Baby and the Bath Water (Part 3: Is the historical record of Jesus reliable?) When an individual has been offended by some aspect of religious teaching, it is not unusual for that individual to decide that the basis of true religion – the belief in God – must also be suspect. The hurt or irritated individual might “throw the baby out with the bath water.” Many question the authenticity of the documentation of the life of Jesus. What does the evidence say? Was the record “tampered with”? How does this documentation stack up with other documentation of its time? Does this documentation meet the standards of modern legal evidence? This exploration is done with facts and clear, supportable logic. Although history cannot be proven using purely scientific methodology, there are clear standards for historic reliability. If you want to know how the New Testament stacks up, read on!

2016

Jim Catlin Main Street Church of Brigham City

4/3/2016

INTRODUCTION

This is third in a series we’re doing on “The Baby and the Bath Water”. If you haven’t heard the first two

of them, here is a general recap. This series is intended for those who have lost their footing in

whatever religion they were in. Maybe they feel like their traditions betrayed them or were proven to

be false, or whatever … There has been an uptick in people worldwide who have left the religious

communities they were raised in because they’ve lost trust.

They might say, with good reason, “Those people in that organization can’t be trusted anymore!”

But … if you reject everything, you might be ‘throwing the baby out with the bathwater’. Maybe there is

some real truth about who God or Jesus is, that is being reflexively rejected. Maybe we shouldn’t throw

all of that stuff out.

This series is an attempt to reset the foundation so that it doesn’t rely on any ‘man-made’ authority.

We’re going to objectively explore the question, is there any good reason to believe that God does in

fact exist? Is there some good reason to believe that Jesus is connected to Him?

In Part 1 we discussed whether or not there was evidence to support the assertion that there “is” a God.

In Part 2 we discussed whether it would be reasonable to consider whether or not this God might have

come to earth in human form, in order to relate to us. If so, is there evidence that he might have done

so already?

In Part 3 we will address the next logical question. Can we trust what has been written about Jesus? In

this study we will look at the records about Jesus and decide if they have validity.

If God came in the flesh, he would have left an indelible record on mankind. Let’s look at that record.

How can we be sure that what has been written about Jesus isn’t all just---made up? Is what is written

factual history or just wishful legend? If we want to find the truth about God and Jesus, we need to

know the answer to these questions.

In my time as a pastor, I’ve talked to a lot of people about these issues. For those who are unconvinced,

there is a common thread to their objections. In this discussion, we’ll put those objections together and

allow them to be presented in this text as the voice of the “Antagonist”.

Let’s Establish the Question – Can the New Testament be considered to

be “historical”?

An antagonist would say, “I’m not a historian and I don’t want to be!”

I say, “That’s fair.”

Antagonist, “You can’t be certain about events in the past anyway.”

That’s said a lot these days. After all, how can you trust anything in history? Machiavelli said, “History is

written by the victors.”

Antagonist, “So, how can you trust it? After all, anyone can change it. You can’t know anything but

now.”

I say, “Well, in a way that’s true. You can’t scientifically prove historical events”.

I’m trained in science and a science truth can only be validated if you can repeat it under controlled

circumstances. That’s science. When you talk about historical events, if you can’t repeat them in a lab

it’s not science … it may have scientific elements, but it’s not science.

Can you scientifically prove that George Washington ever existed? Scientifically, no. Not unless I can re-

birth him in the lab under controlled circumstances. There’s some truth to the allegation that you can’t

prove history, so there must be some reasonable standard that can be used. It’s the same idea you have

in a court room. You can’t prove what happened, but you can use science and logic to establish what

happened using the evidence.

For example: There was blood. There was a knife in someone’s back. Figure out what happened. Can

you use science? Well, a little bit. Can you scientifically prove something happened? No. But you can

look at the evidence and weigh it. You can study it until you come to believe whether or not it is true

‘beyond a reasonable doubt’. And if it meets a high standard, then you can be comfortable that it is

probably what happened—there’s no good reason to doubt it. That’s what you have to do when you

look at history.

We’re going to look at the Bible and see what it says about Jesus. We’ll also look at secular reports from

the time. What did they say about Jesus?

Antagonist, “So, stop right now. Okay? You can’t scientifically prove it.”

