RELIABILITY
How can we determine if the Bible contains accurate depictions of the events it describes; if it can be considered authoritative; and if it has been reliably preserved/translated over thousands of years? In short, how can we assess the reliability of the Bible?
The historical authenticity of the Bible can be established by examining three lines of evidence – bibliographical, internal, and external. Let’s briefly look at each.
Bibliographical Evidence
Bibliographical examination of a text considers the quantity and quality of available manuscripts (i.e., very-old copies of the text), as well as the time span between when the text was originally thought to be written and the date the earliest available manuscripts were written. Consider the following.
Quantity – The number of ancient copies of the New Testament (nearly 24,000 and counting) dwarfs the number of ancient copies of other respected writings from antiquity. After the New Testament, the book with the most known ancient manuscripts is Homer’s Iliad with 650 copies. Lee Strobel writes, “manuscript evidence for the New Testament [is] overwhelming when juxtaposed against other revered writings of antiquity – works that modern scholars have absolutely no reluctance treating as authentic.”[1]
Quality – “The New Testament… has not only survived in more manuscripts than any other book from antiquity, but it has survived in a purer form than any other great book – a form that is 99.5% pure” (i.e., un-corrupted).[2]
Time span – The time period between when the New Testament books were written and the date of the oldest copies in existence is significantly shorter than that same time period for “almost any other piece of ancient literature.”[3] “The time span for most of the New Testament is less than 200 years (and some books are within 100 years) from the date of authorship to the date of our earliest manuscripts. This can be sharply contrasted with the average gap of over 1,000 years between the composition and the earliest copy of the writings of other ancient authors.”[4]
While the bibliographical evidence supporting the New Testament appears strong, the Old Testament is a different story. According to Boa & Moody:
In the case of the Old Testament, there are a small number of Hebrew manuscripts, because the Jewish scribes ceremonially buried imperfect and worn manuscripts. Many ancient manuscripts were also lost or destroyed during Israel’s turbulent history.[5]
So how can we test the authenticity of the Old Testament? Well, one way is to examine how the New Testament treats the Old. Once you establish the strength of the New testament’s authenticity, one could conclude that if the New Testament treats Old Testament writings as authoritative, then they must be so. It turns out that, by a number of measures, this is the case. Consider the following:
The New Testament contains an extraordinarily large number of Old Testament quotations. It is difficult to give an accurate figure since the variation in use ranges all the way from a distant allusion to a definite quotation… As a result, the figures given by various authors often reflect a startling discrepancy.
A very conservative count discloses unquestionably at least 295 separate references to the Old Testament. These occupy some 352 verses of the New Testament, or more than 4.4 percent. Therefore, one verse in 22.5 of the New Testament is a quotation.
If clear allusions are taken into consideration, the figures are much higher. C.H. Toy lists 613 such instances, Wilhelm Dittmar goes as high as 1,640, while Eugen Huehn indicates 4,105 passages reminiscent of Old Testament Scripture. It can therefore be asserted, without exaggeration, that more than 10 percent of the New Testament text is made up of citations or direct allusions to the Old Testament.
Out of the 22 books in the Hebrew [Bible] only six… are not explicitly referred to. The more extensive lists of Dittmar and Huehn show passages reminiscent of all Old Testament books without exception.”[6]
Also, consider Jesus Christ’s own endorsement of the Old Testament.
Jesus Christ himself provides a most arresting example in this respect. At the very threshold of his public ministry, our Lord, in his dramatic victory over Satan’s threefold onslaught, rested his whole defense on the authority of three passages of [Old Testament] Scripture. He quoted the Old Testament in support of his teaching to the crowds; he quoted it in his discussions with antagonistic Jews; he quoted it in answer to questions both captious and sincere; he quoted it in instructing the disciples who would have readily accepted his teaching on his own authority; he referred to it in his prayers, when alone in the presence of the Father; he quoted it on the cross, when his sufferings could easily have drawn his attention elsewhere; he quoted it in his resurrection glory, when any limitation, real or alleged, of the days of his flesh was clearly superseded. Whatever may be the differences between the pictures of Jesus drawn by the four Gospels, they certainly agree in their representation of our Lord’s attitude toward the Old Testament: one of constant use and of unquestioning endorsement of its authority.[7]
Clearly, the New Testament views the Old Testament as authoritative.
Internal Evidence
A search for internal evidence is an examination of what the Bible says about itself. While this may seem like circular reasoning (how can you use the Bible to prove the Bible is true?), there’s more to it than that. Here’s a sampling of what I mean.
The majority of the Bible was written by men who claim to be eyewitnesses to the events it records. If taken at their word – and we have no reasonable reason not to – they provide a first-hand account of events. In our society, we greatly value the testimony of eyewitnesses. The testimony of as little as one or two eyewitnesses is enough to send a man to his death in a court of law.
