Why is it so hard to believe that the Bible is true?

Question

I'm so frustrated with people saying "oh, the Bible made a mistake, blah blah blah." SO WHAT? Humans took down the word of God, of course there may be a mistake. Plus, it's been at least 2,000 years since the writing of the Bible. THINGS CHANGE. History, society, interpretation, language all change. Of course what they said then isn't going to mean the same thing today.

The stories in the Bible are true. Pilate was a real person, King David, Ciaphas. There's archaeological proof. Do some research people. Check out the Israeli museum. The more research and archaeological finds that are made the MORE it authenticates the Bible and the existance of Jesus and God.

I'd like serious answers, but I know I won't get them.

Answer 1

Here's a serious answer.
Yes, you are correct. EVERYTHING the Bible says is true. Not one thing has been proved false. Even many secular scholars and archaeologists have found evidence for what the Bible says in both testaments. From the Exodus, to the existence of the Tribes of Israel, King David, and King Solomon, to the very existence of Christ and the reality of his resurrection. It's all real, it's just that people don't like the truth. To believe the Bible is to change one's life completely and submit to God and lead a sin-free life. People just don't want to do that. They are slaves to their sins.

Answer 2

First off, there is NO scientific evidence that Jesus even existed.

http://www.infidels.org/library/historical/marshall_gauvin/did_jesus_really_live.html
http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_jcno.htm
http://www.inu.net/skeptic/exist.html

Secondly, you admit yourself in your question that even IF (very BIG if) the bible contains the word of God then people may have made mistakes in writing it down. If God is infallible but his words were copied wrong by people then it is no longer God's word.

The bible is NOT the word of God. It is the work of man as an attempt to retain their common knowledge........don't eat shellfish because when so-and-so did he died (God telling you it was a bad idea)..........when preparing food do it like this because if you don't you will get a disease (Kosher is just a primitive way to keep food clean and disease free). It also has rules for living in the society that existed at the time.

The stories in the bible are not true. No human can live in the digestive tract of another animal (Jonah and the whale). There was NEVER a global flood. Adam and Eve are fiction and so are evil talking snakes. If you see a bush that is on fire and talking.....seek immediate medical attention.......you are either having a stroke, bad trip or you have finally cracked and need medication.

The stories are metaphors and myths to help explain observations that were beyond the people's abilities to explain rationally at that time.

It is not the word of God.
It is not an accurate history book.
It is a rule book for a society that is outdated and ignorant by today's standards.

Answer 3

Because the Bible was written and EDITED by humans. Parts of the bible are without a doubt true, however it is impossible to know what was true and not. In a addition when the Bible was assembled was at least decades after the events it reports on, and things were included or excluded based on what was felt important.

Since it is written by man and not God you do not know what is true and what is hype. It does not mean there is nothing of value in the book, but it also does not mean EVERYTHING is true.

Think about an even simple thing like translation. Of course the Bible was not written in English, how many words could be misinterpreted from a language conversion. Today in the world of computers and translators if you try to convert English to French (relatively simple) there are mistakes.

On the whole it seems risky at best to believe Every word has to be sent from God when there have been SOOO many human translations, editorial changes, and intervention in 2,000 years.

Answer 4

Actually GLSigma This has always been something that fascinated me.

As a kid I read the bible and any other scriptural text that I could get my hands on.

I know I'm weird. But I just loved the stuff. Later I branched out and read from the holy scripture of many of the other faiths of the worlds religions. Then I discovered the texts that never made it into the officially accepted scriptures.

I have also studied the many and varied faiths that have died out or been absorbed by other competing faiths in adjacent geographical areas.

This does not make me a biblical scholar but It keeps other people from dictating to me what I should be thinking about scripture.

I agree with you that parts of the bible are actually the word of God, and you are right in saying that One can expect translational and other errors to end up in 2000 year old literature. I just wish more people could understand this as well as you seem to.

The idea that just because some of the books that ended up getting into the bible should never have gotten there, the whole bible is false is nonsense. The bible stands as one of the greatest scriptural works in history.

No It's not perfect, but it's pretty darn good for a 2000 year old oral history translated through numerous languages, recopied often by hand who knows how many countless times.

Thanks for sticking up for it.

Love and blessings Don

Answer 5

Because it isnt "true".

