Question: 

If there is so much evidence supporting the validity of the Bible. Why do some Biblical scholars still remain so skeptical?

Answer: 

Those who do not accept the validity of the Bible ought to speak for themselves.  It is not my place to determine the motives of other people.  Obviously, the reasons people choose to reject what I believe is clear and inescapable evidence of the truth of the Bible varies.  We at ARS just put on a debate between Dr. Douglas Jacoby and Robert Price.  Price obviously rejects the validity of the evidence for Jesus.  The premise of the debate was Jesus:  Man, Myth or Messiah?  Price believes that Jesus is a myth.  How anyone can deny the very existence of Jesus seems unaccountable.  Why did Price reject the truth?  I believe it is for him to explain himself.  I believe that some reject the truth for emotional reasons.  Others do so simply because they do not choose to think about the evidence.  Still others reject salvation in Jesus because they are not interested in repenting.  Others reject the truth of Jesus, not for lack of evidence but because it is easier to deny the obvious truth than to change their lives.  Some people reject knowledge of God through Jesus because of fear caused by an emotional situation earlier in life.  For many anger is a factor.  There are many reasons for the rejection of the truth.  In any case, when one is not ready to accept Jesus there are plenty of legitimate intellectual challenges to Christianity.  There are the unresolved historical questions.  There are the apparent (but I believe not real) contradictions in the Bible.  There is the lack of sufficient evidence (in some people’s mind, anyway) for the resurrection or some other central claim of Christianity.  There are the philosophical problems with Christianity, such as the question of hell, of suffering and of violence in the Old Testament.  Many reject Christianity on dubious intellectual grounds.  Others do so on grounds which are at least reasonable to some extent, with the emotional or other reason filling in the gap, leading them to ultimately reject belief in Jesus.  I am afraid any stock answer to your question is insufficient.  I hope that I have given at least a reasonable sampling of the reasons people reject the validity of the Bible.

John Oakes, PhD