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How do you know the Bible is the word of God?

"Because God wrote the Bible," is not an acceptable answer. You believe in the Bible because it's the word of God and you believe in God because it says so in the Bible. That creates a circular argument that always brings you back to the same place.

Update:

Guy without a name. Evolution is about survival of the fittest which means the species best suited to their environment will have a higher likeliness to survive in their environment. The species that are not suited to survive will eventually die out.

I'm going to repeat what you said, but I'm substituting evolution with an easier concept for you to grasp: fruit. "This apple is red." "What's red?" "This apple." "What's the apple?" "Red." That's not a circular argument. That's stupidity. You are tens of millions of years of evolutionary success. Act like it.

Update 2:

Donald, I make the rules as to what is acceptable as an answer. I'm the one asking the question. You just tried to prove that the Bible is God's word by quoting the Bible. A 2000 year old, error filled book of desert scribblings is not a citable source.

Update 3:

RIVERKID, what says the prophecies in the Bible were fulfilled? The bible, right? (No seriously I don't know, I'm just guessing.) I would agree that the Bible can change lives, but that doesn't mean it was written by God. The Power of Positive Thinking by Dr. Norman Vincent Peale is a inspiring book that I think could change people's lives.

Update 4:

Squid, that is a great answer. I appreciate that.

12 Answers

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  • 8 years ago
    Favorite Answer

    When I was Christian I thought about that a lot too. I knew the bible was written by very human men, but I believed they had been shown something that others had not, whenever they referred to a specific act of God. Now I realize a good deal of it is adapted mythology (the flood), glorified men (Moses), deified events (the Israelite escape from egypt), and religious, fill-in-the-blank pseudo-history (Adam and Eve and all their children). After my apostasy, I realized that Jesus's teachings had been corrupted by Paul a great deal, particularly the idea that Jesus was the son of God.

    Source(s): Extensive previous research into the history of Judaism and Christianity, plus an anthropological look at the Jews in ancient times.
  • 8 years ago

    There’s no doubt that this is an important question. If the Bible is the Word of God, it changes everything – the way we view life, the way we live life, and the choices we make. If the Bible is the Word of God, then the Bible is true, and failure to follow, obey and trust it will have eternal consequences. To ignore God’s Word is to ignore God Himself.

    God’s love is proved by the existence of the Bible. God did not have to communicate to mankind, but He chose to so that we could know Him, enjoy fellowship with Him, and understand ourselves and the world. If He had not taken the first step to reveal Himself to us through His Word, we simply would not know Him, and we would be left to deduce what we could about the world from what we could sense. But God has graciously shown us the Truth, and it is contained in the Bible. Since God is our Creator (Isaiah 40:28), He is our authority (Isaiah 43:15), and His Word is the final authority for humankind, and the only entirely trustworthy moral litmus test (1 John 2:5). It explains life and death and gives us a clear understanding of right and wrong.

    So, how do we know for sure that the Bible we have is the actual Word of God? Could the Bible be just another holy book? What is the evidence that the Bible we buy in the bookstore today is truly the Word of God? First, the Bible itself claims to be the Word of God, in 2 Timothy 3:15-17, which says “… from infancy you have known the holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.”

    This is an example of an “internal” evidence that the Bible is the Word of God. Internal evidences are those things stated within the Bible that claim its divine origin. A few other internal evidences are the unity of the Bible, the fulfilled prophecies in the Bible, and the unique, powerful authority of the Bible.

    The unity of the Bible means that, even though it was written by more than 40 different authors over three continents, in three different languages, and is comprised of 66 individual documents, it is cohesive down to the last detail. Every supposed contradiction in the Bible can be answered in a satisfactory way. There are no mistakes, and it all works together perfectly. That’s a miracle!

    The fulfilled prophecies in the Bible also indicate that it is God’s Word. Hundreds of prophecies about future kingdoms and nations, and most importantly, the Messiah, were spoken forth and then fulfilled, sometimes hundreds of years later. This is all recorded within the Bible itself. Unlike many modern prophecies, the prophecies in Scripture are very detailed and are fulfilled exactly. There is no way this happened by chance. The only answer is that the Bible is of divine origin.

