ep. 8 - Can We Trust the Bible? Here's What the Evidence Actually Says

EPISODE OVERVIEW

"The Bible isn't reliable — it's just a translation of a translation of a translation, and what we have now is a watered-down version of the original."

Sound familiar? If you've spent any time around skeptics — or wrestled with this yourself — this episode is your answer. We're going rapid fire through some of the biggest questions people have about the Bible: where it came from, who decided what went in it, what the manuscripts actually tell us, and why we can trust what we have in our hands today. This is the stuff I wish someone had walked me through sooner.

FIRST THINGS FIRST: WHAT EVEN IS THE BIBLE?

The word Bible comes from the Greek word biblio — which simply means books. Our Bible as we know it contains 66 books, written by 40 different authors over 1,500 years — and despite all of that, it tells one singular, cohesive story. That alone should make us stop and think.

WHAT DID JESUS USE AS SCRIPTURE?

A great starting point is asking what Jesus himself used as Scripture. When He was in the desert after 40 days of fasting and Satan came to tempt Him, He responded with "It is written" — referring to the book of Deuteronomy. He wasn't making things up. He was quoting from something already recognized as authoritative.

A few other examples of Jesus treating Old Testament writings as authoritative:

• Matthew 5:17 — Jesus says He didn't come to abolish the law and the prophets but to fulfill them

• Matthew 19 — Jesus quotes Genesis when answering the Pharisees about divorce, using Moses as an authoritative standard

• Matthew 9:12-13 — Jesus quotes directly from Hosea — a book written hundreds of years before His birth — and applies it to Himself

Jesus consistently validated these written words as the authoritative Word of God. That matters.

HOW DID WE GET THE OLD TESTAMENT BOOKS?

The Old Testament wasn't chosen at random. The Jewish people had already been recognizing and acknowledging specific books as the written words of God for centuries before Jesus arrived. This is called the Tanakh — an acronym from:

• Torah (the law)

• Nevi'im (the prophets)

• Ketuvim (the writings — psalms, poetry, lamentations, etc.)

God also gave Israel a very specific way to verify a true prophet: if what they said came to pass, God sent them. If it did not, they were to be stoned. That's how seriously God took His messengers — and how seriously Israel scrutinized what they accepted as Scripture. The scribes were responsible for studying, copying, and preserving those records with extreme care.

The Septuagint — completed in the 3rd and 2nd centuries BC by 72 bilingual scholars before Jesus ever walked the earth — translated the Tanakh from Hebrew into Greek for Greek-speaking Jews. This gives us an incredibly early and reliable reference point for the Old Testament texts we have today.

WHAT ABOUT THE NEW TESTAMENT?

The question for the New Testament wasn't whether the Old Testament was canon — that was already established. The question was which books would be recognized as New Testament canon.

According to Answers in Genesis, five criteria were used — sometimes called the Five A's:

1. Apostolic — written by or directly connected to an apostle (this includes Paul, whose radical encounter with Christ on the road to Damascus established his apostleship)

2. Authentic — not someone else's ideas with a famous name slapped on top (think the Gospel of Thomas — written by someone other than the Apostle Thomas, and its content is immediately inconsistent with the rest of the New Testament)

3. Ancient — not something that showed up 10 years later claiming to be Scripture

4. Accepted — acknowledged by the early church as authoritative at the time it was written

5. Accurate — consistent with the manuscripts we can verify

WHAT ABOUT KING JAMES? DID HE PICK THE BOOKS?

No. Let's just clear this up once and for all.

King James did not choose which books went into the Bible. What he actually did was commission 50 scholars, divide them into six groups, and assign each group a section to translate — the Old Testament, the New Testament, and the Apocrypha. He gave them 14-15 strict rules to follow to ensure accuracy, including sticking to the English predecessors (the Bishops' Bible, Tyndale, and Geneva) that came before. They could not change names. They had to stay true to what came before.

Is King James a perfect human? No. But Proverbs 21:1 says "The king's heart is a stream of water in the hand of the Lord; he turns it wherever he will." God uses broken people. He always has.

One more thing — the Council of Nicaea. That was not about choosing books of the Bible. That council was convened specifically to address Arianism — the heresy that Jesus was not fully God — and to affirm the deity of Christ. Different council. Different purpose.

