Historical Reliability of the Gospels #2

 The following is an outline of what I consider to be the key sections of an apologetic for the trustworthiness of the Gospels by Kenneth Samples from his book, Without a Doubt.  I encourage you to read this book.  It answers 20 difficult questions of the Christian faith.  

Chapter 7:Important Information Part II

Are the Gospels Myth or Fact?

1.       The Gospels and the external sources that support them were written so closely to the events that they historically record; there isn’t enough time available for myths to have crept into their accounts.  

·         Jesus’ death – 30 to 33 AD

·         The Synoptic Gospels (Matt, Mark, and Luke) – existed by the early 60’s

·         This evidenced by the lack of important events that occurred later, such as the destruction of the Temple (70 AD), martyrdom of Paul, James, or Peter, or persecution under Nero.  

2.       The Gospels as myths is only plausible if several generations existed in-between the death of Jesus and the time they were written down. 

·         Legends can’t replace facts so long as eyewitnesses remain alive. 

3.       The Apostles recognized the difference between myth and fact and because of this they made efforts to make claim that what they were writing as fact!

·         Luke 1:1-4

·         John 19:35

·         1 Cor 15:3-8

·         The Gospels are in the canon because they emerged from within the apostolic circle.

4.       There were other witnesses, both friend and foe, who could have refuted false claims.  Nothing refutes or contradicts the claims of the Gospels.  The Apostles even called upon the testimony of others to be checked (Acts 2:22, Acts 26:25-27)

5.       The Gospels are not written like Greek mythology. 

·         The miracles in Greek mythology are bizarre and frivolous

·         The miracles of Christ are always put into context of His ministry!

6.       The arguments for rejecting the Gospel claims are circular.

·         The Gospels can’t be true, because they say Jesus is God.  Miracles are impossible!

·         The Gospels must be rejected as myth because of this.

·         The Gospels are myths because of miracles!

·         And we’ve come full circle.  

 

Historical Reliability of the Gospels #1

Click image to learn more about Without a Doubt.

 Without a Doubt by Kenneth Samples

Key Points from Chapter 7 Part 1: Historical Reliability of The Gospels

The Christian faith depends on the historical nature and accuracy of the unique claims, character, and credentials of Jesus Christ! – Page 91

Read 1 Corinthians 15:12-18. Christianity hinges on the resurrection of Christ. 

Support for the Historical Reliability of the Gospels

1.      The New Testament documents are the best attested documents of antiquity in terms of total number of manuscripts. 

·         Check out this website: http://www.leaderu.com/orgs/probe/docs/bib-docu.html

·         5,000 individual Greek Manuscripts

·         8,000 copies of the Latin vulgate

·         Without these there are still thousands of manuscripts from commentaries and sermons that can be used to piece together the entire New Testament and these are from the early church fathers in the second to fifth centuries. – Page 92

·         Textual criticism exists because of the Bible.

2.       The interval of time between the date of the original authorship and the date of the earliest New Testament manuscript copies is extremely short.

3.      

 T   The historic statements made about Jesus by ancient non-Christian authors for the most part matches well with the Gospel record. 

·         He was a provocative teacher, a wise and virtuous man from the region of Judea.

·         He reportedly performed miracles and made prophetic claims.

·         The Jewish leaders condemned him for acts of sorcery and apostasy.

·         He was crucified by Pontius Pilate at the time of the Jewish Passover, and during the reign of the Emperor Tiberius.

·         Jesus’ followers reported that he had risen from the dead.

·         The Christian faith spread to Rome were the Christians were persecuted and tried for crimes.

·         First-century Christians worshipped Jesus Christ as God and celebrated the Eucharist in their services.

·         Even though these Romans ridiculed the Christians as being morally weak, they were often times known for their courage and virtue. 

4.       The authors of the four Gospels were eyewitnesses of Jesus’ life themselves, or were closely associated with the eyewitnesses.  

John 19:1-4
1 John 1:1-2
Luke 1:1-4
Galatians 1:11-12
2 Peter 1:16

5.       The Gospel writers intended to convey factual and historical information and the writings of their historical content have been confirmed to a significant degree.

6.       The apostles’ testimony becomes more credible when it is considered that they had nothing to gain from it and everything to lose.  

·         They received no monetary reward or power from their message.

·         They received only beatings, imprisonment, and death.

·         Adversaries could have exposed their message as a lie, but they couldn’t. 

·         We can trust their message because they had no motif to lie or deceive.

·         If they did lie and deceive they violated everything Jesus taught about honesty and truth.