    Read more: http://www.compellingtruth.org/Bible-Word-of-God.h...

    Source(s): TR
  • Anonymous
    8 years ago

    Christianity either stands or falls in regards to Christ's resurrection.

    First know that non-biblical and non-religious writers of Jesus' time wrote about him.

    Ancient historians/ philosophers such as : Flavius Josephus ,Lucian of Samosata,

    Mara Bar-Serapion .Pliny the Younger, and even The Babylonian Talmud.

    So there can be no denying that Jesus DID exist.

    Proof of His resurrection? I would ask you this question: Why would people such as

    (St Peter who was crucified upside down) be willing to die such brutal deaths for refusing to deny that they seen the risen Christ after His death, and how He was working miracles, if in fact they did not see Him? Sure people could die for a lie, but why should anyone die for something that they knew was a lie, and would only further the faith if in fact they knew it was not true?

    The Bible details historical events, its truthfulness and accuracy are subject to verification like any other historical document. Through both archaeological evidences and other writings, the historical accounts of the Bible have been proven time and time again to be accurate and true. In fact, all the archaeological and manuscript evidence supporting the Bible makes it the best-documented book from the ancient world. The fact that the Bible accurately and truthfully records historically verifiable events is a great indication of its truthfulness when dealing with religious subjects and doctrines and helps substantiate its claim to be the very Word of God.

    Unlike mythology, the Bible has a historical framework. Its characters are real people living in verifiable locations during historical events. The Bible mentions Nebuchadnezzar, Sennacherib, Cyrus, Herod, Felix, Pilate, and many other historical figures. Its history coincides with that of many nations, including the Egyptian, Hittite, Persian, Babylonian, and Roman empires. The events of the Bible take place in geographical areas such as Canaan, Syria, Egypt, Mesopotamia, and others. All this certifiable detail refutes the idea that the Bible is mere mythology.

    The Bible has many confirmations in sciences such as biology, geology, astronomy, and archaeology. The field of biblical archaeology has absolutely exploded in the last century and a half, during which time hundreds of thousands of artifacts have been discovered. Just one example: at one time, skeptics used the Bible’s references to the Hittite civilization as “proof” that the Bible was a myth. There was never any such people as the “Hittites,” according to the science of the day. However, in 1876, the first of a series of discoveries was made, and now the existence of the ancient Hittite civilization is well documented. Archaeology continues to bolster the Bible’s historicity. As Dr. Henry M. Morris has remarked, “There exists today not one unquestionable find of archaeology that proves the Bible to be in error at any point.”

  • Bill
    Lv 4
    8 years ago

    You research M.AP.S.

    M= Manuscript

    A= archaeology

    P= Prophecy

    S= Statics

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  • Archer
    Lv 7
    8 years ago

    Actually the "Bible" is an incomplete collection of canons which were selected and edited by the church and then published to mankind as the word of god. These canons were not even written by the disciples who's names adorn them but hundreds of years after their death. The were written by men relating stories told to them about that which was not understood at the time.

    Think about it!

    Source(s): Atheist.
  • Anonymous
    8 years ago

    Because of the many fulfilled prophecies, and above all, if it weren't, it would not be able to do what it professes to be able to do: that is, change lives.----

  • 8 years ago

    I think man wrote the bible. I'm not certain if there's a god or afterlife. None of us know for sure. I don't go by books though to be honest.

  • >
    Lv 7
    8 years ago

    The bible is the concoction of man's imagination.

    The authors of the bible were not very good at thinking analytically but they were masters of circular logic and emotional blackmail.

  • 8 years ago

    Some claim Timothy in the Bible told them so...

    But they don't seem to know who wrote Timothy... or anything about him...

    IMHO

  • David
    Lv 4
    8 years ago

    "We know that the Bible is true, because the Bible says that it's true, and if you remember from earlier in this sentence EVERY word of the bible is true"

    Source(s): One of my favorite quotes from an atheist mocking Christianity
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