We have spent a lot of time discussing how reasoning and faith work together, with a strong focus on first principles that human beings know to be true by virtue of having a normal mind as well as some of the logical implications of such premises. However, natural knowledge, while useful, can only take us so far. Specifically, it can only take us to the point where we know that God exists, that being a good person according to His will is the most important thing for us to do, and that we have failed miserably at doing it. We can deny any or all of those points (especially the last one) and we are often tempted to because they paint a very bleak picture. Nevertheless, we really do recognize them; the bad news is clear enough that we want to turn our faces away from it. However, there are a lot of important things in the realm of Good News that we have to learn.

Now it is time for us to start looking at the parts of Christianity that we need to be told. Because the Bible is the primary place we find out about such things, we will begin there.

What is the Bible?

As Christians, we believe that the Bible is the Word of God. This is clearly the most important thing that the Bible is. However, we often fall into the trap of thinking that it is the only thing the Bible is. For example, well-meaning Christians will often respond to claims that Jesus was just another holy man with, “the Bible says Jesus is the Son of God” or claims that there are many roads to God with, “the Bible says Jesus is the only way.” These statements may be true but not necessarily helpful in all situations. Quoting the Bible is all well and good if one is speaking to someone who respects the Bible. Nevertheless, many folks stop listening as soon as you mention “Bible”. When Christians say “Bible”, people often think “a book I’m ‘supposed’ to believe uncritically.” If you feed that back into the aforementioned statements, ( “a book you’re supposed to believe uncritically says Jesus is the Son of God” or “a book you’re supposed to believe uncritically says Jesus is the only way”) you can begin to see why many people question the “uncritically” part, and ask why they should believe everything or even anything the Bible says. If Christians do not know anything more about the Bible than that it is the inerrant word of God, we are not equipped to answer such questions.

We can put ourselves in their shoes by imagining somebody responding to our belief that Mohammed was not a prophet by saying, “but the Qu’ran says he is, and the Qu’ran is a Holy book.” We are rightly skeptical of such claims about the Qu’ran, and we should expect that others will be skeptical of such claims about the Bible. As such, we should be thankful that whereas the Qu’ran cannot stand up to skepticism, the Bible can. (We should also be thankful that the power of God’s Word does not depend on the hearer believing that it’s God’s Word, but that begins to go outside the realm of Apologetics.) We have good reasons for believing that the Bible is the inerrant word of God (and we will go over them eventually), but it is an audacious claim and it takes a long time to lay out an adequate case for it. Consequently, it will not be our starting point. Inerrancy of Scripture is a concept that is absolutely fundamental to good theology and to the lives of Christians. However, that concept is not absolutely necessary in order to wrestle with the question, “Who is Jesus” (which will be our next topic). Scripture itself, however, is necessary for that because “faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God.” It behooves us then, to ask the question, why is scripture worth reading? We need to know scripture, but we also need to know about scripture.

For now, in this context, we shall temporarily set aside the premise that the Bible is the inerrant word of God. Unbelievers obviously do not accept that premise. Most Christians have doubts about that premise at some point or another. Consequently, any argument to such individuals for why we should pay attention to the Bible that depends on that premise will be a poor argument. We will make a case for why it’s reasonable to believe the Bible is the word of God, but for now, we need to learn how to deal with the Bible in other ways.

The Bible, as the name (from the Greek for “book”) would imply, is obviously literature. But what kind of literature is it? For our purposes here, we will focus on the New Testament. Many people consider it a book of inspiring stories with morals. There are certainly no shortage of these in the Bible: the story of Jesus’ death can teach us about sacrifice, the stories of Paul’s imprisonments can teach us about perseverance, and so on. Others consider it a book containing a list of moral precepts and instructions on how to live the best lives we possibly can. It certainly contains these as well. From Jesus’ instructions to his disciples to Peter’s instructions to various churches, there is plenty of such advice whether or not one considers it good. However, still other people see the Bible as an anthology of historical books and letters concerning certain events and the meaning behind them. According to this view, it describes actual missionary journeys of Paul, actions of Jesus, and God's interactions with humanity.

Most people think the Bible is some combination of the three; and there is some truth to each of them. It is the third premise, however, that makes all the difference in the world in how we evaluate Scripture. If you believe the Bible is merely a set of moral precepts or inspiring stories (whether a good one or not), you will interpret it one way; if you think it presumes to speak about actual events and their meaning (whether rightly or not), you will interpret it in another. So we will begin by examining the truth of that third premise.

