Yes, the Bible is true, and the answers to our important questions are in the Bible. Through the Bible we know what God wants us to do. We know why we are here. We know how to live forever. We know how to have peace and happiness. It's all in the Bible.

But how do we know the Bible is true?

Because it tells us it is true.

Whoa! That's circular reasoning. You can't do that. Something can't testify to itself being true.

Let's look at an example. How is guilt proven in court? Are you allowed to ask the defendant to testify? Of course. It happens all the time.

In court the testimony of the defendant is considered, and compared with the testimony of the other witnesses. We presume that what the defendant says is true, unless it is contradicted by other believable* witnesses or by other things the defendant says.

If the Bible were in a courtroom it would be testifying that everything in the Bible is true.

Question 1: Is the Bible contradicted by the "testimony" of any other credible witnesses such as archeology or other historical documents.

Answer: No. Although many have tried over thousands of years (parts of the Bible are 3,500 years old), there has been nothing that proves any part of the Bible to be wrong. For example, archeology has never found anything that contradicts anything in the Bible, and it continues to turn up new materials that support the Bible as being true.

Question 2: Does the Bible contradict itself? I've heard there are many contradictions in the Bible.

Answer: No. Although there are some things we don't understand, no proven contradictions have been found in the Bible. We are not going to take the time here to answer the hundreds of supposed contradictions others say they have found. That would require hundreds of web pages, and duplicate what others have already written. If you are interested in the answers, here are two books I can recommend:

For a mass market book I recommend: 735 Baffling Bible Questions Answered, by Larry Richards.

For a scholarly book I recommend: New International Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties by Gleason Archer.

There is nothing, anywhere, that proves anything in the Bible to not be true. And the information in the Bible provides some very powerful proofs that it is true. Take prophecy, for example:

Prophecy in the Bible is not like what you see in the astrology predictions in the daily newspaper. Bible prophecy is clear, and in many cases it names names and gives dates.

The Bible also give the rule by which we can tell a true prophet from a false prophet. If even one prophecy is wrong, then the prophet is not a true prophet. This means that, according the the Bible, if there is one wrong prophecy in the Bible, then the Bible is not true. That's a tough standard to meet, and a standard that no astrologer or psychic has ever met. But the Bible has.

There are about 1000 prophecies in the Bible.

Just looking at Jesus: There are about 300 references about the Messiah, and 48 specific prophecies. ALL were fullfilled in the birth, life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. A record of 300 and 0, that's an amazing record. These are all Old Testament prophecies for which, with the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, we have copies of the prophecies that were made BEFORE Jesus was born. Incredible!

And what is even more amazing is that taking just eight of the 48 prophesies, the science of probability tells us that the probability that any one man could fulfill all eight is 1 chance in 100,000,000,000,000.

To date about half the prophecies in the Bible have been fulfilled. The others are prophecies about things in our future. Not one prophecy has been wrong. There is only one source of information that could predict the future with the 100% accuracy we see in the Bible -- God.

There is no doubt. The Bible is true.