I recently received this question from a man wrestling with the idea that the Bible could be the actual words of God:
I consider myself a Christian. I believe that Jesus existed and died for my sins…. I believe the Bible is the closest thing we have to understanding God, godly principles, the life of Jesus, etc. However, I struggle with the belief that man could actually write texts that were 100% inspired by God and then be able to accurately determine which of those texts should be included in the Bible. After all, when in history has man ever gotten anything 100% right?
Two issues are at play in answering this question. The first concerns the historical reliability of the Bible. The second concerns the divine authorship of the Word.
First, the question assumes that the Bible is historically reliable, at least in part—a good starting point for establishing biblical credibility. It’s a view I share. It's one of the reasons I’m convinced Jesus rose from the dead. It’s also a point of common ground—an area where I can agree with him, which will lower his defenses and open the door for dialogue.
Note, though, the question assumes that parts of the Bible are reliable while others are not. Why believe texts that say Jesus existed and died for sin but not trust the rest of the biblical account? If he believes God raised Jesus from the dead, why would he have difficulty believing the Bible is the Word of God? What’s more difficult: dead men being raised, or God’s words being recorded accurately? If you trust some parts as being true and others as false, you should have good reasons why. I do not think that justification exists.
The historical reliability of the Bible is nothing short of miraculous. The biblical text has undergone the most intense scrutiny modern scholarship can offer and has consistently been shown to be historically reliable. Moreover, through the discipline of textual criticism, we can be confident that what we have in our Bibles today is 99.5% accurate to the original manuscripts.
The larger question here is, how can we know the Bible is the Word of God? This brings us to the second issue. The Bible claims to have divine origin. For example, Paul tells Timothy, “All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness” (2 Tim. 3:16). The Greek word Paul uses, theopneustos, literally means “God-breathed.”
In other words, Scripture is not merely the words of men but the words given to them by God through what is called verbal plenary inspiration. This is just a fancy term meaning the words of Scripture are inspired (“verbal”), and all the words are inspired by God (“plenary”), not just the overarching themes or underlying principles.
There are good reasons to believe the Bible is divinely inspired. The Bible provides evidence of its own divine origin through the fulfillment of prophecies like Jesus’ birth (Isa. 7:14), his crucifixion (Isa. 53:4–12), even Jesus’ last words from the cross (Ps. 22:1).
The Bible is also living and active (Heb. 4:12). It convicts us (2 Tim. 3:16), it encourages us (Ps. 119:92–93), and it comforts us (Ps. 119:49–52). Scripture also brings clarity to life’s most important questions like no other book ever written. Peter emphasizes this divine authorship when he says, “For no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God” (2 Pet. 1:21).
Additionally, the unity and harmony of the biblical narrative is best explained through divine inspiration. Remember, the Bible is not a single book; it is a collection of 66 books, diverse in genre and authorship. There are poems written by kings, history written by slaves, and letters written by fishermen. These books were written in three different languages over more than 1,500 years, in places ranging from palaces in Jerusalem to prisons in Rome and even an island off the coast of Turkey. Yet, all these writings tell one unified, coherent story of the salvation of all creation.
Yes, humans make mistakes all the time. Rarely do we get things 100% right. But God is never wrong. Through the work of the Holy Spirit and the prophets, we can trust that we possess the accurate and reliable Word of God. We come to the words in the Bible because they have authority. They have authority because they are reliable and inspired.