So you’re skeptical about Pearl Harbor, or the Challenger disaster, or 9/11?

Antagonist, “Well, those are different.”

Why? Because …

Antagonist, “Because they happened during my lifetime.”

I say, “Wait … how old are you anyway?”

Antagonist, “Okay. Near the lifetime of parents and grandparents. Near history. I’ll trust those things.

Anyway, they are well documented. Much better documented.”

Than the Bible?

Antagonist, “Well, of course?”

Do you know anything about the documentation of the Bible?

Antagonist, “I don’t need to. After all, anyone could have changed it!”

This is a common argument today.

Antagonist, “It is so old ANYONE could have changed it. Why would you trust the Bible? That is just

crazy talk!”

I say, “It could be changed, but not without detection.”

Antagonist, “Well, how is that possible?”

Copies. Copies. And more copies.

Antagonist, “Ah ha. Gotcha! Copies can introduce errors!”

Yes, but not without detection.

Antagonist, “Stop saying that!”

The truth is that there is an incredible legacy of biblical documents. This legacy is so extraordinary that

anyone who wants to mess with the texts can be detected.

Antagonist, “Really?”

Yes!

Antagonist, “How is it possible that any errors introduced into the text can be detected?”

We’ll get there … but first let’s map out the topics we’re going to discuss in this study. Our objective is

to determine if we can believe what we read about Jesus. We’ll approach it by discussing the following

topics.

Topic #1: Council of Nicaea: propagandists & censors?

There is a charge commonly made that the New Testament was created at the Council of Nicaea, or that

it was corrupted in this council. We’ll discuss what happened at the Council of Nicaea, and what the

evidence demonstrates about the timeline of the emergence of the New Testament.

Topic #2: What do ancient non-believing historians say?

We’ll discuss what non-Christian contemporaries had to say about Jesus and the claims made by the

Christians of the day.

Topic #3: Ancient copies and tamper-detection

We’ll explore how the surviving documents provide protection against text tampering and corruption of

the record.

Topic #4: The earmarks of authentic “evidence”

Last, we’ll discuss the characteristics of “legal” evidence and what the evidence tells us about the

authenticity of the testimony contained in the New Testament.

So let’s go back to the Council of Nicaea and start there.

Council of Nicaea: propagandists & censors?

Antagonist, “What in the world is the Council of Nicaea?”

Let me set it up for you.

Many people would say, “Well the Bible … well it’s really too bad. Jesus was a nice guy. People wrote

stuff down about him but by 325 A.D., around the Council of Nicaea, the church got ahold of all those

documents and they changed everything. They erased this and they wrote that and they made the Bible

say what it says today. People who believe what the Bible says are just dupes of the Council of Nicaea.

Too bad for you. And by the way, look who sponsored and started the Council of Nicaea---Constantine

the Emperor. How can you trust what you’re reading when you have a Roman emperor who changed all

the texts at the Council of Nicaea?”

That is a common charge, but most of the people who make that charge don’t know anything about the

Council of Nicaea. So let’s talk about it. What was the Council of Nicaea?

Below is a representation of the timeline from the death of Jesus till about 400 A.D. On the left, 33 A.D.

was approximately the year Jesus was crucified. The timeline represents a time period of about 350

years after Jesus’ death. We’ll use this timeline throughout the discussion.

So what happens first? A little after 33 A.D. the synoptic gospels are written. Shortly after that, Paul’s

letters are penned. You see these “autographed” copies represented in the timeline below. Notice the

location of the Council of Nicaea on the timeline. It’s about 325 A.D.

Many think that these manuscripts traveled from the very beginning all the way to the Council of

Nicaea. At this convention, the first world-wide convention of Christians, the manipulations and

changes began. At the convention, they got rid of the old original documents and created their own

new/modified documents. And that’s how the New Testament began.

That’s the lie!

Antagonist, “OK, then. What really did happen at Nicaea?”

Lucky for us, they wrote it down. Let’s look at the agenda of the Council. They met together for a

couple of months. (Nicaea, by the way, is in present day Turkey.) Here’s what they met to discuss.

