The Bible

Understanding the Bible

Purpose

The Bible is the written Word of God, which means that though it was written by people, God is the source of its message. Scripture is God revealing His will, nature, and purpose to humanity through written words.

The purpose of the Bible is to reveal who God is, expose sin, instruct people how to live, and ultimately lead us to salvation, and it is essential that we are able to trust and understand what it is.

Authorship

The Bible was written by approximately 40 different authors over the span of about 1,500 years, guided by God as the ultimate divine author. The result is 66 books that remarkably come together to produce one unified message.

Content

The scope of the Bible is incredibly vast, from how sin entered into the world, to thousands of years struggling with it, to the eventual coming of the Savior who defeated sin. As well as the history of mankind’s battle against sin, it includes profound spiritual teachings and covers the vast realm of human experience, from good to evil, suffering to joy, bondage to freedom, greed to humility, light to darkness—the Bible covers it all.

The text is split into two parts: the Old Testament and the New Testament.

The Old Testament

The Old Testament begins with an account of creation itself: “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth” (Genesis 1:1). It covers the history of Israel, who God selected to be His nation, their bondage in Egypt, their 40-year journey through the desert before coming to the Promised Land, and a long, ongoing struggle against sin.

The Old Testament not only covers an enormous spectrum of human nature, but it also provides a revelation of how God deals with His people. This differentiates the Old Testament from any other literary work, because it is not only a human story but a history of the world and the Creator of it. It is here we see God’s abundant blessing, His righteous judgment, and boundless love.

The New Testament

Throughout the entire Old Testament, Israel is promised a Savior. The New Testament begins at the fulfillment of that promise: the coming of the Savior.

“In the past God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days He has spoken to us by His Son...” (Hebrews 1:1–2, NIV)

The New Testament is broken up into a few kinds of text. The first four books are the Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John), which record the life, death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. After that is the Book of Acts, which records the time period directly after Jesus’ resurrection, when the church was being established.

The majority of books in the New Testament are epistles rich with doctrine, written for the perfection of the early church, and the final book is Revelation, which reveals Jesus’ ultimate triumph over death, sin, and Satan.

The Old Testament begins with sin entering into the world, and the New Testament ends with sin being defeated. This is the perfect, unified message of the Bible.

Reliability

Historical reliability is constituted by accurate transmission, preservation, and consistency of text. This is the same standard used for ancient historical documents such as Plato and Homer. 

Both the Old, and New Testament are proven to be incredibly historically reliable.

Old Testament

Hebrew scribes used clean animal skins and special black ink, and had incredibly strict guidelines in place for copying manuscripts. The scribe had to be ritually pure, and when writing, they had to verbalize each word, use specific column and line counts, and follow strict letter-spacing rules.

Each manuscript was thoroughly reviewed. If three or more pages needed correction, the entire scroll was discarded and rewritten. Every letter, word, and paragraph was counted, and variants were marked in the margins. A manuscript was invalid if two letters touched.

The Hebrews recognized the severity and importance of accurately preserving Scripture. This formalized, rigorous process ensured incredible textual stability, with discoveries like the Dead Sea Scrolls confirming that even texts a thousand years older match modern copies closely.

New Testament

The texts in the New Testament spread too widely and too rapidly to be centrally preserved. Churches across different regions copied texts independently. Contrary to the common criticism that this deems the New Testament unreliable, this method of circulation is actually highly in favor of New Testament's accuracy.

There are over 5,000 Greek manuscripts, plus thousands more in other languages, and across all of these, most textual differences are spelling, word order, and minor grammatical variations. The core doctrine is consistent.

While the Old Testament is proven to be accurate through meticulous conservation, the text of the New Testament is proven accurate by consistency across thousands of manuscripts.

The Early Response to Jesus

Alongside proven textual accuracy, we have historical testimony from early Christians. Early historical records document Christians’ willingness to suffer and die for their belief. Many claimed to have seen the risen Christ, maintained that claim publicly, and stood firmly on it throughout persecution and death.

• Josephus (c. AD 93), a Jewish historian, records that Jesus was crucified and that His followers “reported that He appeared to them alive again on the third day” (Antiquities 18.3.3).
• Tacitus (c. AD 116), a Roman historian hostile to Christianity, confirms Jesus’ execution under Pontius Pilate and notes that Christians were persecuted and killed for their belief (Annals 15.44).
• Pliny the Younger (c. AD 112), a Roman governor, describes Christians who refused to recant their faith even under threat of death, stating they met regularly and sang hymns “to Christ as to a god” (Letters 10.96).
• 1 Corinthians 15:3–8 records early Christian testimony that Jesus appeared to many witnesses, including “above five hundred brethren at once,” many of whom were still alive at the time of writing—inviting verification rather than blind belief.

Conclusion

Across thousands of years, continents, languages, and cultures, the Bible has been preserved with remarkable consistency. From ancient Hebrew manuscripts like the Dead Sea Scrolls to early Greek copies of the New Testament, modern discoveries continually confirm that the Scriptures we read today faithfully reflect the original writings.

Despite persecution, exile, and repeated attempts to destroy it, the Bible has endured—copied, transmitted, and safeguarded by countless hands. Its message has not been lost, diluted, or softened to suit the times. Instead, the Bible stands as a unified and reliable witness to God’s revelation, preserved through history so that every generation may hear, read, and respond to the same truth.

“Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path” (Psalm 119:105).