There seem to always be people saying that Scripture is not trustworthy. While Scripture claims itself to be fully trustworthy, there are also several logical reasons that we know we can trust in the Bible. When it comes to the New Testament, many often trust its validity because they say the writers just made it up. Here are six key ways we can know the New Testament to be reliable and that the writers told the truth.

There are embarrasing details about the authors

In most cases, authors do not like there to be negative information in something about themselves, anything told about them that is negative is probably true. If you were making up a story that you wanted to pass off as the truth, would you make yourselves look like simpleminded, uncaring, rebuked, doubting cowards?

• They are simpleminded – they fail to understand Jesus (Mark 9:32; Luke 18:34; John 12:16)
• They are uncaring – They fall asleep on Jesus twice (Mark 14:32-41) They don’t even try to properly burry Jesus.
• They are rebuked – Peter is called Satan (Mark 8:33), Paul opposes Peter (Gal. 2:11), Peter is one of the pillars of the early church.
• They are cowards – All but one of the disciples hide when Jesus goes to the cross the brave women stand by Jesus.
• They are doubters – Despite being taught many different times that Jesus would rise from the dead (John 2:18-22; 3:14-18; Matt 12:39-41; 17:9, 22-23), the disciples doubt his resurrection.

There are commands from Jesus

All NT commands are difficult or impossible for humans to keep. If people were making up a religion they would be less likely to impose rules on themselves, and any rules included would be easy to follow (Matthew 5:48).

Jesus’ words are set apart from the author’s.

It would have been very easy for the NT writers to solve 1^st century theological disputes by putting words into Jesus’ mouth or try to change what Jesus said. Instead, they left Jesus’ words as is and worked through their intended meanings.

They would not have made up events of the resurrection.

• They didn’t bother to bury Jesus themselves.
• The first people to find Jesus alive were women – they would not have been trusted during this time period.

Over 20 historical figures are included in the New Testament

If the writers made up the events of the New Testament, they would not have mentioned real people. Surely, those people would have come out to say the events surrounding them didn’t actually happen. There is no such record of this happening.

Not every detail is exactly the same.

If a judge hears 2 eye-witness accounts that are exactly the same what will the judge conclude? Collusion. While the major details are the exact same, some events are recorded differently or highlight different things in the New Testament.

Conclusion

If the Gospel writers had departed from historical fact, hostile witnesses familiar with the events of Jesus’ life could have and would have exposed them. Instead, even non-Christians from the 1st century such as Josephus (A 1st century historian) conclude that Jesus was real and does not speak out against the New Testament or its writers. We can trust that the New Testament was not made up, but was written in truth and is the inspired Word of God.