How do I know?

Can I trust?

Why are there so many translations of the bible and so many different religions etc.

2 Timothy 3:16-17 (NIV2011) 16  All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, 17  so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

First and foremost, we must remember God has given man His word for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness. 2 Tim 3:16-17

Secondly, 2Pe 1:19-21 — [And we have the prophetic word more fully confirmed, to which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts, 20 knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone’s own interpretation. 21 For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.]

Finally, know then that God through His Omnipresent, Omniscient and Omnipotent Kingship was able, because He is able Jude 1:24-25 (ESV) [24  Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, 25  to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen. ] to pass along and save the writting He wanted us to hear and read to know Him better and understand how to live a Godly life here on this earth.

Earliest manuscript comes to us as a known written script called Cuneiform, as follows;

Usage

Cuneiform originated in the Sumerian society at Uruk, with the first surviving texts being found in the Uruk IV archaeological stage, representing approximately 3200 BC. Schmandt-Besserat has claimed evidence of cuneiform’s origin in numerical impressions on hollow clay balls which represented receipts (Schmandt-Besserat, How Writing Came About, 15–54). These were quickly replaced by clay tablets. Roughly simultaneously there developed both pictographic signs such as ŠE (stalk of grain) and abstract sings such as UDU (sheep). However, other scholars have cast serious doubt on Schmandt-Besserat’s theory for the development of cuneiform (Daniels, “First Civilizations,” 23; for more information, see Writing in the Ancient Near East).

The Assyrians and Babylonians, both of whom spoke dialects of the Akkadian language, borrowed the Sumerian writing system in approximately 2350 BC and used it into the first century AD. Akkadian became the dominant language written in cuneiform, in terms of the number of surviving texts, as it was the lingua franca of the ancient Near East in the late second millennium BC.

Many other societies also adopted cuneiform as their writing system of choice. Elam abandoned its indigenous writing system and adopted a cuneiform system in approximately 2500 BC, and Mari adopted cuneiform in approximately 2400 BC. Likewise, excavations in Ebla have yielded a few thousand texts in cuneiform dating to approximately 2400 BC. Hittite was written in cuneiform beginning in the mid-second millennium BC, and Hurrian was written in cuneiform as early as the third millennium BC. Finally, both Ugaritic and Old Persian used an alphabetic form of cuneiform, in which each sign was used for one sound.

Fullilove, W. B. (2016). Cuneiform. In J. D. Barry, D. Bomar, D. R. Brown, R. Klippenstein, D. Mangum, C. Sinclair Wolcott, … W. Widder (Eds.), The Lexham Bible Dictionary. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press.