Worldview Wednesday: The myth that the Bible is one among many holy books

It’s generally believed that all religions have their holy book, that you could lay out the Bible on a table next to other books just as revered by other people of other faiths as the Bible is by Christians.

But this is a myth. No book compares to the Bible in age, scope, or historical reliability. The first books of the Bible were penned by Moses who lived around 1500BC. Compare this to the Quran, which wasn’t written until the sixth century AD and includes many people and stories from the Bible. The Book of Mormon doesn’t appear until the 1800s and borrows freely from the King James Version of the Bible. The Vedas, very old writings held sacred by many Hindus, contain truths, but they are more a collection of wisdom and mythical beliefs (such as the earth sitting on the back of a turtle) than a historical document that covers the entirety of mankind’s past, present, and future.

Considering the vast number of manuscripts we have of the Scriptures, there is no other ancient book at all, much less holy book, that compares in accuracy. The works of Aristotle, Plato, and Homer are based on a handful of manuscripts compared to the thousands of Old and New Testament manuscripts.

There are many more proofs of the Bible’s reliability, including the number of fulfilled prophecies, the findings of archaeology, and the evidence for the death and resurrection of Jesus, but in summary, there are other holy books, but none with the gravitas to be laid aside the Bible as a comparable book. Time magazine, in 2007, said that the Bible “has done more to shape literature, history, entertainment and culture than any book ever written.”

You can have faith, or trust, in this book that has been proven to be inspired and reliable. It’s not our private belief in our own faith tradition. It is truly the very Word of God.

There are many lectures online to learn about the historical accuracy of the Scriptures, but here is a short introduction by J. Warner Wallace, author of Cold Case Christianity. He covers very briefly why the New Testament is reliable. Keep in mind the number of witnesses that are involved in writing the New Testament and the events recorded in the New Testament, compared to the witness of one author alone.