Is The Bible A Reliable Document?

I would dare to say that my life is based on the Bible. My Christian life started with the Bible. My journey in becoming a believer began when an evangelical team member on the street gave me a copy of the New Testament when I was in graduate school. The Bible convinced me that Jesus is the Savior of humankind, and I received Christ.

However, reaching the conclusion that the Bible has the actual words of God wasn’t easy. I had to go through a long mental process.

I had three major questions concerning the Bible.

The first was, “Are the Biblical records about Jesus’ miracles, such as healing, casting out demons, or calming the sea really true?” I thought to myself that if they were true, they show that there is a supernatural world that cannot be detected or examined by science. If that’s the case, there’s a strong possibility that a supernatural being – a God – exists.

So I read books by people who were supposedly in contact with spiritual beings, like fortune tellers and shamans, and even visited them to see if they were real. After careful investigation, I reached the conclusion that their knowledge and power came from some spiritual beings, and that if evil spirits exist, God must exist also.

The second question I had was, “How reliable is the Bible as a historical document?” I had this question because in the 70s, Higher Criticism was very popular among Christian academics. Most proponents didn’t believe in miracles, and insisted that fulfilled prophecies in the Bible were written after they had already occurred.

But when I looked into this issue deeply, I found that most New Testament books were written between 25 to 40 years after Jesus died and rose again, when most people who had seen and met the risen Jesus were alive. I decided that their testimonies – and thus the Bible – were reliable.

The third question was, “Are the records in the Old Testament, especially those in Genesis about the Garden of Eden, the Flood, or accounts of men living for several hundred years really true?” On this issue, the Doorway Series of books written by the Canadian scholar Arthur Constance helped me a lot. He has two PhD. degrees, one in anthropology, and another in archaeology. Referencing a vast amount of ancient records outside the Old Testament, he showed that the Genesis records are historically accurate. I had to agree to his conclusions.

Through this process I was convinced that the words in the Bible are the words of God. My conviction has grown as I’ve experienced His promises being fulfilled when I obey what He commands me to do thorough the Bible.

My trust in the Bible gave me a longing for New Testament churches and eventually led me to start the House Church.