While the Bible was written by numerous authors from various walks of life over a large span of time, its message is consistent throughout. For example, despite a handful of apparent contradictions among the four gospels, their message is amazingly consistent and uniform. Most contradictions are minor in nature while the more famous ones have plausible explanations. If you were to read four books on, say, the 9/11 terrorist attacks, there would certainly be some variation in the accounts, but no one would question that the attacks occurred or the core facts surrounding them. Also, if the gospels were too consistent it would invalidate each as an independent record of what happened.
Bible authors like the prophets and apostles endured great hardship, persecution, and even martyrdom for sharing their message. Many of the apostles were, in fact, executed for their beliefs. Now ask yourself, would you suffer – to the point of death – for something you knew to be untrue? I doubt it, and I doubt that’s what happened to the Bible authors who were martyred. Furthermore, Jesus Christ was crucified – a terrible, abhorrent thing. The fact that a powerful movement rose up, in the face of persecution, following a man who suffered such a fate is rather difficult to explain.
The gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke were written and named after “unlikely characters”[8] rather than well-known and influential people. Isn’t this contrary to all human logic? If you want to market something, you associate it with the famous and well-known – yet these books did the opposite and still thrived.
Paul’s letters are believed to have been written between the late 40s and 60 A.D. The gospels are believed to have been written between the late 50s and 100 A.D. (End-of-century estimates are from very liberal sources.) These estimates are “…within the lifetimes of various eyewitnesses of the life of Jesus, including hostile eyewitnesses who would have served as a corrective if false teachings about Jesus were going around.”[9]
The New Testament contains 27 books/letters that attest to the life and times of Jesus Christ. Twenty-seven. That is a lot of books about one person at a time when writing was far less common than it is today.
External Evidence
A search for external evidence is one that looks for confirmation of the Bible in extra-biblical (i.e., outside the Bible) writings as well as archeology. Here’s a sampling of extra-biblical writings focused on the New Testament and Jesus Christ (for brevity’s sake).
Flavius Josephus (37-100 A.D.) – Josephus was a first-century Jewish historian. He is well-known among scholars and considered a very good historian by the standards of his day.[10] His account of the war between the Jews and Rome starting in 66 A.D. in his book Jewish War has been corroborated by archeological evidence and other historical writings. In Antiquities of the Jews, “Josephus made specific references to John the Baptist, Jesus Christ, and James [the brother of Jesus]. In this work, Josephus gave us many background details about the Herods, the Sadducees and Pharisees, the high priests like Annas and Caiaphas, and the Roman emperors mentioned in the Gospels and Acts.”[11] It’s also worth noting that Josephus’ writings “…provide most of our information about Palestine in Jesus’ day.”[12]
Publius Cornelius Tacitus (56-117 A.D.) – Tacitus “…is one of the important historians of Roman Antiquity. The surviving portions of his two major works – Annals and Histories – treat the reigns of the Roman Emperors Tiberius, Claudius, and Nero.”[13] Some believe he recorded the most important extra-biblical reference to Jesus Christ. In Annals 15.44, he mentions “Christus” suffering “the extreme penalty… at the hands of… Pontius Pilate.”
Pliny the Younger (63-133 A.D.) – Among other things, Pliny the Younger was a lawyer, author, poet, orator and eventually a Roman Governor. In his Letters (10.96), he wrote of Christians honoring Christ “as if to a God.”
According to one author:
At least seventeen non-Christian writings dated between 20 and 150 years after Jesus’ death record over fifty details of Jesus’ life, teachings, death, and resurrection.
Now, you might think that seventeen non-Biblical sources is hardly compelling. However, we are talking about a time in history where it wasn’t exactly straightforward to write things down. That aside, if you compare the seventeen sources that talk about Jesus with other historical figures that we all assume existed, Jesus certainly stacks up well.
For example, there are only five surviving accounts of Alexander the Great — none of them primary sources.
Or how about King Arthur — who supposedly lived around 500 A.D.? None of the major historical sources of that time even mention Arthur, and he is first referred to 300 or 400 years after he is supposed to have lived.
The fact of the matter is that within a few decades of his lifetime, Jesus was mentioned by Jewish and Roman historians in passages that corroborate portions of the New Testament that describe the life and death of Jesus.[14]
I have listed some of the other 17 sources in the footnote below.[15] What I’d like to emphasize is that, despite the fact that Jesus was not well known outside of Palestine and that his ministry only spanned 3.5 years (a fraction of history), a number of references were made to him outside of the Bible not long after he lived.
Archeological Confirmation
Using archeology to confirm the accuracy of Biblical accounts can be tricky. Many archeologists fall into one of two camps – those who believe in the Bible and those who don’t – and their interpretation of archeological discoveries tends to reflect their views.
