Bible

Baby names and the Bible's reliability

Each summer, the most popular baby names for the previous year are revealed. In Scotland, Freya replaced Olivia as the top name for girls, with Noah holding on to the number 1 slot for boys. In England, Olivia was the most popular name for girls for the tenth year in a row, with Muhammad the most popular boys' name for the third successive year.

As Clare Green, an expert who writes for baby-naming website Nameberry, explained to the BBC, "Names can build momentum - the more people give their child a name, the more other parents hear it and like the sound of it, so it snowballs."

You'll know this if you have a child at school. There might be 25 people in their class, but there won't be 25 different names. Or I think of the people I've played football with on Friday nights over the years — even if it's only 5-a-side there can be multiple Iains, Alans, Davids, etc. My friend Josiah played for the first time last week and it was clearly a name people weren't using to shouting in the middle of a match!

And in fact, one of the quiet indications that the Bible is accurately reporting real events is its use of names.

For a start, the Bible has lots of people with the same names! Works of fiction generally don't. But in the New Testament there are 8 Simons, 6 or 7 Marys, 6 Josephs, 6 Judases, etc. Having some baby names be more popular than others is nothing new — and this is reflected in the New Testament documents.

But more than that, the most popular names in the New Testament were also the most popular names in Palestine at the time. The top 7 most popular Jewish names in Palestine at the time were Simon, Joseph, Lazarus, Judas, John, Jesus, and Ananias. These also just happen to all be some of the most popular names in the New Testament. Why does that matter? Because if someone living elsewhere had been making up the contents of the gospels, they wouldn't have been able to come up with authentic character names. Even in Jewish communities elsewhere, like in Egypt, the most popular names were very different. Lazarus and Joseph were popular names in both places — but the 2nd most popular name in Egpyt, Sabbataius, was only number 68 in Palestine. Pappus and Ptolemaius were #4 and #6 among Jews in Egypt, but only #39 and #50 in Palestine. In other words, a Jew writing in Egypt couldn't have come up with either the right names, or the right distribution of those names. Even someone making up the gospels in Palestine would be unlikely to make the most popular names in society the most popular names in their book. If the book was long enough, they might contain two characters with the same names, but unlikely 6 or 7!

Furthermore, when the gospels use the most popular names, a qualifier or nickname is often used. When Matthew lists the 12 disciples, the most popular names come with nicknames/clarifications: Simon called Peter, James the son of Zebedee, John his brother, Matthew the tax collector, James the son of Alphaeus, Simon the zealot, and Judas Iscariot who also betrayed him. Those names are all in the top 11. But the other names of the disciples are much less popular, and so don't need nicknames: Thaddeus (#39), Bartholomew (#50), Philip (#61), along with Thomas (outside the top 100). So even if someone living in Palestine was making up the gospels, and even if they got the right proportion of most popular names, they would still have to remember to reflect that in ordinary conversation. At some point it's just easier to believe that the gospels were written at the time and in the place they claim to be written.

Now someone might say: "Ok fine, the names of the people are accurate, but the miracles and so on are made up". The accusation is often made that the events recorded in the gospels have become garbled over the years, like in the game that the Americans call the Telephone Game, known over here as Chinese Whispers.

There are many problems with that analogy; for a start, the whole game is set up to try and confuse the message. But it also just doesn't fit the evidence. In one sense, the truth of the gospels doesn't depend on the names being accurate. They're incidental. But if even the names of the people involved have been accurately passed down over these past 2,000 years — does it not give us confidence that the most important events have also been passed on accurately too?

Published in the Stranraer & Wigtownshire Free Press, 6th August 2026

World Book Day - Bible Distribution

Earlier this month we gave out free Bibles and gospels of Mark for World Book Day. We were grateful for good weather, good conversations, and one man at church the following Lord’s Day as a result.

2026 marks 500 years since the publication of William Tyndale’s English translation of the Bible into English. Tyndale’s Bibles were printed on the continent and smuggled into Scotland – owning one would have got your arrested. Those who missed the distribution can get a free copy of the Bible by contacting us via this website.

2025: The Year Something Changed?

Update: On 9th January, a report came a report came out highlighting how Bible sales have also surged in the UK, with sales up 106% in volume from 2019, including a 28% increase between 2025 and 2025.

2025 has been an interesting year.

In January, the world’s most popular podcast – the Joe Rogan Experience – featured an interview with Christian apologist Wes Huff. In February, Larry Sanger, the co-founder of Wikipedia, announced that he had become a Christian.

In September, the world’s second-most popular podcast, Diary of a CEO, had an episode entitled: ‘Is Not Believing In God Causing More Harm Than Good?!’

As I mentioned in a previous column, the host, Steven Bartlett gives the example of a 35-year-old friend in Dubai. Six months ago, he told his friends that he couldn't get out of bed anymore. Fast forward to today and he’s become a Christian, got baptised and ‘suddenly his life has purpose and meaning again — he's a completely different person’. This is despite, Bartlett says, him being the last person you would ever think would be religious.

Bartlett himself went through what he calls a ‘new atheist baptism’ at the age of 18. ‘But now’, he says ‘I find myself in a position where I'm almost back to being curious again’.

Bartlett echoes what many are feeling. People are detecting a ‘vibe shift’. As he himself puts it: ‘there is something going on’.
One of the metrics that would seem to back this up is Bible sales. A year ago, the Wall Street Journal reported: ‘Sales of Bibles are booming, fuelled by first time buyers’. The article that followed reported on a 22% rise in Bible sales.Then in September of this year, there was a 36% jump compared to the year before.

Another trend this year has been people posting on social media that they’re about to read the Bible for the first time, and asking where they should start.

