Archaeologists have consistently discovered the names of government officials, kings, cities, and festivals mentioned in the Bible — sometimes when historians didn’t think such people or places existed. For example, the Gospel of John tells of Jesus healing a cripple next to the Pool of Bethesda. The text even describes the five porticoes (walkways) leading to the pool. Scholars didn’t think the pool existed, until archaeologists found it forty feet below ground, complete with the five porticoes.¹

The Bible has a tremendous amount of historical detail, so
not everything mentioned in it has yet been found through archaeology. However,
not one archaeological find has conflicted with what the Bible records.²

In contrast, news reporter Lee Strobel comments about the
Book of Mormon: “Archaeology has repeatedly failed to substantiate its
claims about events that supposedly occurred long ago in the Americas. I
remember writing to the Smithsonian Institute to inquire about whether there
was any evidence supporting the claims of Mormonism, only to be told in
unequivocal terms that its archaeologists see ‘no direct connection between the
archaeology of the New World and the subject matter of the book.’”
Archaeologists have never located cities, persons, names, or places mentioned
in the Book of Mormon.³

Many of the ancient locations mentioned by Luke, in the Book
of Acts in the New Testament, have been identified through archaeology.
“In all, Luke names thirty-two countries, fifty-four cities and nine
islands without an error.”⁴

Archaeology has also refuted many ill-founded theories about
the Bible. For example, a theory still taught in some colleges today asserts
that Moses could not have written the Pentateuch (the first five books of the
Bible), because writing had not been invented in his day. Then archaeologists
discovered the Black Stele. “It had wedge-shaped characters on it and
contained the detailed laws of Hammurabi. Was it post-Moses? No! It was
pre-Mosaic; not only that, but it was pre-Abraham (2,000 B.C.). It preceded
Moses’ writings by at least three centuries.”⁵

Archaeology consistently confirms the historical accuracy of
the Bible.

Some people have the idea that the Bible has been translated “so many
times” that it has become corrupted through stages of translating. That
would probably be true if the translations were being made from other
translations. But translations are actually made directly from original Greek,
Hebrew and Aramaic source texts based on thousands of ancient manuscripts.

The
accuracy of today’s Old Testament was confirmed in 1947 when archaeologists
found “The Dead Sea Scrolls” along today’s West Bank in Israel. “The Dead
Sea Scrolls” contained Old Testament scripture dating 1,000 years older
than any manuscripts we had. When comparing the manuscripts at hand with these,
from 1,000 years earlier, we find agreement 99.5% of the time. And the .5%
differences are minor spelling variances and sentence structure that doesn’t change
the meaning of the sentence.

Regarding
the New Testament, it is humanity’s most reliable ancient document.

All
ancient manuscripts were written on papyrus, which didn’t have much of a shelf
life. So people hand copied originals, to maintain the message and circulate it
to others.

Few
people doubt Plato’s writing of “The Republic.” It’s a classic, written by
Plato around 380 B.C. The earliest copies we have of it are dated 900 A.D.,
which is a 1,300 year time lag from when he wrote it. There are only seven
copies in existence.

Caesar’s
“Gallic Wars” were written around 100-44 B.C. The copies we have today are
dated 1,000 years after he wrote it. We have ten copies.

When it
comes to the New Testament, written between 50-100 A.D, there are more than
5,000 copies. All are within 50-225 years of their original writing. Further,
when it came to Scripture, scribes (monks) were meticulous in their copying of
original manuscripts. They checked and rechecked their work, to make sure it
perfectly matched. What the New Testament writers originally wrote is preserved
better than any other ancient manuscript. We can be more certain of what we
read about Jesus’ life and words, than we are certain of the writings of
Caesar, Plato, Artistotle and Homer.

Four of the writers of the New Testament each wrote their own biography on the life of Jesus. These are called the four gospels, the first four books of the New Testament. When historians try to determine if a biography is reliable, they ask, “How many other sources report the same details about this person?”

Here’s how this works. Imagine you are collecting biographies of
President John F. Kennedy. You find many biographies describing his family, his
presidency, his goal of putting a man on the moon, and his handling of the
Cuban Missile Crisis. Regarding Jesus, do we find multiple biographies
reporting similar facts about his life? Yes. Here is a sampling of facts about
Jesus, and where you would find that fact reported in each of their
biographies.

Two of
the gospel biographies were written by the apostles Matthew and John, men who
knew Jesus personally and travelled with him for over three years. The other
two books were written by Mark and Luke, close associates of the apostles.
These writers had direct access to the facts they were recording. At the time
of their writing, there were still people alive who had heard Jesus speak,
watched him heal people and perform miracles.

So the
early church readily accepted the four gospels because they agreed with what
was already common knowledge about Jesus’ life.

Each of
the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, read like news reports, a factual
accounting of the days events, each from their own perspective. The
descriptions are unique to each writer, but the facts are in agreement.