This became clear as I searched for discoveries to highlight here, including ones supporting Old Testament accounts. I came across something known as the Soleb Inscription, which is described below.
At the end of the 15th century B.C., the Egyptian Pharaoh Amenhotep III built a temple to honor the god Amun-Ra at Soleb in Nubia (modern-day northern Sudan). Within the temple area are a series of columns on which Amenhotep III listed the territories he claimed to have conquered. Each territory is listed by a relief of a prisoner with their hands tied behind their backs over an oval “name ring” identifying the land of the particular foe. The most interesting from a biblical perspective is a column drum that lists enemies from the “the land of the Shasu (nomads) of Yahweh.” Given the other name rings nearby, the context would place this land in the Canaanite region. In addition, the prisoner is clearly portrayed as Semitic, rather than African-looking, as other prisoners in the list are portrayed. Two conclusions are almost universally accepted: this inscription clearly references Yahweh in Egyptian hieroglyphics (the oldest such reference outside of the Bible), and that around 1400 B.C. Amenhoteph III knew about the god Yahweh. Moreover, it would indicate an area in Canaan in the 15th century B.C. inhabited by nomadic or semi-nomadic people who worship the god Yahweh.
This inscription is also evidence that points to an early date for the exodus. According to a literal reading of 1 Kings 6:1, Solomon began building the temple in the 480th year after the people of Israel came out of the land of Egypt, placing the exodus around 1446 B.C. Moreover, when Moses first went to Pharaoh to deliver God’s message to let His people go, Pharaoh responded by saying, “Who is the LORD, that I should obey his voice and let Israel go? I do not know the LORD, and moreover, I will not let Israel go” (Exodus 5:2). By around 1400 B.C., when the Israelites would have been nearing the end of the conquest of Canaan, the ruling Egyptian Pharaoh does know about Yahweh. Egyptologist Dr. Charles Aling and historian Dr. Clyde Billington summarize: “If the Pharaoh of the Exodus had never before heard of the God Yahweh, this strongly suggests that the Exodus should be dated no later than ca. 1400 BC because Pharaoh Amenhotep III had clearly heard about Yahweh in ca. 1400 BC.”[16]
Any student of the Bible knows that Yahweh is the name God uses to describe himself. It occurs 6,519 times in the Hebrew Bible.[17] One example is as follows.
God also said to Moses, “Say this to the people of Israel: Yahweh, the God of your ancestors—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob—has sent me to you. This is my eternal name, my name to remember for all generations.[18]
Before the discovery of the Soleb Inscription, the name Yahweh had not been discovered outside the Bible in 14th or 15th century B.C. writings. The previous lack of extra-Biblical evidence of the Hebrew God led many to believe that the Israelites did not exist until long after the Bible describes them leaving Egypt and later entering the land of Canaan. The Soleb discovery was a big deal, as evidenced by the words of Donald Redford, a well-known secular archeologist.
For half a century it has been generally admitted that we have here the tetragrammaton, the name of the Israelite god “Yahweh”; and if this be the case, as it undoubtedly is, the passage constitutes the most precious indication of the whereabouts during the late 15th century BC of an enclave revering this god.[19] (Emphases mine)
Despite these words, skeptics still abound. Some say this inscription refers to Kenites or Edomites and that Israel borrowed the name Yahweh from them. But there is no evidence that the Kenites or Edomites worshiped Yahweh and, as we’ve seen, the Bible contains thousands of references to Israel’s god, Yahweh. The Bible also describes a 40-year period during which the Israelites wandered around the desert, which sounds like a nomadic existence to me. Yet alternative theories persist.
It’s interesting to note how the Nomads of Yahweh column has been treated. It currently sits in the middle of the Sahara Desert in the very location where it was found and has been subjected to defacement. Rather than being the focal point of a museum exhibition, it rests uncherished and unprotected.
It’s also worth noting that the Bible verse cited above asserts that God’s name will be remembered for all generations. The name Yahweh has appeared on numerous artifacts dated between the Soleb Inscription and the birth of Christ, and it is as popular as ever today in Christian literature, music, and worship. He has been known and worshiped for over 3,400 years! Now ask yourself, does anyone you know worship the gods of the Canaanites, Assyrians, Babylonians, or any other ancient culture? Can you even name these gods? Yahweh’s name has truly proven to be enduring.
Let’s consider two more examples of archeological discoveries.
The Dead Sea Scrolls
No discussion of biblical archeology would be complete without mentioning the Dead Sea Scrolls. They’ve been called “the greatest manuscript discovery of modern times” by the famous biblical archeologist William F. Albright and are recognizable in name by most people.[20]
But what did the discovery of these scrolls tell us?
