Can I Really Trust The Bible? (Part 01)

MAIN QUESTION: Can I trust the Bible?

Subtext:

[What is the Bible?]

[Do I want to trust the Bible?]

Four Areas to Cover:

1. Context (Part One)

2. Genre (Part One)

3. Relationship (Part Two)

4. Trust (Part Two)

Below is Part One of my response to the main question above. I think it is important to explore the context and genre of the book in question, before we make any judgements on whether or not we can trust it. Based on some recent research and many years of asking the question for myself, here is what I have found on these topics so far.

Part Two - which will come at a later date, will explore the final part of the question [do I want to trust the Bible?] and how relationships and trust play a vital role in the answer we might find.

If these words stir up any ideas or thoughts, please do not hesitate to email me with more questions or objections.

For the Church of Christ.

I want to begin with a statement about what I believe scripture is. Scripture is the Word of God, that is alive and active, sharper than any double edge sword. It is useful for teaching and rebuke and for instructing people who wish to follow Jesus Christ and walk in His ways.

I believe it is the divine word of God, which should not be changed or altered according to our own image or beliefs on what it should mean. This is all to say that the Bible should tell us more about what it means to live, than us bringing what we desire life to look like to the Bible.

Finally, the Word of God is for the Church - or those who profess and follow Jesus Christ. It traditionally has been celebrated and upheld with such honor throughout the entirety of the History of the Church and should remain in such a place of honor.

Living Memory & Human Authorship:

When thinking about the Bible we must first begin with the basic understanding that while we exist in 2025, the Bible was not written during our time. This is why we say the Bible was written outside of our context.

But the fact that the Bible was written in history, does not mean it is not relevant to us today.

The roots of scriptures have been laid for generations. It is the narrative of how God reveals his love for his people over the course of history.

Some pieces written and recorded more than 3,000 years ago. (Moses predicted to have written the Pentateuch around 1400BCE).

More “recently” *footnote 01* some of it’s books were written as late as the second century or 110AD. Which of course is still over 2,000 years ago the first manuscripts of the New Testament were beginning to take form.

Yet the books of the New Testament, especially the Gospels of Mark & Matthew are still written in the “living memory” of Christ.

Living Memory : a qualification used to describe a biography and the text/resources used to construct the… (narrative written about someone else (the subject) by someone else (the author) written at a point in history when some people who knew the subject were still alive.

According to one scholar: “some people who knew the subject were still alive when the biographers wrote.”

Living memory basically means that people who could testify to something were available and alive to testify to what they had seen.

What we might call “eye-witnesses” today at a crime scene or a major social event.

These are the people we ask “what happened and why” and then history is recorded based on their witness to the events that took place.

The fact of the matter is that the Gospel’s are exactly this. Living memories of the people who literally knew and walked with Jesus.

Or put another way - Eyewitness accounts of the life and ministry of Jesus.

So when we think about the Bible - especially the New Testament Gospels and Letters - it is vital that we consider these “human authors” and the perspective in which they are writing from. These authors also had intended audiences to which they would have been writing to or on behalf of...

it is helpful to see them as their intended audience would have seen them. These books were Biographies *footnote 02, written from the perspective of an author who wrote about someone who recently lived in history. These stories would have been collected and assembled into formal writing to which others could find out more about the person of subject.

This should shed some light on the “human authorship” of the Bible and the fact that they would have written within Living Memory, but where might have they gotten their sources? How do we know that they are correct in their recording of history? It is to these questions we will no turn to answer.

Q & Divine Authorship:

The earliest manuscripts that make up our New Testament relate to what scholars call “Q” as the variable source that was most likely shared between the earliest gospel writers.

In reference to Q and in light of their own interviews, studies and recounting of the events that took place, the authors of the gospel’s wove together their own accounts of the narrative life of Jesus. This is what we mean when we say “Gospel Account”, for it is the account of the author’s on their record of the gospel message as told by Jesus Christ.

