How do we know what’s true? How do we determine what is a true message from God and what may be a well-meaning, but ultimately false message from a human? In our current study of Islam and Christianity, how do which determine which religion is correct because they teach very different things?
One useful beginning is to study the historical background of the writings. This background is essential to determine any historical truth. We know that Julius Caesar existed, that Alexander conquered, that in “1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue,” not because we’ve personally talked to any of these people, but because we have historical records that tell us about them.
Historians use various tests to determine what is more likely to be a true record of the past and what may be a mythological story that has grown up since that time. Some of these tests include the number of manuscripts available, the date of the manuscripts, the authors, whether manuscripts agree with each other or not.
No religious text should be treated differently
Though religious texts claim (and Christians believe) that the Bible is much more than a historically valid text, no religious text should be treated differently according to the tests of history. For example, if a person only appears once in the historical record and that record was written hundreds of years after the person was reported to have lived and, in contrast, if a person was written about in thousands of manuscripts written closely to the time the person lived, it’s obvious that we would consider the life of the second person more likely true than the first.
When we look at the Bible, the historical evidence is solid
The following four lessons are a series on both how we got our Bible as well as how we determined what books make up the Bible. The lessons all have a video and PDF of notes. Take time to go over them and you’ll learn how your faith has a firm foundation. Click on any title to go to that lesson:
Canonicity #2: In between the Old and New Testament and what about the Apocrypha?
Canonicity #3: About the New Testament and the Gnostic Gospels
Canonicity #4: How the church decided what books were included in the Bible