For the first three reasons to trust the Bible, see “Is the Bible true?”

Fourth, archeological discoveries have consistently confirmed the accuracy of the Bible. For example, the Old Testament reports that the Hittites were one of three major powers confronting early Israel. Yet no evidence of their existence was found outside the Bible well into the 19th century. This led some scholars to think that the biblical references to Hittites were errors. Then in 1906 archeologists discovered the ruins of the Hittite capital city in Turkey. In the same way, many scholars doubted the existence of the Roman proconsul Quirinius, who, according to Luke, ordered the census that meant Jesus would be born in Bethlehem. (Luke 2:1-4) Now coins and inscriptions confirm Quirinius’ proconsulship. The same can be said for other Roman Empire officials mentioned in the New Testament: governors Pontius Pilate and Festus, proconsul Gallio, city treasurer Erastus, and on and on. Archeological digging in Jericho, Jerusalem, Ephesus, Rome, and countless other sites support the biblical account. No archeological discovery has ever proved the Bible to be in error.

Fifth, our translations of the Bible have the best foundation of existing manuscripts of any major ancient text. In 1947 a collection of ancient scrolls were discovered near the Dead Sea. Desert caves there produced tens of thousands of scrolls and scroll fragments of ancient writings, including portions of every Old Testament book. Most of these date from the second century B.C., including a complete scroll of Isaiah, and demonstrate the amazing reliability of the complete Old Testament Masoretic manuscripts which date from A.D. 900. Despite the gap of a 1,000 years, the Masoretic and corresponding Dead Sea Old Testament writings are virtually identical. This means that the Old Testament that we have now is essentially the same as the Hebrew Bible of Jesus’ day. It also means that we have manuscripts of significant portions of the Old Testament that pre-date the life of Jesus by at least 100 years.

We have over 5,000 manuscripts of all or portions of the New Testament, dating as early the second century. The time gaps between originals and existing copies are: for fragments, 50 years; for some books, 100 years; for most of the NT, 150 years; for the entire NT, 225 years. In contrast, for the famous works of many authors of ancient Greece and Rome—such as Herodotus, Thucydides, Plato, Caesar, Livy, and Tacitus—we have only a handful of manuscripts (7 to 20 each) and a time gap of a 1,000 years or more. In addition, quotations of overlapping portions of most of the New Testament are found in the writings of the “Church Fathers,” Christian scholars of the late first century to the fourth century. Corruption of the New Testament text is simply not possible.

Sixth, in spite of being written by about forty different human authors over a period of about 1500 years, in three different languages, on hundreds of topics, and in numerous literary genres and styles, the Bible has a single fundamental message running throughout: people’s basic problem is sin and the solution is salvation through Christ.

Therefore, we have ample evidence that the Bible is reliable and true.

For more on the Bible’s message, see "what is God like?”, “what does the Bible say about sin?”, “who is Jesus?”, and “can I know God personally?”