Why I Trust the Bible: Answers to Real Questions and Doubts People Have about the Bible

Written by William D. Mounce

Narrated by Patrick Lawlor

A Clear Guide to Help You Understand Why You Can Trust the Bible

We are often told we can no longer assume that the Bible is trustworthy. From social media memes to popular scholarship, so many attacks have been launched on the believability of Scripture that many have serious questions about the Bible, such as:

• Did Jesus actually live?
• Did the biblical writers invent their message?
• How can we trust the gospels since they were written so long after Jesus lived?
• How can we believe a Bible that is full of internal contradictions with itself and external contradictions with science?
• Aren't the biblical manuscripts we have just copies of copies that are so corrupted they don't represent what the original authors wrote?
• Why should we believe the books that are in the Bible, since many good ones were left out, like the Gospel of Thomas?
• Why trust the Bible when there are so many contradictory translations of it?

If you find yourself unable to answer questions such as these, but wanting to, Why I Trust the Bible by eminent Bible scholar and translator William Mounce is for you. These questions and more are discussed and answered in a reasoned, definitive, and winsome way.

The truth is that the Bible is better attested and more defensible today than it ever has been. Questions about the Bible are perhaps the most significant challenge confronting Christian faith today, but they can be answered well and in a way which will lead to a deeper appreciation for the truth and ongoing relevance of the Bible.

Accompanying visual components are available in the audiobook companion PDF download.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Zondervan
• Release date: Sep 14, 2021
• ISBN: 9780310130321

William D. Mounce

William D. Mounce (PhD, Aberdeen University) lives as a writer in Washougal, Washington. He is the President of BiblicalTraining.org, a non-profit organization offering world-class educational resources for discipleship in the local church. See BillMounce.com for more information. Formerly he was a preaching pastor, and prior to that a professor of New Testament and director of the Greek Program at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. He is the author of the bestselling Greek textbook, Basics of Biblical Greek, and many other resources. He was the New Testament chair of the English Standard Version translation of the Bible, and is serving on the NIV translation committee.

Reviews for Why I Trust the Bible

[Javier Castillo · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Rich content
Informative
Insightful

It definitely strengthens my faith in Jesus

[Thomas Lorenz (Fit For Faith Ministries) · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Generally speaking a well written book, with a lot of very useful teachings for believers and unbelievers alike. A good defense of the Bible. But a very mixed bag, with some great and with some rather heretical teachings.

Significant concerns:

- He sees Genesis rather as as myth and says that nowhere in Scripture we can read that humanity is a few thousand years old. Kind of true. But the full truth is that this can be easily calculated based on the 77 generations in Luke. Nobody has the exact number, but +/- 400 years is sufficient. Interestingly, he later in the book criticizes those who see Genesis as a myth.

- He presents only the erroneous 4004 BC reference (he singles it out as an Ussher thing), and entirely neglects the more generous age presented in the Greek Old Testament. It is as scandal that a Greek scholar entirely ignores the Greek Old Testament, while knowing that this text dominated the Christian and Jewish world for ~650 years in Christ's time on earth. The only mention the Septuagint gets in all the book is when it comes to the Apocrypha. He seems to have a serious issue with the Greek OT.

- Although pretending to offer some faithful options for the enormous lifespans of OT figures, he concludes "the numbers are not meant to be understood precisely, but are meant to draw a picture".

- He says that Scripture has generally to be read in the respective cultural context, which has a rather liberal connotation. But he is even contradicting himself, when he interprets the exception clause and precisely denies seeing it in its cultural context, namely the refusal to insert the word 'unchastity' (a concept mentioned all over the OT) for the oxymoron 'except on the basis of adultery causeth her to commit adultery'. (Mat 5:32 and Mat 19:9). It then becomes even heretical and dangerous teaching when he states without any differentiation, that (practically anyone) can divorce, if he or she is abandoned.

- Origen is mentioned several times without any discernment. He can be a secondary reference, but the reader has to be informed that he was a heretic for several reasons. To present him as a credible source, is not worthy of somebody with a theological title. Discernment is also lacking when it comes to the approval of the heretic C.S. Lewis, whom his brother even read on the deathbed of his mother. It is also a bit disturbing that he calls the death of his mother 'a story'. What words.