AGENDA OF THE COUNCIL OF NICAEA

1. The Divinity of Christ (Division among the Christians was caused by a man named Arius)

This was the most important issue at the Council. Apparently, Arius had caused a lot of trouble by

saying that Jesus was a lot less than was claimed by the New Testament. Arius said that Jesus was a

created being, and that before that moment---there was no Jesus. This caused a lot of strife in

Christendom because this was NOT what the scriptures said.

Representatives got together and said, “Let’s hammer this out! Let’s bring up the scriptures and figure

this out.”

This was THE driving issue of the Council of Nicaea. It was the reason that the Emperor Constantine

funded the council. Constantine gave them a place to meet and paid for their travel. He wanted very

much for this issue to get worked out.

2. What date should we celebrate Easter?

The disconnected Christian churches all over the world celebrated Easter at different times. Some of the

Christian churches said that Easter should be celebrated during the time of the Jewish Passover, since

Jesus’ death and resurrection were tied to the Jewish Passover. Other churches had a different idea

about when it should be celebrated. To this very day, Christians choose the date for Easter based on the

rule developed at the Council of Nicaea.

3. The Meletian Schism (A doctrinal problem, but not as big as the Arius Schism)

4. What should be the official canons and laws of the church? (Not a very significant set of rulings)

Agenda item number 4 sounds more important than it was. Before we get carried away, let me show

you some of the laws.

No self-castration

No young women in cleric’s houses for any reason

Establish yearly meetings

No kneeling on Sunday

Stuff like that. If you’re curious, the controversy about kneeling on Sunday went like this … If church on

Sunday is to celebrate the resurrection, why kneel? We kneel when we think about the cross. We don’t

kneel when we are celebrating the resurrection. That was the logic.

That was the entire agenda of Nicaea. Now where is the part about messing with the scriptures? It’s

not there. But there is something really significant that we might overlook. Let’s think about this very

carefully. They hold the first world-wide convention of Christians and they don’t discuss what scriptures

should be accepted. Instead, they use the existing, apparently agreed upon scriptures to answer the

question, was Jesus fully God?

This discussion was well documented---both sides of the argument. The debaters used scriptures from

both the Old and New Testament. Very interesting …

Let’s take a minute to describe the “autographed” manuscripts. The very earliest manuscripts included

the gospels and Paul’s letters. Just a note---Paul’s letters were probably penned before the gospels

were recorded. The documents we’re discussing here were written sometime around 50 A.D. Jesus was

crucified and resurrected about 33 A.D. As you can see, these documents were produced not very many

years after Jesus was on the earth. We know they were in circulation by 100 A.D. How do we know

this? Writings by some of the very earliest leaders of the young church referenced these documents.

These leaders, Clement, Ignatius, Polycarp and others, quoted from these documents. Polycarp was a

disciple of the Apostle John. (John the Beloved) These leaders wrote between 90 and 125 A.D. Is that

cool, or what?

We can tell they had easy access to Paul’s letters and all four of the gospels by 100 A.D. You can prove it

by reading the notes they recorded in their lectionaries. They quote from 25 of the 27 books of the New

Testament. This is how we know that the New Testament was pretty well formed by 100 A.D.

Which books did they leave out? They don’t quote from Jude, and they don’t quote from 2nd John.

Don’t worry about 2nd John. We know it preceded 3rd John, and the early church fathers DID quote

from 3rd John. That’s an extraordinary testimony that the books of the New Testament were in the

hands of these leaders by 100 A.D. That is 70 years after the death of Jesus.

Other church fathers, fathers later in history, like Clement of Alexandria, Origin, and other names you

may or may not have heard, quoted from the New Testament a whopping 36,289 times! We know this

based on notes they recorded. These fathers who were distributed all over the world---some in Rome,

Alexandria, Smyrna-- wrote between 110 A.D. and 300 A.D. They all quoted from what we would

recognize as the New Testament.

Notice that by this time in the timeline we are not even at Nicaea yet. There is enough, in their notes, to

completely reconstruct the entire New Testament except for 11 verses. That means that if you had no

New Testament, but only their documents, you could reconstitute the entire New Testament minus

those 11 verses. That is extraordinary.

This is powerful evidence that a fully formed New Testament existed long before the Council of Nicaea.

So, who put the New Testament together? This picture is complicated by the Christian persecution in

the ancient world.

