Can we trust the Bible?

I got a couple of questions on Sunday night that relate to whether or not we can trust the Bible:

"Didn't Constantine change (or compile) the Bible for his own ends?"

"When was the Old Testament written? How do we know this?"

These are good questions - they show a seriousness of thought.  Some churches and some Christians live in a way which makes you think you have to leave your brain at the door if you want to follow Jesus.  You do not.  Jesus calls us to love him with all our mind - and this involves applying the same level of intellectual rigour to our faith as we do to our studies.  It is a very good idea to ask why Christians trust the Bible.



Here's a brief overview.  The Bible is a collection of about 66 pieces of literature authored by about 40 different people and comprises the genres of history, letters, poetry, proverbs, law and more.

The Old Testament itself was probably written between 1400BC and 400BC and was clearly established as a unity by the time Jesus was wandering around Israel.  Starting with Moses and ending with Malachi, the Old Testament has clear links to practical history and is often very easy to date (e.g. 'In the year king Uzziah died I saw...')

The New Testament was all written before 100AD.  The last books to be written were Revelation, John's gospel and the three letters John wrote.  John was the last living member of Jesus team when he wrote them. By about 150AD church leaders like Iraneus and Justin Martyr were referring to the four gospels and some of the other writings as authoritative and although the formal 'canon of scripture' was established (with emperor Constantine) in the mid 300's the authority of the books of the New Testament was established almost as they were written.

I trust the Old Testament because Jesus did and I trust the New Testament because it's written by people Jesus trusted.

Please get in touch if you have any questions - but if your question is difficult then expect me to point you to a book called 'Why trust the Bible?' by Amy Orr-Ewing  which is brilliant on this subject.

If you can't afford £2.50 to buy the book then this talk is an excellent introduction to the issues raised: http://thegospelcoalition.org/resources/a/trust_the_bible