John for example is very poetic, mimicking the genre style of Genesis and other Old Testament texts. This points to his awareness of them and his study of them too, but certainly to the creativity of recognizing literary structure and eloquently displaying it to communicate the beauty of Christ’s incarnation.

Mark is the shortest and recounts the broad scoping history of the gospel message. Short and sweet, its perspective also sheds light onto the life of Jesus in history.

Matthew’s gospel is deeply theological and Luke’s account is written from the perspective of a physician who would have been attentive to detail and nuance, which is reflected in each of these works.

The point being, is that the Bible, while composed of various books from multiple authors over various time frames, has a common thread. A common authorship.

As Christians, we confess in the “Divine Authorship” of the Holy Spirit. This is why we can also profess that the word of God is “alive and active” , “piercing through bone and marrow”.

What we mean by Divine Authorship *footnote 03* is that God fundamentally had a role in the telling, retelling, recording of, copying of and passing down of Scripture over the course of history.

This is especially true of the gospel accounts and the Acts of the Church, which one scholar wisely pointed out should rather be called “The Acts of the Holy Spirit”.

Because scripture is a testimony to the working and will of God as he continues to save those who put their trust and faith in Him.

This is the very idea of the Gospel “or good news” that there is freedom and life to be found in Jesus and the way he calls his Disciples to live.

Proverbs 8:35 - For those who find me find life and receive favor from the Lord.

Proverbs 1:33 - But whoever listens to me will live in safety and be at ease, without fear of harm.

Proverbs 2:6 - For the Lord gives wisdom; from his mouth come knowledge and understanding.

The scriptures attest to this connection: The Word of God means Life and Freedom.

Psalm 1:1-3 says…

“Blessed is the one who does not walk in step with the wicked or stand in the way that sinners take or sit in the company of mockers, but whose delight is in the law of the Lord, and who meditates on his law day and night. That person is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither - whatever they do prospers.”

This sounds like life to me.

“Who the son sets free, is free indeed”

This sounds like freedom to me.

When the word of God becomes our delight, we will naturally be inclined to live out what it says and what it expects us to do. Only then can we be rooted in truth and live according to how we should live. Bearing fruit from the wisdom and safety we find in God’s story.

The Divine Authorship of the Holy Spirit played a vital role in this happening throughout all Church history. The earliest sources (Like Q) were used to reference the stories and teachings of Jesus, but the Holy Spirit was active not only in the hearts of the people writing the text, but also in the heart, mind and soul of the individual who was reading and being transformed by the grace of God.

Context - So when we say that the Bible was written “outside of our context” this is what we mean. Scriptures were recorded and retold for generations until Jesus came along the scene and bridged the gap between the Old Covenant and History of Israel and showing how he was the long awaited Messiah to bring all people - through their faith in him - into the life found in the Word of God.

Canon & Church History:

After facing the two earlier subjects, we have learned of the human and divine authorship, the context to which the NT was written and the role of resources (such as Q) and other testimonies and how they shape the structure of Scripture all guided of course by the Holy Spirit.

But now, we must turn to History to get a better understanding of what we call “Canon”; why we have it, what it means, and if it is significant or not.

I learned from Justo Gonzalez’s “The Story of Christianity Vol. 1” that “Canon” was not so much of a concern from the early church, until it needed to be.

For the most part, the early church grew by telling the stories of Jesus, and by being witnesses to the life of transformation by the Spirit as they told others about God’s grace. This is how Christianity grew. Christians loved their neighbor, praised God for all the good things, while praying and trusting him during the hardest of times.

Christianity started out, not as “another religion”, but rather as a sect of the Jewish faith that believed that Jesus truly was the long expected Messiah. Jesus did not come on the scene to start a cult or a new tradition, but to come in fulfillment to the promises made of old.

“Do not think I have come to get ride of what is written in the Law or Prophets. I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.” (Matthew 5:17).

