A new friend relayed a story to me, and I’m very troubled by his response. See, my new friend is a youth minister with the daunting task of living as somewhat of an authority figure on the Bible and the things therein.

The story:

One of the kids from my youth group went off to college to major in some science. He called me one day saying that his geology professor convinced him that the Bible was wrong. His geology professor told him that there was no evidence for a worldwide flood, so that Bible could not be correct. The young college kid was really distressed. So, I told him not to worry. The writer of this passage was probably a shepherd in a pre-literate civilization and he just got that story wrong.

I listened to his story with utter disbelief. What is this young college student now to think about the authority of scripture? When someone next challenges the youth about the prophecies of Daniel, what can he learn from this exchange? Well, Daniel was a slave in a pagan culture, so he surely would have embraced mysticism. His mystical writings about dreams can be ignored. What about the resurrection of Jesus? Since the accounts of the death and resurrection of Jesus was written by a crooked sellout accountant, a quitter evangelist, a historian, and a man who saw visions of dragons, can they be trusted? Should we expect them to understand the scientific impossibilities associated with someone coming back to life after being beaten, scourged, crucified, and impaled? That is…if they can be believed in their account at all.

It’s a slippery slope to doubt the source of the Bible. Is the Bible the inspired and inerrant Word of God or it is a collection of pre-literate shepherd’s ramblings? The answer has profound implications for your faith. Our understanding of the veracity of scripture will be a foundation upon which to build our faith. Will that foundation be built with mythological sand or trustworthy granite?

Since God is pre-supposed as the ultimate authority, then the absolute truth of his written revelation to us in the form of the Bible is a necessary precondition for intelligibility.