Remember, Paul was beheaded during the rule of the emperor Nero. That was the beginning of a time

of terrible persecution of the church. Rome claimed that all of their problems were the fault of the

Christians. Classically, it has been believed that Nero began this process of blaming Rome’s problems on

the Christians, to turn the people’s anger away from his administration. During this time, if you were

found to be a Christian you could be executed on the spot.

This intense persecution began about 60-70 A.D. and continued with fierce intensity into the early

300’s. In 303 A.D. a man named Diocletian became emperor. He really hated the Christians.

He put out a 3 point edict that was in effect for 8 or 9 years. It said:

1. Everytime you find a Christian, kill them.

2. Everytime you find a Bible, burn it.

3. Oppose Christians at every opportunity.

Many of the earliest documents probably went up in smoke during this period—but many remained.

So who put the New Testament together? You couldn’t BE a centralized Christian church at this time

BECAUSE of the persecution. Churches met in secret … like the modern underground churches.

Christians were scattered out, in tiny pockets, widely distributed. There was no “central office building”

for the church. Churches communicated when and if they could, but there was no centralized church or

centralized leadership. The group in Rome had their leader. The group in Alexandria had theirs, and so

on. Because of the persecution, there was no way to get together and discuss standardizing the Bible. It

was just too dangerous.

So who put the Bible together? God himself did. Why do I say that? Because all of these divergent,

dissociated churches began simultaneously to use the same sets of scriptures. Not because there were

no other potential books---but because the Holy Spirit inspired them. No powerful leader put his fist

down and said, “These books are in and these books are out”. Instead, the distributed church

discovered the canon of the New Testament---independently—through the Holy Spirit’s leadership.

This means that by the time we get to Nicaea, without any manmade coercion, everyone is using the

same books of the New Testament. That’s remarkable.

The miracle of Nicaea is that by the time of this council, the independent regions of Christianity had

come to rely upon the same set of scriptures—without collusion.

When the representatives of Christendom got together to debate the divinity of Christ, they never had

to debate which scriptures to use for this discussion. The distributed, persecuted, underground church

had settled on the same 27 books of the New Testament—independently.

So the bogus assertion, that a centralized, controlling church forced the choice of the books of the New

Testament is demonstrably false. The bogus assertion that the New Testament was changed during the

Council of Nicaea is also false.

Antagonist, “So the Council of Nicaea didn’t create or change the New Testament, that doesn’t mean it’s

reliable. Maybe someone else in the chain corrupted it.”

OK, Antagonist. If you insist on being stubborn, let’s think this through again. Assume for a minute that

you wanted to change the New Testament. You’d like to take some books out and put some other

books in---or maybe, you just want to get rid of some verses that you don’t like. If you had a time

machine and could go back to any place in the timeline to affect this change, where would you go?

Actually, there’s nowhere you could go to make such a change, but let’s shelf your objection for now. I

promise we’ll discuss it again. For now, let’s go on to our next talking point.

What Do Ancient Non-Believing Historians Say?

This is a relevant question. Did non-Christian historians say anything consistent with what the Bible said

about Jesus? People don’t usually explore this, but it’s important. Did anyone write about Jesus who

was NOT a follower of Jesus? Oh, yes!

As the followers of Jesus spread out over the known world, they drastically changed the existing culture.

They made quite a splash! Historians of the time recorded this progression. Actually, they wrote a lot

about it. What did they say?

Here are some of the ancient historians that talked about Jesus and his followers.

1. Josephus was a Jewish contemporary of Jesus.

2. Celsus was a classic antagonist against the gospel who used to duke it out with Origin, one of

the early Christian fathers.

3. Tacitus was a secular historian who was not greatly opposed to the church, but he was NOT a

Christian.

4. The Talmudim, those who wrote Jewish history at the time, recorded relevant information also.

There were many more historians and writers, but we’ll highlight these. These men were not Christians.

In some cases they were Christian-antagonists. What did they write about Jesus?