Did the Authors Intend it to be taken As a Factual Account? Can just the first two descriptions be true?

Many claim that the Bible is a set of stories with morals; that it does not matter if they’re true or not, they are merely there to convey certain ideas. This is very popular in liberal and ethnic “Christianity”, among some political conservatives who find “Judeo-Christian morality” to be very useful, and among those who think that all religions are basically the same. But does this view hold water?

If one had a book sitting in front of them, and one was curious about what kind of book it was, there are a number of recourses available. Even if third parties said wildly different things about the book, one could still look at the blurb on the back cover, or perhaps the introduction, or simply read the text and see for one’s self. What would we find if we examined the books of the Bible this way? Luke began his Gospel an introduction:

“Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us, just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word. Therefore, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, it seemed good also to me to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught.” Luke 1:1-4

“That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched – this we proclaim concerning the Word of Life. The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us. We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us.” 1 John 1:1-3

“This is the disciple who testifies to these things and who wrote them down. We know that his testimony is true. Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written.” John 21:24-25

“For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the scriptures, and that he appeared to Peter, and then to the Twelve. After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born.” 1 Corinthians 15:3-8

“But if it is preached that Christ has been raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead.” 1 Corinthians 15:12-15

“We did not follow cleverly invented stories when we told you about the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. For he received honor and glory from God the Father when the voice came to him from the Majestic Glory saying, ‘This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.’ We ourselves heard this voice that came from heaven when we were with him on the sacred mountain.” 2 Peter 1:16-18

“Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the anti-Christ ” 1 John 4:2-3

Any person who is actually familiar with the book’s contents cannot possibly make the honest claim that it was intended to merely be an inspiring storybook. A storybook isn’t prefaced by the author with a claim to the recipient that the author has investigated these events and written up an orderly account, or ended with a claim by the author to have personally witnessed the events contained therein. Most importantly, a storybook does not claim to be worthless if read merely as a storybook. What is more, its focus is on what was done for us, and only then what we ought to do because of that fact. It is a rule-book merely to provide context to what was done for us.

Although the view that the Bible is just an inspiring book is untenable, it is not hard to see where it comes from. The church itself often treats it this way through the stories in Sunday School, and the handful of verses read out of context every week. What is more, most people (Christians included) are only passingly familiar with the book’s contents. Most people do not realize it even makes claims of historical authenticity. Finally, the Bible is more useful for certain purposes such as achieving political goals or as a guide to certain kinds of right living if you treat it merely as a storybook. It has been quoted profusely for the past 2000 years because of its many intriguing messages. Nevertheless, one of the messages it obviously tries to convey is that it is an accurate account of what actually happened.

Is the Bible a Reliable Source About It’s Subject?

Now that we know what the Bible is about, and that it claims to be reliable about the birth, life, and death of Christ, we need to look at whether it is correct in that claim. In making our case, we need to remember that we cannot argue a person into faith. As before, the Christian’s task is more along the lines of defending against contrary theories (Christianity has no historical basis, It’s all fiction, etc) and at the same time to make it as hard as possible to avoid an encounter with the real Jesus Christ by hiding behind such theories. To do this, we need to know that it is reasonable to believe what the Bible tells us. In going about supporting the Bible’s claims, there are several questions we need to ask. Since the Bible repeatedly claims to rely on eyewitness accounts, the first question is, “are these the same books that were originally written down?” That is, are we really looking at the eyewitness accounts?

One of the most common claims is that the Bible is a copy of a copy of a copy and a translation of a translation of a translation. Who can say what was originally written within it? Obviously, when one is dealing with copies and translations, one is probably dealing with some degree of information loss. When one is claiming that the Bibles we have in front of us are a result of compounded copies and translations, one is claiming that the Bible contains little of the original intended meaning. Anyone who has played the children’s game, “telephone” or who has been involved in gossip understands the phenomenon. At each transmission, a little bit of the original message is removed through simple unintentional error. When applied to the Bible the claim is that even if eyewitnesses did write down an account of the life of Jesus, we do not really have access to that account – just to a few bits and pieces of it; and we cannot ever be sure which bits and pieces are actually from the original.

If one were investigating whether information was lost through compounded translations, all one needs to do is compare translations to copies in the original language. The Greek language hasn’t exactly been lost to the ages. If one were to examine the charge of errors emerging through countless copies, one need only look at the many different copies and see how much they differ from each other. The Bible is surrounded by a unique set of circumstances that make such charges difficult to credit. There are around 5,000 ancient Greek manuscripts of the New Testament to which modern copies can be compared. (Geisler 307)¹ The manuscript evidence for the Bible goes far beyond any comparable ancient writing.

