Is the Bible Reliable?

What is true? In an age defined by information overload, ideological spin, and historical revisionism, that question is no longer theoretical - it is foundational. Modern society debates truth constantly while quietly abandoning the idea that it can be known at all. When it comes to ancient texts, skepticism is often treated as sophistication. Yet by the standards applied to other historical documents, the Bible stands not as an outlier, but as arguably one of the most credible and well-attested works in human history.

The Bible’s reliability is not a matter of blind faith. It is supported by external historical sources, unparalleled manuscript evidence, and remarkably consistent transmission across millennia. Whether one approaches Scripture as a believer or a skeptic, dismissing it as unreliable requires ignoring the evidence.

Historical Corroboration Beyond the Bible

The Bible does not exist in historical isolation. Numerous non-Christian, extra-biblical sources affirm the people, places, and events described within it—particularly those surrounding the life of Jesus Christ.

The Jewish historian Josephus, writing in the first century, recorded that Jesus lived, was crucified, and was regarded by His followers as risen from the dead. Amy Orr-Ewing noted in an article for the C.S. Lewis Institute that Josephus’s works contain repeated references to biblical figures, locations, and events that align with the New Testament narrative. Roman historians reached similar conclusions. Tacitus, writing in the early second century, confirmed that Jesus was executed under Pontius Pilate. Pliny the Younger, a Roman official, documented early Christian worship practices in correspondence with Emperor Trajan.

Eusebius of Caesarea, often called the father of church history, catalogued extensive references to biblical people and events while preserving earlier historical sources now lost to time. As scholars at GotQuestions.org explained in a 2022 overview of Eusebius’s writings, his work confirms that the biblical narrative was widely known and treated as historical reality by early historians.

This matters beyond theology. Civilizations rely on shared historical truth to form legal systems, moral reasoning, and public memory. If the Bible can be dismissed without evidence, then no ancient source is safe from ideological erasure.

A Text That Outlived Its Enemies

The Bible’s endurance is equally significant. Written over approximately 1,500 years by dozens of authors across multiple continents, it has survived persecution, censorship, and systematic attempts at destruction.

Dr. Norman Geisler wrote in a 2017 article for Southern Evangelical Seminary that the New Testament is “the best textually supported book from the ancient world.” Today, scholars have access to more than 24,000 New Testament manuscripts and fragments. By comparison, Homer’s Iliad—widely accepted as historically valuable—has fewer than 2,000.

The Old Testament manuscript record is even more striking. The Dead Sea Scrolls, discovered between 1946 and 1947, preserved Old Testament texts for roughly 2,000 years. According to the Library of Congress, these manuscripts confirmed the consistency of biblical texts previously copied centuries later. Some Old Testament fragments date as far back as the seventh century BCE.

Throughout history, powerful regimes have attempted to eliminate Scripture altogether. In AD 303, Roman Emperor Diocletian ordered the destruction of Christian writings during what became known as the Great Persecution. A University of Nottingham blog explained in 2016 that this campaign explicitly targeted Scripture itself. Yet the Bible survived. Today, Guinness World Records lists it as the best-selling book of all time, and author J. Marshall Jenkins wrote in 2019 that it remains the most widely read book in history.

A document repeatedly targeted for eradication yet continually preserved demands explanation—especially in a political age that seeks to control narratives rather than discover truth.

Transmission Without Meaningful Distortion

Critics often argue that the Bible has been altered through copying and translation. While textual variants exist, the claim that core meanings were changed does not withstand scrutiny.

Amy Orr-Ewing addressed this concern by noting that the overwhelming majority of manuscript differences are minor—spelling variations, word order, or grammatical differences that do not alter meaning. Only a small fraction of variants affect translation choices, and none undermine central doctrines.

Biblical scholar Bruce Metzger explained in an interview with Lee Strobel that Greek sentence structure allows flexibility without changing meaning, which explains many textual differences that appear significant to modern readers but were not so in the original language.

Translation bias is a legitimate concern, but not a fatal one. Bruce Scott Bertram observed in a 2022 academic paper that bias typically emerges at the translation level, not the manuscript level—precisely why multiple translations exist. The availability of original-language texts allows scholars to cross-check translations and identify bias rather than be deceived by it.

In other words, the existence of debate confirms preservation rather than corruption.

Why This Still Matters

The reliability of the Bible is not merely an academic question. If Scripture is historically credible, then its moral and philosophical claims cannot be dismissed as myth or cultural preference. Political systems, legal norms, and social values inevitably rest on its foundational beliefs about truth, justice, human dignity, and authority.

When society abandons confidence in Scripture, it does not become neutral, but vulnerable. Power replaces principle. Law detaches from morality. Rights lose grounding. The Bible’s credibility undergirds concepts such as equal human worth, objective justice, moral accountability, and the limits of government authority.

There is more than sufficient evidence to affirm the Bible as a reliable historical document. Its preservation, corroboration, and transmission testify not only to its credibility, but to the enduring power of its message. At minimum, it deserves serious consideration as a source of historical truth. At its fullest, it demands engagement as a guide for life, conscience, and civilization.

The Bible stands as one of the most historically supported documents in existence. Whether our culture chooses to heed its moral authority will determine far more than theological preference - it will shape the future of public life itself.