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Introduction

The national treasury is the only entity within a country with the authority to make money, all else would be counterfeit. Likewise, only God can author the words of Scripture, inspire the words of Scripture, and provide what is worthy of inclusion of Scripture since the Bile is meant to be God’s Word, and indeed it is.[1] The need for the reliability of God’s Word is based upon this very truth that it represents God Himself. It is because the Bible is inerrant that doctrines pertaining Jesus, salvation, God’s relation to humanity, the return of Jesus, and the eventual restoration of all creation can be studied, believed, and trusted.[2] However, challenges to the Bible’s accuracy are continually addressed by skeptics who make claims that the Bible is full of errors and controversies. Therefore, it is important to address these claims and errors through the reliability of the Bible, providing historical manuscript evidence, and demonstrating how the Bible is unique when compared to all other religious texts verifying the claim that it truly is the Word of God. The Bible affirms this claim by stating it is the Word of God in its original manuscripts proving it was not added as an afterthought. “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness.”

Addressing the Errors

            The assertion that the Bible cannot be considered true due to errors is a contention often used to disregard the claims of the Bible. However, to understand this question and provide evidence that the Bible is indeed true, some terms must be defined and explained. For example, the term error can hold a plethora of definitions ranging from minor faults to major irrevocable contradictions. The errors found within the Bible are all based upon these minor faults, and if major irrevocable contradictions are challenged, verses or sections are often taken out of their historical, cultural, and linguistic context. “Even with all the textual variants, there are really very few places where any sort of major theological, or historical, or ethical issue (in regard to the views of the writers of the NT) is seriously in doubt.”[3] The Dead Sea Scrolls demonstrate the Bible’s accuracy revealing that even though existing manuscripts were distanced by well over a thousand years of each other, they were still 95% accurate with word-for-word comparisons. The remaining 5% are comprised primarily of apparent slips of the pen and disparities of spelling.[4]

            Error does not equate to untruthfulness or validity. For example, a rural woodsmen may not know the proper intricacies of the English language resulting in his speech being littered with grammatical error. However, this does not affect the truthfulness of the individual, or the validity of his claims.[5] Likewise, with the small percentage of errors within the Bible being minor errors this does not equate to the untruthfulness or validity of the Scripture. Therefore, in simple terms inerrancy “means that the Bible always tells the truth, and that it always tells the truth concerning everything it talks about,” providing the basis for the words of God to be trusted.[6]

The Bible is Trustworthy Because It is God Breathed

            For something to be trustworthy it is equivalent to that something being relied upon and believed. If you trust in the ability to press the brake pedal of a car to bring the car to a halt, you rely upon the pedal and believe in the result that follows. If you did not trust the vehicle’s braking system, you would not believe they work. The trustworthiness of the Bible is often challenged by skeptics. As a result, those challenging this trustworthiness do not believe in its contents. “When you believe The Bible and read it with a believing heart, you find that it really makes sense as it is.”[7] 1 Corinthians 2:10-16 expounds on this statement explaining that the thoughts of God cannot be comprehended through the flesh, humanity, or intellect, but rather are based upon the Spirit of God working in the lives of humanity pointing to the truths of the Gospel found within Jesus Christ who brings restoration to mankind to God.[8] “The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.”[9]

Thus, not only does the Spirit of God work in the lives of humanity to bring understanding to the Bible, but it is important to recognize the Bible claims to be the very Word of God. For without this, it would be just like any other book, the writings of man to be met with the passing of time. The book of Hebrews begins establishing the Old Testament as the words of God, along with affirming the New Testament through the words of Jesus. “Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days He has spoken to us by His Son, whom He appointed the heir of all things, through whom also He created the world.”[10] Therefore, when the apostle Paul states in His letter to Timothy that, “All Scripture is breathed out by God,” he is stating that Spirit of God not only works in the lives of the authors to perfectly represent God in their writings, but also presently works alongside the reader to fulfill the Bibles purpose, “that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.”[11] In fact, there is firm historical evidence that the Christian authors of the New Testament believed they were writing the divine Scriptures.[12] Therefore, if the Word of God is believed, it is trusted, and thus this belief in God causes the Spirit of God to work within the life of the individual in the present using the words of the past that continue to perfectly represent an unchanging immutable God.

