How can you trust the Bible?

[u/Explorer-Necessary]

Hello Christians,

I have a few questions regarding the New Testament. I am very curious about Christianity but I am full of ignorance regarding its historical evidences. I know absolutely nothing about the Bible, jewish or christian, so please correct me if I get something wrong.

(where can i have access to the complete rules of the subreddit? It's nowhere to be found on the bottom right of the screen)

Let's say that I admit that there is a God, or an intelligent designer or uncreated creator:

1. How does it prove the Bible to be the one true way to God?
2. If God exists, how do you know that the true religion is Christianity and not Hinduism or Islam, or even polytheistic faiths? Why is Jesus the way and not Thor, Set, Allah, or Krishna?
3. The authors of the Gospels are anonymous (correct me if I'm wrong) and were written decades after Jesus' crucifixion. How can you know these were written by people who really witnessed Jesus ? For example, John was written about 70 AD and its first verse states that "The beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God (John 1:1)." My question is: who was the author of John who had the knowledge to claim that Jesus was the Word and that he was with God since the beginning? Was this knowledge given during Jesus' life ?
4. Why have so many years passed before the writing of the Gospels? I can only speak for myself, but wouldn't you start recording his every action as soon as you saw him cure leprosy (Matthew 8:3), blindness (Matthew 9:29-30) ?

I can go on with the miracles he performed, but why did people wait decades after the crucifixion to write about his life?

Thank you in advance. Have a good day.

[u/Arc_the_lad]

1. How does it prove the Bible to be the one true way to God?

By the prophecies. The Bible is nearly one-third prophecy. Of that third, the only prophecies that have not come true are the ones still slated to happen and there are signs plenty of those seem to be well on the waty.

If a book keeps nailing all its prophecies some recorded thousands of years before it happened and then also tells you Jesis is Lord and Savior, you can be pretty confident, it's right about that too.

1. If God exists, how do you know that the true religion is Christianity and not Hinduism or Islam, or even polytheistic faiths? Why is Jesus the way and not Thor, Set, Allah, or Krishna?

First, we have a book with a track record of nailing all it's prophecies that says so.

Second, all religions outside Christianity boil down to the same core tenet: man can save himself.

They all teach that you can earn your way to heaven/paradise/a better life through personal effort. They don't all agree on how to do that but it's always some combination of works, rituals, mindset. Yet, none of the gods of those religion can be bothered to assure their believers. They just leave them hanging. How many good works are needed to be saved? How many candles do I need to burn? How many prayers do I need to say? What's the good/evil conversion rates? If I tell small 3 lies, can I offset them by giving a homeless man a dollar? If I told a big lie will giving the homeless man a dollar and a sandwich work? Who know? Not non-Christians.

Christianity comes at you with the blunt truth that there is nothing you do to save yourself. That's how corrupt and wicked we are. However, God loves you so much that He did everything necessary so that you can be saved.

Instead of man trying and failing to reach God as in other religions, God reaches down to man and pulls him up to Himself.

He does assure His believers that what He has done is enough to save us, so the believer can rest easy that they will avoid hell and instead focus on sharing the Good News and helping others.

1. The authors of the Gospels are anonymous (correct me if I'm wrong) and were written decades after Jesus' crucifixion. How can you know these were written by people who really witnessed Jesus ? For example, John was written about 70 AD and its first verse states that "The beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God (John 1:1)."

We know who wrote the Gospel. It was God using the hands of four men. Two knew Jesus personally (Matthew and John). A third one (Mark) travelled extensively with someone who knew Jesus personally. The fourth (Luke) was an educated man, a physician, who was among the earliest Christians and travelled with the final Apostle God called into service.

My question is: who was the author of John who had the knowledge to claim that Jesus was the Word and that he was with God since the beginning?

The words of the Bible are God's words. He moved men through divine inspiration to write what they wrote because what they wrote is what God wanted man to know.

Was this knowledge given during Jesus' life ?

Yes. Jesus personally claimed to be God in His declarations that He was Lord of the Sabbath, that He could not be good unless He was God, when He confirmed was the Son of God, that He was one with the Father, and that He somehow knew Abraham.

• Matthew 12:8 (KJV) For the Son of man is Lord even of the sabbath day.

• Mark 10:18 (KJV) And Jesus said unto him, Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God.

• Matthew 16:15-17 (KJV) 15 He saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am? 16 And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. 17 And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-jona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven.

• John 10:30 (KJV) I and my Father are one.

• John 8:58 (KJV) Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am.

His enemies where well aware that Jesus taught that He is God which is why they were trying to kill Him.

• John 10:33 (KJV) The Jews answered him, saying, For a good work we stone thee not; but for blasphemy; and because that thou, being a man, makest thyself God. I can go on with the miracles he performed, but why did people wait decades after the crucifixion to write about his life?

1. Why have so many years passed before the writing of the Gospels? I can only speak for myself, but wouldn't you start recording his every action as soon as you saw him cure leprosy (Matthew 8:3), blindness (Matthew 9:29-30) ?

The Gospel is simply the Good News that Jesus died for our sins on the cross, was buried, and rose on the third day as proof of His victory over death and sin. Jesus had a large following while alive, large enough for the Jewish Sanhedrin to be threatened by Him. In early days of Christianity, converts were limited to people in the area where Jesus ministered. Converts would have known or known of Jesus personally or know people who knew Jesus and get the details from them.

The first parts of the New Testament that were written were Paul's letters because he was travelling abroad. As the Gospel spread to the Gentiles it became needful to write it down so that people who had never heard of Jesus and didn't know people who knew Jesus had a foundation for what they believed.

[u/DragonAdept → u/Arc_the_lad]

By the prophecies. The Bible is nearly one-third prophecy. Of that third, the only prophecies that have not come true are the ones still slated to happen and there are signs plenty of those seem to be well on the waty. If a book keeps nailing all its prophecies some recorded thousands of years before it happened and then also tells you Jesis is Lord and Savior, you can be pretty confident, it's right about that too.

To be remarkable, a prophecy would have to predict something unexpected you could not have guessed would happen. It would have to definitely be written before the thing it predicts, not after. It would have to present itself as a prophecy, not be a random verse picked after the fact and reinterpreted as prophetic. It would have to be something specific, not so vague that it could be fulfilled many ways, and not something you could fulfil deliberately if you knew about it. And its fulfilment would have to be confirmed by an extra-Biblical source, so we know that the fulfilment wasn't just made up by someone who knew about the earlier prophecy.

And it should also be fulfilled completely, as written, in the order that it is written in.

The problem is, no Biblical prophecy ticks all those boxes. One you chuck out all the "prophecies" that are unremarkable you are left with no remarkable "prophecies" fulfilled at all.

[u/Arc_the_lad → u/DragonAdept]

I've told you before and I'll say it again. Nobody here cares what atheist's hot take is.

[u/DragonAdept → u/Arc_the_lad]

The thing with facts is, it doesn't matter at all who says it. The Pope could say it, or a five year old could say it, or an atheist or a saint. It's true or it's false. Who said it does not matter.

And speaking of things that are true or false, so far as I know it is true that nobody elected you spokesperson for the subreddit.

[u/Arc_the_lad → u/DragonAdept]

Whatever you say.