Can We Trust The Bible?

Most skeptics think the Bible has been corrupted or manipulated over centuries. Omar K. Mills takes on this challenge head-on, unraveling compelling evidence that reveals the Bible’s stunning consistency despite its diverse authors, long history, and wide reach. 

If you've ever questioned whether the Bible is just a collection of ancient myths or deliberately altered texts, this episode will challenge your assumptions with powerful facts and faith-affirming insights.

You'll discover how the Bible was penned by over 40 authors across 1500 years and yet maintains a coherent story from creation to restoration—something that breaks the myth of random human invention. 

Omar breaks down how the abundance of early manuscripts (over 20,000 copies of the New Testament alone) rules out secret tampering, with textual accuracy estimated at an incredible 99.5%. This isn’t just faith; it’s history backed by archaeology, from the Pool of Bethesda to Pontius Pilate’s inscription, confirming the Bible's real historical roots.

We also delve into the extraordinary reliability of prophecy—how Jesus’ life aligns perfectly with dozens of centuries-old predictions like being born in Bethlehem or betrayed for silver. Using probability math, Omar reveals that the odds of one person randomly fulfilling just eight messianic prophecies are practically impossible—around 1 in 100 quadrillion. 

These extraordinary alignments point to a divine orchestration that can't be chalked up to coincidence.

Why does this matter? Because understanding the trustworthiness of scripture transforms how you see Jesus and his claims. The Bible’s endurance, archaeological validation, prophetic accuracy, and profound influence over centuries make it a compelling case for its divine inspiration. 

Whether you’re skeptical or searching, this episode invites you to explore the evidence that still invites us to respond—without shutting down your brain.If you're hungry for truth rooted in history, archaeology, and math, this episode will reshape your view of the Bible’s reliability. 

