The Problem: If the Bible is God’s word it should not only be spiritually true but also factually true.

The Bible records the history of God’s interaction with mankind. We therefore should be able to verify events that occurred. The question we should ask is, “Are the historical claims validated in facts outside the bible?



Some tend to view the Christian faith as a form of circular reasoning. The perception of the skeptical world can be summed up in the following way.


Christianity is based on the Bible. The Bible is a book of faith. If you believe the Bible based on faith then Christianity is real to you.

Sciences on the other hand is described as “Objective” and “Real” dealing with facts.

Archeology:

Comes from the Greek words;

Archaio + logos

“The orderly arrangement of ancient things”

By comparing the places and events in the Bible to actual physical evidence we can demonstrate the truthfulness of the Bible in historical matters. By showing the Bible is correct on historical events does not prove the Bible is correct on spiritual matters. But it does dismiss critics claims about the Bible not being “True”. And brings us to the following conclusion. “if the Bible is true on these historical events then its claims of “Revelation” about events in the future can also be trusted”


Cyrus the Great was both a biblical and historical person. The Bible tells us after the defeat of Babylon by the combined Median-Persian Empire. The Persian empire had a different philosophy then the Babylonian on its Jewish captives.

Cyrus made a proclamation permitting the people of Judah to return home and to rebuild the Temple. 2 Chron 36:22-23, Ezra 1:1-4). This is event in the bible can be validated with Persian documents, and history. The “ Cylinder of Cyrus” gives us the declaration from Cyrus himself. We can actually go to his tomb to validate his history. This same claim cannot be made for many books.


The Koran for example writes about Jesus 600 years after the events with conflicting claims about historical events. The “Book of Mormon” also claims to be a book with a historical basis. To this day no claims from the “Book of Mormon” have been archeologically verified. So if a book cannot be proved “True” on a historical basis the logical question would be, why would it be true on a spiritual basis?
In this way the logical test of Truth can be validated “If what a prophet proclaims in the name of the Lord does not take place or come true, that is a message the LORD has not spoken” Deut 18:21
So by comparing the evidence and facts with the claims we can build the case for the validity of the Bible to a skeptical world.