Historical Manuscript Evidence

            “Nothing can be theologically true about the Bible that is historically false if we are talking about something where [proven] history and theology intersect.”[13] This is largely due that fact that archeology has never discovered something that has overturned a Biblical reference.[14] Often when someone proposes a theological error within the Scriptures the cultural, historical linguistic is denied. “A text without an historical context is just a pretext for whatever you want it to mean.” This eisegesis of the Biblical texts results in many major irrevocable errors to theological perspectives because it originates within the intellectual nature of man as a priority over the Spirit of God. The Bible has more historical manuscripts than any other ancient historical text, and of those manuscripts, “It may be stated that for over 99 percent of the words of the Bible, we know what the original manuscript said… In the small percentage of cases where there is significant uncertainty about what the original text said, the general sense of the sentence is usually quite clear from the context.”[15] It is also important to know all the manuscripts we have are indeed copies, so the errors that are seen are not in reference to the original manuscripts therefore showing that the inerrancy and infallibility of the Bible can be presented as 100 percent accurate in its original manuscripts truly being words of God breathed out by the God Himself through the prophets and authors of the Scriptures.[16]

Uniqueness of the Bible Seen Through Its Authorship and Comparisons

            The Christian Bible is unique compared to all other religious texts, not because its claim to be God’s Word (because all the religious texts claim this) but largely seen through its comparison of authorship, harmony, and impact. This affirms that it indeed is the truth, for not all religious texts can be the Word of God for they conflict with one another.[17] All other religious texts are written by a single man during a lifetime, so when compared through authorship to the Bible, the Bible is the only religious text with 40 authors, 66 books, and written over the course of nearly 2,000 years all the meanwhile maintaining harmony and continuity throughout all the various texts.[18] The truthfulness of the Bible proves itself as being far more persuasive than any other religious text.[19] Therefore, when you look throughout the entirety of the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, the Bible tells a fluid coherent story with overarching themes all relating to the same God making it intrinsically unique showing how God not only spoke to the prophets the words of Scripture, but also became a man seen through Jesus Christ the embodiment of the Word of God becoming flesh.[20] The effectiveness of the Scriptures is seen coherently through how, “Throughout history, the record is clear: when a critical mass of people have the Bible and apply what it teaches in their lives, a nation is transformed.”[21] This is seen heavily through the history of the nation of Israel, the explosion of Christianity in the first century, the Reformation, the Great Awakenings, along with personally changing the lives of millions, myself included. The Bible has the power to change lives because it is truly inerrant, but it is the very words of an everlasting and ever-present God. These words speak of salvation unto eternal life and communion with God in the present. This is not the result of hard work, ritual, or effort, but rather the Bible teaches salvation and eternal life are achieved purely through confession that Jesus is Lord, He died to pay the penalty of your wrongs, the belief that God raised Him from the dead, and that this is salvation is received through God’s grace through faith.[22] The question is, will you believe the truths of hope for yourself found within God’s Word?

Conclusion

            Four problems arise for the individual if inerrancy is denied: a problem of morality in the call to become like God, the problem of being able to trust God in what He says, the problem of the human mind becoming the highest authority over the will and words of God, and that the Bible is thus not only wrong in minor issues, but major issues of doctrine as well.[23] These problems leave the individual in an ever-circling spiral of unknowns about a known God. The truth however is this, the Bible is inerrant and reliable seen through its evidence and uniqueness.

 

[1] Wayne A. Grudem, Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 2000) 59.
[2] John Frame, “Inerrancy: A Place to Live,” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 57, no. 1 (March 2014): 30.
[3] Ben III Witherington, “The Truth Will: A Historian's Perspective on the Inerrancy Controversy,” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 57, no. 1 (March 2014): 21.
[4] Wayne A. Grudem, Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 2000) 92.
[5] Ibid.
[6] Ibid., 91.
[7] John Frame, “Inerrancy: A Place To Live,” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 57, no. 1 (March 2014): 32.
[8] 1 Corinthians 2:10-16 (ESV).
[9] 1 Corinthians 2:14 (ESV).
[10] Hebrews 1:1-2 (ESV).
[11] 2 Timothy 3:16-17 (ESV).
[12] Ben III Witherington, “The Truth Will: A Historian's Perspective on the Inerrancy Controversy,” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 57, no. 1 (March 2014): 23.
[13] Ibid., 25.
[14] Ron Rhodes, The Complete Book of Bible Answers (Eugene: Harvest House Publishers, 1997), 21.
[15] Wayne A. Grudem, Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 2000) 96.
[16] Ibid., 96-97.
[17] Travis M. Dickinson, “The Role of Evidence for Christian Belief,” Southwestern Journal of Theology 60, no. 2 (2018): 211-230.
[18] Marten Visser, ed., “How Is the Bible Different from the Quran and Other Religious Books?,” Biblword.net (GlobalRize, May, 3, 2022), https://www.biblword.net/how-is-the-bible-different-from-the-quran-and-other-religious-books/.
[19] Wayne A. Grudem, Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 2000) 79.
[20] William C Bennett, “Scripture Unity Concerning Christ,” Bibliotheca Sacra 94, no. 374 (1937): 239-246.
[21] Loren Cunningham and Janice Rogers, The Book That Transforms Nations: The Power of the Bible to Change Any Country (Seattle, WA: YWAM Pub., 2007).
[22] Romans 10:9-10, Ephesians 2:8-10 (ESV).
[23] Wayne A. Grudem, Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 2000) 100.