Why Should I Believe in the Bible?

I’m going to tell you up front that I believe that the Bible is true.  But that was not always the case, in fact I started out as a very strong skeptic.  I  thought that the Bible was a collection of hard to believe stories.  A lot of American culture, including universities, dismiss the Bible as myths or legends.  Museums present displays of the Theory of Evolution, which runs counter to the Creation story.  With so many people and institutions thinking the Bible is false or too fantastic to believe, it’s hard to go to a Christian church and accept the teachings there.

Some of the Fantastic Stories in the Bible

Parting of the Red Sea

Most of us have seen depictions of the Parting of the Red Sea, like in the movie ‘The Ten Commandments’.  It’s a fantastic special effect, much like you see in science fiction or fantasy movies.  Such special effects are so commonplace today, it’s easy to think that the Red Sea parting is just another fantasy story.

Creation

The earth was created in 6 days, sounds pretty fantastic, right?  Especially in light of scientific discoveries about how vast the universe is.  It seems like people were pretty naive or gullible in those days, after all, they used to believe that the world was flat, didn’t they?  The scientific explanation of how the world was formed – a big bang, then life evolving over billions and billions of years – sounds much more plausible, doesn’t it?

David and Goliath

A young shepherd boy faces off with an armored giant, and kills him with one stone and a sling shot.  There are unnumerable fantasy stories of heroes winning over great odds, this sounds just like another one of them.

I was invited to go to Bible Study Fellowship (BSF), where they go through a multi-year study through the Bible.  I thought, “Ok, I’m going to study the Bible, so I can prove that it’s NOT true”.  I figured with scientific logic and common sense, I can expose big holes of falsehood in the Bible.

I started reading the Bible from the beginning in the book of Genesis.  I read through the creation story, I’ve heard it before, so at that point nothing really stood out, til I read that Adam lived 930 years.  Earlier, in Genesis 2:17, God told Adam that he must not eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, or he will die.  But then Adam goes on to live 930 years?  I kind of laughed to myself.  I’ve found my first hole, I thought.  How can people believe this kind of stuff?

To be continued…