Who wrote the Bible, and is it the true word of God?

When I was child, one of the first questions I asked was, “Who wrote the bible?” Initially, in Sunday school, I was told it was Moses. Well ok, I thought. I guess that sounds about right. I mean, he was the one to speak to God directly, right? With the burning bush, ten commandments and such. It’s only natural that he would have been the one chosen to tell the world everything that happened from the origin of the universe and everything in it, to the history of mankind from the very start. So, I accepted him as the author of the official “Word of God.” Which satisfied me for a number of my youthful years…until I began to dig deeper.

I believe it would be a few years later when I would be listening to the preacher give a sermon about the miracles that Jesus performed when I heard him say, “We know these things to be true, because they were written by the apostles and eye witnesses. It’s thanks to them that we have the Gospel of Jesus Christ!” Now this wasn’t new information by any means, but for some reason, it rang out to me on this day.

I began to wonder about things I hadn’t wondered before. Up until then, my young mind had just assumed that the entire bible had been written by Moses. I had never bothered to think about it any further than that. However, now I had to compensate for the additional knowledge that someone else had participated in writing the King James Bible. The book that was considered the undisputed “Word of God.” Needless to say, this caused some gaps in my reasoning. Gaps that needed to be filled to make me more secure in my faith.

Now I had questions. It seems foolish to think about it now as an adult, because I should’ve known that Moses couldn’t have written everything found in the bible. That would have meant that God bestowed upon him full knowledge of both the past and the future. Besides, he couldn’t have possibly known what was going to happen beyond his own death. Especially given the fact that he died before the Israelites ever reached the promise land. Deuteronomy 34:1–8 (KJV)

With that being said, if he couldn’t have written of his own funeral, that also means that he didn’t himself finish the book of Deuteronomy correct? Furthermore, if we can concede to the notion that he did not finish the book of Deuteronomy, which concludes the first five books of the bible also known as the “Torah” by the Jewish community, then can we really be certain that he even started it?

This coupled with the fact that I would find out later that “MANY” folks had a hand in writing different parts of what would become the 66 books of the Holy Bible. It seems there was a host of different prophets, Kings, disciples, and others who were the true authors of scripture. Then even more frustrating was to learn there were books that I had never read or heard of known as the Apocryphal texts. These were books that were missing from the original King James version. So now, the true authenticity of the bible as a whole became a question for me.

How can I be certain about the information relayed in this book, if so much of it was written by other people? How could you prove their worthiness of doing so? Especially when the time periods of their lives were often centuries apart from each other. Is it feasible that they could have completed a book together? Let’s be honest, most of us couldn’t write a book together with the family members that exist in our lives right now, and that’s with the aid of modern technology like computers! So it had to be a miracle for them to accomplish such a thing in a time where donkeys and campfires were a part of their daily routines.

Furthermore, if Kings such as David and Solomon were writing scripture, how do we know it was not done for their own political gain or influence, rather than from divine inspiration from the lord? What gave King James the right to make his own version of the bible? Or the Pope and the Vatican to decide what books should be kept in it? It’s been said that the bible is the greatest selling book of all time…but who gets paid every time one sells??

Questions such as these began to fill my mind and shake the simple but solid understanding that I had enjoyed about my faith until then. You have to understand, up until this point using scripture from the bible was the justification for my entire belief system of right and wrong. It was the foundation of everything I believed in morally and religiously.

If there was such a thing as life after death, I consulted the bible for the answer. If I wanted to know the origin of humanity, I consulted the bible. If I wanted to know whether magic was possible, ghost existed, or what a miracle was, I formulated all those opinions and beliefs from what was written in the bible. If it wasn’t condoned in the scriptures, then it was wrong, and you shouldn’t be doing it. 

Now that’s not to say that I always followed the bible perfectly in my life. I was a young man and did things wrong just as much as anyone else. However, I always had a good moral understanding of what was righteous and what was wicked. So, I was always aware of when I was committing a sin. Otherwise, how could you pray and ask for forgiveness without such knowledge? I based all of this on the infallible, undisputed, and omnipotent “Word of God” written in the scriptures of the Holy Bible.

In my eyes, it's what made the church a place worth attending. It wasn’t the big fancy building, but the fact that you were amongst others who believed in the code of the bible the same as you did. It’s what made the preacher an honorable man. It wasn’t the priestly robes or his personal life, but the fact that he’d mastered the bible and used that mastery to lead the rest of us. It’s what made the songs worth singing, and the tithes worth paying, because you couldn’t get that experience anywhere else.

As far as I was concerned, that bible represented the closest thing to the physical presence of God that we were going to get…his actual word! It was his actual instructions and real-world examples given directly to humanity instructing us how life should be lived. It gave a sense of order, community, and purpose to a world that would otherwise be in chaos and disarray. 

So, to even CONSIDER that something about it might be left out, missing, changed, or just flat out wrong was something I was simply unable to accept. However, there is one fact that I could not deny. Not a single word in the entire book was written by God or Jesus directly. So what am I to make of that?

Now that I have taken you through my experience, I ask this…how do “you” feel about the Bible? Do you believe it to be what it claims to be? How do you handle the issues that I listed above? Comment and let me know, I’d love to hear any opinions, knowledge, wisdom, or experiences that could enlighten me. Here’s a video about it that some might enjoy, as well as a historical documentary for watching. Keep in mind, this is a journey that we should all be able to grow from.

- J.G. Robinson