How do we know there’s anything supernatural about the Bible?

“Edom will become an object of horror; all who pass by will be appalled and will scoff because of all its wounds. As Sodom and Gomorrah were overthrown, along with their neighboring towns,” says the Lord, “so no one will live there; no people will dwell in it” (Jer 49:17-18).

It’s good to know that the biblical text is reliable, but wouldn’t it be nice to have some kind of sign that the Bible is more than just the words of men? We have that in the fulfilled prophecies of the Bible.

If you don’t believe in God, it’s hard to explain prophecies. Skeptics usually assume that any prophecy in the Bible that “came true” was either so vague as to be meaningless (like a carnival fortune teller) or must have been written after the fact, but that ploy doesn’t work with every prophecy. There are too many of them that are too specific and which could not have been written later.

One of these is the above prophecy against Edom, one of many about them. God promised these long-time enemies (and relatives) of the Jews during the time of the Babylonian captivity that their land would lie desolate. Even if this prophecy were “really written” a couple of hundred years later, that wouldn’t help the skeptic’s case as the prophecy wasn’t fulfilled until 400 years later, after the time of Christ.

After the fall of Jerusalem in AD 70, “the children of Esau disappear as a separate people from the stage of recorded history.” (1) Edom became a wasteland. In modern times, “the Arabs, in general, avoid the ruins of the cities of [Edom] on account of the enormous scorpions with which they swarm.” (2)

This is far from the only fulfilled prophecy in scripture. Promises against Tyre, Sidon, and, of course, Jerusalem, among others, were fulfilled. Cyrus the Great was named by name before he was even born (Is 44:28, 45:1). The rise and fall of Babylon, Persia, Greece, and Rome were predicted (Dan 2).

And, though I don’t want to go into detail now, the birth, life, ministry, death, and resurrection of Christ were predicted in stunning detail hundreds of years before he was born.

The cumulative effect of all of this?

“Picture a pond with a sandy bottom and flat rocks on the shore but no rocks in the water. Now picture a boy who discovers the lake and skips a few rocks. A century later another boy also skips some rocks across the pond. Another century goes by and another boy skips more rocks on the pond. Imagine then climbing a tall tree by the pond and discovering that there was an excellent portrait done in mosaic on the bottom of the pond made from the skipping stones. This is what prophecy is like.” (3)

The Bible is made up of reliable historical documents written by eyewitnesses. We now can say that what those witnesses saw had been predicted beforehand. No mere mortal could predict what the prophets predicted. The fulfilled prophecies of the Bible prove there is supernatural power behind the scriptures. If God was behind the prophecies about Tyre and Cyrus, there is no reason to doubt he was behind the Bible’s moral teachings, the gospel of grace, and the hope extended by Christ Jesus to all who trust in him.


(1) David Higgins, quoted in A Ready Defense by Josh McDowell
(2) George Smith, quoted by McDowell
(3) Doug Powell, Holman QuickSource Guide to Christian Apologetics

Image credits:
Petra tombs, Saturn83, creative commons
Christ Pantocrator mosaic from Hagia Sophia, Jim Forest, creative commons