Let's agree the Bible is a hugely influential collection of ancient texts and worth studying seriously. But reliability is a testable claim, so run a simple procedure: identify what it claims, check the manuscript evidence, check internal consistency, then check outside corroboration. On step two, we don't have the originals, only copies with thousands of variants, and scribes sometimes changed wording. That's not a knock on faith; it's a limit on reliability. If a document's earliest recoverable form is uncertain, calling the whole book reliable is too strong. The other side can point to preservation, but preservation isn't the same as accuracy.