8 Perspectives on the Bible's Reliability

  For quite some time, I have been making a collection of different approaches to dealing with the reliability of the Bible. My recent post regarding undesigned coincidences in the New Testament is coincidental to this ongoing collection. The interesting thing about such a discussion is that it has to be held in different ways with different people. The reasons that my Muslim friends doubt the reliability of the Jewish and Christian Scriptures are different from those that my atheist, agnostic, or Christian-raised-but-still-wrestling-with-the-idea friends will have. Beyond that, when my kids want to know why I accept one collection of Scriptures as divinely-given and reliable but not another collection, the discussions are again upended. 

  What I propose to give below is not so much an argument for the reliability of Scripture as it is a collection of the different ways that I have seen and heard the Scriptures argued for. Personally, I find certain arguments more compelling than others, but that is not really the point here. My point is to collect them as group. Note that these are also not arguments for Scripture's inerrancy or inspiration directly; that is relevant, but not the focus here.  

1. Literary structures - This argument has particular force in relation to the idea that Scripture was redacted over generations. If this is so, the structural unity across individual works and swaths of works is staggering. On the other hand, if the writings are works by individual authors, this unity makes much more sense. This particularly came home to me as I researched what became my article on blessing in Genesis, a book that many believe is heavily redacted or pieced together.  

2. Internal claims - The Bible itself claims to be reliable and God-sent; it claims to be unchanging. One may immediately object that this is a circular argument; however, imagine if the Bible made no such claim! In other words, the Bible's claim to divine origin and unchanging character and content is significant for faith. 

  In line with this, the Bible also mentions many other sources that could have been included in the biblical canon; some of those were by the same authors whose other writings are included. So, alongside its claims to reliability and divine sanction, the Bible claims a certain selectivity or exclusivity. Not all of Paul's or the prophets' or the chroniclers' writings were equal or (regarded as) Scripture. 

3. Manuscript evidences - This argument for the reliability of the biblical texts is an overwhelming one when compared to any other ancient document (although the claims of Scripture are correspondingly extraordinary.) Still, there are over 5,800 Greek manuscripts of the New Testament besides about 20,000 manuscripts of ancient translations into other languages. Separately, the Old Testament Scriptures have thousands of manuscripts in Hebrew, plus translations. (A hard number of OT manuscripts is surprisingly hard to find given how common the 5,800 number is for NT manuscripts: this site has the most concrete number I could find.)

   Not only is there an argument based on the massive number of manuscripts that were preserved, but there is also the consistency of the text that has been seen. As the number of manuscripts available to scholars has exploded in the last couple centuries, Christian doctrine has not needed to change or be adjusted. There have been places where copying or spelling errors have become evident, but this does not undermine a claim to reliability. Christians do not claim that any single published copy is a perfect copy of the entire Scripture. Instead, Christian belief is that the original manuscripts were perfectly reliable, and we have received reliable copies of them.

4. Historical progression of acceptance - This argument rests on the fact that the Bible presents a 'telescoping' view of its revelation. In other words, each section builds on the preceding one; Moses is built on by Samuel; Samuel and Moses are built on by David and Solomon; the prophets built on those that preceded them; Jesus (as quoted, though he did not write any of the New Testament himself) built on the Old Testament, and the disciples and earliest Christian witnesses built on all that preceding revelation. Below are a few thoughts from the NT concerning the OT:  

- Jesus’ acceptance of OT (Mt 23:35; Lk 11:51; Lk 24:25, 27, 32, 44-48; Jn 5:45-47; his regular quotation & amplification, references to fulfillment and the prophets; Mt 21:42; Lk 4:16-21; 22:37; Jn 7:[38], 42; 10:34-36; 13:18; 17:12; 19:12)

- Jesus' disciples/apostles' acceptance (Jn 1:45; Lk 24:32; Acts 13:27; constant quotation and allusion)

- There is also acceptance of other NT writers even within the NT - Peter accepts Paul as a Scripture writer (2 Peter 3:15-16) where he references Paul's writings among 'the other Scriptures.' 

   One might ask why Moses' original readers accepted his writings. I would suggest that minimally these were the people who had been at Mount Sinai and had heard the words and been terrified at the presence of God. Thus, their acceptance was not simplistic; it was multi-faceted, through faith and experience. With a bit of thought, one can extrapolate further along these lines for Moses' and others' writings.

5. Consistency with the experience world - The subjectiveness of this argument does not necessarily blunt its impact. The world described in the Bible matches the one we experience. Among other things, in the Bible we are led to expect a world of great beauty and humans made 'in the image of a good God' while we are also told that an enemy has brought ruin and destruction upon all the creation. Thus, what is called 'natural revelation' matches both the glories and horrors that we see and hear.

6. Undesigned coincidences - With the recent post on this, I will not extrapolate much, but this is similar to the 'literary structures' argument. The biblical writings themselves often confirm and support each other in the sorts of ways that argue for their authenticity as eyewitness accounts.

 

7. Archaeology - The biblical accounts have shown time and again that they are accurate in historical details, at least to the extent that they care to draw attention to them and that we have found independent witness to the same events. This area is also where there are still many questions and constant developments. I would suggest that no single artifact could sufficiently prove or disprove such a book, not even Noah's Ark in full preservation in the Mountains of Ararat. However, some of the archaeological support of Scripture has offered stunning corroboration in its minute detail. 

8. Impact on art, history, and culture - The little book, "Christianity: Fundamental Teachings" that I mentioned being published by the Turkish Church says it this way, "The Holy Bible is the most influential and successful work ever witnessed" (pg 74). It goes on to list the Bible's influence in inspiring "world literature, fine art, architecture, music, paintings, and other branches of art" as well as influencing the development of science, human rights, gender equality, and democracy.