When it comes to copies and translations, we need to remember that just because mistakes are possible or probable, it does not mean a mistake must have happened. If someone is to make such a claim, one needs evidence to support it. For example, if there was one original manuscript by the author and ten copies were made, we would expect each copy to contain different errors. If there were a hundred copies made of those first ten, we would expect the original errors in each of the 10 to persist in most of the 10 new copies made from the first copy. We would also expect to see new errors introduced. By the time you reach the 5000 ancient Greek manuscripts of the New Testament, there should be some common differences from the common branches and other errors unique to each of them. If the copying errors really destroyed the original message, all of those manuscripts would be in wild disagreement. In reality, however, this is not the case; the manuscripts are in very solid agreement. Of the 20,000 lines of the New Testament, only 40 (0.25%) are in any dispute. (Geisler 308)¹ In light of the incomparable manuscript evidence for the New Testament, the most reasonable conclusion is that we have the same books that were originally written.

If this is the case, it must lead us to another question:. Even if the Bible has largely the same content as what was originally written down, why should we believe the content wasn’t legendary from the very beginning? The basic idea here, is that inaccuracies in the account crept in, not through errors in communication, but through embellishment by the authors. Jesus was a great man, and over time his followers began exaggerating their stories about him. Consequently, instead of a great teacher, we end up with a miracle-working God. To refute this kind of claim, there are a number of elements that we need to look at.

• 1. When and by whom were the books written? It takes time for a legend to develop because they tend to be hampered by people who were actually there and know what really happened.
• 2. Are these witnesses believable? In any justice system, if you have multiple witnesses to an event, it’s basic detective work to make sure their stories check out.
• 3. Is the story presented in the Bible consistent with other sources? Is it in rampant contradiction to everything else we know about its subject matter?

Dating of the Gospels

When it comes to Matthew, Mark, and Luke, we need to understand the relationship between them. The key to dating these three books are the books of Luke and Acts. These books were clearly written to the same person, “Theophilus” (refer to the first paragraph of each book), and were written by the same author, Luke. Acts picks up right where the Gospel of Luke left off (which is alluded to in the first verse of Acts.) Norman Geisler lays out the case for Luke’s authorship this way:

“Acts was written by a companion of Paul as is indicated by the ‘we’ sections written in the first person (Acts 16:10-17; 20:5-21; 27:1). The rest of the book is in the same style. By the process of elimination, the only close companion of Paul not mentioned in the third person is Luke, the beloved physician. Timothy, Silas, Mark, Barnabas, and so on are all named. Only Luke remains. They high quality of the Greek, the use of medical terminology, and the obvious knowledge-ability of the author all fit the character of Luke the physician. [Col 4:14]” (Geisler 312)¹

Acts can be pretty firmly dated at around 60-62 A.D. because the book ends with Paul’s arrival in Rome and his imprisonment there. It never mentions anything about Paul’s execution in A.D. 67; since Paul was a principle subject of the book, it would have been very odd not to mention his martyrdom if it had actually been written after it occurred. Since Acts was a follow-up to the Gospel of Luke, the gospel was clearly written earlier still. So the Gospel of Luke can be solidly dated to less than 30 years after Christ’s death.

Now, as Luke mentions in the introduction to his Gospel, there were many accounts of Christ’s life. We can be sure that one such account was the Gospel of Mark because Luke includes quite a bit of it in his own Gospel in addition to his own material. Because of this, we know that Mark was obviously written first, so it can be dated even earlier. Matthew, which also uses portions of Mark, can also be dated to around the same time-period.

A case can be made for the Gospel of John as well. At the end of the Gospel of John, the claim is made that the book was written by “the disciple whom Jesus loved.” When you compare this disciple to the disciples mentioned in all the Gospels, you find that this clearly refers to John the apostle. The authorship of John is also uniformly supported by early Christian writers. Among them, as Geisler notes, “The testimony of Irenaeus is crucial because only one generation stood between him and John. John’s disciple, Polycarp, was among Irenaeus’ teachers.” (Geisler 310)¹. What is more, a fragment of the book dated to 117 A.D. was found all the way in Egypt. It all adds up to a first-hand account of Christ’s life by one of his closest disciples solidly written in the 1st century.

