1. “You can’t trust the Bible because it has been translated too many times.”
This claim assumes that we don’t have enough manuscript evidence to support current translations of the Bible, and, therefore, this lack of evidence undermines the credibility of the Bible. The facts prove otherwise, however. We have access to thousands of manuscripts and fragments that give us a reliable accounting of what the Bible tells us.
2. “The Bible is full of contradictions.”
Many apparent contradictions come from bad exegesis (using incorrect methods of interpretation). Although it is true that there are some passages in the Bible that are difficult to understand, it is simply not true that the Bible contains actual contradictions.
3. “Church councils decided what books to include in the Bible.”
The argument assumes that church councils met and decided which books to include and that this was basically a power game. This is not true. Church councils officially recognized writings that God’s people had already long accepted and believed to be inspired as Holy Scripture. These councils acknowledged the Scriptures that were in use and trusted by Christians who had gone before them.
4. “The New Testament was written hundreds of years after the life of Christ; therefore it is unreliable.”
The actual time between the events of the New Testament in history and the writing down of these events is not as long as many people may think. The Apostle Paul wrote 1 Corinthians within twenty-five years of Jesus’ life, which means eyewitnesses were still alive and could have objected to the writings of Paul if they were historically untrue.