…or it’s just a compilation of myths. 

The bible is a book that has been at the center of controversy for ages! I think this is expected because clearly, it puts itself out there as a document that must govern our lives. For anything to have such power, it must definitely be worth its salt. How can we be sure that the bible deserves that place of authority in our lives? This non-exhaustive article attempts to help our readers appreciate that the bible is true, and that it has stood battering all these years for a reason. 

Many of the bible critics give so many reasons why they think the bible is just an ordinary book. I unfortunately cannot address all the reasons on here but I’d like to cite a few. One common belief is that the bible is a compilation of myths and only serves as a moral guide of some sort. The bible could be anything, but it is definitely not a myth. It just cannot be, and here is why.  

There are so many “remarkable” stories in the bible, and sadly we cannot in this text verify each one of them. However, the bible does not mince words in declaring that all these point to the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. This simplifies our task. We can take the most important event, which by the way, sounds unbelievable and shoot it down. But you see, Jesus Christ wasn’t a myth. There are so many reasons why we know that Jesus indeed lived, died and rose again, but I’d like to share the one that strikes me the most.  

Right at the conception of Christianity, it was heavily persecuted. Jesus Christ himself was arrested and put to death. The environment was very hostile to the movement that had just begun. And so even after Jesus left the scene, his apostles were arrested frequently and tried. Acts 26 narrates on such trial of the Apostle Paul. In verse 24, Festus exclaimed, “Paul, you are insane! Too much study has made you insane”. Paul’s reply is very revealing. Paul said, “I am not insane. What I am saying is the sober truth. And King Agrippa knows about these things”. What Paul is saying over here, is that the events he was talking about, (the death and resurrection of Jesus) at the time, were common knowledge. For Paul to say in a trial that “Even you know…” was a very bold move because there were so many people ready to shove his argument right back down his throat if the material evidence being presented was in error in the slightest.  

So this is one reason why it cannot be a myth: the presence of hostile eyewitnesses at the time. Just this afternoon, I was with my grandfather, and I asked him if he remembered the events of the 1966 coup. He replied, “Ah, wasn’t 1966 just yesterday?” That gave me a good laugh. We can’t say that the coup that overthrew Kwame Nkrumah was a myth because there so many people will tell us that they saw it firsthand. They were eyewitnesses to the events. In the same way, we know from history that there were eyewitnesses to the life of Jesus. Many of these eyewitnesses were trying to stop this movement from spreading, but they could not deny the empirical evidence that was presented. If it was a myth, the whole movement would have crumbled in a short time. 

So friends, there you have it. Jesus’ death and resurrection is true, and not a myth that helps us live morally upright lives. This is the foundation on which all of scripture rests, and it is sturdy. And the reason why we put out things like this, is so that we understand that our faith isn’t a blind one, devoid of reasoning. When Jesus said “I am the Truth”, he meant it. You know what else He said? He said, “And you shall know the truth, and the truth will set you free”.  As you continue on this journey of finding truth, I pray you arrive at this blessed conclusion. Please do feel free to reach out for clarification on any matter. Blessings!