Bible Truth or Myth

QUESTION: Is the Bible truth or myth?

ANSWER:

Is the Bible truth or myth? A truth-seeker asks this question about most everything in life, for their desire is for truth in all things. So, is the Bible truth, or is it a myth?

The question puts me in mind of a conversation with my daughter last week. With great enthusiasm and lingering awe, she described an acrobatic presentation she had just returned from attending. As she tried to put into words what she experienced, what her eyes had seen these Beijing acrobats do, my mind kept crying, "No way! Not possible!"

Outside my human experience, my mind was having a difficult time laying hold of the 'truth' being related to me by my daughter's voice. But I knew my daughter, and I knew she would not lie to me. Later, she sent pictures which verified the truth of her words, allowing me to enter her experience in part. What my mind had wanted to label myth now became a shared truth regardless of how unbelievable it seemed when I first heard.

When I think about the world we live in today, I realize how impossible it would be for my great-great-great-grandparents to comprehend it. Were I able to go back and share my life with them, they would think me the world's wildest storyteller with an imagination out of control. Their love for me might prevent them from labeling me a liar, but I imagine they would seriously question my stability.

My great-grandmother came to California in a covered wagon. Because she lived to be 105, she experienced a birth of technology that allowed her to watch a man walk on the moon. But her grandparents, were I to be able to visit them through time, would have nothing within their experience that would enable them to capture my words as truth. They would label it myth or fabrication, unless the strength and reliability of our relationship had taught them they could believe me, even when they couldn't understand me.

Because something is outside our field of experience, outside the catalogue of our knowledge, does not change it from truth to myth. Where my own family five or six generations back would find flight, space travel, vaccines, computers, and e-mail easy to label mythical, it wouldn't change the reality of the truth.

The same holds true for the Bible. Much of what we find within its pages may be difficult for us to grasp, remaining outside our personal experience or knowledge, but that difficulty doesn't negate the truth of them.

The Bible undergoes a great deal of scrutiny these days. Yet more and more, as it is placed under the scope of newer and ever-advancing technology, its veracity is finding confirmation. Be it archeological evidence or areas of science, the authentication of the Bible continues to grow.

Its message is a living message because its author is the living God. A God whose love seeks you out, even as you read these words. Bible Truth or Myth? He is not afraid of the question, for it shows a searching heart, and He holds the answers out to you, with a promise. "You will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart" (Jeremiah 29:13).