In light of this, the Early Church still used the Old Testament as “Scriptures” and teachings especially in the years following the ascension of Christ. Before the books of the New Testament were gathered and distributed, the Church still had something they needed to teach. All Old Testament scripture would have been taught in light of Jesus and his Gospel message, to which the Church had now become ambassadors of. All scripture pointed to Jesus, and the writing of the New Testament bear that same mark.

So as the Gospels were being written, the Disciples were out professing their faith in Jesus, Living the Life of Grace and Building up the Next Generation to do the Same.

Paul is probably the most clear example of this, since we have the most of his writing than any other of the early church leaders. The book of Acts documents his travels and persecutions as he shared the message of Hope and Freedom found in Jesus. His letters, written to the various Churches he engaged with on his travels were helpful in understanding codes of conducts and ethics for the people of God to live by in light of the Good News. The church began writing letters to encourage, rebuke and teach one another as more and more people began to have faith in the Kingdom of God.

Most of these main works were written between 60AD - 110AD.

They would have been passed from Church to Church and generally speaking, the Church as a whole would agree on their mission, vision and values as being followers of Jesus. The goal of the Church was to: go, teach, make disciples and baptize. (Summary of the Great Commission in Matthew 28).

It was not until much later in the first and second century that disputes began to arise about what should be considered part of the Bible.

Around 180AD is when we started to use the word “Canon” to describe the “official books that are considered to be divinely written and the authoritative word of God.”

Other works, such as the Gospel of Thomas (Dated 220’s - 230’s AD), The Gospel of Judas (Dated 220’s - 340 AD) are not included in the Canon of Scripture that we know and hold today. This is mainly due to their later authorship - well past the Living Memory of the subject as well as their clearly Gnostic influences. (This is a topic for another time, but is especially important to understand that the people who assembled what we now call “canon” were doing so in order to fight against the cultural and philosophical influences at that time, which stood in direct contradiction to the Gospel of Jesus.)

Canon, Creeds and Confessions came out of a deep need for the Church to be unified in what it believed and how it expected people who confess Jesus with their mouths to live.

The Apostles Creed is one of the best examples of a simple statement used by members of the Church to help articulate what they believed in. Creeds like this and the Nicene Creed were also used and equipped by the Church during the rise of heresies like Gnosticism, Docetism, Marcionsim, Modalism, Etc. The Apostles Creed is thought to be an early confession dating back to the 2nd century that was used in connection to baptism of new believers (or new members of the church) especially.

Dead Sea Scrolls / Confirmation & Science:

In more “modern” history the discovery of portions of ancient scrolls in the Dead Sea Region caves of Qumran are helpful to point to all the so far mentioned evidence and how history and modern science can be useful tools in dating texts like the Bible and confirming their relevancy.

I have some deeper thoughts on this topic, but due to time constraints I will be unable to flush them out in detail on this post.

This however, should not diminish the Historical and Archeological significance of such findings.

Footnotes & Further Thoughts:

*footnote 01 - I use the word “recently” in quotations to shed the light on the fact that “recent” history is not as far away as we sometimes like to think. Hitler’s rise to power, for example is less than 100 years ago - do we consider this recent? But also over the course of 2,000 years a lot has changed in the world from culture, language, societal structure, economics, worldviews, wars and so much more that play into the effects of history as it unfolds. My point being that we are not solely removed from history, because of what we call “time” or “past”, but rather, history often has a lot more to do with how time unfolds in the here and now - what we call “the present”. History is not only the past, but the understanding of how it impacts the future and the present times we live in. Reading history does not exclude us from the fact that we are writing and making history as we currently live and breathe.

*footnote 02 - Craig Keener describes the gospels as “ancient biographies” in lieu of his extensive research in Chistology (the historical study of Christ) and the genre of the earliest New Testament texts. He compares the genre and style to that of other authors, subjects and people in history within the same time frame. The Gospels match well with other sources from that time as far as literary structure goes. This also means that the audience of these texts would have assumed certain things about their contents, delivery and methods of researching and gathering information about the topic at hand. Some quotes that I found useful will be included here; quotes from Christobiography (Eerdmans Publishing 2019).

