There are many people who would sooner believe that Bigfoot uses the Loch Ness Monster as his own personal sea-doo, than that the Bible is anything more than some clever fiction. Many say that it's merely a book of fables- that none of it really happened the way it's written!What about you? Do you believe what the Bible says is true-- even the weird supernatural stuff? How do you know? Well, tonight, I shared a number of reasons why I believe that the Bible is true and trustworthy. Much of this has been ripped from Josh McDowell-- a guy who set out to prove that the Bible was nothing more than fiction, and through that process became a Christian. He has authored a number of books that highlight reasons why the Bible can be trusted.
1. Manuscripts
There are more manuscripts for the Bible than ANY other book in history! The Ilyad by Homer is #2 with 643 manuscripts. In contrast, there are over 24,000 manuscript copies of the New Testament. All of those copies have been studied and compared to give us the most accurate piece of historical literature in history! For a long time, the oldest copy of the Old Testament we had was dated 900 AD....but when the dead sea scrolls were found in 1947, they discovered copies of the Old Testament that were 1000 years older. After comparing them, they were 95% accurate to each other (and out of that 5%, the errors are mostly grammatical). The Bible is INSANELY accurate.
2. Eyewitness Accounts
The New Testament, which contains all the details about Jesus' life, teaching, miracles, and his death and resurrection, was written by eye witnesses- people who were actually there listening to Jesus....people who saw and experienced miracles first hand...people who saw Jesus die and had a conversation later on with him! See 2 Peter 1:16, Luke 1:2-3, 1 Corinthians 15:3-8, Acts 26:25-26, Acts 2:22. What happened concerning Jesus was public knowledge! Hundreds saw Jesus after he rose from the dead, not to mention the thousands who saw and experienced miracles!
3. Martyrs
Ten of the twelve disciples were brutally tortured and killed for their faith in Jesus. Thomas (my personal favorite) was someone who doubted that Jesus was alive, but when he encountered Jesus for himself, he spent the rest of his life telling others in India about his experience and was speared to death because of it! Have you ever seen a TV show where a government agent tortures someone to extract information from them? How many people would go through torture and death just to keep up a lie that they invented? The disciples never made millions of dollars in book deals-- they sacrificed their entire lives to spread the news of Jesus, and even under torture, never denied what they believed.
4. Prophecy
The Bible is full of prophecy that came true in history. There are over 60 major prophecies about Jesus that were all made at least 400 years before he was born that give details of his birth (including the town he would be born in), his life, and incredibly specific details about his death (amazingly, there's a prophecy that his hands and feet would be pierced...and it was written 800 years before crucifixion was even invented!). Josh McDowell says that the chance of just 8 of those 60 prophecies being fulfilled in one person is more than 1 in 100 trillion. Jesus fulfilled all 60.
Discussion:
1. Is there something in the Bible that you find to be hard to believe? What is it and why?
2. If, the Bible is TRUE, if the story of Jesus went down EXACTLY as it said it did, what impact should that have on your life?
3. Check out some of Josh McDowell's short videos on his Youtube site for more evidence into why the Bible can be trusted. I would recommend clicking on 'Playlists" and viewing the short videos (2-4 minutes each) in his series on "Jesus Is Unique" and "Is The Bible Reliable".
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