Can the Bible Be Trusted?

A reflective journey through doubt and tradition to test the trustworthiness of the Bible.

A Personal and Critical Reflection

The question of whether the Bible can be trusted is not a small one. It sits at the crossroads of history, faith, culture, and the stubborn human desire to make sense of the world. When I wrote Between the Lines of Faith, I was grappling with that same tension. I stood inside the long shadow of Scripture, asking whether the voice I heard in its pages still rings true in a century that prides itself on knowing better.
From the start, Christians have claimed the Bible is inspired by God, written through more than forty authors, in three languages, across three continents, over fifteen centuries. That alone is staggering. Few documents survive the age they were born in. The Bible survived empires, exile, persecution, translation, and constant debate. Even its critics unintentionally testify to its staying power. That doesn’t automatically make it Divine, but it does make it significant.

Historical Credibility
If trust begins with reliability, the historical record leans in Scripture’s favour.
Archaeology has confirmed the existence of cities, kings, battles, cultural customs, and political tensions referenced in both the Old and New Testaments. Scholars have found thousands of manuscripts, some dating to within decades of the original writings, closer than any surviving work of Plato, Aristotle, or Julius Caesar.
Yet archaeology also raises questions. Some events, like the scale of the Exodus or the conquest of Canaan, remain debated. There are gaps in the timeline, places where evidence is thin or disputed. But historical uncertainty is not the same as historical failure. As the late archaeologist William Albright once admitted, “Discovery after discovery has established the accuracy of innumerable details in the Bible.”
In my poem, I write “I stretch my hands toward ancient light,” and that line carries the same sense: Scripture is old, but it isn’t silent. Its history still speaks.

Literary and Moral Credibility
The Bible is not a flat book. It contains poetry, prophecy, law, lament, parable, and biography. It speaks with the voices of shepherds, prophets, fishermen, kings, and exiles. Yet with all that diversity, it holds a moral spine that is radically consistent:
“What does the Lord require of you but to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God?” (Micah 6:8)
Even those who do not believe in its supernatural claims respect its ethical clarity. But this strength is also where critics strike. They point to troubling passages, violence, severe punishments, patriarchal structures, and ask how a holy God could endorse them. That challenge cannot be brushed away.
This is where I return to the line in my poem, “I read between the thorns for the fruit,” because Scripture often demands that kind of reading. Context matters. Genre matters. Cultural distance matters. Where some see cruelty, others see God working within broken societies, pulling humanity toward something higher. Jesus himself reframed the old law with the words “You have heard it said… but I say to you” (Matthew 5), suggesting that revelation unfolds over time.

Scientific and Philosophical Objections
The last three centuries brought new critics: Darwin, secularism, comparative religion, and the modern scientific worldview. Many object to miracles, the creation account, or the idea of Divine intervention. But rejecting the Bible because it contains the supernatural is circular reasoning: if God exists, miracles are possible; if He doesn’t, they’re not. The debate isn’t scientific; it’s philosophical.
Interestingly, the Bible never presents itself as a science textbook. Its opening lines—“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1), are a theological claim, not a lab report. They answer the why, not the how. Science and Scripture clash only when someone tries to make either speak a language it never claimed.

Spiritual Credibility
This is where the question becomes personal. I can analyse manuscripts, history, theology, and archaeology all day, but the heart of trust lies somewhere deeper. In my poem, I say, “I hear a whisper older than my doubts.” That line came from experience, not intellect. Millions across ages and cultures say the same. The Bible reads us even as we read it. It exposes, comforts, confronts, and reshapes. Whether one views it as Divine or psychological depends on their perspective, but the experience itself is undeniable.

So, Can the Bible Be Trusted?
My answer is yes, though not blindly, not naïvely. It can be trusted historically, even if some puzzles remain. It can be trusted morally, though it requires patient reading. It can be trusted spiritually, because its influence on the human heart stands beyond easy explanation.
But it must not be trusted lazily. Scripture invites wrestling. It doesn’t fear questions. It never has.
In the end, I fall back on a final phrase from Between the Lines of Faith:
“I walk the old road with open eyes.”
That is how I approach the Bible, rooted in tradition, aware of the world’s doubts, yet convinced that there is truth within those ancient lines, truth worth defending, truth that has outlived every empire that tried to silence it.