Expert: Phillip Senn - 6/27/2008

Question
I know that the Bible is completely true and trustworthy. My sister, however, pointed me to a website which claims that the events from the Bible (raising of Jesus, the flood, etc.) were actually stories in other books and cultures, written thousands of years before Jesus existed.

They claim that these stories were then copied (with slight changes) by the writers of the Bible.

I do not believe this, of course. I know that the Bible is God's Word and God is the Author. I do believe that God may be testing us as He allowed such earlier writings to come into existence in the first place.

Can you tell me if you've ever heard of such a thing, that the events in the Bible were already pre-written in other stories? And also, what is the answer to this? Are those earlier stories not real? If they are real, is God just testing us?

Answer
There have always been skeptics of God's Word. Some make claims that they cannot possibly prove as true. Still others make claims that, while being true, do not take away from the validity of Scripture. There is no other book on Earth that has as much evidence of its authenticity than the Bible. From archaeological to historical evidence, as more is discovered, more is proved to be true.

Just because a story is used in another source, it doesn't necessarily make the Bible less of God's Word. For instance, Jesus told of Lazarus, who died and was raised from the dead. There are some who would point to documents that were written before the Scriptures, recording the same story. Does that mean that the story of Lazarus being raised from the dead by Jesus is false? Of course not. Now if someone claimed that the story was plagiarized, I would need to see their evidence, so I could examine both documents. Simply because something is documented in more than one source doesn't make the story any less true.

I researched a bit further, and found this information... Scholars surmise that a series of Sumerian legends and poems about the mythological hero-king Gilgamesh, who might have been a real ruler in the late Early Dynastic II period (ca. 27th century BCE). Notice that this was written after the period of 27 BCE. The Scriptures were written many hundreds of years before that.

I am grateful that you have taken the stand that the Bible is God's Word, no matter what the skeptics say. "...It is not possible that God should lie..."

With Love In Christ,
Phillip Senn