In the
early years after Jesus’ death and resurrection there was no apparent need for
written biographies about Jesus.Those living in the Jerusalem region were
witnesses of Jesus and well aware of his ministry.⁶

However,
when news of Jesus spread beyond Jerusalem, and the eyewitnesses were no longer
readily accessible, there was a need for written accounts to educate others
about Jesus’ life and ministry.

The early
church accepted the New Testament books almost as soon as they were written.
It’s already been mentioned that the writers were friends of Jesus or his
immediate followers, men to whom Jesus had entrusted the leadership of the
early church. The Gospel writers Matthew and John were some of Jesus’ closest
followers. Mark and Luke were companions of the apostles, having access to the
apostles’ account of Jesus’ life.

The other
New Testament writers had immediate access to Jesus as well: James and Jude
were half-brothers of Jesus who initially did not believe in him. Peter was one
of the 12 apostles. Paul started out as a violent opponent of Christianity and
a member of the religious ruling class, but he became an ardent follower of
Jesus, convinced that Jesus rose from the dead.

The
reports in the New Testament books lined up with what thousands of eyewitnesses
had seen for themselves.

When
other books were written hundreds of years later, it wasn’t difficult for the
church to spot them as forgeries. For example, the Gospel of Judas was written
by the Gnostic sect, around 130-170 A.D., long after Judas’ death. The Gospel
of Thomas, written around 140 A.D., is another example of a counterfeit writing
erroneously bearing an apostles’ name. These and other Gnostic gospels
conflicted with the known teachings of Jesus and the Old Testament, and often
contained numerous historical and geographical errors.⁷

In A.D.
367, Athanasius formally listed the 27 New Testament books (the same list that
we have today). Soon after, Jerome and Augustine circulated this same list.
These lists, however, were not necessary for the majority of Christians. By and
large the whole church had recognized and used the same list of books since the
first century after Christ.

As the
church grew beyond the Greek-speaking lands and needed to translate the
Scriptures, and as splinter sects continued to pop up with their own competing
holy books, it became more important to have a definitive list.

Not only do we have
well-preserved copies of the original manuscripts, we also have testimony from
both Jewish and Roman historians.

The gospels report that Jesus of
Nazareth performed many miracles, was executed by the Romans, and rose from the
dead. Numerous ancient historians back the Bible’s account of the life of Jesus
and his followers:

Cornelius Tacitus (A.D. 55-120),
an historian of first-century Rome, is considered one of the most accurate historians
of the ancient world.⁸ An excerpt from Tacitus tells us that
the Roman emperor Nero “inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a
class…called Christians. …Christus [Christ], from whom the name had its
origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands
of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus….”⁹

Flavius Josephus, a Jewish
historian (A.D. 38-100), wrote about Jesus in his Jewish Antiquities. From
Josephus, “we learn that Jesus was a wise man who did surprising feats,
taught many, won over followers from among Jews and Greeks, was believed to be
the Messiah, was accused by the Jewish leaders, was condemned to be crucified
by Pilate, and was considered to be resurrected.”¹⁰

Suetonius, Pliny the Younger, and Thallus also wrote about Christian worship and persecution that is consistent
with New Testament accounts.

Even the Jewish Talmud, certainly not biased toward Jesus, concurs about the major events of his life. From the Talmud, “we learn that Jesus was conceived out of wedlock, gathered disciples, made blasphemous
claims about himself, and worked miracles, but these miracles are attributed to
sorcery and not to God.”¹¹

This is remarkable information considering that most ancient historians focused on political and military
leaders, not on obscure rabbis from distant provinces of the Roman Empire. Yet
ancient historians (Jews, Greeks and Romans) confirm the major events that are
presented in the New Testament, even though they were not believers themselves.

Yes. For faith to really be of any value, it must be based on facts, on reality. Here is
why. If you were taking a flight to London, you would probably have faith that
the jet is fueled and mechanically reliable, the pilot trained, and no
terrorists on board. Your faith, however, is not what gets you to London. Your
faith is useful in that it got you on the plane. But what actually gets you to
London is the integrity of the plane, pilot, etc. You could rely on your
positive experience of past flights. But your positive experience would not be
enough to get that plane to London. What matters is the object of your faith —
is it reliable?

Is the New Testament an accurate, reliable presentation of Jesus? Yes. We can trust
the New Testament because there is enormous factual support for it. This
article touched on the following points: historians concur, archaeology
concurs, the four Gospel biographies are in agreement, the preservation of
document copies is remarkable, there is superior accuracy in the translations.
All of this gives a solid foundation for believing that what we read today is
what the original writers wrote and experienced in real life, in real places.

John, one of the writers sums it up well, “Now Jesus did many other signs in the
presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are
written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and
that by believing you may have life in his name.”¹²