If you read their histories and piece together what they said, this is the picture you get:

1. They agreed that Jesus lived during the time of Tiberius Caesar.

2. They agree that he lived a virtuous life.

3. They agree that Jesus was purported to be a wonder worker.

4. They agree that he had a brother named James.

5. They agree that Jesus was acclaimed to be the Messiah.

6. They agreed that he was crucified under Pontius Pilate.

7. They agreed that he was crucified on the eve of the Jewish Passover.

8. They said that when Jesus died, darkness and an earthquake occurred.

9. They agreed that his disciples were willing to die for their belief.

10. They recorded that Christianity spread rapidly as far as Rome.

11. They wrote that his disciples denied the Roman gods and actually worshiped Jesus as God.

That’s what the secular historians wrote and said. They didn’t believe that Jesus was God, but they

faithfully recorded the above in accepted historical documents. This is a remarkable thing. These men

had no ‘stake in the game’, but when you piece their assertions together, it bears a close resemblance to

the story that was recorded in the New Testament. Can we start to say that it might be possible to

consider the New Testament to be “reputable” history? An impartial person, looking at the logic has to

at least say---probably.

OK. I promised to get back to the issue of tamper-detection. Let’s go!

Ancient Copies and Temper-Detection

We’ll start by returning to the timeline discussion. Shortly after the death and resurrection of Jesus, the

gospels were written. In addition, Paul penned his letters, as did Peter and many others. During this

time, the originals---the autographed versions---were circulated. Christians wanted to share the

information. They made and shared copies. Copies could not be made at a document clearing-house,

because the church was widely distributed and operating under duress.

So, when Paul writes a letter to Rome, for example, the book of Romans---it makes it to Rome and the

intended audience reads it. The word gets around that there is an extraordinary document penned by

Paul.

They say, “We’d like a copy!”

And so a copy was made. The same thing happened when Paul wrote a letter to the people of Colossi,

or Thessalonica or Ephesus. Paul’s letters would travel hundreds of miles. The excited Christians

would read the documents and enthusiastically copy the letters and share them with others. The

process went on and on. It created a distribution network that operated in a totally uncontrolled way.

Suddenly there were copies all over the place. You can think of it like this … Paul’s letters went “viral”.

Somewhere along the way, the originals---the autographed versions---disappeared. Why? Perhaps they

were destroyed as part of the persecution. They were written on papyrus. Perhaps they wore out, or

disintegrated. We’re not sure, but even though the ‘autographed’ versions disappeared, we were left

with many copies. Are they good copies? That’s a good question.

Over the centuries, more and more copies were made. Even though many disappeared, we still have a

significant ‘rabbit trail’ to the very early copies. In the last few hundred years, many more copies have

been discovered.

Some of these copies are whole books, but many are fragments. We have a whole manuscript of the

letter to the Colossians. We have a fragment of John’s gospel that has been reliably dated to 125 A.D.

Since John’s gospel was likely penned in about 90 A.D., there’s not much time between John’s

authorship, and the existing fragment. (About 35 years) That is pretty cool!

So here we are with thousands of pieces of the New Testament in handwritten Greek. We have the

ability to put them together to see if they make a consistent message. We can compare these writings

to quotations from the earliest church leaders, like Polycarp. A huge amount of scriptural evidence

exists.

And that is not all …

Besides the many fragment of scripture, some compiled books exist also. These books are called

“codices’”. Very early compilations were contained in scrolls, but as the technology for forming large

documents advanced, they were built into books. Another word for book is “codex”. In the last few

hundred years whole Bibles have been discovered in codex form.

Here are a few of the important ones:

1. Alexandrinus (A), a Greek Bible is dated to the 400s.

The codex, Alexandrinus, is a fifth-century manuscript of the Greek Bible, containing the

majority of the Septuagint and the New Testament. It is one of the earliest and most complete

manuscripts of the Bible. It derives its name from Alexandria where it resided for a number of

years before it was brought by the Eastern Orthodox Patriarch Cyril Lucaris from Alexandria to

Constantinople. It was given to Charles I of England in the 17th century.

2. Rescriptus (R) , is dated to the late 300s.

The original text on this codex was the New Testament, but someone needed the parchment to

write something else, so they erased the original text. They wrote something else on top. Later

on, someone figured out how you could see what was originally written on it. Amazingly, they

discovered that it was a complete New Testament!

3. Sinaiticus (S), dated to 350-360 A.D.

Sinaiticus was an ancient, handwritten copy of the Greek Bible.