Let me demoonstrate. Are bats birds? Are whales Fish? Is the earth flat?? there are but three reasons why the Bible isnt true. With your logic, that means that the Da Vinci Code is true - because Jesus was real, Da Vinci was real, Italy is real and so it the Mueseum in Paris, France. So it must be true, right??

You need to do research. If you did, you might find out the truth - that most of the historical things in the Bible could not have happened, such as the story of Jesus being taken away from Jerusalem due to a census that was being conducted for tax purposes. Firstly, no one would have to travel back to their home city for tax purposes - you are taxed according to where you live and work, not where you were born (that hasnt changed since Romans started taxing people). Secondly, you will note that the King who allegedly ordered the census didnt rule during that time period. So, the Bible is factually incorrect.

Like you suggested, do some research.

Answer 6

While we have none of the autographs of the Bible, the early manuscripts we do have have and that are known to be genuine, by the most conservative estimates, have 200,000 differences between the wording in them, and while many are not meaningful, some completely change the doctrine of the church. (Ehrman, Bart, Ph.D.; Misquoting Jesus: The story behind who changed the Bible and Why; Harper Collins, 2006 -- p. 89). less conservative estimates range up to about 400,000 -- and there are programmers now endeavoring to write a program that will be able to count the exact number of variances.

And that's only the start of the difficulties for the Bible. If you only use the Textus Receptus (Received Text) as it is printed in modern Bibles then you are looking at enormous problems anyway -- in fact insurmountable ones. The World does not have corners (Isaiah 11:12), nor does it sit on pillars (I Samuel 2:8), nor water (Psalms 24:1-2). God did not establish a solid dome over the earth (that's what firmament literally means) and he does not have a palace on top of it from which angels can come and go up Jacob's ladder -- which might be reached by the tower of babel -- and where he keeps "treasuries" of hail and snow (Job 38: 22-23). For the sake of all that is decent, you can't even harmonize the 1st and 2nd chapters of Genesis with each other, say nothing of being able to defend the Biblical creation as scientifically factual. That's no surprise though, as the Bible tells us that beetles have four legs (Leviticus 11: 21-23) and that rabbits chew their cuds (Deuteronomy 14:7). It says that pi is 3, not 3.14 (I Kings 7:23 and 2 Chronicles 4:2) and that the mustard seed is the smallest seed in the world and grows into a tree [neither of which are true] (Matthew 13: 31-32). It is hardly a font of rational thought or scientific accuracy. Furthermore these errors only scratch the surface. Try harmonizing accounts in Joshua and the telling of the same tales in timeline in Judges sometime. If you can you are more proficient than any theologian I've ever met, and I've met a few.

Late bronze age men created the OT and early iron age ones the NT. It is not surprising therefore that God cannot lead Israel to defeat Iron chariots after promising he would (Judges 1:19), and it is not surprising that the flight of Israel from the god Chemosh, after the king of a city the Jews were beseiging and that God had promised them they would overthrow The King of the city offered his own son to Chemosh as a human sacrifice, resulting in Chemosh driving the Israelites away (2 Kings 3: 19-27) -- further it is not surprising that no punishment is mentioned -- the Israelites were still sacrificing their own children, as is evidenced in several places, but most graphically in Judges 11:30-39

The long and short of it is, the Bible is a mythic book, written by bronze and iron age men who were recording primarily oral legends in written form. In any realistic sense it is drivel. You can see, just in the passages I noted above from 2 Kings -- the last vestiges of polytheism fading away. Chemosh was supposed to get power from human sacrifice, just as Jehovah did -- and that power allowed him to turn the table against Israel, despite the fact that God was with Israel.

Read the verses, read the context -- to all the things I've suggested, calm your breathing and thinking and ask yourself if this is really the God of the Universe you are reading about -- or a tribal deity, which has now evolved into the one we worship. I think you will find biblegod sadly lacking -- something the liturgical churches have been saying for hundreds of years. If you find yourself unwilling to even look -- ask yourself why? Are you willing to sacrifice the truth, in order to maintain a comfortable myth for yourself?

And if you want a chuckle, read the second, and theoretically final version of the ten commandments. They are in Exodus 34: 10-26. That is the covenant Yahweh actually made with Israel. No seething here.

