How Do We Know the Bible is God's Word?

There are many ways to know that the Bible is God's Word (meaning that it is completely true, the ultimate authority on any topic it addresses, and is the means by which God speaks directly to us). I am outlining one simple way of seeing this on the show and summarized below:

1. Begin without any assumptions about the Bible, examine it skeptically. We should begin here with any religious text.

2. Notice that the New Testament has many credible historical documents in it.
    A. They are written as history, not myth.
    B. They date close to the events they are describing (Most within 20 to 30 years of Christ's life. We know this from internal evidence- what's written in the documents, the dates of physical copies we have found, and quotations from other sources).
    C. They accurately record information about places, leaders, and customs, demonstrating their concern for accuracy and detail.
    D. They are consistent with each other, yet provide corroborating testimony to the events- they are told from different perspectives.
    E. They are honest- they do not withhold embarrassing details about the early followers of Christ, who are reported to be slow to learn and even abandon Jesus on the night of his trial.

3. Using this information as good history, along with other early non-Christian sources like Tacitus and Josephus, we clearly see that there was a devoted group of Jewish followers of Jesus, very near the time of his life on earth, who believed that Jesus died and rose from the dead and claimed that he was God. This is not to say that these things happened, merely that many people who lived in that time believed that they happened.

4. Search for any other plausible explanation of how this belief came about. The challenge is that these believers faced persecution for their belief and even death. Many would have known that their claims were not true. People will die for a belief but not for a lie. No suggestions that attempt to explain the belief in the resurrection are plausible. For instance, Muslims say that Jesus only appeared to die on the cross. But many eyewitnesses would have known that it was not Jesus. The disciples saw the wounds in Jesus' body. And Jesus would have been a total fraud to claim to his disciples that he rose from the dead. Nothing else about his life makes that idea credible.

5. Therefore, the only reasonable belief is that a man claiming to be God verified it by dying and rising from the dead. Through his disciples, we have an accurate record of his teachings.

6. One of Jesus' central teachings is that the Bible is the Word of God. We can believe this because of who Jesus is and the fact that this teaching comes to us through reliable historical sources.

7. Therefore, the Bible is the Word of God.

There are other ways to see that the Bible is the Word of God, namely Bible prophecy, which I will cover another time. I firmly believe that if you examine any other religious text with a skeptical starting point, it will not stand up to the examination the way that the Bible does. This is a brief outline and is not meant to answer every possible question about each step. So, if you have questions about it, please ask!