This one minute short video comes from the full length video called "Former Catholics For Christ Q & A with Mike Gendron, Rob Zins, Cecil Andrews & Tim Kauffman" at    • Former Catholics For Christ Q & A wit...   . See also our playlist "Dealing With Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, Idolatry & the Virgin Mary" at    • Dealing With Roman Catholicism, Easte...   with 300 videos we have produced. Is the Bible reliable?
One of the most important questions asked by non-Christians as they look into Christianity is whether or not the Bible is trustworthy. Can the Bible be trusted? If it has been corrupted, then we cannot trust what is attributed to Jesus’ words and deeds. So, is the Bible reliable or not?

Yes, the Bible is reliable. The original writings of the Bible have been lost. But before they were lost, they were copied. These copies were incredibly accurate, very meticulous, and very precise. The people who copied them were extremely dedicated to God and their copying tasks. They took great care when copying the original manuscripts. This copying method is so exact, and so precise, that the New Testament alone is considered to be 99.5% textually pure. This means that of the 6000 Greek copies (the New Testament was written in Greek), and the additional 21,000 copies in other languages, there is only one-half of 1% variation. Of this very slight number, the great majority of the variants are easily corrected by comparing them to other copies that don’t have the “typos” or by simply reading the context. You should know that copying mistakes occur in such ways as word repetition, spelling, or a single word omission due to the copyist missing something when moving his eyes from one line to another. The variants are very minor. Nothing affects doctrinal truth and the words and deeds of Christ are superbly reliably transmitted to us.

The science of studying ancient literature and its accuracy of transmission is called historicity. The Bible is so exceedingly accurate in its transmission from the originals to the present copies, that if you compare it to any other ancient writing, the Bible is light years ahead in terms of the number of manuscripts and accuracy. If the Bible were to be discredited as being unreliable, then it would be necessary to discard the writings of Homer, Plato, and Aristotle as also unreliable since they are far far less well preserved than the Bible.

The Bible was written by those who were inspired by God, so it is accurate and true and represents historical occurrences. When we look at the New Testament, we realize that it was written by those who either knew Jesus personally or were under the direction of those who did. They wrote what they saw. They wrote about the resurrection of Christ. They recorded His miracles and His sayings. It comes down to whether or not you believe what it says about Christ. Do you?

Did Mary crush Satan's head? The second messianic prophecy in Genesis 3:15 is that “you will strike his heel.” That is, the serpent will bite the heel of “the woman’s seed.” The heel-bite is set in contrast to the head-crush, as the Amplified Bible brings out: “And you shall [only] bruise His heel.”

This passage points to the promise of Jesus’ birth, His redemption, and His victory over Satan. The woman’s offspring is Jesus. Being virgin-born, He is literally the offspring of a woman (Matthew 1:25; Galatians 4:4; cf. Isaiah 7:14). Being the Son of Man, He is the perfect representative of humankind. The devil’s offspring were the evil men and demonic forces who, like a snake, lay in wait for the Savior and struck at Him. Their venomous conspiracy condemned Jesus to be crucified.

But the serpent’s strike did not spell the end of the Offspring of the woman. Jesus rose the third day, breaking the power of death and winning the ultimate victory. With the cross, Jesus “crushed” the devil’s head, defeating him forever. So, in Genesis 3:15, the crushing of the serpent’s head was a picture of Jesus’ triumph over sin and Satan at the cross (cf. John 12:31). The striking of the Messiah’s heel was a picture of the wounding and death of Jesus on the cross. Satan bruised Jesus’ “heel,” but Jesus showed complete dominance over Satan by bruising his “head.” Mary has nothing to do with this at all, it is Jesus Who does all the crushing of Satan's head.

Satan, although still active in this world, is a defeated foe. His doom is sure: “And the devil . . . was thrown into the lake of burning sulfur” (Revelation 20:10). Until that time, there remains enmity between Satan and God’s children.

See also former Roman Catholic priest for 22 years Richard Bennett's article entitled "The Biblical Mary Vs. Rome’s Counterfeit Mary" at bereanbeacon.org/the-biblical-mary-vs-romes-counte… .

Beware of false gospels in Galatians 1:6-9. Those who believe in them are damned by God (Roman Catholicism is one of them). See    • The Bible Warns of False Gospels That...   .