4. Vaticanus (V), dated to 340 A.D.

The Codex Vaticanus, so called because it’s the most famous manuscript in the possession of the

Vatican library, is generally believed to be from the fourth century, and is thought to be the

oldest (nearly) complete copy of the Greek Bible in existence.

Think about this. Previously, we talked about thousands of fragments, but by 400 A.D. we have

full Bibles! You can go online and read directly off the digitized versions of 3 of these right

now!

So let’s summarize …

We have 5,700 Greek, hand-copied manuscripts---maybe not whole Bibles, but in some cases,

whole books from the Bible. Some of these manuscripts are fragments, but they’re all

handwritten pieces in the original Greek.

In addition, we have 9,000 manuscripts in ancient languages like Syriac, Coptic, Latin, Arabic

and others. These copies were translated to give visibility to the scriptures to cultures that did

not read Greek. The world is filled with these second-hand translated copies.

We have the Church fathers’ direct quotations in notes, books and journal entries from 100 A.D.

and on. The New Testament can be reconstructed from their quotations.

We also have large codex books that contain complete, or nearly complete Bibles.

How can we verify the integrity of the Bible? We take all of these pieces and put them together

and we see if they agree. If some person---well meaning or otherwise---decides in 250 A.D. to

change a passage of the Bible, he can’t do it without being detected. Why? Because we’ve got

copies before the change and copies from afterwards.

Here is an illustration:

If they guy who wanted to make these changes, sent his modified copy home to Syria, we could

figure that out. All the copies made before his change would not have the modification. All the

copies made after that date would contain the modification. The corrupted documents would be

in Syria, but would not likely have been distributed outside the Syriac speaking countries. We

could look at the trail of evidence and figure out what happened.

Real life examples---

Example #1:

There’s a really famous group of verses in 1st John that we know were added. We can tell you

the year they were added---and by whom. Most modern Bibles leave the injected passages in,

but they flag the words with a parenthesis. This is their way of telling us that the passage is not

found in the oldest existing documents. It might be good doctrine, but it is not original scripture.

Example #2:

The last handful of verses in Mark’s gospel, if you have a modern translation, have a flag around

them. They are also not found in the oldest documents.

It is easy for scholars to detect these changes. Pretty amazing, huh?

Here’s another illustration:

Think about the attack on Pearl Harbor. Everyone in the United States knew who attacked Pearl

Harbor because it was all over the news. But let’s say for illustration purposes, that Bill, an evil

reporter, brings the information back to Wisconsin. Instead of printing the truth, he blames the

attack on the Germans. Suddenly, all the newspapers in Wisconsin say that the Germans

attacked Pearl Harbor. No surprise, the people in Wisconsin believe the story. They trust their

home town reporter. It must be true!

It won’t be long until the people of Wisconsin figure out that they had been duped. Why?

Because newspapers all over the country are reporting that Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. Uncle

Bob is visiting a friend in Cleveland. He calls back and says the Japanese were responsible for

the attack. The jig is up!

Let’s talk about how the evidence of the New Testament stacks up to the evidence in support of

other ancient writings.

Let’s talk about Plato? Remember him? The most influential philosopher in Western

Civilization. He was the famous student of Socrates, and the teacher of Aristotle. Everything we

know about Plato comes from six Greek documents. These documents were penned 1200 years

after Plato’s death. Why aren’t we suspicious of this documentation?

John’s gospel was written in about 90 A.D. and we have a fragment that exists from 125 A.D.

That’s a big difference. That’s only 35 years!

Plato’s documentation. (6 documents, 1200+ years after death)

John’s documentation. (Many, many, many manuscripts, 35 years after this document was

penned)

We are not suspicious of the Plato documentation because it is secular. We are suspicious of

John’s gospel because it is religious.

In summary: There are 5,700 early fragments from the New Testament. In addition, there are

more than 9,000 existing manuscripts where parts of the New Testament were copied into other

languages. There are also many, some quite early, documents created by the early church fathers

that directly quote the New Testament. There are also many full, early dated, Codex books in

existence.

There’s NO QUESTION that the New Testament is the most founded book of ancient times---

EVER---and not by a little bit.

Frederick Kenyon, a powerful intellect of the times, the director of the British Museum, looked

at the manuscript evidence and said:

So when people say, you can’t trust the Bible because it was messed with, I think, apparently you

don’t know anything about how it came to us! Its historicity is well-founded.

