Genesis Apologetics K8 Student Zone Can We Trust the Bible (3-5 Grade)

Well, hello and welcome to The Zone. I'm your host, Big Wave Dave. So the last time we met, we talked about what is the Bible. Today we're going to talk about can we trust the Bible? But first, if you're watching this video on our YouTube channel, you might want to check out our website.

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That would be so much fun. All right, let's get to the matter at hand. Can we trust the Bible? So sometimes as Christians, we have doubts about our faith. Is the Bible really true? And these nagging little thoughts, sometimes they can be kind of annoying, kind of like these doubt monsters here.

Manuscripts and the Preservation of the Bible

So today we're going to give you a tool to help make these guys go away. Are you ready? Let's go. So, oh, speaking of doubt monsters, there's one now. What does he have to say? The Bible was written thousands of years ago.

It's been translated over and over again. It must be filled with mistakes by now. It cannot be trusted. Okay, it's time for our tool, MAP. Now the M stands for Manuscripts. That's a really big word. What does it mean?

It simply means book. And to help you remember, I'm going to teach you a hand sign. Are you ready? Manuscripts. Manuscripts. Let's get started. So back then when the Bible was written, they didn't have things like computers.

So they would write scriptures on things like paper and animal skins. Well, over time, those things would fall apart. So a special group of people called scribes were in charge of copying the old manuscripts to make sure that we preserved God's Word.

Now they had a bunch of rules. They had to use special ink and special types of paper, and they would copy letter by letter. They wanted to be really, really careful. And when they were done, they had a system to check to make sure that they had done it right.

Here's a few things that they would do. First, they would count all the letters in each row to make sure that it matched the original. They would count all the letters in each column, and then they would check all the different letters and count them to make sure that they were being true to the original copy.

Finally, after all of that, they would look to the very center of the scroll and find the letter and make sure that it was the same letter that was on the original. Now here's the thing. If they made even one mistake, they had to start all over again.

Wow! And you thought your teacher was tough. So that was the process. But did it work? Let me tell you the story about the Dead Sea Scrolls. So in 1947, a group of shepherd boys were looking for a lost sheep when they found these caves.

Now sometimes caves can have scary animals inside, so one of the boys picked up a rock and he threw it into the cave to see what was in there. Well, instead of a roar, he heard a crash, something breaking.

When they went in and checked it out, they found a bunch of jars like this one here. Now what is so cool is in these jars, they found fragments of scrolls and scriptures like right here that had almost all of the Old Testament books.

And they also found a scroll that had the complete book of Isaiah on it. Now what's really cool is when the experts took a look at what's in our Bibles today and they compared it to these ancient scrolls, here's what they found.

It was 95 the same. Do you know what that means? That means that God has done a great job of making sure that His Holy Word has been preserved. We can trust the Bible. So Mr. Doubt Monster, the manuscript evidence proves that what we have today is the same as was written long ago.

So see you later, buddy. We can trust the Bible. Oh wow, another doubt monster. Of course the Bible is not accurate. It's riddled with myths, mistakes, and contradictions. It has nothing to do with historical fact.

Archaeology and the Bible’s Historical Accuracy

Man, what a grump, right? Okay, it's time to look at the second part of our map. The A stands for archaeology. Now what is archaeology? It is actually the science of where you go and you dig up ancient cities and ancient ruins to learn about things from the past.

And to help you remember, we've got a shovel on there. So archaeology. So let's review. We've got manuscripts and we have archaeology. Let's look at some of the doubts and objections that people had in the past.

So the book of Genesis mentions a group of people called the Hittites. And for years critics said there were no such thing. There's no proof of the Hittites. They never existed. That's what they used to say until they found this.

They actually found the capital of the Hittite nation in 1906. It is located in the country of Turkey today. Critics used to say that the King Sargon that is mentioned in the book of Isaiah never existed.

And they would say, you can't trust the Bible. That's what they used to say until they found his palace. Pretty cool, huh? Well what about the New Testament? That's a great question. Let's check this out.

So in the Gospels after Jesus was arrested in Matthew it talks about how he was taken to the palace of the high priest named Caiaphas. And for years people said, no such guy. Didn't exist. See the Bible's wrong.

