Is the Bible reliable?

3 days ago

When someone asks you, “How do you know Jesus said to love God?” You might respond by saying, “It says so in the Bible.” Then they might ask, “How do you know the Bible is true?” This is an important question.

As Christians, we want to know what God has to say, and we believe that the Bible is the inspired Word of God. It is God-breathed. He speaks through it. He reveals Himself to us through the Bible. But how can we know that? Surely we have some reason to believe this?

Many claims float about the world against the Bible’s reliability. For example:

It’s all stories! The Bible is nothing more than a fairy tale.
There’s no external evidence to back it up. Where’s the evidence?
Maybe the original authors had something to say about something that happened, but the story’s changed over time. People add to it, take away from it, and it’s all just a collection of messages which are contradicted and twisted over the course of history. Perhaps it was a simple secular story turned supernatural, or a mystical fictional story taken way too literally. But we can’t really know what they said originally.[1]
- Maybe it’s a game of Chinese whispers! The author made his original copy, and someone else copied it, and someone else copied that, until eventually it became unrecognisable from the original!
Whoever the authors were, they’re unreliable. We can’t trust them and whatever they wrote.
The past is completely unknowable. 2000 years is just too long ago to really know anything about what happened. Some critics might then go from “we don’t know” to “therefore it must be false,” which is a fault in reasoning called an argument from ignorance.[2]

Fortunately for the Christian, this is far from the truth. We don’t need to worry much about any of this. In the following, we will consider manuscripts, archaeology, prophecy, storyline, the question of inconsistencies, and the power and influence of the Bible throughout time. What we’re going to find is that there is some good rational basis for the reliability of Scripture.[3]

Now, the word “reliability” is a bit vague. We can have:

Textual reliability – original text is preserved.[4]
Chronological reliability – written close to the events.[5]
Authorial reliability – trustworthy writers.[6]
Historical reliability – aligns with external evidence.[7]
Contextual reliability – reflects the context it claims to represent.[8]
Interpretive reliability – reflects author intentions.[9]
Perspective reliability – clear purpose and stance.[10]
Philosophical reliability – logical and conveys author ideas.[11]

It’s a lot. So, we will spend the time to look at each one individually, as well as:

Prophecy
Storyline
Contradictions & Claims & Canons
Influence

And a final Summary.

TEXTUAL RELIABILITY

First, we must ask: How well does our modern Bible preserve the original text? Is the Bible in your hand the same as what was originally written? (Or an accurate translation of it.)

To find that out, we need to do some “textual criticism.”[12]

In textual criticism, you compare ancient manuscript copies to discover the original wording of the text. The more copies you have, the more you can compare, and the closer they’re dated to the original writing, the less time there is for changes to have occurred, and the more confident we can be.[13]

Manuscript	Originally Written	Earliest Existing Copy	Approximate Time Gap	Number of Copies
Annals of Tacitus	56-120 AD	850-1050 AD	750 years	33

It might also be interesting to note that 31 of these copies are based on just two medieval manuscripts, and yet, the works of Tacitus remain some of our most important sources for the history of ancient Rome.[14]

Caesar’s Gallic War	58-49 BC	850 AD	900 years	251
Herodotus’ Histories	430 BC	early 2nd century AD	550 years	109
Homer’s Illiad	900 BC	415 BC	485 years	1900 (95% similarity)

In terms of time gaps, it doesn’t usually get much better than 500-400 years, and (aside from Homer’s Illiad) the number of copies doesn’t often exceed 200-300. For an ancient manuscript, that’s the pinnacle: a 400-year gap with 300 copies.

Compare this to the New Testament.[15]

New Testament (translated copies)	50-100 AD	275 AD	175 years	19,300
New Testament (original Greek)	50-100 AD	125 AD	<30 years	5,856

THOUSANDS of copies! With such a short time gap between them and the original! Eldon Epp has said that we have “a genuine embarrassment of riches in the quantity of manuscripts we possess.”[16]

The earliest NT fragment we have is the Papyrus 52, dated to 125 AD. It is thought that John’s Gospel was originally written in 90-100 AD, putting a 25–35-year gap between the original and the copy. The man who wrote this easily could’ve lived at the same time John was alive. He might’ve known eyewitnesses. He may have copied straight from the original text.

It might be relevant to consider, however, that P52 is a very small fragment – the size of a business card.[17] It only contains a few verses from the Gospel of John. A manuscript doesn’t necessarily mean a complete copy – just a copy of some portion. It could be a large part or just a few sentences.