Let’s go on to our last topic: the earmarks of authentic “evidence”.

The Earmarks of Authentic “Evidence”

Let’s look at what constitutes valid testimony in a court of law.

1. Multiple accounts of an event should be similar but not identical. The differences should be

attributable to observation of event from different viewpoints.

Witness accounts should not “smack” of collusion. That’s one reason why potential witnesses are

questioned by police in isolation. If the stories that emerge are identical, it is likely that they were

planned or rehearsed. If they are wildly different, one or all of the witness testimonies are likely in

error.

For example: If two people saw a car accident, and they told the exact same story in the exact same

way, it would indicate that they got together and rehearsed the story. Their testimony would not be

credible, and would likely be thrown out. If the stories are basically the same, but differ in less obvious

detail, they are potentially valid.

They synoptic gospels represent the gospel story from the same basic point of view, but they differ in

organization, emphasis, and some details. They are similar, but not identical. The book of John has a

different purpose and a different point of view---but it’s testimony is complimentary to the other

gospels---not oppositional. The testimony of these books has differences that are within reasonable

bounds. Their testimony would be considered valid.

2. There must be evidence that participants in the New Testament accounts are real historical

figures.

In the New Testament, 30 real people are mentioned by name whose existence is verified by the

writings of secular historians.

Pontius Pilate, of course, shows up in the New Testament. His case is very interesting. For years, the

reference to Pontius Pilate was questioned because there was no existent record of him in secular

history. Then, in the 1960’s, they were working on restoring an amphitheater in Caesarea Maritime.

Caesarea Maritime was an ancient Roman resort. While doing their excavations they found a stone that

was used to support steps. They turned it around because it had an inscription on it. Apparently it had

been part of a monument to Pontius Pilate. The inscription was his name. OK---apparently he did exist!

Apparently he really was the prefect of the area!

Does this begin to make the New Testament seem like real history?

A gentleman, named Colin J. Hemer, went through the Book of Acts and found 84 historical elements

that were verifiable. I would recommend his book, The Book of Acts in the Setting of Hellenistic History,

to anyone.

Colin did a careful analysis. He sifted through Acts and found little details that only an eye witness

would know. He identified slang that was only used in that area at that time. He noted details about

the depth of water that would only be relevant in that time, for maritime purposes, because of the types

of boats they used.

Colin sifted through the last half of Acts and asked himself, would anyone who was NOT an eyewitness

know about these secret facts? He concluded that they would not. We can confirm these details

through a careful reading of relevant secular history.

Luke, the historian who wrote the book of Acts, got 84 of these obscure details right! That is

remarkable.

Craig Blomberg, a professor in Denver, did the same kind of assessment for the Book of John. In his

book, The Historical Reliability of the Gospels, he identified 59 details that provided evidence of the

book’s authenticity.

One of them had to do with the John 2 account where Jesus turned the water into wine. John says that

the water Jesus turned into wine was contained in stone waterpots. It was not well known until after

the 1960s that the Jews of the time period stored their ceremonial washing water in stone waterpots.

Sometime, around this date, archeologists were excavating a burned out house, that they named, “The

Burnt House.” It was the ruin of a house that was destroyed in 70 A.D. when the Romans brought down

Jerusalem. In the ruins, they found 6 stone waterpots.

What are the chances that John would write his gospel and include the narration with the stone

waterpots--- unless he had been an eyewitness to the miracle of the turning water into wine? The

things Blomberg found look like real evidence. Biblical detail verified!

Simon Greenleaf, a law professor from Harvard Law School, wrote a popular treatise on evidence. It

outlined the characteristics of “valid” evidence. This book, The Treatise on the Law of Evidence, came to

define the rules of admissibility and validity of evidence. Though this book was written a century ago, it

is still used as an authoritative text on this subject.

Greenleaf looked at the New Testament, applying those same rules of evidence. He concluded that the

New Testament would be received in any court of law---without hesitation.

Antonin Scalia, the Supreme Court Justice who just passed away, said this in a speech delivered at the

Mississippi College School of Law … sarcastically. (He was referring to the early apostles)

His point was that it made no sense for them to do what they did. The more they asserted the divinity

of Jesus, the closer it brought them to their own death. It goes along with one of the points of evidence

that Greenleaf brought up. If someone brings evidence that is not personally going to do them any

good, then it is probably true. If they benefit from it, it is probably less trustworthy.

