Random Q&A: Christianity and the Bible

Q: How do we know the Bible is reliable if it has so many copies?

A: There is a common misconception that the Bible is comparable to "the telephone game" as if our modern Bible is a copy of a copy of a copy, resulting in a jumbled message that nobody can really be sure of. In that kind of scenario the text would be unreliable but this isn't how Bible translations are made. Modern Bibles are translated from the oldest and most reliable manuscripts that we have, so your Bible says what the ancient manuscripts say. Also early Christians were very fond of writing about Christianity, so we have a whole lot of their books. Since we have so much early Christian literature, even if we didn't have any ancient Bible manuscripts available to us today, we could still compare our modern Bibles to what the ancient Christians wrote and we could see that they match. They actually quoted from their ancient Bibles so often that we could reconstruct almost the entire New Testament just from their writings. The science of textual criticism allows scholars to analyze the Bible by comparing it to ancient sources and determine that the message is intact.

Q: How do we know if the government or powerful rich people didn’t change it?

A: We can know with 100% certainty that there was never a single person or group of people that had complete control of the Bible in order to be able to change it. God actually transmitted the Bible to us in a very special way, like no other book in the world. Immediately after the events of the New Testament were recorded, the documents started to spread. Anyone who had the ability, and the resources, would make a copy for themselves or for their church. The original document would be copied by everyone who came in contact with it, if they were able to do so. Then as those people spread with their copies, others copied their manuscripts, and so on. Because of this, you can imagine a sort of cone-shaped expansion of documents spreading as time passed. But there was a fail-safe built into the transmission of the text. There was not just a single line of transmission. There were multiple lines. So if any part of a manuscript was changed in any way, it sticks out among all of the others because it's different. Because of the incredible advancements that we have made in this field, we are able to identify errant lines of transmission and correct any errors they may contain by comparing them to the oldest and most reliable manuscripts. Because we have so many documents from different lines of transmission we can be certain that the message has not been altered. Modern Bibles have footnotes at the bottom of the page to show you if a manuscript contains a different reading.

Q: How do we know if the people who first wrote it were telling the truth?

A: There are many internal indications of veracity. For example, the authors tell embarrassing details about themselves. If they were lying they would have made themselves sound a lot better, smarter, more faithful, etc. But they often admit to their blunders and their lack of understanding. They include the eyewitness testimonies of women in their accounts, which is interesting because in that culture a woman was not considered a valid witness. Women could not testify against someone in a legal case, and they could not corroborate someone else's testimony. If the Christians were lying about what happened, they would have never included the fact that women were the first to arrive at the empty tomb of Jesus. If they wanted people to believe a lie they would have made it much easier by not adding those details.

Another piece of evidence is that the authors include the names of specific people and places which would allow the reader to go and verify the story. If they were lying they would not tell us those details. Another important thing to consider is the fact that the authors wrote about events which took place in their own home town. This makes it incredibly easy for anyone to prove if they were lying. If they wanted to make up a story in order to fool people, they would have gone far away and told people who had no way of verifying anything.

Yet another piece of evidence is how perfectly the New Testament meshes with the Old Testament. The New Testament is clearly the fulfillment of that which the Old Testament established. Prophecy is a great example of this. Jesus Christ fulfilled over 300 Old Testament prophecies, such as where He would be born, when He would be born, how He would be born, things that He would do and say, miracles that would happen, how He would die, how He would live again, and so much more. And then of course there's the evidence provided internally to everyone who places their faith in Jesus Christ. We experience firsthand that the Bible is telling the truth because we see it being manifested in our lives.

The New Testament has more manuscripts available than any other work of antiquity. We have more evidence for the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus than we have for people like Alexander the Great or Plato for example. There are also ancient historians who weren't Christians and they wrote about Jesus Christ. For example the First Century historian Josephus verified the existence of a crucified "Christus" who was worshipped as God. These ancient non-biblical documents add a ton of veracity to the fact that the crucifixion and resurrection really happened in history.

Q: Religions say if we don’t do certain things according to their religion we’re going to burn in hell. But why?

A: Every religion in the world has something in common. They all tell you what you have to do in order to satisfy God, or go to heaven, or ascend to a higher level, or whatever their particular thing is. They all have stuff that you've got to do. Except Christianity is unique. It's the only religion in the world that says everything has already been done. All of the necessary work has been accomplished by Jesus Christ and you cannot do anything for yourself. That makes Christianity totally different from the other religions of the world.

