Can I Trust the Bible? Isn't it full of Myths and Fairy Tales?

In talking with students at UWS and elsewhere, one of the common responses when talking about Christianity is that you can't trust the Bible as your source or authority to live by because it is full of myths and other made-up stories. Like the fairy tales of the Grimm Brothers, people say, you may be able to draw some moral from the tale, but can you really trust it?

The first thing to consider is the attitude of the Bible itself toward 'myth'. A number of passages in the Bible speak strongly against the propagation of myths. These include 1 Timothy 1:4; 1 Timothy 4:7; 2 Timothy 4:4 and Titus 1:14:

rebuke them sharply, so that they will be sound in the faith and will pay no attention to Jewish myths or to the commands of those who reject the truth.

In these passages the apostle warns his hearers of the danger of 'myths'. In contrast he urges Christian leaders to teach the truth. Nowhere in the Bible are myths spoken of positively! If myths are so strongly condemned within the Bible and the truth is held up as the standard, then it is hard to argue that the Bible is full of myths.

So if the stories of the Bible are not myths, then what are they?

To answer this question we must look more at what the Bible is, rather than what the opponents of Biblical Christianity claim it is.

Perhaps the most important issue is what the writers of the Gospels (the four accounts of Jesus' Life found at the beginning of the new Testament) thought they were writing.