Reason For The Faith

JOSH AND SEAN MCDOWELL: A READY DEFENSE & EVIDENCE THAT DEMANDS A
VERDICT
1) The Bible has not been changed overtime.
- The Bible has been transmitted accurately. There is more evidence that we have today in
the text of the New Testament is a correct representation of what was originally given than
there is for any ten pieces of classical literature put together. Moreover, in every one of
Shakespeare’s plays there are gaps in the printed text, where we have no idea what was
originally said. With the abundance of existing manuscripts (handwritten copies) of the
New Testament (more than 25,000), we know nothing has been lost through the
transmission of the text.
- We can know that the text of the Bible is reliable in the same way we can know that the
texts of early literature are reliable. If one judges the New Testament documents with the
same standard or tests applied to any one of the Greek classics, the evidence
overwhelmingly favours the New Testament. If a person contends that we have a reliable
text of the classics, then he would be forced to admit we have a reliable text of the NT.
Those who contend that the Bible is unreliable historically are not professional historians.
- The names, places, and events recorded in the Scriptures agree with current
archaeological discoveries and extra-biblical accounts.
2) The unique origin and nature of the Bible, the profound impact it has had on western
civilization, and its responsibility for much of the progress of human history.
- Unique in its continuity
- Written over a 1500 year span
- Written over 40 generations
- Written by more than 40 authors, from every walk of life - including kings,
peasants, philosophers, fishermen, poets, statesmen, scholars, etc.
- Moses, a political leader, trained in the universities of egypt
- Peter, a fisherman
- Amos, a herdsman
- Joshua, a military general
- Nehemiah, a cupbearer
- Daniel, a prime minister
- Luke, a doctor
- Solomon, a king
- Matthew, a tax collector
- Paul, a rabbi
- Written in different places, including the wilderness, a dungeon, a palace, inside
prison walls, while traveling, on an island
- Written at different times: during times of war and times of peace
- Written with different moods: some writing from the heights of joy and others
from the depths of sorrow and despair
 - Written in three languages: Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek
- And yet, despite all this, there is a unity in all the Scriptures: they all tell of the same
God, and all the books are woven together by a single theme: God’s plan of
redemption for humanity.
- Unique in its circulation
- The Bible has been read by more people and published in more languages than any
other book in history.
- This doesn’t prove that the Bible is the word of God, but it does show that there’s
something special about the book that billions of people throughout history have
found in it.
- Unique in its translation
- The Bible was one of the first major books translated (Septuagint, which is the
Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament, around 250 B.C.)
- The Bible has been translated and retranslated, and paraphrased, more than any
other book in existence.
- Three thousand Bible translators between 1950 and 1960 were at work translating
the Scriptures.
- Unique in its survival
- Unique in its teaching and ethics
- Unique in its influence on surrounding literature
- Conclusion: There is no other book like the Bible.
3) The reliability of the New Testament
- What is the New Testament? The New Testament consists of the gospel accounts, the acts,
the epistles, and Revelation.
- The gospel accounts are four different historical accounts of the life of Jesus Christ,
written by four different authors who were either eyewitnesses of Jesus or who
knew the eyewitnesses. Historically speaking, that’s very reliable.
- The Acts is an account of Jesus’ followers spreading the message of Jesus all
around the world and the growth of the church
- The gospel accounts and the Acts can be reasonably argued to have been written
within a few decades, and certainly within a century, of the events they describe.
- The epistles are letters that several of the apostles (those who were given
authority by God over the church, who were commissioned by God to be witnesses
of Jesus and to make disciples of all nations) wrote to different churches in order to
instruct, exhort, rebuke, teach, commend them of various things.
- Revelation is…a lot of prophecy of future?
- There are specific tests that scholars, researchers, and archaeologists use to determine the
authenticity of a historical document. These include the bibliographical test, the internal
evidence test, and the external evidence test.
- We will examine how the New Testament does with each test in order to determine its
reliability as an accurate source for the historical events it reports.
- Compare the New Testament with other ancient texts
 - Homer’s illiot: written cf. 1800BC. Oldest manuscript we have (OM) = 400BC. This
is the best—other than the OT. 1757 manuscripts (fragments). Homer’s Illiot stands
out a lot. But it’s nothing compared to the Bible.
