I've started hatching some eggs. It's a rite of spring around here. No, I'm not sitting on them, and neither are my hens. I have an incubator. I collect maybe two dozen eggs from my hens out in the chicken coop and put them into the incubator. I think it's amazing that I can take fresh eggs that could make a good breakfast, put them in an incubator at 100 degrees for 21 days, and then see them crack open, spilling out a live little chick. Did I just ruin eggs for breakfast forever for you?

Your letter came yesterday. The spring showers were falling as if being poured from buckets, so my run from the mailbox to the house left your letter soggy, but legible. Your question as to how we know that the Bible is true is a valid one. On the surface it does seem that Christians argue in circles. It goes like this: Christians believe the Bible is true because it's God's Word. We know it is God's Word because the Bible says it is.

This is circular reasoning, and I agree that it makes no logical sense. We need proof from outside this circular argument that can assure us the Bible is true.

In my last letter I pointed out that the intention of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John in writing their Gospels was to give an accurate historical account of the life, teaching, death, and resurrection of Jesus. The Gospels, therefore, can be seen as a reasonably accurate historical record of Jesus. Like any literature, these documents should be viewed as innocent of major error until proven guilty, sort of the literary version of the legal principle of a defendant being innocent until proven guilty. So let's look at what the Gospels record that Jesus believed about what we now call the Bible.

Everything in the Bible before the Gospels is called the Old Testament and is what Jesus and His contemporaries knew as the Jewish Scriptures. Jesus had a very high view of these Scriptures. He said that He Himself was a fulfillment of the prophecies concerning the coming messiah. When asked His opinion on a theological issue, He responded by asking what the Scriptures say. He quoted from the book of Deuteronomy, using it as the authoritative word of God, each of the three times He was tempted while in the wilderness at the beginning of His ministry.

Jesus also had something to say about the part of the Bible, the New Testament, that would be written after He was gone. He indicated that one of the reasons He chose the twelve apostles was so that they would be a witness to all He said and did. He promised them that the Holy Spirit would give them the ability to remember the details of His ministry. It's interesting to note the criteria the eleven apostles used when they decided to replace the apostle Judas, who had betrayed Jesus and then hanged himself. The candidate had to have been with Jesus the entire three years of His ministry and had to be an eyewitness to Jesus' resurrection. They were very concerned about validating Jesus and His ministry.

We might find it hard to believe that the apostles could remember the exact things Jesus said and recall small details of His ministry, but in ancient times, when written materials were scarce, memorization was an important method utilized by students. And thanks to modern science we know such details are stored in our subconscious. It makes perfect sense to me that if God went to all the trouble to incarnate Himself in human flesh to save the world, He'd provide the ways and means for the event to be accurately recorded.



Jesus also promised the apostles that the Holy Spirit of God would guide them in the further development of the truth He started to give them while He was here on earth. These teachings of the apostles, recorded in various letters we call epistles in our New Testament, do just this. They expand upon, but don't contradict, the teachings of Jesus.

What I've tried to explain is that it's reasonable to accept the gospel records of what Jesus did and said as being accurate. One of the principles the gospels record Jesus teaching was that the Jewish Scriptures — what we call the Old Testament — are the word of God. Jesus also taught that His apostles would oversee additional teachings that should be seen as authoritative. In other words, Jesus endorsed what we now call the Bible as God's special word to us.

Enough for now. I need to go; the eggs need turning. Being a surrogate parent to a brood of future chicks requires an attention to such details!

A fellow seeker after truth,
Dave