Secondary concerns:

- He erroneously states that Origen and Athanasius did reject the Apocrypha, what is clearly wrong. While Athanasius considered 2 books of it as canonical, Origen considered at least 7 (!!!) books as canonical (probably all). He used those apocryphal books indiscriminately with those of Scripture as sources for dogmatic proof texts, and cited as inspired / Scripture: Baruch, Epistle of Jeremiah, Judith, Maccabees (plural), Tobith, Widsom (of Solomon). He also defended Bel and the Dragon, Sirach and Susanna. He only discriminated the Pseudepigrapha, which he called in fact 'Apocrypha' in the sense of being hidden / secret.

- He states regarding the Apocrypha: "... our 3 most important manuscripts from the Bible, dating from 4th and 5th c., Sinaiticus, Vaticanus and Alexandrinus include some of these books, in other words the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the OT, did contain some of the of apocryphal books ..." This is an outlandish statement. The Septuagint (=5 Pentateuch books) was written in 250 BC, when not even one book of the Apocrypha had been written (his 4c BC statement is clearly wrong, it was written 2-1c. BC and finalized latest in 4c. AD!). Even if we very generously apply the term 'Septuagint' to the remaining 17 OT books written until 130 BC by others than the 70 translators, we still do not have the Apocrypha finished. But he even goes one step further, to say, just because some codices that were compiled 600 years (!) after the writing of the Septuagint included the Apocrypha, now the Septuagint written 600 years earlier consequently included the Apocrypha. This is desperately looking for a scape goat. Might Bill as a translator never get such an accusation 600 years after his death, after someone thought it good to add some books to the ESV or NIV.

- He also makes the erroneous claim that the reformers agreed that these books should not be part of the canon. "Luther put them in a separate section and eventually they dropped out". Nothing could be further from the truth. Until the reformation never more than 7 apocryphal books had been used in a Bible. -ALL- reformers strongly increased the books printed in the Bibles to 11-15 books and the books remained for more than 400 years in our Bibles! God does not care if disguised as a separate section. He will judge all those who included, promoted and even those who did not speak against the inclusion of those books between the 2 covers of His Word. Woe!

- He claims that the OT was probably closed at the time of the council of Jamnia (end of 1c. BC), but we have numerous proofs that this was definitely not the case until the council of Augustine (393 AD).

- Mat 5:3: "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. A better translation (and he as a Greek scholar should have seen this!): Blessed are those yearning the Spirit. For theirs is the Kingdom of the Heavens." The word [ΠΤΩΧΟΙ, ptochoi, G4434] certainly implies an aspect of (spiritual) poverty, but more importantly also implies in its root word the ACTION to prostrate like a beggar and to yearn with the whole heart for the Spirit.

- Mar 13:30 'Truly I say to you that this [set of] generation[s] will never pass away until all these things take place'). In his book 'Basics of Biblical Greek' he first intended to resolve this verse by translating it 'until all these things begin to come to pass'. Now in this book he ignores the word 'all' and isolates 'these things' to a partial event among all the events in the context. While the first intent has certainly some value, the second intent is simply bad exegesis. If he would read the Greek OT only once, he would have understood the meaning of this verse through the biblical definition of the concept of 'generations' found in Deu 32:6-9 (ΓΕΝΕAC ΓΕΝΕΩΝ; generation of generations). Its meaning in this context is similar to that of 'this age' and of 'the last days'. We do not need to become dispensationalists in order to understand this wider concept of 'generation'.

- A death of Christ on Friday is contradicting Scripture on several levels, as we are all aware of. If I am not absolutely certain on an interpretation, I better remain passive and do not write a book about it. Christ died at the end of the Passover week as clearly proven.

- The book is a showcase for Mounce and Christ often takes the backseat. He repeatedly praises his own references and inserts as often as any possible references to people of academic rank by presenting their titles rather than their achievements.

Room for improvement:
- When referring to the differing angels after the resurrection, he missed the differentiation between 1 sitting (Mat 28:2-4), 1 sitting (Mar 16:5-7), 2 standing (Luk 24:2-10) and 2 sitting (Joh 20:11-18) angels.

It often feels as if he would have simply summarized what others said about a topic and rather have not read Scripture for himself. We have today more than enough books written in the same manner. What we need is not people repeating over and over again the human wisdom showcased in other books, but authors who dig deep and who are on their knees asking the Spirit for HIS wisdom.

[Kristen Roberts · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Answers any question you have about the reliability of the Bible. From variants to translations to authorship. Great answers for real questions!

[Andrés Castañeda · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Excellent. it is very well written, easy to understand, but deep enough to get you a good grasp of the topic.