On what basis do people believe the Bible is the word of God?

Question

Obviously to answer with a Bible quote would be terribly illogical here.

Answer 1

Despite of all distortions, modifications, variations...the Bible still has the divine power to transmute sinny souls into great saints.

Answer 2

Honestly, accepting the Bible as the word of God, is not primarily a mental consent. It is acceptance foremost from the heart. You want a lot of logic here, when even in this life thing involving love often are not. Why would someone die on a cross for me? I could not explain that just with logic. Why would your parents die for you? Logic would fail to adequately explain that.

My own experience is I started reading the Bible from Genesis and went from book to book. As I fumbled through the Old Testament, I felt mostly conviction, I still did not have an answer. Some OT passages still gave me rays of hope however.

When I finally made it to the New Testament and read The Sermon On The Mount, I knew in my heart that I had found the answer. I felt known. I felt that the words were living. I felt like the author was alive, and my mind openly wondered at that time, how could this be?

Everyone has those times when the question is am I willing to accept as fact what I am receiving in my heart? Is it possible that the heart seeks truth as well as the mind? If there is a God, how does he primarily want to communicate with you, through your mind or your heart?

For your question a love answer would suffice more than a logical one. Hence it is not something that can be unequivocably shared, like logic. It is something that must be experienced personally, like love.

Thanks for the question, it gave me a lot to think about.

Answer 3

Inspired by the God spoken through the chosen is my understanding. Even Paul in the Bible at times says when it is just he speaking.

Put downs only put those put down on the defensive and less receptive to listening and considering new or different ideas. If you are truly trying to make your point and not just looking for an argument then in your terms it is "terribly illogical" to take that course of action. I realize that in your question (which by the way is a very good question) you are being very diplomatic, but several of the other answers are not.....

Answer 4

The idea that the Bible cannot be viewed as an accurate historical source is absurd. Never has archaelogy uncovered anything that goes aganist what is written in the Bible. In fact, the oposite is true. For those who would say the Bible is not the Word of God, or that the Bible contains numerous errors I would say this: Paul could say in 2nd Timothy 3:16, "All Scripture is given by inspiration of God." That's the Greek word, "theopneustos" meaning "God-Breathed." Every single word was given from God to 40 different men, and 2nd Peter 1:21 adds: "for no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God." Now that was the Old Testament. The New Testament wasn't in existence when Paul used these verses. He was telling the churches in his letters what had happened in the past, but in John 16:12-13, Jesus talked about the coming of the New Testament. He says, "I have many more things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. But when He, the Spirit of Truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak on His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come."
That's the New Testamant. And we can say with John 17:17, "Your Word is Truth." Today, we have 66 books written by 40 different individuals on 3 continents covering a period of 1,500 years and there's not one mistake, regardless of what some of the critics say. They haven't studied God's Word enough to know the truth. Among the writers we had kings, poets, philosophers, prophets, scholars and fisherman. And I want you to know we have all of the Word of God today. Someone says, "Yes, but we don't have the original manuscripts" Who said so?
We have copies totalling 24,800. Now, how do we know that they're right? Well, if you take 20 items and you compare them and 19 state one thing and one doesn't, then the one is in error. We've got 24,800 manuscripts that exist today to compare one against another and we have another 80,000 quotations from the church fathers, enough to put the entire Bible together with the exception of 11 verses. Take the 80,000 quotations from the church fathers and the 24,800 manuscripts for a total of 104,800 and you have all of God's Word dozens and hundreds of times. This is so because God's Word is literally flawless. After computers have compared millions, or even billions, of letters in analyzing the 104,800 manuscripts the texts are basically flawless. So, don't listen to the critics. The Bible is the Word of God without error!

Answer 5

Thats the thing man. The only way they know the bible is the word of god is becomes the bible tells them so. Silly huh?

Answer 6

The same evidence we have to base the Assination of John F. Kennedy (The Warren Commission Report based on documents sealed until later in this century, for some reason). The same evidence we have to base the fact that "Ivan" was terrible. The same evidence we have to our views on Napoleon. The same evidence we have to base our views on the U.S. Revolutionary war (and there are conflicting views out there in Patriotism, Washington as a great General, etc., all one has to do is read the diaries of the soldiers that neve made the history books).

Our picture of the world is based in the opinions, views, reserach, bias, prejudice and political leanings of those who tell it to us.

I was working on a book on women filmmakers and I actually contacted a few for information and one told me EVERY HISTORY BOOK has her education TOTALLY WRONG. Why is that, well, historians re-write the works of other historians! They rarely dig below the surface.

Answer 7

OHHHHHH.

Lion of Judah is from CARM.

That explains a LOT.

But he proves your point... people believe that the Bible is the word of God because it says it is.

...that's stupid. I'm sorry. That's really freakin' stupid.

Answer 8

You're asking for a logical answer from people who do not rely on logic for their answers. It's like asking a dog a question and telling it not to bark when answering.

Answer 9

Because God says so in the Bible.

FYI: In high school debate club, we used to call that circular logic.

Answer 10

It's what they've been told.