BY HUGH ROSS – JULY 3, 2020

Question of the week: The Bible is a great book that has many important lessons in it but how can we be 100% certain that EVERYTHING in it is truly accurate and totally represents the Word of God? There could be parts of the Bible that don’t hold water. The only information in the Bible that I know of that came directly from God himself were the Ten Commandments as God wrote these on two stone tablets which he gave to Moses. The rest of the information in the Bible came from other people that God somehow allegedly communicated with. Also, the words that Jesus spoke were communicated to us via other people years after Jesus said them. The only other time when God may have communicated with us directly is when Jesus was baptized but I’m not certain.

My answer: I have yet to find a provable error or contradiction in the Bible, except when Satan or humans are being quoted. That is certainly not the case for the other holy books that undergird the world’s predominant religions. Furthermore, the Bible has demonstrated unique predictive power. It predicted future historical events and future scientific discoveries specifically, frequently, and accurately. The Holy Spirit inspired the human Bible authors to write what God intended. 1 Peter 1:10–12 and 2 Peter 3:15–16 indicate that Bible authors understood that they were inspired by the Holy Spirit and longed to understand all that the Holy Spirit had inspired them to write. Jesus himself declared that the Scriptures were inerrant in John 10:35 when he said, “Scripture cannot be broken.” Years ago, I debated the religion editor for Skeptic magazine, Tim Callahan, on the subject, “Does the Bible Have Predictive Powers?” You can listen to a recording of the debate here: https://shop.reasons.org/product/566/does-the-bible-have-predictive-powers-downloadable-mp3.