How We Got the Bible and Why You Can Trust It

You are holding in your hands the most attacked, most banned, most debated book in human history. And yet it endures. Empires that tried to destroy it are dust. Critics who dismissed it are forgotten. The Bible remains. But how did it get to us? Where did it come from, and can we trust that what we read today is what God originally said?

These are not academic questions. They are deeply personal. If the Bible is truly God's Word, then everything depends on it. And if it is not, then we are building our lives on sand.

As a young believer, I trusted the Bible as God's Word. It is inspired, inerrant, and authoritative. But as I read it more carefully, honest questions surfaced. Can I be sure this is the true Word of God? Where did the Bible come from? Did any books get lost along the way? Is there more Scripture beyond the current sixty-six books? Who decided which books belonged, and on what basis? Has God protected the Bible from human error over the centuries? How close to the original manuscripts are our modern translations?

These are good questions. They deserve honest answers. And the answers, it turns out, strengthen our confidence rather than weaken it.

What Does the Bible Claim About Itself?

Before we examine how the Bible came to us, we need to hear what the Bible says about itself. The Old Testament states that God spoke in His written word over two thousand times. The New Testament refers to itself as "the Word of God" over forty times.

This phrase, "the Word of God," is not limited to one part of Scripture. It covers the full range of God's communication to His people.

Jesus used it to describe the Old Testament. In Mark 7:13, He rebuked the Pharisees for "making void the word of God" by their man-made traditions. The same phrase describes Jesus' own preaching. Luke 5:1 tells us the crowd was "pressing in on him to hear the word of God." And it describes the apostles' teaching as well. In Acts 4:31, the early church "continued to speak the word of God with boldness." In Acts 6:2, the twelve said, "It is not right that we should give up preaching the word of God to serve tables."

The Old Testament, Jesus' preaching, and the apostles' teaching are all called by the same name. They carry the same authority.

Is the Bible Inspired, Sufficient, and Without Error?

The Bible is set apart from every other religious book in history. Psalm 19 and Psalm 119 celebrate its unique character at length. But three specific claims deserve our attention.

First, the Bible is inspired by God. "All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work" (2 Timothy 3:16–17). The Bible did not originate in the minds of men. It was breathed out by God Himself.

Second, the Bible is sufficient. Peter writes that God's "divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence" (2 Peter 1:3–4). We do not need additional revelation. What God has given us in Scripture is enough for everything we need.

Third, the Bible is inerrant. "The words of the Lord are pure words, like silver refined in a furnace on the ground, purified seven times" (Psalm 12:6). "Every word of God proves true; he is a shield to those who take refuge in him" (Proverbs 30:5). God does not speak carelessly. Every word He has given is true and trustworthy.

How Did God Reveal Himself to Mankind?

The Bible did not appear out of nowhere. God brought it into existence through a process we can trace with confidence. That process begins with revelation.

God took the initiative to make Himself known. He revealed Himself through creation, through visions and dreams, through prophets, and ultimately through the incarnation of Jesus Christ. "Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world" (Hebrews 1:1–2).

Since God's Son has ascended into heaven, our most complete revelation of God is through the Bible. It is God's finished revelation to us, declaring man's sinfulness and God's provision of the Savior.

What Does It Mean That Scripture Is "God-Breathed"?

God's revelation was captured in writing by means of inspiration. This is the process by which the Holy Spirit carried the human authors of Scripture so that what they wrote was precisely what God intended.

"All Scripture is breathed out by God" (2 Timothy 3:16a). Peter explains the mechanism: "No prophecy of Scripture comes from someone's own interpretation. For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit" (2 Peter 1:20–21).

The Word of God was protected from human error in its original writing by the ministry of the Holy Spirit. This protection extends to the individual words and to the whole of the original writings.

God told Moses, "I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers. And I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him" (Deuteronomy 18:18). Zechariah 7:12 speaks of "the words that the Lord of hosts had sent by his Spirit through the former prophets." Matthew 1:22 records that "all this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet."

The pattern is consistent. God spoke. The Spirit carried. The prophets and apostles wrote. And the result was Scripture without error.

How Were the Sixty-Six Books of the Bible Chosen?

The Bible is one book with one Divine Author. It was written over a period of fifteen hundred years through the pens of almost forty human writers. But how were these particular writings recognized as Scripture? This question concerns what theologians call canonicity.

Three principles guided the recognition of canonical books. The writing had to have a recognized prophet or apostle as its author, or someone closely associated with them. The writing could not disagree with or contradict previous Scripture. And the writing had to have general consensus by the church as an inspired book.

This last point is important. When various councils met in church history to consider the canon, they did not vote a book into Scripture. They recognized after the fact what God had already written. The church did not create the canon. God did. The church simply identified it.

Does the Old Testament Canon Include the Apocrypha?

The Old Testament canon of Christ's day conforms to the Old Testament that has been used throughout the centuries. It does not contain the Apocrypha. Not one passage from the Apocrypha is cited by any New Testament writer. Jesus did not affirm any of the Apocrypha as He recognized the Old Testament canon of His era.

In Luke 24:27 and 44, Jesus referred to "Moses and all the Prophets" and to "the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms." This threefold division matches the Hebrew Bible of His day, which contains all the same material as the thirty-nine books of our modern Old Testament.

How Was the New Testament Canon Established?

The New Testament canon applied the same three principles as the Old. Mark was considered the penman for Peter. Luke and Acts were written by Luke, who was Paul's penman. James and Jude were written by Jesus' half-brothers.

Hebrews is the only New Testament book whose authorship is unknown. Its content is so consistent with both the Old and New Testaments that the early church concluded it must have been written by an apostolic associate.

The twenty-seven books of the New Testament have been universally accepted since approximately A.D. 350–400 as inspired by God.

Has God Preserved the Bible from Corruption?

Satan is committed to do everything he can to corrupt and destroy God's Word. Jeremiah 36:23 records a king cutting up and burning a scroll of Scripture. But God promises that He will preserve His Word. No inspired Scripture has been lost and still awaits discovery.

"The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever" (Isaiah 40:8). "Forever, O Lord, your word is firmly fixed in the heavens" (Psalm 119:89). God told Isaiah, "My Spirit that is upon you, and my words that I have put in your mouth, shall not depart out of your mouth, or out of the mouth of your offspring, or out of the mouth of your children's offspring, from this time forth and forevermore" (Isaiah 59:21).

Jesus Himself confirmed this promise. "Until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished" (Matthew 5:18). "It is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for one dot of the Law to become void" (Luke 16:17).

God has staked His own character on the preservation of His Word. And He has kept that promise.

How Accurate Are Today's Bible Translations?

People have desired the Bible in their own language for centuries, which has required translations from the original Hebrew and Aramaic of the Old Testament and the Greek of the New Testament. The Bible was hand-copied until the printing press arrived around A.D. 1450. Both translation and copying can introduce the possibility of error. So how can we be sure the text has remained reliable?

The evidence is remarkably strong. The number of existing biblical manuscripts far outdistances the existing fragments of any other ancient literature.

For the Old Testament, the main ancient Hebrew text (the Masoretic text) dates back to the tenth century A.D. Two other important lines of evidence confirm its accuracy. The tenth-century Hebrew text can be compared to the Greek translation called the Septuagint, written around 200–150 B.C. The consistency between the two is striking and speaks to the accuracy of copying the Hebrew text across centuries.

The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls between 1947 and 1956 proved even more significant. These manuscripts date to approximately 200–100 B.C. After comparing the earlier Hebrew texts with the later ones, only a few slight variants were discovered. None of them changed the meaning of any passage. Although the Old Testament had been translated and copied for centuries, the latest version was essentially the same as the earliest ones.

The New Testament evidence is even more decisive. Over five thousand Greek manuscripts exist, ranging from complete testaments to small fragments containing part of a single verse. A few existing fragments date to within twenty-five to fifty years of the original writing.

New Testament scholars have generally concluded that 99.99 percent of the original text has been recovered. Of the remaining one hundredth of one percent, no variant substantially affects any Christian doctrine. Any errors introduced through centuries of copying can be identified and corrected by comparing later copies with the reassembled originals. By this providential means, God has made good His promise to preserve the Scriptures.

When Did We Get the Bible in English?

There are translations available today that are worthy of the title "the Word of God." The history of a full English Bible began with John Wycliffe (ca. A.D. 1330–1384), who produced the first English translation of the whole Bible. William Tyndale was associated with the first complete, printed New Testament in English around A.D. 1526. Myles Coverdale followed in A.D. 1535 with the first complete printed Bible in English. By A.D. 1611, the King James Version had been completed.

Today, reliable English translations of the Hebrew and Greek Scriptures include the New King James Version (NKJV), the English Standard Version (ESV), the New International Version (NIV), and the New American Standard Bible (NASB).

Is the Canon of Scripture Closed Forever?

Will God add a sixty-seventh book of the Bible? Is the canon closed forever? The Bible warns that no one should delete from or add to the Scriptures.

"You shall not add to the word that I command you, nor take from it, that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God that I command you" (Deuteronomy 4:2). "Everything that I command you, you shall be careful to do. You shall not add to it or take from it" (Deuteronomy 12:32). "Do not add to his words, lest he rebuke you and you be found a liar" (Proverbs 30:6).

Canonical books did come after these words of warning. We can conclude that no deletions were ever permitted. We can also conclude that authorized, inspired writings were permitted to be added in order to complete the canon those passages were protecting. But the most compelling text on the closed canon is the Scripture to which nothing has been added for nineteen hundred years.

"I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book, and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book" (Revelation 22:18–19).

Why Revelation Signals the End of the Canon

Several lines of evidence confirm that the canon is closed.

The book of Revelation describes end-time events that precede eternity future with unparalleled detail. Just as Genesis began Scripture by bridging the gap from eternity past into our world with the only detailed creation account, Revelation closes Scripture by carrying us from our present age into eternity to come.

Just as there was prophetic silence after Malachi completed the Old Testament canon, there was a parallel silence after John delivered Revelation. No further inspired writings appeared. This pattern strongly suggests that the New Testament canon was then closed.

Since there have not been, nor are there now, any authorized prophets or apostles in the Old or New Testament sense, there are no potential authors of future inspired, canonical writings. God's Word, "once for all delivered to the saints," is never to be added to, but to be earnestly contended for (Jude 3).

Of the four biblical exhortations not to tamper with Scripture, only the one in Revelation 22:18–19 contains warnings of severe divine judgment for disobedience. Revelation is the only New Testament book to end with this kind of warning, and it was written over twenty years after any other New Testament book. These facts strongly suggest that Revelation was the last book of the canon.

Finally, the early church, those closest in time to the apostles, believed that Revelation concluded God's inspired writings.

We can conclude, based on solid biblical reasoning, that the canon is and will remain closed. The Bible is complete. God has spoken. And what He has spoken, He has preserved for us with a faithfulness that mirrors His own unchanging character.