If the apostles were likely to get KILLED FOR PRESENTING THEIR TESTIMONY TO THE WORLD---what they

said was probably true. That’s sound logic---not just wishful thinking.

The earmarks of logical evidence are clearly present in the New Testament. If you are interested in this

type of stuff, there is a very good modern book called, Cold Case Christianity: A Homicide Detective

Investigates the Claims of the Gospels, by James Warner Wallace and Lee Strobel. Wallace was a

detective that worked on cold cases. He used the rules they developed for including or excluding

evidence in cold cases. Cold cases were particularly difficult to work with because the evidence in a cold

case is historical evidence. He applied the rules he learned to his investigation of the validity of the New

Testament. It’s a fascinating thing.

Another good reference is the book, I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be and Atheist, by Norman L. Geisler

and Frank Turek. Geisler brings up some of the things we’ve discussed and other relevant things we

have not discussed. If you’re curious, I’d encourage you to look at it yourself.

Here is the bottom line: ---if there is a creator ---and if he wants to relate to us by coming in the flesh of a man ---and if that happened in Jesus ---can we look at the historical account of Jesus and say – maybe this is exactly what happened?

CONCLUSION:

Council of Nicaea: propagandists & censors

The Council of Nicaea did not distort the scriptures. The New Testament was developed and

safeguarded by the Holy Spirit during the early---disorganized---days while the church suffered serious

persecution. The integrity was maintained by thousands of copies … literally trails of independently

maintained and copied manuscripts.

What do ancient non-believing historians say?

The writings of many non-believing historians verify that the basic story about Jesus was historically

accurate. They verify that his followers deeply believed in his miracles and the resurrection. They

worshiped Jesus AS God. Historians record that the new belief spread like wildfire across the known

world.

Ancient copies and tamper-protection

Because of the wide-spread dissemination of thousands of copies of the manuscripts and whole books

of the New Testament, the scriptures could not have been tampered-with without detection. Through

reconstruction of the texts it would be possible to figure out where and when such corruption or

modification occurred. Additions or modifications to the scriptures have been identified and flagged in

the modern versions of the Bible.

The ear-marks of authentic evidence

Can you believe that the New Testament is a valid historical document? On the face of the evidence of

the New Testament, yes! You can. Using court-room quality standards for evidence, the testimonies

and the evidence would hold up in a court of law.

So where do we go from here? Let’s resume our conversation with the unidentified antagonist.

Antagonist, “Okay, I admit it. The New Testament looks historical.”

Thank heavens we’ve gotten this far! Most people don’t know that, because they’ve never really looked

into it.

Antagonist, “So okay. Jesus was a real guy. I’ll admit that, but just a normal guy.”

Let’s talk about the word … normal. The eyewitnesses recorded him as saying some crazy things.

Antagonist, “How crazy?”

Let me read one of the sayings to you. Jesus said this about himself … it’s from John 14:10.

Jesus, “Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I

do not speak on my own authority, but the Father who dwells in me does his works. Believe me that I

am in the Father and the Father is in me, or else believe on account of the works themselves.”

Now that is crazy talk, unless you are the incarnate creator himself.

C.S. Lewis said that you can’t let Jesus be something short of the incarnate creator. You can’t just let

him be a good teacher. Why? Because John 14:10 is crazy talk coming from ‘just a good teacher’.

Jesus said just what you would expect---if he was the creator of the universe---in the flesh.

Antagonist, “But we can’t trust what’s in the Bible!”

There you go again! We’ve just shown that you can. And where Luke mentions those things that can be

verified in history, in that same section, with the same kind of candor, he describes over 30 miracles.

How can he be a credible historian and still talk about miracles?

Well maybe it’s fair---because maybe they actually happened.

JUST THINKING …

In the next Baby and the Bathwater discussion, we’ll address what Jesus said about himself. If he is the

incarnate, seeable, touchable, hearable incarnation of the invisible creator God, and he came to make a

guest appearance on earth … what in the world did he say? What was so important that he wanted to

communicate this message to us---in person.

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So next time we’ll discuss---WHAT DID JESUS SAY?