“the type of literary work from the gospels’ era that they most closely resemble is the Bios, or “Life”, of a subject - we we call ancient biography” (1).

“the gospels are works recounting the activity of a single historical figure - which by definition was what ancient biographies were.” (13-14).

“… the sort of adaptations found in the gospels were stadard expectations for this kind of writing.” (2).

“almost without exception, (specialist in the study of Jesus), agree that Jesus historically existed.” (5).

“His movement had no reason to invent him, and certainly not his execution for treason as a “king”; following someone so executed was itself deemed treasonous, so inventing such a narrative would be suicidal.” (5).

“the church preserved these works because they respected them.” (11).

“precisely the ideal time for writing.” (18).

“what becomes ‘history’ leaves out most events that actually happened.” (18).

“The picture we have of Jesus in the Gospels - reflects the essential character of the ministry of Jesus as understood by his first followers.” (19).

“… the Gospels provide our best source for learning about the ministry of the historical Jesus.” (34).

*footnote 03 - Tracking the authorship of scripture into our current version and form. Since the Pentateuch was recorded, that history had been told to generations of Israelites via what we call “Oral Tradition”. They did not have any books to read, nor any scrolls to keep track of information. The narrative of God’s redemption was told in each household, in the gathering places, in the songs they sang and in the ways that they lived their lives. Everything was structured around the law and the word of God as spoken to Moses at mount Sinai. These stories were shared and remembered for generations, which kept the narrative alive as they wandered through deserts, fought battles in their promised land, faced exile and persecution and even as they returned home under the Pax Romana. All culminating to the point in history to which they all longed for - the Messianic Period, where God would send someone to save his people. This is what the Jews during the 1st century were anticipating, all because of the oral tradition and reading of scriptures that pointed towards this Hope and promised “One from the line of David” to save the people of God. Eventually these works were recorded and written down in history, but not like how we know “books” today. Each copy had to be meticusly recorded and transcribed by hand. Pen and Paper was the name of the game. If you had a copy of any work - it was a sign of your significance, because they were so rare to possess. You either had access to the synagogue, had a lot of money, or you had stolen it from someone else. During the time of Jesus, we read about how he had access to the scriptures and knew them very well. In fact, one account says that he “taught them as one who had authority”. the Bible/Scriptures to Jesus was not something he viewed as a challenge to read all the way through, or to read occasionally when he had a bad day, but rather it was the all encompassing lens through which he saw the world and his place in it. It was the very literal WORD of God, and according to much of the tradition before him - the WORD of God was deeply connected to the meaning and value of life itself. All this had been written down, copied by generations of monks, scholars, theologians and other church leaders to which we now hold in our hands and even on a lightweight app we carry around in our pocket. I think we often take for granted how accessible technology has made our lives, but often at the cost of just that - not understanding the importance and significance of such a thing. The Written Word of God is powerful to change lives and convict hearts. The people who copied it in history believed this to be true, otherwise they would not have recorded it down. Likewise, it is wonderful to see how the Holy Spirit played an active role in the translations, attention to detail and copies of scripture that had been passed down in this way. From my perspective, this shows that God also deeply values his Word and the accessibility of his Word to the people who want to know more about him and his love for us. About 575 years ago, did the innovation of Johannes Gutenberg in the printing press shock the world again and dramatically change how books and especially the word of God was recorded and shared in the world. Copies could very easily be made and much profit could be made in selling of these works. During this time, the Reformation was beginning to take root and the Roman Catholic Church had strict rules about who could own and read scripture. The Protestant Reformation was radical moment in history that unfolded as a result to this notion and other ideas. Protestants began printing and translating the Word of God into localized languages (French, German, English), which gave access to everyday people the truths of scripture. Again, these translators and writers often lost their lives for this type of work, but the conviction to which they lived it out must point to some validity into that which they believed about what they shared. They died for this Bible and wanted other people to experience the radical transformation it has to offer through Jesus Christ.