The Trustworthiness of the Bible: Exploration of Its Foundations

The Bible, a collection of sacred texts revered by millions around the world, has endured for centuries as a source of moral guidance, spiritual enlightenment, and historical insight. Its trustworthiness stems from a multifaceted examination of its historical, literary, and spiritual foundations, which collectively affirm its reliability and enduring relevance.

Do we have what they wrote? Yes, we do have what they wrote. The main way to prove this is through textual criticism. Textual criticism exams that gaps between the writings we have today from the original writings. The closer the date of the manuscripts are to the original, the greater the integrity. Scholars used textual criticism with many other historical writings including the Greeks and then compared them with the New Testament. None of these writings compared to the New Testament writings. The New Testament had a very little time gap from when they first started telling these stories from when the first manuscript was written. Between that time and now there have been approximately 24,000 writings about the New Testament including: 5,300 greek manuscripts, 10,000 Latin translations, and 9,300 other translations. This evidence supports the integrity of the writings as well as the authenticity of the writings that we have of the New Testament.

Can we hear God’s voice speaking through multiple people? Yes, we can hear God’s voice speaking through multiple people. We hear God’s voice as we read the Bible. The Bible is the main way that God communicates with us. In the edpuzzle video discussed in class, Pope Francis tells us to read the Bible. He says this because God has already spoken and the Bible is his voice. Even though the writers of the Bible were all human, God inspired each and every one of those writers. This is called divine inspiration. God influences and guides these people throughout their life to record and write down anecdotes of their life and that is what the Bible is composed of.

Is what they wrote historically true? Yes, what they wrote is historically true. We have topics of evidence that help support this claim. The first topic is his teachings. One of his most famous teachings was the Sermon on the Mount. Many of Jesus’ teachings are centered around our religion. For example, we adopted “love your neighbor as yourself”, meaning treat everyone how you would want to be treated. Jesus’ character is pure. He always thought about others before himself, even his enemies. One of the most crucial pieces of evidence is the prophecies of Jesus. Jesus had many writings written about Him before he was even born. These writings contained prophecies of what he would fulfill. He had about 300 prophecies written about him and fulfilled all of them and even fulfilled 29 of them in one day. These prophecies prove that these writings are historically true. One of the most significant and also talked about pieces of evidence in this passage in the resurrection of Jesus. As Jesus died and was buried in his tomb He rose again on the third day and He was absent from His tomb. He was no longer there and no one knew what had happened. We know from reading the Bible that Jesus then appeared to his disciples. We know that Jesus visited His disciples because the disciples quickly proclaimed that they had seen Jesus after he had been dead. Through the writings we have now we are able to read about the resurrection of Jesus and through all of this evidence we know that all of these writings are historically true.

I fully trust the Bible. I believe that it is God communicating with us through his writers. I think the evidence described above just supports my claim and helps prove that the Bible is The Word of God. This experience has made me more likely to trust the Bible as the Word of God. We are given evidence that helps support this claim whether it is textual criticism of the 300 prophecies fulfilled by Jesus. I think the Bible is trustworthy and is the true way to communicate with God.