Perfect for believers, skeptics, or anyone curious about the foundations of faith, it’s a journey through ancient texts that points clearly to something far greater—an invitation to trust what has withstood the test of time.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hasn't the Bible been copied and changed over centuries? Didn't powerful people edit it to control others? What about contradictions? What about missing books? Wasn't it written long after the events actually happened? Why trust the Bible over other religious texts? And isn't faith basically believing without evidence? If you've asked any of those questions, I want you to hear this clearly. You are not crazy, you are not faithless, and you are not alone. If the Bible is unreliable, then Christianity collapses into preference, tradition, or vibes. But if the Bible is reliable, even at a basic historical level, then Jesus' claims confront us personally. Today, we're asking really one big question, and that is, can we trust the Bible? When people say I don't trust the Bible, they usually mean one of two things. Either A, I don't trust how it was transmitted, or B, I don't trust it, trust its claims about reality. So let's start with transmission. One of the questions behind uh the skepticism is, isn't the Bible just a bunch of disconnected religious ideas kind of stitched together? The Bible was written by over 40 authors across 1,500 years on three continents and in three languages, that's Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. Those authors included shepherds, kings, prophets, fishermen, tax collectors, and scholars. Now, normally that kind of diversity produces contradiction and fragmentation, but instead, the Bible tells one coherent story: creation, a demction, restoration. Unity alone doesn't prove divine inspiration. But it raises a serious question. Why does this cohere at all? Especially when you compare it to other ancient collections like Greek mythology, which splinter into competing theologies and narratives. So already the idea that this is just a sloppy human invention doesn't quite fit the data. This is probably the most common objection. How do we know the Bible hasn't been changed over time? All right, so here's how ancient texts survive. We don't have the originals, really, for any ancient work. What we have are hand-copied manuscripts. So the real question becomes: how many copies do we have? How early are they? And how well do they agree? For the New Testament, we have 5,800 plus Greek manuscripts. We have 10,000 plus Latin manuscripts, 10,000 plus manuscripts in other ancient languages. That's nearly 20,000 copies. For comparison, Homer's Iliad has about 1,800 manuscripts. Plato has under 300 manuscripts. No other ancient text comes anywhere close. Why does that matter? Because numbers allow cross-checking. If you had two copies and they disagreed, you'd be stuck guessing. But if you have thousands of copies, well then patterns begin to emerge. And these manuscripts weren't all copied in one place. They spread across Rome, the Roman Empire, different regions, different languages. That means no central authority could quietly rewrite the text everywhere. So when we ask, has the Bible been changed? The answer is it couldn't have been changed secretly, systematically, or successfully. Another hot button question. But aren't there variants and contradictions? Yes, there are textual variants. But here's what matters. Scholars estimate the New Testament is about 99.5% textually accurate. Let that sink in for a sec. 99.5% accuracy on the New Testament. The Old Testament is like not. Most variants are spelling differences, word order changes, or minor grammatical issues. No core Christian doctrine depends on a disputed text. For the Old Testament, the Dead Ski, uh, the Dead Sea Scrolls gave us remarkable confirmation. So when the Isaiah scroll, for example, dated around 125 BC, was compared to copies from A.D. 1000, the text was virtually unchanged in substance. So when people say the Bible has changed or the Bible has been changed, what they usually mean is, I heard that once, I've looked at the evidence. Textual criticism doesn't weaken scripture. It's how we measure how well it's been preserved. All right, so let's get into archaeology. Archaeology can't prove theology, but it can confirm history. The pool of Bethesda in John 5, once doubted, excavated with five porticos, just as it is described. The Pilate inscription, this confirms that Pontius Pilate was in fact a prefect of Judea. The Hittite civilization, once dismissed as fictional, is now well documented. Archaeology doesn't prove God exists, but it consistently shows the Bible is talking about real people, real places, and real events. Another big objection, isn't prophecy vague or cherry-picked? Some claims are overstated, and that's that's a fair point. But the Messianic prophecies are different. Jesus fulfills prophecies written centuries earlier. Micah 5, 2, born in Bethlehem. Isaiah 53, the suffering servant. Now here's one that I love. Psalm 22 has crucifixion imagery before crucifixion itself existed. Zechariah 11, trade for 30 pieces of silver. Zechariah 9, triumphal entry on a donkey. There was a professor named Peter W. Stoner. He was a professor of mathematics and astronomy and later the chairman of science at Westmount College. He wasn't trying to preach. He was asking a technical question. What are the odds that one person could fulfill specific messianic prophecies purely by chance? Not all of them, not hundreds, just eight of them. What are the odds that one person could fulfill eight specific messianic prophecies purely by chance? Things like being born in Bethlehem, being betrayed for 30 pieces of silver, having that money thrown into the temple and used to buy a potter's field, being crucified, and being silent before his accusers. And Stoner did not work alone. His calculations were reviewed by the American Scientific Affiliation, a group of scientists, many of whom were not trying to defend Christianity. And they affirmed that his math was sound. Now here's what he found. The odds of one person accidentally fulfilling just eight, just eight messianic prophecies, is one in 100 quadrillion. Now, those numbers are meaningless until you visualize them. Imagine you take the entire state of Texas, you cover it two feet deep in silver dollars. You take one silver dollar and you mark one. Like