- Sophicles’ plays, written 500-400 BC, earliest manuscript in 200 BC, we have about
193 existing manuscripts
- Plato’s Tetrologies.
- Greek NT: 5973 manuscripts for the Greek NT. Compared to any other ancient
writing. Was written about 40-95AD. 100-150 AD is when we have our earliest
manuscripts of the NT. This is how reliable the NT is. The time gap is about 40
years. The earliest manuscript we have is Papyrus 52. It’s dated between 100-150
AD. About 199 manuscripts between 100-150 AD.
- When we compare all the oldest manuscripts of the Greek NT with the NT we have today,
they are very similar and, though there are variations in some words, the overall meaning
has not changed in the text; so we can conclude that it has been accurately transmitted to
us through the centuries and that it has not changed over time.
- There are over 66,000 ancient manuscripts in 9 different languages that we can compare
against one another, to see if there are variations. The number of ancient manuscripts we
have for the NT is overwhelmingly greater than those of any other work of literature. In
addition, the earliest manuscript we have of the NT is closer to the date of the original
writing than any other work of literature.
- Therefore, to be skeptical of the resultant text of the NT books is to allow all of
classical antiquity to slip into obscurity, for no documents of the ancient period are
as well attested bibliographically as the NT. (Montgomery, HC, 29)
- We also have lots of Scripture citations from writings from the early church fathers - over
36,000
- The writers of the NT wrote as eyewitnesses or from firsthand information.
- Eight different tests for the accuracy of the NT accounts
- The intention test
- The ability test
- The character test
- The consistency test
- The bias test
- The cover-up test
- The corroboration test
- The adverse witness test
- Early non-Christian confirmation of NT history
- We also have extra biblical accounts that corroborate the names, places, and
events that the Bible teaches. Archaeology also consistently confirms the things
that the Bible teaches.
- Tacitus
- Suetonius
- Josephus
 - Archaeology helps to confirm the historicity of the Bible
- How do we know John wrote the gospel of John?
- The writer clearly knows Jewish customs and the Jewish expectations and knows
the Jewish scriptures and Jewish events and Jewish feasts and Jewish conflicts and
Jewish customs. So we can conclude that the author was Jewish. (He also treated
the Scriptures as all Jewish treated the Scriptures)
- And he assumes readers know about the Jewish customs, events, expectations, etc.
So who would do this but a Jewish author writing to a Jewish audience?
- The writer was also living in Israel. When the temple of Jerusalem was destroyed
by the Romans, it almost ended all the Jewish sects. There were then only two
Jewish groups after that: the Pharisees, and the Christian. How could the author
have known all the things that were eradicated after the temple was destroyed,
unless he had lived in Israel? So much of it passed away after the destruction of the
temple! He’s aware of all the complexity of the sects as well as the geography of the
area; knows the particular features of the area.
- He knows things that only a local Jewish would know.
- Other sources corroborate the times, places, and the events talked about in John
- They did a name study to see which names were most common in different areas.
And the gospels matched the frequency of the names.
- Whereas, we see that other “gospel” accounts don’t meet the criteria that
the four gospel accounts meet.
- Fraudulent gospels often add detail to embellish their narrative. These fraudulent
gospel writers don’t really know the culture and weren’t familiar with the events
and names and places and specific geographical location. So we can tell between
legit and legitimate gospel accounts.
- John likes to a give lots of detail, and he doesn’t get anything wrong.
- He is one of the twelve apostles. He is close with Peter. He must’ve been one of the
sons of Zebedee (the unnamed disciple). Peter was named in the gospel account,
and there were two running to the tomb. James was martyred in Acts 12:2, which is
long before the gospel of John was written. And John was one of Jesus’ closest
disciple, and he is called the “beloved disciple”. Therefore, it must be John.
- 21:24: “This is the disciple who is bearing witness about these things, and who has
written these things, and we know that his testimony is true.” They trusted this
disciple’s testimony
4) The reliability of the Old Testament
5) Evidence for Jesus
6) The deity of Christ is clearly portrayed in the Scriptures
7) Talking to Muslims
8) Evidence for God