How I Became Convinced the Bible is True

It took many types of evidence

What are the odds? What are the alternatives? honest records, archaeology, history, science, fulfilled prophecy, psychology

Is the bible true?… note: if you’re already a believer, share this with your friends who aren’t sure if the bible is true

We don’t need all the answers

It took a lot for me to become a believer. There will always be questions that we don’t have the answer to. Every time we make a decision, it has to be based on the information we have available. When it comes to questions that really matter, like “Where did we come from? What is the purpose of life, or Is there a purpose?” our answers will affect our worldview and our very core of being.

Whether the bible is true or not obviously has a direct bearing on the above questions, so the answer ranks right up there with one of the most important questions for our lives and whether our lives have meaning or whether we’re just a meaningless product of random chance processes.

No one (except God) has all the answers.

“The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our sons forever, that we may observe all the words of this law.” Deuteronomy 29:29

At some point, you have to decide whether to step out in faith. What kind of evidence and how much will it take to convince a person the bible is true? Staying on the fence is an answer in itself, because if the bible is true, it calls for a response that will change your life. If the bible is true, only believers will go to heaven. All others will go to the other place, and suffer the just recompense for their deeds.

Following are some thoughts and areas of evidence that eventually convinced me, even though I started as a skeptic.

What are the odds of 40 different authors agreeing on anything?

The authors not only came from all different backgrounds, but lived in different ages spanning about 1500 years.

Most of the writers in the Old Testament didn’t even know each other.

Yet the theme of man’s failures and need for forgiveness and a Savior is consistent from beginning to end.

What are the alternatives?

Purpose, meaning, and hope come from believing in God and that He has given us the bible as His inspired Word.

What do non-believers have? The opposite – deep down purposelessness, meaninglessness, and hopelessness. Only 9% of millennials attend church today – no wonder the suicide rate in young folks has tripled in the last decade.

Honest records and the ring of truth

The heroes of the bible are portrayed realistically. They weren’t perfect. True history tells us both the good and the bad. Out of fear, Abraham told Pharoah his wife was his sister. Moses wasn’t allowed to enter the promised land because of a moment of angry temper. David committed adultery. Solomon was the wisest man in the world, but he was led astray by his 1000 wives and concubines. (Who wouldn’t be?) Peter was a disciple who was willing to die for his faith, yet in a moment of fear and weakness denied Christ three times.

It’s the same with the nation of Israel, the people God chose to make salvation freely available to the whole world. Israel got involved in idolatry again and again, until God kicked them out of the promised land for 70 years. The bible pulls no punches. That’s one of the reasons I believe it’s true history. It has the ring of truth.

Archaeology

The most impressive testimonies come from people who were so impacted by evidence that contradicted their previous bias that it completely reversed their previous view. More on this later, but here’s an example from the field of archaeology:

“Sir William Ramsay (1851-1939) was an archaeologist and biblical skeptic. He taught at the University of Edinburgh and believed that Bible writers made facts and stories up. The book of Acts, he declared, was full of errors, and to prove this contention, he traveled to Asia Minor to demonstrate Luke’s unreliability. He understood he could not prove or disprove miracle accounts, but if he could show Luke to be a sloppy historian on facts that could be verified (geographical and historical), he felt he could discredit Luke’s unverifiable stories. Ramsay the skeptic returned to Great Britain a believer. Every one of Luke’s facts checked out. He found Luke to use specific and accurate terminology that reflected a careful chronicle of events. There were proconsuls in senatorial provinces, asiarchs in Ephesus, politarchs in Thessalonica. His conclusion was that Luke was a highly reliable historian, rendering the story of the early church in the book of Acts a remarkably clear one” Forthright Magazine  12/5/2017

History

The bible is not a history book, but there’s a lot of history in it, and it has been found to be totally accurate.

“Is the Bible true? The fact is that secular history corroborates the existence of more than 100 biblical characters and provides clear evidence for the existence of Jesus Christ, the central figure of the Bible. 

