Is It Reasonable to Believe the Bible? The purpose of this lesson is to establish a firm basis for belief in the Bible. To strengthen the faith that, presumably, most of us already have in the Bible. We need to be able to defend our faith with more than mere assertions.

The Bible is a compilation of writings. Much of the Bible is historical. This history is not merely a dry recounting of facts. It is interspersed with poems, and, on every page, the author breathes a moral and spiritual concern for the events taking place.

A large part of the Bible is preaching. The writings of the prophets consist largely of sermons preached at various times. Then there is the Wisdom Literature which emphasizes the principles by which the total man should live.

The New Testament adds another kind of writing – epistolary. Twenty-one of the New Testament books are letters written by an inspired man to a specific person or congregation, and, in a few cases, as a letter for more general circulation.

Apocalyptic literature, such as Daniel, Zechariah, and Revelation, is found in both the Old and New Testaments. In these portions of the Bible, spiritual realities are graphically and vividly portrayed through the use of startling imagery.

When we talk about believing the Bible, therefore, we are referring to believing what is written in the Bible. Is it reasonable to believe the historical narratives of the Bible? Is it reasonable to believe the preaching of the Bible? Is it reasonable to believe in the epistles of Paul and Peter?

Determining credibility. The question of credibility of any ancient work must be answered by basically the same methods whether it is Homer’s writings, the ancient accounts of the life of Alexander the Great, the works of Josephus, or the Bible.

These are some of the criteria: Does the work contradict itself? Are the facts consistently told? Are the authors competent to write what they wrote? Does the writing fit the features of the time in which it purports to have been written? Does the work stand the test of time?

Inspiration. There is an additional element involved when our subject of inquiry is the Bible, and that is its claim to be inspired of God. This claim is so stupendous that it is immediately obvious that the book’s merits stand or fall on the strength of this one claim.

Primarily, internal evidence must settle this dispute. If there are prophecies, do they all come true? Does the Bible contain information that could be obtained no other way? Are there features of the writing of the Bible that require inspiration to explain them? Are there things that happened for which no reasonable explanation exists except that God did them?

The evidence. One does not have to think about the topic of evidence very long before he can see clearly that the study of evidence breaks down into two categories: Internal and external. Let us begin with external evidence first.

Remember that we are not looking primarily at the greater question whether there is a God. We are seeking to determine whether we may believe the Bible as the inspired word of God.

We want to know: Do we have a reliable copy of the Bible? –This question has to do with correct translations and with accurate copies. Does the Bible agree with verifiable facts from other sources of knowledge, both historical and scientific?

The Old Testament. The Old Testament was written in Hebrew, except for a few chapters: In Daniel (2:4-7:28). A few chapters in Ezra (4:8-6:18; 7:12-26). And a few scattered verses elsewhere (Jer. 10:11 e.g.) in Aramaic.

One of the peculiarities about the Hebrew Old Testament is that, until 1947 and the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the oldest manuscripts of it, except for isolated fragments, were from about the middle of the eighth century A.D.

In fact, the former director of the British Museum, Frederick Kenyon, says “All the extant manuscripts of the Hebrew Old Testament contain substantially a Massoretic text” (p. 42). The Massoretes were Jewish scholars who developed methods and means of accurately copying the Hebrew text, such as counting the letters, knowing what the middle letter was supposed to be, etc.

They also developed a system to supply the vowel sounds for the Hebrew language, which was written only in consonants. They flourished from the latter part of the eighth century to the first half of the tenth (Price, p. 26; Kenyon, p. 38).