Is the Bible historically true?

It is the oldest history book in the world. Nothing is known so full, so clear, so informative, bearing upon its pages the verisimilitude of truth. Ancient secular histories stand in vivid contrast to the Bible. In them it is hard to distinguish between truth and fiction, between fact and fable. The reader feels he is looking through a mist at figures exaggerated in size, partly human, partly superhuman. The mind is left in complete suspense as to what to believe, and what not to believe. This is not so with the Bible. The histories of Abraham, Joseph, Moses, David are all human and true to life. We can walk with Abraham through strange lands; sympathize with Joseph in prison and rejoice in his exaltation; behold Moses come down from the Holy Mount with shining face; see David sling his stone at the giant and see the giant fall. There is nothing like this in the writings of the ancients. Can we not discern the hand of God, not only in the writing of the Holy Scriptures, but also in their miraculous preservation to this day? God chose a nation, the children of Israel, and “unto them were committed the oracles of God” (Rom. 3:2). And well have they kept that trust, though the record is anything but to their credit as a nation.

An assurance of the inspiration of the narrative does not, therefore, in the full sense, give us God in the narrative. There is purpose as well as veracity in it — there is an "ensample" as well as inspiration. "These things happened to them for ensamples." They happened as they are recorded. There is historic truth in them. But God brought them to pass, in order that they might be "ensamples;" and till we find this ensample, that is, the divine purpose in the history, we have not got God in it. We are to go to these narratives, be they those of Joseph or any other, very much in the mind with which the Prophet had to go to the house of the potter. Jer. 18. He was to see a real work there; vessels made by the hand and skill of the workman. But there was a lesson in the work, as well as a reality. There was a parable in it; for the Prophet had to see God Himself at the wheel, as well as the potter. So in these histories which we get in Scripture. There is reality in them, exact truthfulness, such as inspiration secures. But there is meaning also; and till we discover that, and learn God and His purpose in the history, we have not really as yet gone down to the potter's house.

All the facts in this history are simple truths. They happened just as recorded. But there is this twofold design in them: either to give samples of the life of faith in a saint, or to give illustrations of some great ways and purposes of God.

We have seen that the positive objections, when sifted, either fall to the ground, or become rather witnesses in favour of the Mosaic authorship and inspired character of the first five books of the Old Testament. The alleged omissions, rightly viewed, bear testimony to the same. An inspired writer can and does habitually leave such blanks as we find in the history of the sojourn in the wilderness, the journeys and stations, the desired particulars of Hur and Jethro, etc. This is never so, save by defect of information, in human annals; but it flows immediately from the moral design of scripture. Man loves to stimulate and indulge curiosity; God inspires for the communication of His mind, the link of connection being in the divine purpose and objects, not in the facts which may often be partial and disjointed as a history. Let me cite the competent opinion given entirely apart from controversy by Mr. H. F. Clinton, which may serve to illustrate more than one point. "The history contained in the Hebrew scriptures presents a remarkable and pleasing contrast to the early accounts of the Greeks. In the latter we trace with difficulty a few obscure facts preserved to us by the poets, who transmitted with all the embellishments of poetry and fable what they had received from oral tradition. In the annals of the Hebrew nation we have authentic narratives written by contemporaries, and these writing under the guidance of inspiration. What they have delivered to us comes accordingly under a double sanction. They were aided by divine inspiration in recording facts, upon which, as mere human witnesses, their evidence would be valid. But as the narrative comes with an authority which no other writing can possess, so in the matters related it has a character of its own. The history of the Israelites is the history of miraculous interpositions. Their passage out of Egypt was miraculous. Their entrance into the promised land was miraculous. Their prosperous and their adverse fortunes in that land, their servitudes and their deliverances, their conquests and their captivities, were all miraculous. The entire history, from the call of Abraham to the building of the sacred temple, was a series of miracles. It is so much the object of the sacred historians to describe these that little else is recorded. The ordinary events and transactions, what constitutes the civil history of other states, are either very briefly told, or omitted altogether; the incidental mention of these facts being always subordinate to the main design of registering the extraordinary manifestations of divine power. For these reasons the history of the Hebrews cannot be treated like the history of any other nation [exactly what rationalism essays to do to the dishonour of scripture, and its own utter and ruinous confusion]; and he who should attempt to write their history, divesting it of its miraculous character, would find himself without materials. Conformably with this spirit there are no historians in the sacred volume of the period in which miraculous intervention was withdrawn. After the declaration by the mouth of Malachi that a messenger should be sent to prepare the way, the next event recorded by any inspired writer is the birth of that messenger. But of the interval of 400 years between the promise and the completion no account is given. And this period of more than 400 years between Malachi and the Baptist is properly the only portion, in the whole long series of ages from the birth of Abraham to the Christian era, which is capable of being treated like the history of any other nation."**

The Bible is the sole depository of the history and chronology of the world for by far the greater part of its existence. The title "father of history," so commonly given to Herodotus the Greek, properly belongs to Moses the Hebrew, as the first of the inspired writers. From Adam to the flood covered a period of sixteen and a half centuries; what do we know of that long era apart from the Scripture records? And for long after the flood there is nothing upon which we may plant our foot securely, and say, "This is fact, and not legend." This being indisputably true, their folly is apparent who labour to discredit the historical portions of Holy Scripture. The persistency of such men borders on wickedness when we consider how many of their bold denials have been thrown back upon themselves by the simple application of pick and shovel. To reject the historical records of Scripture is to turn away from the only light available concerning the early history of the human race, a history which cannot but be of the deepest interest to us all. Seeing too that the Bible narrative is largely occupied with God's ways with man, there is considerable moral profit therein for those who ponder those ways in faith.

