Essentials of Apologetics - Lesson 14

Evidence for the Bible (Part 1)

Sean McDowell
Lesson 1
Essentials of Apologetics

In our last session, we looked at the evidence for the resurrection, and you'll notice our case didn't rely upon the New Testament being entirely reliable. We looked at four historical facts that we can know and how the resurrection best explains them. Now we're going to a little bit more broad to ask the question, can we trust the Bible and, even more so, particularly the New Testament and the Gospels. To do so, we've got three kind of tests that historians often use that we're going to take a look at one by one. First one is called the character test. Second one is called the copy test, and the third one is the corroboration test. We'll take these one by one and kind of break them down. So the first question is, the character test. Were the documents put together with honesty? In other words, do we have reason to believe that the writers of this document are honest and have a character that we can trust?

Well, the first place is to look internally and ask the question, do they claim to be reporting the truth? Well, when you start, for example, the Gospel of Luke, this is an ancient prologue way of saying you've done your due diligence to write careful history. Luke, the physician, writes this. He says, "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." So Luke's not an eyewitness but he's investigating eyewitnesses and servants of the word. Therefore, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, it seemed good also to me trying orderly accounts so that you may know the certainty of things that you have been taught. Minimally, does this sound like somebody who cares about truth? Of course.

Now, someone would say, "Ah, this is just myths, this is stories that were passed on." Well, it's as if the biblical writers anticipate this. Second Peter 1:16, Peter says, "We did not follow cleverly invented stories when we told you about the power and the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ but we were what we were," what?

Eyewitnesses.

We were eyewitnesses, Peter says we were there. Notice John, who also was there at the cross, when he starts his letter notice how many senses he mentions are involved here. He says, "What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we've looked at, what we've touched with our hands." How many senses does John mention? Three. Heard, seen, and touched. He says, "This we proclaim to you." I challenge you to read through the New Testament of Gospels and pay attention to every time one of the writers says we investigated this, we saw this, we're reporting what we have seen, and I think you'll be overwhelmed at how that's like a drumbeat through the scriptures. But we can go a little step further in this question. When stories are invented, how do they often sound like?

Once upon a time, right? Or, a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. Oftentimes, not always, invented stories are placed in distant lands and they're mythical and they're fictional. It's as if the gospel writers go to the opposite extreme to try to convince us that's exactly what they're not doing. So slow down with me here on Luke, Chapter Three, the first couple verses, and notice how many details that can be investigated Luke gives us. Now in the 15th year, not the 14th year, not the 20th year, gives the exact year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, not Julius Caesar, not Augustus Caesar. When Pontius Pilate gives us the exact person was governor, gives us his position of Judea, gives us the region. Herod was tetrarch of Galilee. His brother, Phil, was tetrarch of the reign of Ituraea. And then, he goes to proclaim the story of the person Jesus Christ.

Do you realize what Luke is doing? He's telling us where, he's telling us who, he's telling us when. Luke has a lot of confidence that this is true and he's trying to report what he thinks is true. Now, we can take this a step further. One way we can assess if somebody has the character and intention of reporting truth is if they include embarrassing material. We hinted at this in our talk on the resurrection and the fact that women are the first witnesses, but that's not the only case you see it. Now, why is this significant? It's human nature when we invent things to either invent stuff to get out of trouble or exaggerate and make ourselves look better. Nobody wakes up in the morning and says, "I wonder what I could post on social media where everybody would just think I'm an idiot?"

The only reason you post something disparaging is if you think it's actually going to really make you look better, right? Isn't that human nature? Well, what do we notice when we read through the Gospels? How are the disciples portrayed? And I think you know where this is going. Peter denies Jesus. The shepherd of the disciples, the leader of the church, in many ways, denies Jesus. Jesus calls Peter, Satan. Now, this wasn't like people are going back and forth. We see people with fun insults that are in jest and kind of relationally. That is not what's going on. This is the insult of insults, mic drop moment. Why invent that? The disciples fall asleep in Gethsemane, three times. If this story's being invented, why just invent and fictionalize to portray yourself this way?

Another example is sometimes the disciples don't even understand the teachings of Jesus, such as in Mark Four. They take Jesus aside and go, "Yeah, we don't get it, can you explain it to us?" Again, why invent that? And the women discover the empty tomb. Now, some of you are thinking of more examples than this. I challenge you, invite you to read just through the gospels. Even the letters to Paul where Paul was critiquing Peter. Why invent this kind of division amongst some of the leaders? Well, they're reporting what they think is true. So in our first test, the character test, we have these writers saying we investigated everything, we saw, we heard, we touched, we were there. This is not in a distant land but they place it who, where, when, what.

