Can we trust the Bible?
Manuscripts, the canon, alleged contradictions, the Old Testament’s hard texts, and the messianic pattern already on the page.
See it
Shorts, slide decks, and infographics that belong with this page.
Slide deck · 12 slidesThe historical bedrock
Slide deck · 14 slidesThe historical reliability of the biblical record
Slide deck · 14 slidesThe converging lines of evidence
ShortWhy the New Testament survives historical scrutiny
ShortHow historians verify the New Testament
ShortThe mathematical odds of prophecy
ShortThe forensic fingerprints of Week 10
InfographicEvidence for the Christian worldview
InfographicNew Testament reliability
InfographicThe historical bedrock
InfographicThe witness of history
InfographicThe evidence of corroboration
InfographicThe Shroud of Turin
InfographicThe Sudarium of OviedoQuestions
Hasn’t the Bible been translated too many times to trust?
No. Modern translations go back to Greek and Hebrew, not down a chain of English copies. The New Testament is the best-attested book of the ancient world.
Weren’t the Gospels written too late to be reliable?
They sit inside a generation of the events, and the creed in 1 Corinthians 15 is earlier still—within a few years of the cross.
Did Jesus even exist?
Yes. The idea that He is a myth is a fringe view, not a scholarly one. Christian, Jewish, and Roman sources all remember a crucified teacher from Nazareth.
Why does the Old Testament command conquest and permit slavery?
Those texts are real, and they are not a blank check. Conquest is a limited judgment inside a story. Torah slavery is not the Atlantic trade. Neither one licenses what Jesus told His men to do.
Isn’t the Bible full of contradictions?
Ask for one, then read genre, context, and the other witness. Different angles are what you want from independent reports. A real contradiction has to survive that, not just a screenshot.
Who decided which books belong in the Bible?
The church recognized the books. It did not invent them in a smoke-filled room. Apostolic origin, the rule of faith, and wide use did the sorting — and the late gospels fail those tests.
Did the Hebrew Scriptures actually point to Jesus?
Not as a list of fortune-cookie lines written after the fact. As a pattern — a king from David’s line, a servant who suffers, a birth in Bethlehem — already in the Hebrew text before Jesus, and aimed at one figure.