THE MANUSCRIPT EVIDENCE — THIS IS THE GOOD STUFF

Manuscripts are handwritten texts that scholars use to verify the authenticity and accuracy of ancient literature. The more manuscripts we have, the more we can cross-reference and confirm consistency.

Here's some context:

• Julius Caesar — fewer than 100 manuscripts

• Genghis Khan — very few manuscripts; mostly a 15-book chronicle

• Plato — a few hundred manuscripts

• Aristotle — about 49 manuscripts, with the earliest copy written 1,400 years after Aristotle lived

And yet we accept all of these as reliable historical documents without question.

Now for the New Testament:

• Over 24,000 manuscripts — and scholars are still finding more

• 99.5% accuracy across all of them

• Written within 50 years of Jesus's ascension

Y'all. 24,000 manuscripts with 99.5% accuracy, written within living memory of the events. Compared to the 1,400-year gap on Aristotle. I'm just saying.

As new manuscripts are discovered and cross-referenced, scholars continue making refinements to ensure accuracy. This is actually a sign of integrity — not instability. For example, John 5:4 appears in the King James Version but not in some later translations, because earlier manuscripts don't contain it. This process is exactly what it should look like.

SO DO WE STILL NEED THE OLD TESTAMENT?

Absolutely. When Jesus says in Matthew 5:17 that He came to fulfill the law and the prophets — that Greek word (pleroo) means to complete. Not to eliminate. Think of it like the missing piece of a puzzle. If you throw out the rest of the puzzle just because you found the last piece, you've lost the whole picture.

As St. Augustine put it:

"The New Testament is in the Old Testament concealed, and the Old Testament is in the New Testament revealed."

You need both to understand either. And as Augustus Strong wrote in Systematic Theology — Jesus fulfilled the law by bringing out its inner spirit in His perfect life, not by making it obsolete.

WHY WE CAN TRUST THE BIBLE

• It has been around for thousands of years — this is not something anyone just made up or assembled recently

• The Old Testament canon was established and recognized by the Jewish people long before the church existed

• The Septuagint gives us an early pre-Christ reference point for Old Testament reliability

• The New Testament canon was determined by five rigorous criteria, not one person's opinion

• Over 24,000 manuscripts with 99.5% accuracy — no other ancient document comes close

• Jesus himself validated the Scriptures repeatedly throughout His ministry

• 40 authors. 1,500 years. One story. You can see Jesus on every single page — if you're reading to find Him

"All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work."
— 2 Timothy 3:16-17 ESV

SCRIPTURES REFERENCED

• Matthew 5:17 — Jesus came not to abolish but to fulfill the law and the prophets

• Matthew 9:12-13 — Jesus quotes Hosea; those who are well need no physician

• Matthew 19 — Jesus quotes Genesis on the topic of divorce

• Matthew 4 — Jesus tempted in the desert; quotes Deuteronomy

• Proverbs 21:1 ESV — the king's heart is in the hand of the Lord

• 2 Timothy 3:16-17 ESV — all Scripture is breathed out by God

• Hosea 6:6 — "I desire mercy and not sacrifice"

RESOURCES & PEOPLE MENTIONED

• Logos Bible Software — used for study and research

• John Piper — reference to Matthew 19 and Jesus quoting Genesis

• Wes Huff — scholar; example of pseudepigrapha and authenticity

• Augustus Strong — Systematic Theology; quote on Jesus fulfilling the law

• St. Augustine — "The New Testament is in the Old Testament concealed..."

• Answers in Genesis — the five criteria for New Testament canon

• Baker Encyclopedia of the Bible — reference to the Septuagint

LET'S KEEP THE CONVERSATION GOING

What's one thing from this episode you didn't know before? Drop it in the comments — I genuinely want to hear from you. And if this helped you or someone you love who's been wrestling with whether they can trust the Bible, please share it. That's exactly why I make these.

Have a testimony you'd love to share on the podcast? Reach out at mcgarrypodcasts@gmail.com and let's connect. 🤍

This is Miki with in case i forget — theology and testimony for busy wives and moms. I'll catch you at the next one.

🌐 theologyandtestimony.com

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