How Can I Trust What the Bible Says?

Oral tradition played a vital role in the spread of Christianity, the process of passing on information by word of mouth. But you might be thinking, ‘I can’t remember what I ate for breakfast this morning... let alone years ago! There’s no way anyone would have remembered Jesus’ life and teachings in detail, particularly 30 years after he died.’ Fair point. But consider this. Our world is very different from the world that Jesus and his disciples lived in. In our digital world, we don’t exercise any of the mental muscles that they would of had because our devices remember for us. My Dad even has to check his phone contacts just for his own number. Now he is old, (hey!) but how many numbers do you know? Do you even know your own?! In 1st Century Jewish culture, the ability to memorise was unbelievably impressive. When Jesus called his first disciples away from a life of fishing, they would have been embarking on a brand new journey that would have required them to consume vast amounts of His teaching and remember it. Since this was before the days of printing, learning was mostly communicated through the spoken word, and the average mind was culturally wired to be able to digest and repeat information, often word for word. Rabbis at that time, as part of their training, would have committed to memorising the entire Hebrew Scriptures. That’s like the entire Old Testament to us that’s like a science textbook! When it comes to the Bible many of us have different experiences and some of us might be a little bit confused because some think that it is just a massive big book but actually, the Latin word for Bible is 'biblia' which means a collection of books. Because the Bible is made up of letters and stories and narratives, and it’s documenting actual history that they could pass on to future generations. You can see that in the way that Luke writes his letter to someone named Theophilus. He writes his letter and he starts with this: Many people have set out to write accounts about the events that have been fulfilled among us. They used the eyewitness reports circulating among us from the early disciples. Having carefully investigated everything from the beginning, I also have decided to write a careful account for you so you can be certain of the truth of everything you were taught. (Luke 1:1-4) Luke worked hard to get his facts straight about Jesus. But it’s not as if he posted online and it got a million shares. It’s more that his personal email to Theophilus was forwarded to the world. So what we have, then, is Luke and three other writers telling the same story but from different perspectives. So — why is there still much doubt about the reliability of these eyewitness accounts? The answer is that, no matter how much evidence there are to support them, these stories will always be hard to believe. Now, if it was just a man travelling around teaching, then many wouldn’t have a problem. The problem is that these stories are full of the supernatural, miracles! But what makes these stories hard to believe is also the very thing that makes them worth believing. Miracles are always hard to prove because they go beyond our understanding of how the world works but what I want to suggest is that if we apply the principles and practices of historians there is a good case for accepting that Jesus performed miracles… Firstly we have the Gospel accounts and each account describes miracles of many kinds. There are blind people regaining sight, dead people being raised, demons being driven out and raging storms being instantly stilled. Would Jesus have been able to draw crowds of thousands over a span of 3 years, from his baptism at 30 to his death at 33, if he was a fake the whole time? And secondly, no one ever actually denied that he performed the miracles. Now, it’s no surprise that those who loved and supported him would acknowledge what he did, but what is surprising is that the religious leaders who wanted him dead acknowledged the miracles too. They never questioned his miraculous abilities, what they questioned was the source of his power, they accused him of being evil. Finally, we must ask the question, why is Jesus, an obscure, Jewish teacher the most historically verifiable person in history? Why is there more written about him than any other king or emperor that lived before or after him? I suggest that the reason is that he did something extraordinary!