Of the 6000 Greek manuscripts, only around 50 can be dated to within 250 years of the original copies.[18] Most were copied much later. This may sound disheartening, but in the eyes of ancient textual criticism, this is as good as it gets.

Some of these early copies are little scrappy fragments, while others are quite substantial.[19] The first complete copy of the New Testament can be dated to within 300 years of the original - the Codex Sinaiticus.[20] The Codex Vaticanus dates similarly.

It might be worth comparing this to the Illiad, originally written at 900 BC. The earliest fragment dates to 415 BC, and the oldest complete copy of the Illiad was written in the 10th century, 1800 years after the original.[21] Keep in mind, the Illiad has nowhere near as many manuscripts to its name.

The time gap between the original New Testament and its earliest complete copy is lesser than the time gap between the original Illiad and its earliest fragment.[22] This distribution of New Testament manuscript copies is nothing to be concerned about.

We can also talk about New Testament quotes. Some early Christians were prolific writers and quoted many New Testament passages. Polycarp, Ignatius, Origen, and Clement of Rome[23] quoted extensively from the New Testament from very early on, demonstrating the early and widespread use of these texts.

Scholars have identified as many as 36,389 citations. Atheist scholar Bart Ehrman wrote, “So extensive are these citations that if all other sources for our knowledge of the text of the New Testament were destroyed, they would be sufficient alone for the reconstruction of practically the entire New Testament.”[24]

Finally, for interests’ sake, let’s consider the Old Testament:

Manuscript	Originally Written	Earliest Existing Copy	Approximate Time Gap	Number of Copies
Old Testament	1500-400 BC	approx. 300 BC	100 years	150

Prior to the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the time gap had been much larger. The scrolls marked a huge breakthrough for Old Testament textual criticism.

We should keep in mind that ancient scholarship continues today and with a single great discovery, any of these numbers can change. The following is a (slightly outdated) visual to demonstrate the profound reliability of the New Testament compared to any other ancient document:

The argument flows as such: [25]

There are ancient, non-biblical books that have been reliably preserved to the present day.
The New Testament has better evidence for its reliable preservation than these books.
Therefore, you should believe the New Testament has been reliably preserved.

Of the New Testament, these scholars wrote:

“No other ancient book has anything like such early and plentiful testimony to its text, and no unbiased scholar would deny that the text that has come down to us is substantially sound.” Sir Frederick Kenyon
“The evidence for our New Testament writings is ever so much greater than the evidence for many writings of classical authors, the authenticity of which no-one dreams of questioning.” F. F. Bruce

Of course, though, textual criticism also involves the comparing of manuscripts. We might have thousands of copies, but if they’re all wildly different, then they’re still pretty unreliable.

But the New Testament has a similarity score of about 99.5%. Across all manuscripts, there is only a 0.5% discrepancy. However, this still amounts to, according to some larger estimates,[26] 500,000 variants. A lot of manuscripts equals a lot of variants.[27]

But, by far, most of these are spelling or grammatical errors, or just updating words to suit the Greek language as it evolved over time. Some copyists also accidentally skip small parts, mishear things, put scribe notes into the actual text, or change up the word order. Very rarely was a change intentionally made, and those would usually be spotted and disposed.[28]

On top of all of this, the variants are just irrelevant overall.[29] Craig Blomberg writes, “Only about a tenth of 1 percent [of variations] are interesting enough to make their way into footnotes in most English translations… Ehrman himself concedes that, “essential Christian beliefs are not affected by textual variants in the manuscript tradition of the New Testament.”

On the whole, scribes were precise, careful, and very attentive.[30] They did their job well, despite the occasional hiccup.

Suffice it to say that the Bible has very high textual reliability - especially for an ancient text.[31]

CHRONOLOGICAL RELIABILITY

The fact is that most eyewitness accounts are not written while the event is happening, but after the fact.[32] So, were the original documents written close to the events?

The New Testament was written in the first century. The first book written is thought to be either Galatians or 1 Thessalonians, maybe 20 years after Jesus. That’s not too bad for an oral culture.

