This collection began with a question three people with no obvious reason to agree on anything kept arriving at the same answer to.
One had grown up in a home that practiced Zen Buddhism. One came from a long rabbinical family tradition. One was a computer scientist who had spent years working on the International Space Station project at NASA and leading military intelligence programs. None of them had any natural reason to end up in the same room, studying the same book, pointing at the same conclusion.
The question they were answering — can this book actually be trusted? — is the right one to ask before opening any document that makes the claims the Bible makes. A reasonable person does not accept extraordinary claims on the basis of tradition or sentiment. A reasonable person looks at the evidence.
The evidence turns out to be stronger than most people expect.
These two essays take the question seriously. The first examines the text itself — where it came from, how it was preserved, how it was translated, and what the manuscript evidence actually shows. The second examines the canon — which books are in the Bible, which books are not, why, and who decided. Both essays try to answer the honest skeptic’s question honestly, without demanding that anyone check their reason at the door.
Can the Bible Be Trusted? — Collection Contents
Part 1 — Which Bible? With hundreds of English translations available, the question a skeptic asks — can any of them be trusted after so many centuries of copying across so many languages? — turns out to have a very good answer. This essay examines the manuscript evidence, the scribal tradition, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and the history of translation from the Septuagint to the present.
Part 2 — Which Books? Catholics, Orthodox Christians, and Protestants all read slightly different Bibles. The skeptic who sees that disagreement as evidence that none of it can be trusted turns out to have the wrong conclusion — and the evidence says why. This essay traces the formation of the canon, examines the books that did not make it in, and explains why the differences between traditions are narrower than they appear.
The journey begins with Which Bible?.