Can I trust the Bible?

In 1979 Charles Templeton wrote a book called "Act of God" in which the fictional archaeologist says this: "The church basis its claims almost entirely on the teaching of an obscure young Jew with messianic pretensions who, lets face it, didn’t make much of an impression in his lifetime. There isn’t a single word about him in secular history. Not a word. Not a mention of him by the Romans. Not so much as a reference by Josephus."

More recently Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code has made similar claims about the reliability of the Bible. As one of his characters says: "What happens if persuasive scientific evidence comes out that the church's version of the Christ story is inaccurate, and the greatest story ever told is, in fact, the greatest story ever sold."

It raises the question can I trust the Bible? A set of documents written thousands of years ago, and passed on through the ages? Surely they'll be biased or corrupted?

When it comes to ancient documents there are a number of ways of testing their reliability. Are there a significant number of copies, the more copies the more likely they are to be reliable. Are those copies accurate when compared to each other, the more similar they are the more likely they are to be genuine. What is the interval between the original and the surviving copies? The smaller the gap the more reliable the documents.

Historical The New Testament surpasses other documents we accept as fact:

The gospels also pass the tests on other key areas where documents are scrutinised for reliability.

Eyewitnesses to the events – John, Matthew, Mark is Peters account, Luke tells us he interviewed eyewitnesses.

Bias – they report the good and the bad, it reports failures as well as successes of the disciples.

These facts have led to some startlingly conclusions about the New Testament:
“The New Testament [is] unrivalled among ancient writings in the purity of its text as actually transmitted and kept in use.”
B Warfield, Introduction to Textual criticism of the New Testament.

“Those who know the facts now recognise that the New Testament must be accepted as a remarkably accurate source book.”
Clifford Wilson, Rocks, relics and Biblical reliability.

The New Testament is reliable contrary to what many say and if we want to find out about Jesus – what he did how he lived, what he taught then the Gospels are the place to go.