Is the Bible reliable?

A little longer

The New Testament was written in Greek in the first century. Paul’s letters, the earliest parts, date from about twenty years after Jesus’ death. The Gospels followed within about forty to seventy years, while people who had known Jesus were still alive.

No original copies survive, as is true of every ancient book. But there are thousands of early handwritten Greek copies of the New Testament, far more than for any other ancient text. They differ in many small ways, mostly spelling and word order. The places where scholars are genuinely unsure are few, and most modern Bibles mark them in a footnote.

For the Old Testament, the Dead Sea Scrolls, found in 1947, included copies of Isaiah about a thousand years older than any known before. They are remarkably close to the text that had been handed down.

So the text we read is very close to what was first written. That doesn’t make every sentence a history or science lesson. The Bible is a library: poems, laws, letters, histories, stories and prayers, each read as the kind of writing it is.

Where it is in the Bible

• Luke 1:1–4 Luke explains he checked his sources carefully.

  Read Luke 1:1–4

  ¹ Since many have undertaken to set in order a narrative concerning those matters which have been fulfilled among us, ² even as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and servants of the word delivered them to us, ³ it seemed good to me also, having traced the course of all things accurately from the first, to write to you in order, most excellent Theophilus; ⁴ that you might know the certainty concerning the things in which you were instructed.

  World English Bible, public domain. The whole chapter on Free Scripture → · Read in the NRSVue, the ELCA’s standard translation →

• 1 Corinthians 15:3–8 Paul lists people who saw Jesus alive, many still living.

  Read 1 Corinthians 15:3–8

  ³ For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, ⁴ that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, ⁵ and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. ⁶ Then he appeared to over five hundred brothers at once, most of whom remain until now, but some have also fallen asleep. ⁷ Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, ⁸ and last of all, as to the child born at the wrong time, he appeared to me also.

  World English Bible, public domain. The whole chapter on Free Scripture → · Read in the NRSVue, the ELCA’s standard translation →

• John 20:30–31 Why John wrote: so that you may believe.

  Read John 20:30–31

  ³⁰ Therefore Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book; ³¹ but these are written, that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name.

  World English Bible, public domain. The whole chapter on Free Scripture → · Read in the NRSVue, the ELCA’s standard translation →

Where to go next

Other questions people ask

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• Why does God allow suffering?
• Does faith conflict with science?
• All the questions