But there’s still a 20-year gap there! Let’s compare this to the other manuscripts we’ve been looking at:

Text	Event	Time Gap
Annals of Tacitus	Reign of Tiberius	60-80 years
Caesar’s Gallic War	Gallic Wars	<10 years
Herodotus’ Histories	Persian Wars	50-100 years
Homer’s Illiad	Trojan War	400 years

(Note: The Illiad is historical fiction, so it’s not problematic that it was written so long after the time period in which the story is set. It may be quite dubious to learn about the Trojan War from the Illiad, however.)

Some might still wonder whether the Gospel stories changed during this 20-year gap of oral traditions. Before they were written down, the Gospel was passed around through word of mouth.[33] It has been suggested that the story got a bit mixed up during these few decades and took a different form.[34] There’s some serious debate over this.

To be fair, even the original Greek would have been a translation of Jesus’ original words in Aramaic, though it’s possible He spoke Greek sometimes. But translation doesn’t mean that the story couldn't be told accurately, as many early Christians were likely bilingual.[35] N T Wright argues that the Christian community would have been capable of accurately translating and preserving Jesus' teachings.

It’s not necessarily true that the authors would have forgotten details over time either. Psychologists have shown that eyewitnesses can accurately recall emotionally compelling events years and even decades after they happened, and those more involved have even more vivid memories.[36] While some specific details can vary, central experiences and key events can be consistently preserved. Orality studies have shown that oral traditions have been able to transmit extended narratives. Lauri Honko recorded an epic which took about 25 hours to recite over the course of nine days.

The early Christian community was not far removed from the events they were preserving via oral traditions. And it helps that Jesus had a public ministry and large communities of people witnessed the events and could talk about them and correct one another. This process of communal remembering could have easily served as a check against any significant distortions of core traditions.

The Jewish oral culture in which Jesus lived was also precise and accurate in its preservation of stories.[37] Anthony Le Donne writes, "Oral cultures have been capable of tremendous competence… The oral culture in which Jesus was reared trained their brightest children to remember entire libraries of story, law, poetry, song, etcetera… When a rabbi imparted something important to his disciples, the memory was expected to maintain a high degree of stability.”

First century Jewish education involved memorising the first five books of the Hebrew Bible by the time you were 12 or 13 years old. Not many people wrote at the time, so the oral traditions were still strong – very unlike today. Jewish education emphasised memorisation and the accurate transmission of teachings.

Oral tradition isn’t really a weakness here. The same goes for the Old Testament too.

It’s also likely that others wrote about Jesus while Jesus was alive. In his Gospel, Luke writes that there were many other accounts, which could easily have been used as sources for the Gospels. The accounts of Jesus likely did not live solely in the memories of the apostles. The disciples would have been preaching and telling stories of what they had seen long before they themselves wrote, and others would likely have written before them.[38] It’s even possible that some wrote about Jesus while He was alive.

On top of this, Jesus’ teachings were designed to be remembered because they have a poetic quality. Analogies and parables stick in your head very well. He also repeated a lot of His messages.[39]

AUTHORIAL RELIABILITY [40]

The authorship of different books are debated to varying degrees.

Some say that a lot of them were anonymous when they were first written and names were just added to make them more credible, and others push back against this.[41]

Perhaps the Gospels had the authors' names attached from the beginning - there's good reason to believe this.

But it’s also possible that many of the authors, the apostles, were just completely illiterate.[42]

But they could’ve just used scribes.

But maybe the apostles weren’t involved in the writing at all.

But perhaps it’s still their testimony being written. Afterall, eyewitnesses were still alive - people knew them.[43]

And the debate continues.

It’s generally agreed that most of the Pauline epistles were written by Paul, but some not.[44] And we know that Revelation was written by John, but it’s questioned what John that was.

Either way, it seems clear that the authors were rather close to the events.[45]

We see here an unbroken chain of communication. From the (1) events of Jesus’ life to the (2) eyewitnesses and oral traditions, to the (3) authors themselves, many of which may have been eyewitnesses, to the (4) scribes and copyists, to the (5) archaeologists and scholars who performed textual criticism and compared the manuscripts, to the (6) translators who finally made it available for (7) us to read in English.

HISTORICAL RELIABILITY

Next, let’s consider: does the text align with external evidence?