They give embarrassing details and then, as we saw earlier, the apostles are willing to suffer and die for the claim that Jesus has risen from the grave. And the key here is willing to suffer and die. They put themselves in harm's way telling people in Jerusalem and the Roman Empire that they should follow a crucified enemy of the state. Now, if you just take a step back and think about this, what more could the apostles do to convince us that minimally they care about truth and they're trying to report what they think happened? I think they passed a character test with flying colors. Now, the second test is what we call the copy test. This is the question of this book has been copied over and over again, have there been intentional or unintentional errors that have crept in? Now, this involves two sub-questions. First question is, what is the time gap between the original copies and the copies we have today?

Now what would happen is, at this time, long before the writing press, printing press, is documents would be written down on scrolls or, in many ways in the early church they'd be written on codices, which is kind of an ancient book. Well, they'd have and they'd care for it but that would fade away so they'd have to copy it, and then they have to copy that. So part of the question here is, the assumption is, every time it's copied there's a greater chance of error creeping in so how much has been lost intentionally or unintentionally since these events took place 2000 years ago? So do we have the original that disintegrates, what happens? Do you have generation one? Do we have generation two? Do we have generation three? What textual critics do is they look at ancient books and they try to ask how carefully and faithfully can we reconstruct the original with the remaining copies that we have on hand? This is a question that professional textual critics ask.

Now, as far as time gap, ideally in principle we want a shorter time gap. Now, it's not impossible that there would be some document with a longer time gap that's more accurate than one with a shorter time gap. But, in principle, the less time there is, the less time for error. That's a general rule of thumb. So if we compare the New Testament with other contemporary writings, then we start to see how special and unique the copying of the New Testament is. Before we go any further, it makes sense that we would see this, wouldn't we? Because the roots of the Christian faith, of course, are the Jewish people who God implanted to them a reverence and a love and a care for preserving the scriptures. And we see that carried over, of course, into the New Testament.

Well, Pliny the Elder, for example, who wrote after the time of Jesus, a Roman, about 700 years from the time it was written to the copy that we have. 700 years. Josephus, a Jewish writer who writes probably in the '90s A.D. on behalf of Rome, about eight centuries from the time that he wrote to the physical copy that we have. Herodotus, a Greek writer, 1500 years. Now, here's a chart of some of the typical datings for books. Some are more and some are less and we document all this in evidence that demands verdict and many more. Many of these books of ancient history, these are 500, 600, 700, 1,000 plus years removed, the earliest physical copy that we have. Now, what's interesting about this before we go any further is you know the answer. Do you think historians largely think we can trust the copies we have of these writings?

Yes.

Yeah. As a whole, there's some writers more than others, but a significant degree of trust even though a century or more than a century, a millennium has passed, that we can trust these writings. Well, what is it for the earliest portion we have of the New Testament, what's called a manuscript, it's a handwritten copy. The earliest is from the Gospel of John, somewhere between 10 and 100 years from the time that it was written. You say, "Well, that's a big gap." Well yeah, they don't come with dates stamped on them like they do today. We have to try to estimate and make guesses, not myself but the experts in this, through where they find a manuscript, the kind of writing on the manuscript. There's different ways they can analyze and date it. In this case, probably between 100 and 200 A.D., what's called the John Rylands Papyri, which is a portion of the Gospel of John, Chapter 18. Credit card size, front and back.

At this stage, this is the earliest portion of a manuscript that we have. Now, you start moving into the second, third, fourth centuries, and we get more manuscripts, bigger amounts that increase over the time, but that's the earliest one that we have. This is, in part, why Daniel Wallace, who's kind of a, I call him a modern-day Indiana Jones. He works for The Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts. Charts around the world and chronicles permanently manuscripts in monasteries, manuscripts, sometimes held at churches, manuscripts in libraries that have never been documented and recorded, and he records them. And as time goes on we're finding more and more manuscripts getting closer and closer to the original. He said, "We have more and earlier manuscript evidence about the person of Jesus Christ than we do anyone else in the ancient world, including Julius, Caesar and Alexander the Great."

Now, let that sink in for a minute. I don't know any skeptics about Julius Caesar. I don't know any skeptics about Alexander the Great, although there's some stories that have certainly been fabricated, but I know a lot of skeptics about the person of Jesus. What's the difference? No offense to any history teachers who may be here but it doesn't matter, when it's all said and done, what you believe about Julius Caesar or Alexander the Great. But, according to Jesus, the most important question any of us can ask is what? Who do you say that I am? You can say yes or no about Julius Caesar, and that doesn't change your life. You can say yes or no about Alexander the Great, that doesn't change your life. But how you answer the question of the identity of Jesus quite literally changes everything, literally changes everything.