In addition to the four Gospels, we also have the many letters of Paul. Clearly, these must have been written prior to his death in 67. According to Geisler, there is only debate about his authorship on 1& 2 Timothy and Titus. Even if you exclude those, we still have 10 letters written by him that attest to the major points in Jesus’ life, including the most ‘preposterous’ parts, like His full divinity, resurrection, and virgin birth. (Geisler 309)¹

Of course, this is not exhaustive. There are many other books in the New Testament, and the details given on the books we’ve talked about are obviously not complete. We don’t have enough time for exhaustive, and there are a lot of good sources out there if that’s what you’re looking for. Nevertheless, we need to be clear that dating and authorship are not based on voodoo or the say-so of some monolithic entity that we must believe uncritically. It is arrived at by looking at the books themselves, at what people said about them, and the circumstances surrounding them; just like you would any other book.

So, merely from the subset of authors mentioned, what we end up with are the accounts of two of Jesus’ disciples (Matthew & John), Peter’s secretary (Mark), Paul (who was in frequent contact with Jesus’ disciples) and his companion (Luke), who closely investigated the events. What is more, not only are most of these people themselves witnesses, they also refer to many other eyewitnesses in addition to themselves. This is a pretty nice set of sources for any person of antiquity to say the very least.

Are the Authors Believable?

The next question we come to is, are these witnesses being honest in their testimony? Even if it was written by people who would know, what is to say these people weren’t lying or insane? There are a number of points that make such a scenario highly unlikely.

• They give testimony that could have been questioned and confirmed by their readers. They mention many witnesses (often by name) who could have been located and questioned. They may often seem like characters to us, but these were people that were actually known.
• Their accounts are all differing in their details, but clearly can be harmonized. This is exactly what we would expect from multiple people honestly describing the same events. Some will remember different details than others, but they will not tell stories that contradict each other.
• The authors clearly held truth as paramount. This can be seen in the verses quoted previously, their solidarity with their story in the face of persecution, death, and imprisonment, and their intolerance of lying and refusal to be bribed.
• The authors were skeptical themselves. The eleven surviving disciples did not believe it when the women told them Jesus was raised from the dead. Thomas would not believe the other 10 and actually had to touch Jesus before he would believe he was alive. Paul had dedicated his career to hunting down and persecuting those who believed what he would later proclaim himself after seeing the risen Christ. Jesus showed his disciples convincing proofs of his physical presence (eating food, breathing, etc) and showed enough to Paul to completely repudiate everything he had believed up to that point.
• Jesus appeared to people after his death again and again and again. To different sets of people each time. To 500 people at once. A mass hallucination would be an exceptionally improbable explanation.

Is it consistent with secular history?

Another element to consider is whether or not the accounts are consistent with secular history. When we make this case, we need to be clear that we’re not trying to lay out the entire case for the Gospel bases solely on secular sources; they aren’t sufficient for that. However, they do confirm the setting and a number of details about Jesus’ life and death given in the Bible.

Josephus (A.D. 37-100), a Jewish Pharisee and historian is one such source. For example, when he talks about the High Priest, Ananias, he says,

“..he assembled the Sanhedrin of the judges, and brought before them the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James, and some others, and when he had formed an accusation against them as breakers of the law, he delivered them to be stoned.” (McDowell 56)²

“At this time there was a wise man who was called Jesus....Pilate condemned Him to be crucified and to die. And those who had become His disciples did not abandon His discipleship. They reported that he had appeared to them three days after His crucifixion and that He was alive; accordingly, He was perhaps the Messiah concerning whom the prophets have recounted wonders.” (Geisler, 323)¹

Roman historian Cornelius Tacitus (A.D.55-117?) wrote of this about Nero’s blaming of Christians for the burning of Rome;

“Hence to suppress the rumor, he falsely charged with the guilt, and punished with the most exquisite tortures, the persons commonly called Christians, who were hated for their enormities. Christus, the founder of the name, was put to death by Pontius Pilate, procurator of Judea in the reign of Tiberius: but the pernicious superstition, repressed for a time broke out again, not only through Judea, where the mischief originated, but through the city of Rome also.” (Geisler 323)¹

Thallus, a historian who wrote around A.D. 52 (and whose work is lost except in quotations) was described by Julius Africanus this way, “On the whole world there pressed a most fearful darkness, and the rocks were rent by an earthquake, and many places in Judea and other districts were thrown down. This darkness Thallus, in the third book of his History, calls, as appears to me without reason, an eclipse of the sun.” (Geisler 324)¹ He says, “without reason” because a solar eclipse would have been impossible at the time of the full moon during Passover. Here we have confirmation of a miraculous event in the New Testament by someone who did not even believe it was miraculous.