Does it align with what other writers said? Let’s see:

Tacitus mentions the execution of Jesus under Pontius Pilate during the reign of Emperor Tiberius.
Suetonius indicates the growing Christian community in the early Roman Empire.
Pliny the Younger describes early Christian practices, worship, and ethical commitments.
Lucian describes the Christian worship of a crucified man.
Josephus mentions Jesus’ crucifixion by Pilate and John the Baptist’s execution by Herod Antipas.
The Talmud gives hostile but historical evidence of Jesus' existence and impact on Jewish society.
Thallus refers to the darkness during Jesus' crucifixion.
Mara Bar-Serapion refers to the execution of a "wise king" of the Jews.
Clement of Rome corroborates details about Paul and Peter's ministries.
Ignatius of Antioch describes early church structure and Jesus' death and resurrection.

It seems that the answer is yes. Other writers affirm Biblical claims.

Edwin Yamauchi notes that even if we did not have the New Testament or early Christian writings, we would still be able to conclude that Jesus was a Jewish teacher, many people believed he performed healings and exorcisms, he was rejected by the Jewish leaders, he was crucified under Pontius Pilate in the reign of Tiberius, his followers believed he was still alive and spread so that there were many in Rome by 64 AD, and that all kinds of people worshiped him as God.[46]

Does the archaeology sign with what’s written? And the answer is the same: yes!

Here are some examples:

Balaam inscription
Jacob’s well
King David’s city
Hezekiah’s tunnel
Hezekiah’s bulla
Shema seal
House of Yahweh Ostracon
Mt Ebal Curse Tablet
Dead Sea Scrolls
Pool of Gibeon
Jerubbaal inscription
Kingdom of Edom
City of Gath
City of Ur
City of Jericho
City of Haran
Babylonian conquest of Jerusalem
Jesus boat
Jesus’ Tomb
House of Peter
Caiaphas’ ossuary
Pool of Siloam

In a tad more detail, we have some of our earliest mentions from the Iron Age:

Merneptah Stele – Egyptian inscription, dated to around 1208 BC, mentions ”Israel” as a people in the region.
Mesha Stele – Canaanite inscription in the name of King Mesha of Moab, dated to around 840 BC, refers to King Omri of Israel, parallels 2 Kings 3.
Kurkh Monoliths – Assyrian stelae from of around 852 BC and 879 BC, refers to King Ahab of Israel.
Tel Dan Stele – Aramaic inscription, dated to 9th century BC, details that an individual killed Jehoram, King of Israel-Samaria, the son of Ahab, and Ahaziah of Judah, a king of the house of David (2 Kings 12).

We also found carved limestone, which is our earliest and only contemporary record of Pilate. Sceptics frequently denied his existence until the discovery of this partially intact inscription attributed to Pontius Pilate, a prefect of the Roman province of Judaea. The stone is dated to 26-37 AD.[47]

And we have extra-biblical evidence for lots of other characters[48] - some I haven’t named, some still hotly debated. For example:

King Mesha, King Hazael, King Ben-hadad, King Omni, King Ahab, King Jehu, King Joash, King Azariah, King Jehoiachin, King Sargon II, King Xerxes I, King Jeroboam II, King David, King Uzziah, King Ahaz, King Hezekiah, King Manasseh, King Nebuchadnezzar II, King Cyrus II, King Darius, King Sennacherib, King Hoshea, Salome, Ananias, Berenice, Drusilla, Herod Antipas, Gamaliel, Herod Agrippa II, John, Judas, Nero Caesar, Paul, Johanan, King Jotham, King Pehah, King Rezin, Belshazzar, Augustus Caesar, Caiaphas, Herod the Great, Herodias, James, Jesus Christ, John the Baptist, Matthew, Philip, Pontius Pilate, Herod Archelaus, Simon Peter, Tiberius Caesar, Antonius Felix, Apollos, Claudius Caesar, Herod Agrippa I, etc.

Nelson Glueck writes, “It may be stated categorically that no archaeological discovery has ever controverted a biblical reference…”

Joseph Free writes that the field has “confirmed countless passages which had been rejected by critics as unhistorical or contrary to known facts…”

They might be overstating it a little bit, but there's no denying that supporting archaeology exists. In general, the archaeological evidence aligns with the biblical material.

It should be noted, however, that the Bible does make theological claims alongside historical claims.[49] But the presence of symbolic or theological meaning does not necessarily negate the Bible’s historicity. Of Mark’s Gospel, Joel Marcus argues that the text can operate on multiple levels simultaneously to convey both history and theology.[50] Much external evidence reinforces the Bible’s historical reliability, and the Bible includes many specific details which would have been unnecessary if it had been intended as purely symbolic text.