Seriously, you are feeling conflicted because you have been told things that are not true -- the biggest one being that the Bible is the Word of God. The Bible is a bronze age book written by bronze age men -- except for some parts of the NT that were written by early Iron age men. It is not divine, and what is says about human sexuality is greatly dependent on the sexual morales of a single culture in the 1st to 4th century CE -- 1st to 4th century I say because the root copies that we have are from the 1st to 4th centuries. Anything older may well have been -- as we can see from Dr. Ehrman's work -- changed.



Have a nice day.

Answer 7

Serious answer -

There probably are somethings in the bible that are true. And there are certainly some stories in the bible that, even if not true, still provide great moral lessons for life.

However, if you picked up a text book on some subject it would be reasonable to assume that it contains a few errors, typos, and mistakes. A few of these are reasonable. Too many and you would reject the book and go look for something else. Does that seem reasonable?

Now, go check out http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/ . Especially the sections on Injustice, Cruelty, Violence, and Contradictions. I can't speak for anyone else but it makes my head spin.

A

Answer 8

I think others are so jumpy to say the bible made a mistake becasue Christians push so hard that the bible is all truth and innerrant. When so many people continue to say, there is not one single error in the bible, people are going to point out the errors. Of course there are errors, the Word was inspired by God but not written by God. It is because of Christians that it is so hard for others to believe that the bible is true. It is not the Word of God but how Christians portray the Word of God.

Dont take this the wrong way, or as judgemental in any way. I am just saying what I believe is the reason for this. Its not a judgement it is the truth.

Answer 9

OK, (sorry if im not good with english)
1. Jesus was real
2. Jesus says the truth
3. Then Jesus miracles cant be a lie, so it all actually happened
4. Jesus speaks words from the old profets so...
5. The old profets must be also true
6. God exists and all the bible is true (except for the aprocryfs)
7. Jesus say the world is coming to an end so
8. The world is actually coming to an end

BUT

What if jesus didn't existed?

Well, when something is true it can be proved. You can prove that the earth exists because you can see it. So its true that the earth exist. If Jesus exist and he said "im the path, the truth and the life" that means that HE is the truth, but the bible says that he was God's firts creation! NOTHING CAN EXIST WITHOUT THE TRUTH BECAUSE FOR SOMETHING TO EXIST THAT SOMETHING MUST ME TRUE!

and this logic rule prove that jesus exist and he was the first creation of god, so all the bible is the true. But you still have to prove to yourself :)

Answer 10

I do believe that portions of the Bible are based on real events. Many of the people depicted in it did live and some of the events may have occurred but after reviewing the entire literary work that is today's Bible, I have come to the conclusion that many of the things written in it are the kind of things people would say only to convince others of the glory of Christianity.
The Bible was not written over 200 years ago, it is the compilation of many writings over several centuries. King James specifically had a version created that was understandable and pleasing to him. Many of the stories contained in it have been passed by word of mouth over generations, translated, edited, re translated, amended, and mistranslated many times over. Without going into detail, there are passages that do not correlate with today's society and many which contradict Christian values. Tolerance is only promoted when it favors the Judeo-Christian viewpoint not to mention the repeated mass-killings depicted in and inspired by it.
In my veiw there are many pathways, all leading to the same "heaven", one that is not only populated with Christian souls.

Answer 11

Ours is an age of doubt. Skepticism has become fashionable. We are urged to question everything—customs, ideas, morals, long-standing values, even the existence of God and the truthfulness of his Word, the Bible.

Many people who know very little about the Bible doubt it anyway. Their doubts are based, not on what the Bible really says, but on what some have said that it says. But how can anyone form a valid opinion of a book that he has never read and really does not know?

The Bible’s truth is clear, provided you put aside incorrect things you may have heard about it and learn for yourself what this amazing book actually teaches.

Furthermore, the Bible’s value is proved in practice. When the Bible’s counsel is applied, it improves people’s lives and changes personalities. It helps violent, contentious people to develop mildness and self-control. If any doubt that fact, they should study the Bible. The effect its truth can have on their life may amaze them.—Galatians 5:19-23; Ephesians 4:20-32.

Rather than falling victim to skepticism in this age of doubt, you can acquire true faith. Indeed, the Bible can help you to develop a solid, life-giving faith.