Is the Bible Really Reliable? - 2 Peter 1:16-18

Can a 2,000-year-old book really stand up to modern scrutiny — or is the Bible just a collection of "cleverly devised myths"?

In this eighth sermon in our spring apologetics series What About?, Pastor Kent Keller takes on one of the hardest questions skeptics and Christians wrestle with: is the Bible actually reliable? Kent walks through the textual evidence — comparing New Testament manuscript count and copy-gap against ancient sources like Homer's Iliad and Caesar's Gallic Wars — then turns to the eyewitness testimony of Peter and John themselves.

Peter wrote that the apostles "did not follow cleverly devised myths" but were eyewitnesses of Jesus' majesty on the Mount of Transfiguration. John, writing against early Gnostic heresy, insisted he saw Jesus' physical body with his own eyes. And hundreds of resurrection eyewitnesses still living when the gospels circulated were never refuted — not by the religious leaders who hated Jesus, not by the Roman soldiers who crucified Him, not by anyone.

But Kent's sharpest challenge is to a culture where 68% of Americans read the Bible less than once a year: if you don't open it, it does you no good. Hebrews 4:12 calls God's Word "living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword" — but only if you read it.

📺 Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5AFSTsvUlgg

📖 Read the blog: https://christchurchmiami.org/blog/2026/06/04/is-the-bible-really-reliable