CONTEXTUAL RELIABILITY

Next is the question of how well the Bible reflects the context that it claims to represent.[51] The Bible is pretty astounding on this front.

A lot of names have been confirmed, like Nebuchadnezzar, Herod, and Pilate. Titles are also used appropriately. For example, in Acts 18:12, Luke refers to Gallio as the “Proconsul of Achaia,” confirmed by an inscription at Delphi.[52] Luke regularly shows much attention to detail. The Bible performs similarly with place names and descriptions, like Nineveh, Babylon, Nazareth, and Capernaum.

A lot of laws, customs, political structures, conflicts, and treaties are consistent with what we know of the relevant time periods. For example, the covenantal language used in Deuteronomy is similar to Suzerain treaties of the Ancient Near East. And the way that the first-century Judea is described is consistent with what we know about the period.[53]

The language and linguistic styles used also support their authenticity.

Peter Williams writes that the authors clearly had, “familiarity with the time and place… whether it’s knowing the language, the geography, the plants, what people used to be called, the social stratification, things about the layout of Jerusalem – they clearly have a lot of familiarity.”[54]

PROPHECY & ‘SPIRITUAL’ RELIABILITY

Stepping outside of pure secular scholarship, we can also consider the “spiritual” reliability of the Bible. How do we know the Bible is the Word of God? What indicates that the Bible has a divine quality?

Prophecy is one way to spot such a thing.

A prophecy is a prediction about something that will happen in the future. Prophecy can be short-term or long-term, some can concern the end times, and can even have multiple fulfillments.[55] About 30% of the Old Testament is prophecy,[56] and they say that there are around 2000 prophecies in the Bible, many of which have already been fulfilled.

Prophets spoke on behalf of God - and usually this was just to tell Israel to get a grip and repent, or bad things were going to happen. And they prophesied about those bad things, and then they happened.

But at other times, God would reveal to His people some details about the Messiah, the saviour to come.[57]

Our Messiah (Jesus) lived around 6-4 BC to 30 AD. Key prophecies were made about Jesus by David at 1010-970 BC, Isaiah at 740-700 BC, and Zechariah at 520-470 BC. Then there were many more direct and indirect prophecies about the Messiah all throughout the Old Testament.

Of course, all of the original documents are lost to time, but the Dead Sea Scrolls gave us a physical Old Testament manuscript that predates Jesus.[58] In a museum today, you can go and find an Isaiah scroll with prophecies that predate Jesus by about 100 years.

Many prophecies about Jesus were very specific, for example:[59]

Born of a virgin (Is7)
Called “God with us” (Is7)
A messenger prepares the way (Is40)
Rejected by his own people (Ps69, Is53)
Speak in parables (Is78, Is6)
Betrayed (Ps41, Ze11)
Silent before his accusers (Is53)
Spat on and struck (Is50)
Hated without cause (Ps35, 69)
Killed alongside criminals (Is53)
Hands and feet pierced (Ps22, Ze12) (This prophecy is particularly interesting when we consider that crucifixion had not yet been invented at the time these were originally written.)
Gamble for his clothes (Ps22)
Pierce his side (Ze12)
Buried with the rich (Is53)
Resurrect from death (Ps16, 49)

There are up to 300 minor prophecies about the Messiah, with 48 major prophecies.

This is where the profoundness comes in.[60]

Peter Stoner was a professor of science and mathematics, and he calculated the chance of these 48 major prophecies coming true in just one man. His number was later approved of by the American Scientific Affiliation. He stated that the chance of these 48 major prophecies coming true in one man was 1:10^157

For reference, there are almost 10^68 ways to shuffle a deck of cards, there may be as many as 10^82 atoms in the known universe, and there may be as many as 10^123 positions in chess (including illegal moves).

These are what these numbers look like:

Card Shuffles	100 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000
Atoms in Universe	10 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000
Chess Positions	10 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 00
Fulfilling 48 Prophecies	1 / 10 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000

Josh McDowell constructed this analogy: [61]

Suppose we cover the American state of Texas in silver dollars at two feet deep, and we marked just one of these with a red marker and tossed it somewhere random. Then we take a blindfolded man and let him wander around as long and as far as we wanted to, telling him that he has one chance to pick up one specific marked silver dollar.

