatic testimonies that illustrate this truth. Consider the apostle Paul, once a zealous persecutor of Christians who approved the execution of believers. After encountering the risen Christ and immersing himself in Scripture, he was radically converted. The man who once breathed threats and murder became the greatest missionary the world has ever known, declaring, “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, behold, the new has come” (2 Corinthians 5:17).

 Countless others echo Paul’s experience. Augustine, the brilliant but morally reckless philosopher of the fourth century, found his restless soul finally at peace when he opened the book of Romans and read, “Put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh.” In that moment, centuries of pursuit ended, and a transformed life began that shaped Western theology.

 In our own time, men and women from every background—addicts, skeptics, criminals, and the self-righteous—consistently testify that when the Word of God is believed and received by faith, it does something no self-help manual or philosophical system can: it makes dead hearts alive. It replaces hatred with love, despair with hope, and selfishness with sacrificial devotion.

 This is the Bible’s singular claim and proven reality: it is not merely a book to be studied, but the living voice of God that invades, convicts, cleanses, and recreates. Other books may influence us; only the Bible has the power, through the Spirit who inspired it, to give us a wholly new life. The greatest evidence is not a clever argument, but the undeniable testimony of millions of changed lives—past, present, and still being written today.

What an amazing collection of books that in no way are ordinary and that have everything to do with me, my life, and the relationships I have.

 The Bible is one of the main ways that God communicates and talks with the human race. We grow in understanding and as individuals by studying His word.

 The Bible gives us hope through the rough times in our lives. His Prophecies are a warning in advance to humans about what things will take place very soon and how to prepare yourself for them.

 To be left in the dark is not God’s plan for you or anyone.

“Seek the Lord while he may be found; call to him while he is near. Let the wicked one abandon his way and the sinful one his thoughts; let him return to the Lord, so he may have compassion on him, and to our God, for he will freely forgive.” Isaiah 55:6-7 

Reading all that I have laid out before you and here, you can be pretty positive that you can trust the Bible.

That is not 100% proof (history and metaphysics never give 100%), but it is far, far beyond “reasonable doubt” by any normal historical standard. It is stronger evidence than we have for almost any other event or document from antiquity.

With all this, don't you owe it to yourself, like I did, to check it out yourself?

The answer is a resounding YES!