An old preacher said one time that we defend the Bible like we defend a lion, we turn him loose. So I guess the first question I have for you as we consider this question is that do you read the Bible? If you do, do you read more as a moral code book or as a story about the God and creator of the universe reforming a relationship with his creation? I hope you will consider reading the Bible as a story of what God has done through the nation of Israel to reach the world.
There are two questions that need to be addressed in answering this question concerning the reliability of the Bible. First, were the authors of the Bible able to tell us about the events that were recorded? Second, were the authors willing to tell us about these events? I would like to specifically write about the book of Mark in the New Testament concerning these questions which means that we will be asking was Mark able to tell us about Jesus and was he willing?
In dealing with the first question, we seek to answer if what Mark wrote about Jesus is reliable for us. As we deal with this issue of reliability, we must remember that we do not have the original document Mark wrote, nor do we have that of any ancient document. So let's compare Mark's gospel with some other ancient documents. Consider Thucydides' History or Tacitus' Annals. These have at least 1000 years between the writing of the original and the earliest copy, yet we trust them to accurately record history. They also only have only 8 to 20 copies.
In comparing this with Mark's gospel, Mark only has 140 years between the original and the earliest copies. In addition, thousands of copies exist. So as a result, we have an accurate rendition of what he actually wrote.
Concerning the second question, the issue is whether or not we can trust Mark to tell us the truth about Jesus as he was not on the scene during Jesus' ministry. With this we need to compare the interval between the event and its being recorded by an author in other sources. In other words, how long after Jesus did Mark record his Gospel?
Let's compare Mark with Livy's report of the Law of the Twelve Tables, or Plutarch's record of the life of Alexander the Great. Both of these were written 400 to 450 years after the events yet both are valued as key sources. In contrast with Mark, there are only 25-30 years between Jesus' earthly ministry and Mark's writing. This should hold it as fairly reliable.
In terms of reliability of ancient documents, the Gospel of Mark passes the test with high marks. Though Mark is just one Gospel account, it does help show that the Bible is not just a bunch of made up stories.
Questions?
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