He would have the same chance of picking up the right dollar as one man would have of fulfilling just eight of the prophecies about the Messiah: 1:10^17

Suppose we take this analogy and apply it to the whole world. The whole earth, including the ocean, covered in two feet of silver dollars. And let’s include the moon. Five moons, just because. And wow, our chances have just dropped to approximately 1:10^20

Add more and more coins until the earth and coin piles meet in space (the moon is over 384,000km away), and we have a 1:10^28 chance. This number is getting ridiculous.

And remember, the number for 48 prophecies is 1:10^157

At some point, the scale is just too hard to comprehend.[62]

Prophecies tell us several things in terms of reliability.

For example, perspective reliability - does the text convey a clear purpose and view? The answer is certainly yes. The New Testament, in particular, is very clearly trying to show us that Jesus is the prophesied Messiah by using Old Testament prophecies, themes, and motifs to highlight parts of Jesus’ story.

But even more than that, there’s a divine element here. The fulfilment of these prophecies is evidence that the Bible is divinely inspired. It’s God’s word and it reveals truths about God to us.

STORYLINE & ‘SPIRITUAL’ RELIABILITY

As we know, the Bible was written over a timespan of about 1500 years, by at least 40 different authors, living at different times, circumstances, places, and cultures. They write on different topics and in different genres and in different languages. We have 66 different books - perhaps more, depending upon the denomination.

All odds are against this being a coherent book. In fact, the Bible really should be a contradictory and incoherent mess.

But it isn’t! Remarkably, the Bible gives us one great continuing story. It tells us one consistent message about one God with one overarching plan.

It’s also remarkably comprehensive, covering human origin, identity, meaning, morality, and destiny. It tells us what the great problem is and how it’s being solved.

The Bible is also the most hyperlinked book. It refers to other parts of itself constantly.

This image shows 63,779 cross references from Genesis to Revelation.[63]

Now, of course, there are some apparent contradictions along the way, but the grand narrative is so consistent. This is amazing, given the circumstances under which it was written.

This coherent storyline shows us that this is a divinely inspired book. It conveys to us a clear purpose and shows us that there’s a divine hand over history.[64]

It also supports the Bible’s philosophical reliability, because it shows us that it’s remarkably coherent.

CONTRADICTIONS

I say that the Bible is coherent, and yet it gets criticised for being inconsistent all the time! We hear this a lot, “The Bible has so many contradictions!!”[65]

Here’s one chart which is supposed to show us all of the contradictions in the Bible.[66] This was commissioned by Sam Harris, one of the four horsemen of the new atheism movement:

Now, if all these contradictions really exist, then this threatens the philosophical reliability of the Bible. How can we trust the Bible if it regularly disagrees with itself?

But do not fear! Things are not as they appear!

A lot of these aren’t contradictions.[67] In order to create this, they’ve ignored genre, grammar, and context. It’s quite lazy. All this stuff has already been resolved.

Here’s an example. Contradiction #358. Was Sisera sleep when he was murdered? Judges 4 says he was asleep, but Judges 5 says he was awake and struggling – it’s just such a contradiction!!

But would it help to know that Judges 5 is part of a poem called the “Song of Deborah,” which celebrates their victory over Sisera? The whole genre is completely different! And it’s not even subtle – go to Judges and you’ll see that it’s obviously different. Judges 4 is a straightforward historical account, and Judges 5 is a poem, so it uses figurative language and heightened imagery. There is no contradiction! You’re just ignoring genre!

It should be stated that something is only a contradiction if it follows this formula:

True and not-True in the same time, place, and sense.

If either time, place, or sense are different, then it’s not a contradiction. It could be a difficulty or contrast, but it’s not completely unresolvable.

Justin Holcomb writes that, “When all the historical facts, literary genres, and issues of textual transmission are investigated and considered, and when properly interpreted, the Bible never contradicts itself and does not misrepresent the facts.”[68]

But let’s not act surprised when we approach a book written over a timespan of 1500 years by 40 different authors and it has some difficulties. Of course it does! We should be surprised it has any coherence at all!

For this reason, some scholars will say that it doesn’t matter if it has some inconsistencies - it was written by completely different people in completely different contexts, so (they argue) it’s no wonder that they might sometimes have conflicting memories or perceptions.

It really depends upon your view of how biblical inerrancy works as to whether conflicts are a huge problem or not.[69] Fortunately, if you believe they are a huge problem, then there are answers out there for you! People have done the work![70]

For example, “The Big Book of Bible Difficulties” and “Keeping the Faith in an Age of Reason: Refuting Alleged Bible Contradictions,” can be good places to start.