maybe you take one, you paint it red, and then you stir the entire pile. Again, this covers the totality of the state of Texas, two feet deep, silver dollars. Then you blindfold someone. They can walk anywhere in Texas. They get one chance to reach down and pick one coin. The odds that they pick the marked coin, that's the same odds as one person fulfilling eight messianic prophecies by chance. And remember, eight is a small sample size. Stoner went uh further. If you take 48, the odds jump to 10, 1 in 10, it's a number I can't even say, 10 to the 157th power. That's not a number my brain can even hold. At that point, Stoner said it would be like finding one specific electron in an unimaginably vast universe of electrons. Now hear me clearly on this. This does not prove Christianity the way a math equation proves gravity, but it obviously destroys the idea that Jesus just happened to fit the story. What we're dealing with is not random coincidence, it's convergence, independent texts written centuries apart by different authors, all pointing towards the same figure. At some point, chance stops being a serious explanation. So when people say prophecy is vague or accidental, the the real question becomes: at what point does coincidence stop being intellectually responsible? Which leads me to something very cool, but it can be abused if it's overstated. In the Old Testament, God reveals himself by covenant name, I-H-W-H. Now in Hebrew, that's four consonants. It's uh the Y is Yod, the H is He, the W is Vav, sometimes Wav, and then H again for Hei. So you say it out loud, and it's Yod He Vav He. Now keep in mind I'm pronouncing the letters, not the divine name itself. Why? Because Yahweh, Y-H-W-H, itself was not traditionally spoken aloud in ancient Judaism. Out of reverence, the Jews would say Adonai or Hashem. Adonai means Lord, Hashem means the name. So scholars don't claim to know the original vocalization with any real certainty. And you heard me say Yahweh, you know, you say, well, what about that? Well, you'll often hear Yahweh, and that's widely accepted by scholars as the most likely ancient pronunciation. What matters even more than how it's pronounced is how often it appears. This covenant name shows up over 6,800 times in the Hebrew scriptures. And it's not a title, it's not a generic word for God. It's God's personal covenantial name. The moment this name is revealed is critical, right? Uh, Exodus 3, when Moses asks God, uh, who should I say sent me? God responds, I am who I am. Thus you shall say to the children of Israel, I am, has sent me to you. The phrase is tied directly to YHWH. It communicates existence, faithfulness, and self-sufficiency. God is not contingent, God is not created, God simply is. This is why later in Jewish tradition, the name became so holy, it was rarely spoken aloud. Now, here's where the pictographs come in. And this is where we need to be careful. Early forms of Hebrew writing, often called paleoh, were influenced by pictograph scripts. Letters originally carried symbolic imagery. So for example, we said, a Yod He Vav He, the Y originally conveyed the idea of a hand or an arm. H was meant behold or look or reveal. The W meant nail or hook or peg, and the H again means behold. So when Christian apologists look back at the ancient pictograph forms of Yahweh, they sometimes note that the letter images can be poetically rendered as behold the hand, behold the nail. Now pause, because if you're like me, your mind is kind of blown by that. But let's chill. This is not what ancient Israelites consciously meant when they wrote the name Yahweh, Y H W H. They understood it as God's covenant name tied to I am. So while it is very, very dope to have, you know, hand and nail, you know, pointing to Christ, even in his covenant name, it is not linguistic proof. It is not hidden code. When we look back through the lens of Christ, uh, especially in light of passages like Zechariah 12, 10, they will look on look on me whom they have pierced, or Psalm 22, 16, they pierced my hands and my feet. The imagery becomes very striking. It's really just one more way, though, that the Bible across centuries, genres, and languages seems to point forward to the same reality. And here's why that matters apologetically. The Bible doesn't just claim that Jesus fits prophecy, it claims that Jesus shares the identity of Yahweh. That's why Jesus says in John 8, 58, before Abraham was, I am. That's why Paul says in Philippians 2 that every knee will bow and every tongue confess, language that was originally reserved for Yahweh. So even the covenant name of God, when viewed through the full arc of Scripture, points us toward Jesus Christ. Given some of y'all, this is like handing a credit card to a college student. So let me make sure that we all drink responsibly here. This is not something we build our entire case on. It's not a mic drop argument. It's a reflection, not a foundation. But when you put it next to fulfilled prophecy, manuscript reliability, archaeological confirmation, thematic unity, it becomes one more thread in a very large tapestry. And that tapestry consistently points in one direction. Another question: why has this book lasted? The Bible survived bans, burnings, and empires. It has been translated into 3,500 plus languages with billions of copies distributed. In fact, the UVersion Bible app alone has over 500 million downloads. Now, influence doesn't equate to truth, but endurance at this scale demands our attention. And beyond influence, there's transformation. Across cultures and centuries, people testify to freedom, renewal, and moral change. Jesus invited this kind of test. If anyone's will is to do God's will, he will know. That's John 7.17. That is not blind faith. That is an invitation to practice and see. So we're gonna uh end where we started. Can we trust the Bible? So let's take a look at what we've seen. Unity across diversity, manuscript evidence unmatched in antiquity, transmission accuracy verified, archaeology confirming historical claims, prophecy converging on Jesus, and endurance and transformation across history. This doesn't force belief, but it does mean this. The Bible is reliable enough to deserve a real hearing. You don't have to shut your brain off to follow Jesus. And the same scriptures that have been preserved, tested, and trusted across centuries are still inviting us not just to read them, but to actually respond.