Why is the Bible worth reading?

The Bible contains unlikely accurate predictions

We can only predict the future based on what has happened in the past.

The Bible, on the other hand, predicted that the Jews would be generally unpopular and have a history unlike any other nation.

These predictions are:

• clear and direct
• known to have been written before the event
• written by people who had no influence to make them come true
• fulfilled by people who were not aware they were doing so

These highly unlikely predictions have proved 100% accurate!

The Bible contains a law ahead of its time

The Bible contains a system of law given to the early Israelites that was thousands of years ahead of its time!

Compared with the practices of other nations, the Bible's advice on community health was remarkable. It wasn't until the nineteenth century that most European countries discovered and adopted ideas found in this 3000 year old law. If we had taken the Bible's advice earlier on sewage disposal and hygiene, many lives would have been saved.

There are parts of this civil law which are even ahead of our time. The Bible law forbad rich Jews from charging interest on loans to their poor Jewish neighbours - preventing the rich becoming richer and the poor becoming poorer.

The Bible is supported by archaeology

About 200 years ago, many of the places and people found in the Bible were not known to be mentioned anywhere else. Critics said that the Bible was myth and legend. But in the last 200 years, names from the Bible have leapt to life with the discovery of palace walls, stones, coins and cylinders, like the one in the picture, mentioning Biblical names and records of Biblical events.

The Bible has a consistent message

The Bible is made up of 66 individual books written down by a variety of people. There is no other book in the world written down by so many different authors spread over a period of 1,500 years that has such a consistent message.