Well, for one thing they show us that our modern Bible has been incredibly well preserved over the centuries. Consider the following:
Before the discovery of the first of the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1947, the oldest surviving manuscripts of the Hebrew Bible were Masoretic texts dating from the ninth century A.D.
Now, scholars could lay the modern Old Testament alongside these ancient Hebrew texts and judge just how well it had weathered the centuries.
…the scrolls have shown that our traditional Bible has been amazingly accurately preserved for over 2,000 years.
A dramatic example of that textual preservation was found in the Great Isaiah Scroll, the only fully intact biblical document salvaged from the Qumran caves. [It] contains all 66 chapters of the book of Isaiah that are found in the traditional Bible. Beyond some incidental “typos” and minor copying errors, scholars have found only 13 relatively small variations – a phrase or a verse or two missing or added – when compared with the modern text. The average reader today… would look at these differences and say, ‘It’s no big deal.’ For the most part, they do nothing to alter the meaning of the text and, taken as a whole, attest to the meticulous accuracy of the Masoretic scribes who hand-copied the Hebrew Bible through the first thousand years of the common era.”[21]
Evidence Concerning Jesus
Jesus Christ’s life spanned little more than thirty years and his public ministry lasted only a few. Archeologically speaking, this is a very-small sliver of time. Furthermore, he preached in an area of the world (i.e., Palestine) that, at the time, was more remote than cosmopolitan. One shouldn’t be surprised, then, that archeological evidence of his life outside the Bible is difficult to come by. Regardless, there have been some discoveries that shed light on the validity of the gospel stories.
For example, the 1968 discovery of the remains of Jewish man named Yehohanan who was crucified during Jesus’ lifetime confirmed Biblical details of his crucifixion. The skeleton’s arms had been nailed to a cross bar, its knees were bent upward, an iron nail had been driven through both heals (and was still stuck in one of them), and its shin bones were broken. All of these things match the gospel accounts of Jesus’ crucifixion. Furthermore, the body was found in a cave. Biblical critics said such a burial was not allowed by the Romans at that time, but here was evidence to the contrary.
Another example is the 1961 discovery of a stone slab that contains the words Tiberium, Pontius Pilate, Prefect of Judah. The Pilate Stone is believed to confirm Pontius Pilate’s first century rule over Judea.
A final example is the 1990 discovery of an ossuary (a container holding the bones of dead people) in southeast Jerusalem with the inscription Caiaphas on it. Experts believe these to be the remains of the Jewish high priest who interrogated and handed Jesus over to Pilate to be executed.
FOOTNOTES
[1] Ibid, page 61.
[2] Norman L. Geisler and William Nix, A General Introduction to the Bible. Chicago, IL: Moody Press, 1968, page 361.
[3] Harold Greenlee, Introduction to New Testament Textual Criticism. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1964, page 15.
[4] Ken Boa & Larry Moody, I’m Glad You Asked. Colorado Springs, Co.: Victor Books/SP Publications, Inc., 1994, page 93.
[5] Ibid, Page 91.
[6] http://www.bible-researcher.com/nicole.html, or see Roger Nicole’s work in Revelation and the Bible, ed. Carl. F.H. Henry (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1958), pp. 137-151.
[7] http://www.bible-researcher.com/nicole.html.
[8] Lee Strobel, The Case For Christ. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 1998, page 23. Craig Bloomberg quoted.
[9] Ibid, Page 33.
[10] E. P. Saunders, The Historical Figure of Jesus. New York, New York: Penguin Books, 1993, Page 16.
[11] Ken Boa & Larry Moody, I’m Glad You Asked. Colorado Springs, Co.: Victor Books/SP Publications, Inc., 1994, page 95.
[12] E. P. Saunders, The Historical Figure of Jesus. New York, New York: Penguin Books, 1993, Page 15.
[13] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tacitus.
[14] See If the Bible Didn’t Exist, What Would We Know About Jesus? | by Dan Foster | Backyard Church | Jun, 2021 | Medium
[15] Suetonius; Lucian of Samosata; Thallus (via Julius Africanus); Papias (via Eusebius); Irenaeus; Clement of Rome; Ignatius; Polycarp; and the Talmud.
[16] Three Egyptian Inscriptions About Israel – Bible Archaeology Report
[17] H3068 - Yᵊhōvâ - Strong's Hebrew Lexicon (kjv) (blueletterbible.org)
[18] Exodus 3:15, NLT.
[19] Donald B. Redford, Egypt, Canaan, and Israel in Ancient Times. Princeton University Press, 1992.
[20] Jeffery Sheler, The Liberation of the Dead Sea Scrolls. U.S. News & World Report Special Edition: Mysteries of the Bible, February 1, 2005, Page 62.
[21] Jeffery Sheler, The Scrolls and Scripture. U.S. News & World Report Special Edition: Mysteries of the Bible, February 1, 2005, Page 67.