Fourthly, it appears also that they received the history which that book contains as true and authentic, the miraculous and supernatural as well as that which is according to the common course of nature. Thus in Mark 10:9 the Lord refers to the creation of Adam and Eve as historically true, and on the words of Adam founds His own command" What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder." In Matt. 24:37 He refers to the deluge, the destruction of the world, and the preservation of Noah; in Luke 17:32, to the fire and brimstone which destroyed Sodom and the cities of the plain, and the transformation of Lot's wife into a pillar of salt. So He refers to the appearance of God in the burning bush; the miraculous effect of looking at the brazen serpent; and the miraculous supply of manna, as typical of Himself, where the comparison necessarily implies the truth of the fact (John 3:14; John 6:49-51). Stephen repeats almost word for word the history of Abraham's miraculous call, the birth of Isaac, Jacob, and the twelve Patriarchs, the miraculous circumstances of the Exodus, and the giving of the Law (Acts 7).

The histories as given in these books are likewise confirmed by both Egyptian and Assyrian monumental records; Rehoboam being represented on the former, and Omri, Jehu, Menahem, Hoshea and Hezekiah on the inscriptions of the Assyrian Tiglath-pileser, Sargon, Sennacherib, and Esarhaddon. But Scripture, like its great subject, Christ, neither receives nor requires "testimony from men." The monuments do not prove Scripture to be true; it is only proved, when they agree with the Bible, that they are true, and not lies. As we read God's word, "we believe and are sure," because "holy men of God," who wrote these records, "spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost" (2 Peter 1:21). True, it is called "prophecy" in the quotation given, but it has been aptly said that "history as written by the prophets is retroverted prophecy." "Moses and the Prophets" means (like "the Law and the Prophets"), the Pentateuch, the Old Testament historical books, and the writings generally designated as "the Prophets." And "the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man." So we unhesitatingly declare ourselves, like Paul of old, as "believing all things which are written in the Law and in the Prophets" (Acts 24:14). "And he that believeth shall not be ashamed" — no, "neither in this world, nor in the world to come." Amen and Amen!

Next we may say, as a characteristic of 'Holy Scriptures,' that they afford us certainty: Luke 1:4. No conflict with history is discoverable in any of them, while all the historical Books of the Canon leave every parallel record of the past far behind in every respect. Apparent discrepancies only trouble superficial or rationalistic readers; but the careful and, devout student of Scripture is not disconcerted if he find a king of Judah like Jehoshaphat spoken of as such in one chapter, and as 'King of Israel' in another chapter of the same Book (2 Chron.): he is sensible of a divine motive for the difference.

On the other hand, the most flagrant errors are discernible in the Apocrypha. Take only Baruch 1:2, compared with Jer. 43:6-7. Of Tobit we may say that it carries its own condemnation upon almost every page.

We can assuredly make the statement that whenever science and the Bible have been at variance, and fresh light on the subject has enabled a right judgment to be arrived at, the Bible has ALWAYS been right. Similarly when it has been a matter of ancient history, stated in the Bible and refused by the Higher Critics, and the spade of the archaeologist has brought up something that throws light on the subject, it has always been the Higher Critics who are wrong, and the Bible has ALWAYS been right. No book in the world can stand such a test as the Bible. With perfect calmness the Christian can await the labours of the explorers in Bible lands, confident that their discoveries will only confirm what they have believed in the Word of God.

As we have already seen, there is first of all the Bible's own claim to be the inspired Word of God. But can the biblical Christian prove this claim? There is plenty of historical and scientific evidence for the Bible's validity and evidence in the form of fulfilled prophecy. The Old Testament contains over 300 references to the Messiah that were fulfilled in Jesus Christ. Computations using the science of probability on just 8 of these prophecies show the chance that someone could have fulfilled all 8 prophecies is 1017 power, or 1 in 100 quadrillion.

As for scientific evidence, archaeologists have proved again and again the accuracy of Scripture accounts, the names of peoples, places and dates. Nelson Glueck, eminent Jewish archaeologist, has categorically stated that "no archaeological discovery has ever controverted a biblical reference."' William F. Albright, recognized as one of the greatest of archaeologists, testified that there is no doubt that archaeology "has confirmed the substantial historicity of Old Testament tradition.