What shows that the Bible is inspired? (Proofs of biblical inspiration)

How can we know that the Bible was not just made up and that it was inspired by God? We shall discuss this topic under four headings:
1. internal consistency
2. fulfilled prophecy
3. archaeological evidence
4. historical accuracy and corroboration

Internal consistency (unity and continuity)

The Bible contains sixty-six (66) books written by about forty (40) different authors. In spite of this fact, it maintains an internal consistency that is remarkable for such a voluminous body of work.

The authors were from from wildly different backgrounds and they wrote under different circumstances in different cultures and eras:
1. Moses was a prince who became a shepherd and then a prophet;
2. David was a shepherd who became a warrior and then a king;
3. Matthew was a tax collector who became a disciple;
4. Luke was a doctor and a historian;
5. Paul and James were lawyers and Paul was a Pharisee as well;
6. Peter and John were fishermen who became disciples.

Further, the length of time between the writing of the first book and the last book is more than a thousand years. Hence, supposing the authors were just making things up, it would be virtually impossible to co-ordinate their writings into a consistent whole, devoid of contradictions.

Fulfilled prophecy

The Bible abounds with predictions, some of which have already been fulfilled, others of which are yet to be fulfilled. The distance between the predictions that were made and their fulfillment precludes the influence of the predictors in influencing the fulfillment of their predictions. We will look at three examples of such remarkable fulfillment of prophecy:

1. Prophecies concerning the Messiah (Psalm 22, etc)
2. Daniel's prophecy
3.

Archaeological evidence

Archaeologists who have studied the geographical locations in which the Bible accounts were recorded have verified the recorded accounts on many fronts. One such archaeologist concluded that...

Historical accuracy and corroboration

The Bible's corroboration of historical events also speaks to its authenticity. There are many peoples in the books of the Bible whose history, recorded by secular historians, aligns with the accounts given in the Bible. For example, the history of the Israelites from the time of Moses, through the period of the judges and the prophets, coincides with the historical account implied by the Bible. The geographical locations mention and the relationships between them in terms of time and distance also corresponds with the actual locations as they were defined then.