That's what they used to say until they found this. So in 1991 they found a bone box with bones in it. And on the side of the box was the name, you guessed it, Caiaphas. Now if you read in the book of Luke after Jesus was arrested he was questioned by the Roman governor named Pontius Pilate.

And once again people said, no records of this guy. Doesn't exist. The Bible's wrong. That's what they used to say until they found this. Now this is a marker alongside of a road. It was a dedication.

It was dedicating the road to the emperor. And do you know whose name was on this thing? You guessed it, Pontius Pilate. You see over and over again archaeology proves that the Bible is accurate. Well let me finish with one final story here.

There was a famous archaeologist named Sir William Ramsey and he didn't believe in the Bible. And what he wanted to do is disprove the Bible. Prove that it was wrong. So he picked the book of Luke and the book of Acts because they have so much detail.

He figured, you know what, it'd be easy to prove that this stuff is wrong. So after years of studying and going all over the place, here's what he found out. Luke was dead on accurate. The Bible can be trusted.

In fact, there has never been an archaeological discovery that has proven the Bible wrong. So Mr. Doubt Monster, you are out of the game. Trust the Bible, my friends. What, oh, looks like we have one last one.

Prophecy and Fulfilled Predictions About Jesus

The Bible is filled with fairy tales. Why should we believe it? Well, after all, we have lots of miracles in the Bible, so those can't be true, right? It's time to look at the final part of our map. The P stands for prophecies.

So what is a prophecy? Prophecies are predictions about the future. And the Bible contains hundreds of them, but a lot of them are about Jesus Christ. And here's the cool thing. Many of these prophecies have already been fulfilled.

Let's look at a few examples. The prophet Micah predicted that Jesus Christ would be born in a town called Bethlehem. And guess what? He was. Now what's so cool is that this prediction was made over 400 years before Jesus was born.

In the book of Jeremiah, it says that Jesus would come from the line of King David. And guess what? He did. You can check that in the first part of Luke and look at what they call the genealogies, which talks about that.

Isaiah said that Jesus would heal people and do lots of miracles, that he would help people that couldn't, that were blind or deaf. And guess what? That's exactly what he did. This one's kind of an interesting one.

Zechariah said that Jesus would ride into Jerusalem riding a donkey. And guess what? That's what happened. One final one here. The Bible said that Jesus would be buried in a rich man's tomb. And that's what happened.

But he didn't stay there. Just like the Bible predicted, Jesus rose again after three days. Wow. Okay. So let's talk about odds, mathematical odds here. What is the probability of just eight prophecies coming true in just one person?

Well, here's the answer. One chance and 10 to the 28th power. That is a huge number. Now I don't know about you, but I have a hard time comprehending numbers that are that big. So let's look at a fun example.

Okay. Just so we understand what these odds really look like. This is a map of the United States. Now, if we were to go to Texas and we were to cover the entire state of Texas with silver dollars, two feet deep.

And then let's say that we took one of those silver dollars and we put an X on it and then we threw it into a pile. Next, we would get into a helicopter and fly around for about three hours and not really keep track of where we're going.

The helicopter would land. We would get out of the helicopter and pick the first coin that we saw. And that would be the one with the X on it. Well, that's impossible, right? It is. But you see, since God sees the beginning from all the way to the end, he sees everything at once.

Prophecy is no problem for him. Now, what he would do is he would tell the prophets to write down what was going to happen in the future so that we would know that the Bible is the Word of God. So, Mr. Doubt Monster, fulfilled prophecies prove that the Bible is truly the Word of God.

See ya. Okay. One last time, let's talk about our tool. Whenever you have doubts about whether the Bible is true, remember MAP. Manuscripts. We know from the manuscripts that what we have today is what was written thousands of years ago.

Archaeology. There has never been an archaeological discovery that has proven the Bible to be wrong. And finally, prophecies. Fulfilled prophecies are how we know that the Bible is truly the Word of God.

Well, that's all the time we have together. I'm Big Wave Dave. I hope to see you here soon. God bless you.