What would it take to convince you to believe in the Bible? In it, one finds that Christianity is the one true religion which God approves today; the Christian religion depends on the recognition that the Holy Bible is His divine revelation to man. Consequently, if the Bible is of divine origin, to be acceptable to God, it must be adhered to by all now living. The question, however, is, “Can we truly depend on the Bible?”
In Josh McDowell’s two-volume series of books, Evidence That Demands a Verdict, Volumes I & II, McDowell supplies over 700 pages of evidence for God, the Bible and Jesus Christ. In volume two alone, McDowell spends the entire book on the discussion of textual criticism. This is the process where one examines the various attacks posed on the textual credibility of the Bible. A very basic argument for the inspiration of the Bible is:
If it is the case that the Bible is reliable, trustworthy, and historical, and if it is a unity, contains prophecy made and fulfilled, presents a view of God, man, and the world beyond mere human invention, contains true accounts of miracles performed, presents an ethical code beyond mere human invention, and it presents a mission, message, authority, and commission of Jesus Christ, which are beyond mere human invention, then the Bible is the authoritative revelation of God to man.
Take a few minutes to let that statement really sink in. Reread the statement if necessary.
First and foremost, we must prove the Bible to be historically reliable, after which, we can deduce it to be equally credible for the balance of its. A book is considered reliable when it can be traced: (1) back to its author, (2) to a time when it purports to have been written and (3) when the content is the same in every essential point as when the author penned it (H.S. Miller, General Biblical Introduction, 177). Even though we have no original manuscripts (autographs which were penned by the authors) for either the Old or the New Testament, there exist adequate supplies of reliable copies, which corroborate each other.
McDowell stated adequately in volume one of his title cited above that: (1) the amount of fragments of biblical text coupled with (2) the quotations from early historians commenting on the text and (3) the ancient versions dated within several hundred years of the originals, we can rest assured that the Bible we now possess is reliable to the text of the original writings.
We now have over 24,000 original language copies as evidence for the text of the Bible, while generally accepted world figures such as Homer (The Iliad) have but 643 copies by which the original can be discerned. We can immediately see that failure to accept the New Testament is not based on the lack of historical evidence.
People choose not to accept the Bible as historically reliable because, then, they would have to obey the will of God. The Bible is truly a reliable, trustworthy, historical document. We can depend on the Bible to present fact and history accurately, and therefore we can be assured that additional doctrinal instruction is equally dependable. Proving the Bible’s reliability, we can now trust it to lead one to accept and learn from it about Christianity.