"For by grace you [Christians] have been saved through faith [in Jesus Christ]. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast." (Ephesians 2:8-9)

Christianity stands alone when it says that God will not accept anything from us. The Christian God says there's nothing you can possibly do in order to gain His favor, or to get yourself into heaven. He sees our very best good deeds as filthy soiled rags. "We have all become like one who is unclean,

and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment.

We all fade like a leaf,

and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away." (Isaiah 64:6)

Where other gods have rituals for you to perform and good deeds for you to accomplish, the Christian God stands alone in saying that it's impossible for any human to earn His favor. There is nothing at all that we can do, and we're all condemned by default. But Jesus came and provided the way out. Since we can't do it for ourselves, God did all of the work for us. Jesus has already done everything necessary to please God for anyone who believes in Him. Jesus gave His life as the ultimate sacrifice so that anyone who believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life. Everyone else is already condemned because of their sin. Hell is the place where everyone else goes because they have sinned against God and they didn't come to Jesus for forgiveness.

Q: How do we know where to put our trust?

A: As we've seen already, the Bible is unique among all of the other religious books, and Christianity is unique among all other religions. Because of all of the evidence I've already talked about, it makes the most sense to believe in the God of the Bible. There is no other book that compares to the Bible, and no other gods come even close to the God of Christianity. Our God makes promises. If the Bible was man-made this would be too risky, but God wants us to have confidence that when He says something He means it. So He promises that anyone who places their faith in Jesus will receive certain gifts from Him. He promises to save you, to change you, to cleanse you, to give you spiritual life, to make you a new person, to comfort you, to strengthen you, etc, etc. Every Christian believer can verify that these promises are 100% true.

Q: I have friends who are good people but they don’t believe in Jesus. Are they going to hell just for that?

A: God is absolutely serious about His holiness, His righteousness, and His purity of character. As the Creator He is also the Judge of all the universe. Sin is so serious to Him that He created a place of punishment where the penalty must be paid. When we think of a person as a "good person", we're comparing them to other people, not to God. Only God is good. He's the only standard for goodness that we can compare everything else to. The Bible says there are no good people. (Romans 3:10-12,Psalm 14:1-3,Psalm 53:1-3) Every person is a sinner and every sin must be punished or else God's perfect character would be tarnished. What would we say about a human judge who excuses every criminal who comes into his court? We would be upset because justice wasn't being done. We expect a righteous judge to punish criminals for what they've done. Just as human judges send criminals to jail for punishment, God also has a place of punishment where sinners are sent. We tend to not understand how holy God really is. The slightest sin by our standards would seem to not merit such a terrible punishment. But for God all sin is heinous because it is so offensive to His holiness. Because of this, all sin must be punished.

God is infinite and eternal so every sin against Him is infinitely offensive and eternally lasting. When our original ancestors committed the first sin, God would have remained absolutely just and righteous if He had put them into hell immediately. But He is also infinitely loving and merciful, so He provided atonement for them. He setup a system where instead of the sinner having to pay the penalty for their own sins, a substitute can take their place. That's why people sacrificed animals in the Old Testament. God was establishing something that He would fulfill later in Jesus Christ.

Jesus is the ultimate sacrifice for sin. He's what the Old Testament animals were foreshadowing. Now the perfect atonement has been made. There is no more requirement for sacrifice. Anyone believing in Jesus Christ will be made perfect through faith in Him. We call this the great exchange. Our sin is exchanged to Jesus, and His righteousness is exchanged to us. This is God's loving plan for humans. He has provided a way to Heaven even though He wasn't obligated to do this. He will punish every last sin, but He will do it in two different ways. Either your sins were paid for by Christ on the cross, or you will pay for your own sins. God will demonstrate His holy justice by punishing sin, but He is also very willing to demonstrate His amazing grace, mercy, kindness, generosity, and patience, to anyone who comes to Him through Jesus Christ.

Whoever comes to Jesus for salvation will be cleansed and purified by Him. Your sins will be removed forever, and you will have eternal life in heaven. But everyone who rejects Jesus is basically telling God that they don't want Jesus to pay for their sins. They are telling God that they would prefer to pay for their own sins. Or worse than that, they may even try telling God that they have no sins at all. This foolish person will go to hell and atone for their own sins forever.

Jesus said "Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light." (Matthew 11:28-30)

"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.” (John 3:16-21)

"The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead." (Acts 17:30-31)

What Must I Do To Be Saved?