Is Christianity true (the Bible)?
This blog is part of my series titled “Is Christianity true?” The series addresses four common objections to the truthfulness of the Christian worldview, namely concerns about: (1) the trustworthiness of the Bible; (2) the historicity of Jesus’ resurrection; (3) the compatibility of faith in God with modern science; and (4) the incompatibility of Christian truth claims with those of other worldviews.
IS THE BIBLE TRUSTWORTHY?
Assuming the Bible is an accurate translation of the original manuscripts as argued here, is the original true? Before plunging into several lines of evidence supporting the truth of the Bible, an overview of this remarkable book is in order.
It is fair to say that the Bible is utterly unique in the annals of literature. It is essentially a compilation of sixty-six different books (thirty-nine in the Old Testament and twenty-seven in the New Testament). It was written by many different authors over a period of about fifteen hundred years, including a gap of about four hundred years between the Old and New Testaments during which no writings were contributed to the Bible. While most of its human authors are identified within the Bible or by tradition, some are not. It is generally agreed that the total number of different authors is around forty, most of whom were Jews (including those who wrote the New Testament).
The writings include several different literary genres, including historical narratives, Gospels (biographies of Jesus), poetry, wisdom literature, and letters. Most importantly, the Bible claims that its ultimate author is God the Holy Spirit! In other words, every word of the Bible is co-authored by the writer and the Holy Spirit. As a result, the various books sometimes reflect differences of style and emphasis based upon the writer’s perspective and background, but the books are unified under the supervision of the Holy Spirit.
This biblical claim of supernatural co-authorship is unique in literature and is the reason believers reverently refer to the Bible as the Word of God.
This biblical claim of supernatural co-authorship is unique in literature and is the reason believers reverently refer to the Bible as the Word of God. Notwithstanding the different genres, the enormous time span over which the books of the Bible were written, and the large number of different authors, the Bible displays an astonishing degree of coherence.
Christians believe that the metanarrative, or big picture, knitting the books of the Bible together is God’s unfolding plan to rescue humankind from the consequences of sin, thereby enabling a relationship with the Creator. This plan was fully unveiled in Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Some people have explained the thematic integrity of all sixty-six books of the Bible by describing the New Testament as concealed in the Old Testament and the Old Testament as revealed in the New Testament.
The metanarrative flows from:
God’s creation of the universe, culminating in His creation of the first couple, to
the rebellion of the first couple, resulting in their estrangement from God, to
His election of a specific people (the Jews) to whom He initially revealed Himself and through whom He would, in the fullness of time, bring the Messiah to reconcile all of humankind (not just the Jews) to Himself, to
the history of the Jews as they attempted (and largely failed) to follow His commands, to
the arrival of Jesus Christ, the Messiah promised in the Hebrew Scriptures, to
the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, to
the history of the early church, and finally, to
the second coming of Jesus Christ and the final judgment of humankind.
The foregoing summarizes the underlying unity behind the multifaceted diversity found within the biblical text. In the following blogs, I will consider several lines of evidence supporting the truth claims of the Bible.
Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash
