You Can Trust the Bible

    I know it’s really old. I know it was written in another language–3 other languages, actually. I know it’s from a cultural milieu foreign to ours.
    But the Bible has proven itself time and again that it is reliable, trustworthy, relevant, and true.
    The latest example was in the news this last week. A year-old discovery on the temple mount in Jerusalem was inscribed with an early semitic inscription on it has now been deciphered.
    Because many secular archeologists refuse to believe the miraculous nature of the Old Testament record, they have long held to the theory that ancient Israel history had been fabricated in the time of Nehemiah, and that Israelites never controlled Palestine until long after the days of the Biblical stories of David and Solomon. They claimed that the Hebrew language did not exist until that time period, and that the earlier Hebrews had no way of writing their history in real time.
    But the 3,000 year old jug that was found in the heart of Jerusalem has now been been identified as Jewish, with the inscription being a very early form of Hebrew.
    Douglas Petrovich, ancient Near Eastern history and biblical studies expert, said about the deciphering of this discovery, "Hebrew speakers were controlling Jerusalem in the 10th century, which biblical chronology points to as the time of David and Solomon. Whoever they were, they were writing in Hebrew like they owned the place."
    This is an important find for doubting scholars, as it is direct evidence of the accuracy of the Old Testament record. Since Hebrew, as a written language, existed in the 10th century, the ancient Israelites were recording their history in real time as opposed to writing it down several hundred years later. That would make the Old Testament an historical account of real-life events.
    According to Petrovich, archaeologists have been unwilling, up until now, to identify it as Hebrew to avoid conflict. "It's just the climate among scholars that they want to attribute as little as possible to the ancient Israelites," he said.
    But this sort of thing has happened throughout modern history. Secularists make claims about the inaccuracy of the Bible, claims that they cannot really back up. Over time, evidence surfaces that substantiates the truth of Scripture.
    Not everything in the Bible can be validated. But what evidence is available points to a level of accuracy and trustworthiness completely unheard of in any other ancient document. At some point, God expects us to stand on what he has confirmed, and trust him for the rest. The Bible is a document we can believe, and if you will have faith in God for what it says, you will see in your own life how dependable it really is.
    So read it! There’s some really good stuff in there! Not only is it all true, when you apply it to your life, it really works!