Now, we're going to shift to the second question so let take a step back and just kind of remind us of what we're doing. We're asking the question, is the New Testament reliable? We're not asking is the New Testament inerrant? We're not asking is the New Testament the inspired word of God? If I'm speaking with somebody who's not a believer, I'm not going to try to prove that level of Christian theology, that's setting the standard way too high or the goal post where it doesn't need to be. I'm going to start with the identity of Jesus and the resurrection. When I get to New Testament let's start with, do we have the words of Jesus? Can we trust it? Is it accurate? And then, we can get downstream to questions of the inspiration of the scriptures. We're talking about three C's of the character. Do we have reason to trust the character of the writers?

What do we see? They say, "We investigated everything, we saw, we heard, we touched, we were eyewitnesses." They don't place it in a land far away but tell us who, when, and where, including embarrassing material, and they're willing to suffer and die for the belief they've seen the risen Jesus. They have the character. The copy test is now saying, has this book been changed over time or has it been copied faithfully? And this asks two questions. The first question is related to how early the manuscripts are. Most ancient books, 500 years, 600 years, 1,000 years that we largely trust. But when it comes to the New Testament what do we find? We have portions around the turn of the first century, maybe into the second century, and then many other manuscripts start appearing after that.

We can see why the New Testament is in a category of its own. Now, in our next lecture, we're going to shift to the second question which is related to how many manuscripts do we have? Now, in principle, do we want more or do we want less?

We want more.

We want more. But the more you have, the greater differences you'll find across the manuscripts. How do we make sense of those differences, that's where we're going to head next. But so far, let me pause and see what questions do you have of what we've covered about the reliability of the New Testament? Yes.

And again, this may be a huge question so, at this point, if you don't address it right now, but the willingness of the disciples to die. But what about Mormons, they're willing to die for their Book of Mormons?

It's a great question.

Okay.

So let's take ... You said the apostles and their willingness to die. What about Mormons willing to die for the Book of Mormon? What about, say, Muslims willing to die for their understanding of Islam? Here's the difference, is if somebody came in here right now and said, "Sean, do you believe this?" And I said yes and somebody marred me. All that proves is I actually believe it. You'd say, "Wow, he took one for the team, he was really sincere." But, hopefully, not that cavalier but you get the point. Nothing about the truth of Christianity rests upon my beliefs. That's the true for our modern day Muslims, that's true for any Mormon today, but the apostles traveled with Jesus for three years. They heard his teachings, they saw his miracles. They are the ones who transmit the tradition of Jesus that we look back to. So their testimony, they're in a different position from us because they're eyewitnesses, they're firsthand.

Rather than myself, Mormons, Muslims, at best, second, third, fourth, fifth hand. They're in a very different, what you might say, epistemological position. Their views matter much more deeply and their willingness to suffer tells me they're not inventing this story, they're not making it up, they really think Jesus did these miracles. They really think he rose from the grave. They really think he appeared to them. That's one of the key differences in their testimony. It's a great question. Thank you. Other questions so far? Yes.

So the time gap for that section of John was 10 to 100 years. When did we get the first complete New Testament?

When you start getting into the third and the fourth century. So in the second century you find many others. I can't remember, it feels like Dan Walsh said, and if I get it wrong I apologize. I think you said around the '40s into the second century you start seeing multiple manuscripts appear later in the second century. Third, fourth, fifth century is where you start to see some of the complete, but think about it this way though. We hold the full book that's a Bible together because of that technology. They didn't have the technology to do that so sometimes we import back on a certain understanding and expectation. The cost to produce a book, the time to produce a book was very, very different at that stage. But that's roughly when you see them start to show up. It's a great question. Yeah.

Could the disciples have possibly died because they weren't telling the truth after everything, the resurrection?

Could the Apostles possibly have died in not telling the truth. Now, the reason I emphasize that is because anything is possible. Possible is not interesting to me. If you're in a court of law and you go, "Well, it's possible this happened," the judge is going to throw it out right away. You've got to ask, what is most probable? What best explains the facts that we have? That the Apostles, all as far as we're aware of, were willing to suffer for this, and then you have Paul come along willing to suffer for this. And yet, the next generation after the Apostles, many of whom said, "We knew the Apostles and this whole thing is a lie and a fabrication," that's pretty hard to believe, given what we know about human nature and the reasons people lie, and also the counterintuitive nature of the message that was being proclaimed, so sure it's possible but it strikes me as profoundly unlikely.