The Bible is … amazingly accurate when it comes to the historical record. There is much historical proof of the Bible. This fact alone supports a single and divine origin.”

From the May/June 2015 issue of Discern Magazine, “Historical Proof of the Bible”, by Jim Franks.

Paul wrote that after Jesus rose from the dead, he “appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time, most of whom remain until now…” Acts 15:6

He wrote this while most of those witnesses were still alive, yet there is no record of any of them denying what he wrote.

Science

The bible is not a book of science, but where it touches on science, it has been accurate through the ages, even when “science” was in error.  

Fulfilled prophecy

Some of the bible prophecies are so specific that the odds of their fulfillment was astronomical, but fulfilled they were. Anyone who is familiar with statistics knows that the odds of an event occurring become exponentially less possible with the stacking of each additional parameter or requirement for fulfillment. Start with Jesus’ birth. His parents lived in Nazareth. What were the odds that he would be born in Bethlehem? Now string along several more very specific predictions, like his hands would be pierced and his side would be wounded and they would cast lots for his clothes. The odds of all of these and many more being fulfilled in one man? It would be thought to be impossible, yet Jesus was that man. 

“After all, Jesus (Yeshua in Hebrew) fulfilled not just the 48 specifically Messianic prophecies. In fact, He fulfilled more than 324 individual prophecies that related to the Messiah!”  Jonathan Bernis, FIRM

But I caved in and was convinced before I even knew all that. You see, I took an ancient history class in college. I became fascinated with Alexander the Great, and studied all the Greek historians that wrote about his life. I had become very familiar with how he conquered Tyre, and knew the details.

One day someone pointed me to Ezekiel ch.26, which predicts and describes the fall of Tyre. At the time of the prophecy, Tyre was one of the most prominent cities in the ancient world. When I saw the details that lined up perfectly with the way Alexander had defeated that city, I was so amazed that something happened in my heart. I had started reading and investigating the bible about a year earlier. By that time, I had seen lots and lots of evidences, but was still a skeptic. Until then. I no longer resisted, and became a believer.

The psychology of overcoming bias

I mentioned earlier that Sir William Ramsey started out to disprove the writings of the apostle Paul, but ended up confirming their accuracy.

This is a familiar pattern. Frank Morison is another skeptic. He was a journalist, and also had legal training. He started out to disprove the resurrection, which is the very heart of the gospel. Despite his negative bias, he ended up believing!

Lee Strobel is another example.

“Atheist-turned-Christian Lee Strobel, the former award-winning legal editor of The Chicago Tribune, is a New York Times best-selling author of more than forty books and curricula that have sold fourteen million copies in total.” Read more

He was an investigative journalist and a skeptic who decided to disprove Christianity. But the more he dug into the subject, the more he was forced to consider changing his mind. After extensive, deep research, he concluded that Christianity is indeed the real thing. He wrote “The Case for Christ”, which has become a classic.

Strobel wrote the preface to a recent edition of “Who Moved the Stone?” Here’s an excerpt: "I owe Morison a great debt of gratitude. “Who Moved the Stone?” was an important early link in a long chain of evidence that God used to bring me into his kingdom. Morison’s stirring intellectual exploration of the historical record proved to be an excellent starting point for my spiritual investigation."  

“Who Moved the Stone?” is a well-researched book that is as fascinating in its appeal to reason.

Josh McDowell, who wrote “Evidence That Demands a Verdict”, is another example.

“As a young man, Josh McDowell considered himself a solid skeptic. He truly believed that Christianity was worthless. He even made fun of Christians. But when challenged to intellectually examine the claims of Christianity, Josh discovered compelling, overwhelming evidence for the reliability of the Christian faith. After trusting in Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord, Josh’s life changed dramatically as he experienced the power of God’s love.” Read more

But for me, the most convincing argument of all is the psychology of the disciples’ willingness to die for their faith. They were with Jesus for his whole ministry of over three years. Then they saw him crucified. If they made up the story of the resurrection, who would be willing to die for a fake story? Would you?