In a part of the Jewish Talmud compiled between A.D. 70 and 200 (McDowell 58)², it records the following concerning Jesus, “On the eve of Passover they hanged Yeshu (of Nazareth) and the herald went before him for forty days saying (Yeshu of Nazareth) is going to be stoned in that he hath practiced sorcery and beguiled and led astray Israel. Let everyone knowing aught in his defense come and plead for him. But they found naught in his defense and hanged him on the eve of Passover.” (Geisler 324-325)¹. This confirms certain events regarding Christ’s death as put forward in the Gospels, but it also shows that the Gospel writers honestly recorded the arguments the Pharisees (their opponents) made against Jesus (that they did not dispute that Christ performed miracles, but instead claimed that He did so by the power of Satan.)

There are more, but the general consensus is that Jesus was a real person who was wise, who was executed by Pontius Pilate at Passover because of miraculous acts (described as Sorcery), that his disciples claimed that he had risen from the dead after three days, and that very early Christians believed he was God. This is all very compatible with the accounts given in the Bible.

Some possible objections.

Of course, there are a number of objections to this kind of analysis. For example, in supporting the named writers of these books, we named “early Christian writers”, like Polycarp, Papias, Irenaeus, and so forth, as sources. Some would argue that we cannot use the Biblical writers or other early Christian writers as sources for the events of Jesus’ life because these people are biased in favor of Christianity. The important thing to note here is exactly what the church is at that point in history. It is the collection of people who believe that the events recorded in the New Testament happened. Sources from outside the Church were exclusively those who were not convinced. To only accept convincing evidence from people who were not convinced is not a fair standard of evidence. Exclusively looking at evidence for the contrary view is hardly unbiased. The vast majority of evidence for an event may come from those who are convinced of it, but that is to be expected. A better method would be to compare the evidence from both sides. The dearth of evidence from the unconvinced of the time is also noteworthy; most secular mentions of Christ make it clear that they don’t believe, but never make a case as to why.

Others dispute the early dating of the New Testament. However, according to J.P. Moreland³, the case for a later date generally rests on two arguments:

• It takes time for Legends to develop. The miraculous events in the New Testament are clearly legendary. Therefore they must have been written later.
• Some of the gospels mention the destruction of Jerusalem. Therefore, they must have been written after the destruction of Jerusalem.

The final kind of argument that is often made is centered around “maybe.” Maybe Acts was written really late and the author just didn’t mention Paul’s death. Maybe all this “evidence” was created by Paul and Peter in a grand conspiracy to save Jewish morality. Maybe all the evidence to the contrary was destroyed by the church. Maybe Jesus was an alien with advanced technology instead of the Sod of God. The varieties of this kind of argument are endless. But refuting them usually amounts to the same question: What is the evidence for the given scenario? What we’ve laid out here is not a case that there is no other possible explanation, but that the truth of these events is the best explanation for the facts that we have. If somebody wants to suggest a different one, they need to be prepared to back it up, just as we need to be prepared. It is reasonable to believe that the New Testament is historically accurate. If one is committed to shifting again and again between various possible but ridiculous explanations, then it is appropriate to ask why they are so afraid of the reasonable explanation.

Conclusion

This case is by no means exhaustive, either in regards to the case for the reliability of the New Testament or to the case against. Many people have spent a lot of time in close study of this subject. Most of us -- Christians and non-Christians alike -- are unlikely to do the same. We are not experts, and most of us probably do not intend to become experts. Nevertheless, the fact that we do not know as much as the experts need not mean that we know less than we do. We need not believe that the Bible is historical by uncritically accepting what experts tell us. There is no magic or voodoo involved. Thus we ought to be able to correct those who think that this book can only be accepted uncritically, and consequently will not bother to even look at it. We may come to believe that the Bible is true by faith (whether as adults or children), but it is reasonable for us to believe it as well. There is no clarion call from reason to abandon Christianity to the past.

• 1. Geisler, Normon L. Christian Apologetics. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1976
• 2. McDowell, Josh. The New Evidence That Demands a Verdict. Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson , 1999
• 3. http://www.trueu.org/Academics/LectureHall/A000000262.cfm