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Here is a response to a question that I was asked about whether or not it is normal or right to have doubts and question you own faith…
First of all, YES, it is extremely normal to feel doubts and have many questions in regards to faith.
My personal commentary is that I always say that the people who make faith look easy, or who make it look like there are easy answers to everything do more damage than they do good. There are a lot of questions that the Bible itself just doesn't answer.
Some of my big ones are…
Why is there no mention of dinosaurs in the Bible?
If you add up the genealogies of Bible people and continue that to this present day, the Bible makes it sound like the earth is only 6,000 years old, but every reputable scientist tells us that the earth is Billions of years old…What is up with that?
Did God and the Devil really make a deal to allow Job to be tortured in the Book of Job?
How could Noah fit all of the animals into the Arc?
Was Goliath really a giant?
And many many more.
Not one of those questions has been adequately answered to me, for me to say that I understand and have no doubts about it.
When I entered College at ASU, I took as many religion courses as I could and was shocked that the Professors (both Christians and NonChristians) took great joy in pointing out these problem areas in scripture. They were literally taking a jack hammer to my faith, and I could not put the pieces back together. I got to the point that I didn't know if I could really be a Christian and believe this stuff.
Until…
I took a hard look at the Gospels (the stories about Jesus in Matthew, Mark, Luke and John) and heard about Harvard Law school doing an actual court trial on campus to determine whether or not they could prove that Jesus is who scripture says He is.
Their first decision is that the only way to prove something was to recreate it in a laboratory environment. Obviously you can't do that with human history. So they redefined the terms of what they were trying to do. They were trying to verify that Jesus actually rose from the dead.
Among their evidence…
The fact that Jesus was written about by non-Christian historians like Josephus, Tacitus, Tertullian, Eusebius all talked about Jesus the man and about the rumors about what He was doing. They could very easily verify that Jesus was an historical figure that walked on Earth, and caused quite a stir in His part of the world.
They next looked at the historical accuracy and integrity of the four Gospels. They compared the writings about Jesus to the writings about Plato and Aristotle. They found that in the writings of these two teachers that we believe are historical, the time span between when they were written and the earliest transcripts that we now have in our possession was like 1200-1400 years, and we only have a handful of copies of these ancient manuscripts. What this tells us is that these manuscripts could have potentially been altered.
However, we still take and teach those history books because they are very verifiable with archaeology and with other writings of the time. When we look at the New Testament, we actually have less than 100 years, probably only 40 years between when they were written and our earliest copies of the manuscripts, not only that, but we have over 7200 separate copies that date back to that time and they are almost identical to each other. This means that someone would have had to alter many many manuscripts.
Harvard Law concluded that the New Testament was as historically accurate document and as likely as accurate as any teachings that we have about the lives of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson.
Below is a table that compares that accuracy.
Date | Earliest Copy | Approximate Time Span between original & copy | Number of Copies | Accuracy of Copies | |
Lucretius | died 55 or 53 B.C. |
| 1100 yrs | 2 | ---- |
Pliny | 61-113 A.D. | 850 A.D. | 750 yrs | 7 | ---- |
Plato | 427-347 B.C. | 900 A.D. | 1200 yrs | 7 | ---- |
Euripides | 480-406 B.C. | 1100 A.D. | 1300 yrs | 9 | ---- |
Aristophanes | 450-385 B.C. | 900 A.D. | 1200 | 10 | ---- |
Caesar | 100-44 B.C. | 900 A.D. | 1000 | 10 | ---- |
Livy | 59 BC-AD 17 | ---- | ??? | 20 | ---- |
Tacitus | circa 100 A.D. | 1100 A.D. | 1000 yrs | 20 | ---- |
Aristotle | 384-322 B.C. | 1100 A.D. | 1400 | 49 | ---- |
Sophocles | 496-406 B.C. | 1000 A.D | 1400 yrs | 193 | ---- |
Homer (Iliad) | 900 B.C. | 400 B.C. | 500 yrs | 643 | 95% |
New | 1st Cent. A.D. (50-100 A.D. | 2nd Cent. A.D. | less than 100 years | 7200 | 99.5% |
So not only do we know that Jesus was a real guy who walked the earth, we also know that the Gospels are extremely accurate, and were not changed or altered. These documents were as verifiable as sworn affidavits would be in court today.
Finally they looked at the impact that Jesus had on His culture. We find that hundreds of people claimed to see Jesus after his Crucifixion was witnessed by hundreds. We also find that the eye witnesses sacrificed much to perpetuate this story.
In other words, in a court trial, in order to discredit an eye witness account, you show that the witness had motive to lie and benefits from his/her lie. However, none of the disciples got rich. Verifiable history tells us that all or most of them got killed. Not just killed, but they were tortured and asked to renounce their faith. They refused and suffered horrifying fates.
Peter was crucified upside down, because he said that he was not worthy to be crucified in the same manner as his savior Jesus. Nathanel was supposedly skinned alive. Almost all of them have verifiable historical records of their martyrdom. What I am sure of, is that people don't suffer and die for a lie.
The most verifiable historical documentation, the most credible of witnesses, and the outside verification made this an open and shut case for the Harvard Law School who was able to convince a jury of their peers (skeptical and educated peers) that the life, death and resurrection of Jesus is verifiable.
I say all of that to say this. Much of what we read in the Bible cannot be verified with that same certainty. But the facts about Jesus is what our whole faith is built around. Personally, I don't need to have ALL of the answers about some of that Old Testament stuff. But what I am certain of is that if what I read about Jesus is true, there is a response that I owe Him and that is my faith. I may not be able to answer all of the questions that I have, but that's OK because I have the answer to THE question.
I can't answer the question about why God lets bad things happen to good people. I can't answer the problem of evil or suffering in this world. But the question that I feel very confident in answering is that Jesus is who the Bible says He is. I personally put this in the center of my faith.
Additionally, it is important to know that the Old Testament was not written to be a Science book or a History text. When pen was put to paper, the intent was to show the character of God and the way that He led the Israelites to where they currently were.
If you were to ask me how I can prove that there is a God, I would reply that I know there is because of what I know about Jesus.
Let me know if you have any other questions.
Blessings
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