Most people would recommend starting to read the Bible in one of the gospels – the first four books of the New Testament. And if someone were to start with either Matthew’s or Luke’s account of Jesus’ life, they would begin with what has become known as the Christmas story – the birth of Jesus.

And on this Christmas Eve, I want to highlight two things about the Christmas story.

The first thing is that it didn’t come out of the blue.

In other words, it was expected. Many of the details had been prophesied 700 or more years before. The fact that Jesus would be born of a virgin, even the name of the town in which he’d be born. In the last week or so, the ever-thought provoking Glen Scrivener tracked down and interviewed Steven Bartlett’s friend, who had gone from not being able to get out of bed to becoming a Christian. In the interview, the friend reveals that he’d actually started looking into Christianity to try and disprove it – because he realised that as an atheist, he had rejected it, but he knew nothing about it.
But one of the things that convinced him of Christianity were all the connections between the Old Testament – the first half of the Bible – and Jesus. This is despite the fact that the Old Testament was written hundreds and even thousands of years before Jesus came. The Christmas story happened exactly as God had said it would, which is powerful evidence for the truth of it.

The second thing I want to highlight about the Christmas story is to do with the visits of the angels. Angel appearances aren’t particularly common in the Bible, but they’re all over the Christmas story. An angel appears to John the Baptist’s father, then to Mary, then to Joseph, then to some shepherds in a field watching their flocks by night. Yet almost every time an angel appears, before it can give the message that it’s been sent by God to give, it has to begin by saying ‘Don’t be afraid’. Because people are terrified.

But the news they have for us is good news, and so they start: ‘Do not be afraid’.

It reminds me of the last words of the Irish poet Seamus Heaney. A couple of minutes before he died, Heaney texted two words to his wife: ‘Noli timere’ – Latin for ‘do not be afraid’.

I’m sure that was a great help to her. But how much better it would be to hear those words from beyond the grave. From someone who had died and come back, and was able to tell us ‘Do not be afraid’.

Well in short that’s the Christmas story.

That’s the Bible’s message.

That’s what’s on offer.

And at the end of a year in which many have turned back to God – it’s at least worth investigating.

Published in the Stranraer & Wigtownshire Free Press, 24th December 2025.

It’s World Book Day – have you read the all-time bestseller?

Today is World Book Day. While that might be news to some, it won’t be to anyone who has children in school. Children dress up as characters from books, are given book vouchers, etc. This year, we have decided to mark the day as a church by giving out free Bibles in the town centre. After all, it’s the bestselling book in the history of the world! If you’ve never read the Bible, there’s no better time to do so. If I can’t convince you, perhaps comedian Lee Mack can. Mack was interviewed on Desert Island Discs recently. He was asked which book he would take with him—you’re allowed the Bible, the works of Shakespeare and one other. He chose Stephen Hawking’s ‘A Brief History of Time’, but it was his comments about the Bible that intrigued me.

 He said, ‘I’m glad you get the Bible, because I would read the Bible. I think it’s quite odd that people like myself, in their forties, are quite happy to dismiss the Bible, but I've never read it. I always think that if an alien came down and you were the only person they met, and they said, “What’s life about? What’s earth about? Tell us everything,” and you said, “Well, there’s a book here that purports to tell you everything. Some people believe it to be true; some people do not believe it to be true.” “Wow, what’s it like?” and you go, “I don’t know, I’ve never read it.” It would be an odd thing wouldn't it? So, at the very least, read it’.

Many are happy to accept the opinions of others about the Bible (both positive and negative) without ever reading it themselves. Others feel let down by church, but are reluctant to read the Bible for themselves. Some are struggling with life and trying to get through by their own strength, unaware that the Bible has help to give. Even many churches have in practice abandoned the Bible – and it’s no surprise they’re declining and closing.

Perhaps you’ve tried reading the Bible before, but haven’t really known where to start. It’s easy to get bogged down. One of my recommendations is to begin reading The Gospel According to Mark – the second book of the New Testament. It’s the shortest of the four gospels and gets straight to the action – the life and death of Jesus Christ. We actually have 80 copies of Mark’s gospel to give away today, if picking up a whole Bible seems intimidating. We also have a leaflet entitled ‘What the Bible is all about’, which we’ll put inside everything we give out.

I’m also happy to meet up with anyone, either one-to-one or as part of a group, to read through a book of the Bible and discuss what it’s about. In fact, there’s a story in the book of Acts (which we’re currently going through in church on Sunday mornings – you can catch up on YouTube), where an evangelist called Philip meets a man travelling back home to Ethiopia. The Ethiopian is reading the Bible in his carriage. Philip asks him: ‘Do you understand what you are reading?’ The Ethiopian replies: ‘How can I, unless someone guides me?’ He then invites Philip to come and sit with him, and the rest is history. There’s no shame in asking for help.

When the Bible was translated into the language of the common people, it scandalised many of the church leaders, but transformed this nation. The man who first translated the Bible into English, William Tyndale, was burnt at the stake. It is still a banned book in many countries. Why not read it and find out why its contents are so explosive?

What many people – even churchgoers – can miss about the Bible is that it’s all about Jesus. That’s what Philip showed the Ethiopian, who was struggling as he read a 700-year-old prophecy from the book of Isaiah. ‘Is he speaking about himself or someone else?’, the Ethiopian asked. Philip gladly took the opportunity and ‘beginning with this Scripture he told him the good news about Jesus’ (Acts 8:35). ‘The Scriptures’, Jesus said, ‘bear witness about me’ (John 5:39). The Bible is all about who Jesus is, why he needed to come, and how he can transform our lives.

 There are many good – even life-changing – books you could read on this World Book Day. But why not read the all-time bestseller?

Published in the Stranraer & Wigtownshire Free Press, 6th March 2025