Is it possible that the Bible was written hundreds of years ago by someone with a huge imagination that didn’t know it would attract this many people?

Wow! That is an awesome question! So, let’s look at this scientifically because the sciences can help either support or contradict theories.

The science of archaeology supports the age of the Bible. Between 1947 and 1956, the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered by archaeologists in eleven caves along the northwest shore of the Dead Sea. The Dead Sea Scrolls are the remains of about 900 separate scrolls and are dated to have been written between 70 A.D. and 150 A.D. (This tells me that the earliest scroll was written 1,940 years ago!). What’s also amazing about the Dead Sea Scrolls is that they are the oldest known copies of the Old Testament! In fact, in many cases the Dead Sea Scrolls are almost word-for-word matches to our modern day Bible!

Next, there have been a lot of archaeological finds in the recent years that support many of the places and locations mentioned in the Bible. These places and items help prove that much of what the ancient manuscripts describe is historically accurate.
Also, there are non-biblical texts that support the age of the Bible. There are letters written by the historian Josephus (who lived around 60 A.D.) and Pliny the Younger that support the story of Jesus. Both these men lived back near the time when Jesus was crucified or shortly thereafter.

Finally, how do we explain our calendar? Why do Christians around the world use the year “2010” to describe what year it is? It is because it is based upon the time after Jesus’ death on the cross. Why would we use the death of a simple Jewish carpenter to mark the passage of time? It’s because Jesus is God and existed almost 2,011 years ago and now we have the New Testament to describe His story and the birth of the church.

Isn’t it amazing that the Bible is the one book that has been translated into more languages than any other book and has been published, reprinted and distributed more than any other book EVER?

Does all this sound like it could be done by only one person with a huge imagination? I don’t think so. Do you?