The point is that contradictions are a non-issue, and whether the remaining smaller conflicts are problematic, or even exist, is up for debate. The Bible maintains its philosophical reliability.

and CLAIMS

We should also keep in mind that there’s nothing inherently wrong with the Bible’s supernatural claims either. Unless you’ve already presupposed a naturalist or materialist view of the world, it’s perfectly possible for miracles and supernatural events to take place.[71]

It’s not beyond reason for God to exist and to do all of these things. There are no laws of logic which prevent these things from happening.

Some people act like these need to be explained away, but they really don’t. There are good reasons to believe that God exists, and there are good reasons to believe that this is the same God as described in the Bible.

Taking a materialist approach to the Bible and then being mad when the Bible doesn’t support a materialist worldview, is just setting yourself up for failure.

“If I can’t naturally explain these non-natural events, then I won’t believe it.” Well, that's a shame because you’ve set yourself a nonsensical task.[72]

and CANONS

The books that made it into the official Bible that we have today are called canonical books, or just the canon. There were other books that could have been in the Bible, so the question is, how were they chosen?

Several Christian denominations include some of those other books in their Old Testament - they’re called the apocryphal or deuterocanonical books, and they’re usually not held with the same authority as the books we all hold in common.

There wasn’t really one defining moment for the formation of either the Old or New Testament canons - they mostly just progressed over time. It took a long time for things to be cemented in place, but for most of that time, there were several books which were widely used. Three main criteria which were used to eventually determine the canons:

Authorship → did the author have a good reputation, or more importantly, did the author have apostolic authority? i.e., were they an apostle or did they see Jesus in person.
Doctrine → is it in line with authoritative teachings? Thanks to things like oral tradition, some doctrines were just known to be true, and so the writings had to be theologically accurate. There were clear established teachings, and things that opposed that were pretty clearly not from God.
Acceptance → was it widely accepted? Some letters were not seen as mere letters but were considered to have some divine authority.[73] Some texts were just straight up known to be true and they were used constantly by the vast majority of Christians.

Some books were accepted into the canon with ease - such as the Gospels and Pauline letters. While others endured considerable debate - such as Hebrews, 2 Peter, and Revelation.

POWER AND INFLUENCE

Finally, let’s consider the power of Scripture. The real-life impacts the Bible has had on people. Let’s judge the Bible by its fruits.

The Bible has had a huge impact on history, culture, and society. It’s played a huge role in shaping our values, institutions, and beliefs. You can find its hands in ethics, politics, education, art, and social movements. And via the abuses of humans, the Bible has also been used to justify conflict and oppression.[74]

Few books, if any, rival the Bible in terms of societal influence.[75]

Hospitals and healthcare
Education
Science
Music, artwork, architecture, and literature
Cleanliness
Work ethic and economic freedom
Adoption and orphanages
Human dignity and individual rights
Sanctity of life
Abolition of slavery
Dignity of women
Sexual morality
Charity work

Countless individuals have been inspired by the Bible, and many have died for its message.[76] For example:

Irenaeus of Lyon was an early Christian apologist.
Fabiola established the first hospital in Rome.
Martin Luther’s started a Reformation.
William Wilberforce fought against slavery.
Rosendo Salvado founded the New Norcia mission for Aboriginal people.
William Booth began the Salvation Army.
Corrie ten Boom hid Jews during WWII and forgave her Nazi persecutors.
Mother Teresa founded charities in India.
Martin Luther King Jr fought for civil rights.
Desmond Tutu led an opposition to apartheid.
Chuck Colson founded Prison Fellowship.

Of the Bible, Thomas Huxley said, “The Bible has been the Magna Carta of the poor and of the oppressed.”

Isaac Newton said, “We account the Scriptures of God to be the most sublime philosophy.”

Michaelangelo said, “I read the Bible to see how I might carve the glory of God's creation in the stone.”

And Abraham Lincoln said, “In regards to this great Book, I have but to say it is the best gift God has given to man… But for it we could not know right from wrong.”

And this inspiration continues today - Rosalind Picard, a professor at MIT, is one example. She said, “As I read the Bible, I felt God talking to me... I took that step and it made an enormous difference.”

In recent times, we’ve seen how the Bible and Christianity have influenced other important figures, such as Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Jordan Peterson, J D Vance, and Douglas Murray.

People are constantly being transformed by the Bible and its message.