Credibility of the Bible

I wrote the following to a dear friend earlier through text message on my cell phone and pray it will be a beneficial read to those who like the Emma Joy Blog!

“You know when you buy something and it comes with instructions how to put it together?  Supposing for some reason they had left out the English.  If the instructions were in Spanish or Japanese, you wouldn’t just look at that and walk away with your own interpretation of it.  You would have to learn the language or find someone who understands it and is willing to teach you.  With this in mind, the Bible was written in Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic.  Similarly, just like with English words, there are certain phrases, pretenses, and words that mean something in English that may mean something entirely different in another language; let alone in different time eras and cultures.  You wouldn’t just go to a random person who said they were a doctor and let them do surgery on you.  You would want to go to a doctor who has been to school and has studied this field of work.  Just like with knowing what Bible Scriptures mean, we would go to someone who has studied the original languages, culture & time era the Bible was written…not a random person or take the book at face value & assume we know what it means because a certain passage, in our opinion, seems self-explanatory.  Surely…if God wrote a book, the God who created all there is and gave us all a conscience to realize right and wrong (and guilt as another warning to the error of our ways), we may rightly say that God is capable not only of preserving His word through the years (Do you know how many people have tried to stop the Bible from being published and have even tried to destroy it?), yet He would also be capable of writing truths that our minds understandably so cannot and SHOULD NOT just take at face value.  Wouldn’t it be silly for a five year old kid to read Albert Einstein’s theories and walk away with their own interpretation of it, thinking they know what it means at face value?  Truly, how much more should we eagerly seek to study right on resources that expound God’s word and really “do our homework” with making sure the resources we study are accurate and not simply the thoughts & ideas of random people taking the Bible at face value?  If false religions take their “holy books” seriously without actual historical and archeological evidence…how much more should people take the Bible seriously when there really is so much proof that the Bible is accurate and historically plausible?  For false religions to say, "God made known to me..." is lacking credibility simply because how would someone know for sure that it was God?  To just take someone's word for it is stupid, yet the Bible is an actual history book which contains prophecy that has been fulfilled and archeological evidence for its credibility.  God, in the Bible, has told us certain things that will take place years and years before they do, yet none of the other "religious books" tell history in advance where it actually comes about.”