There’s no dispute that the Bible contains a collection of historical documents. The dispute concerns when they were written, by who, and how much of the content actually happened.
Archeology and other documents validate many people, places, and events recorded in the Bible, but some events don’t line up well. The biggest issue is the ubiquitous descriptions of supernatural occurrences that materialists reject regardless of evidence. Scholars who study the Bible with a presupposition that supernatural events are all fiction come to dramatically different conclusions than those who assume the Bible is God’s word and trust that all the supernatural stories are accurate.
As an evidentialist, I avoid presuppositions either way, attempting to objectively identify what the evidence indicates most likely happened. Materialists accuse me of interpreting the evidence with a pro-Christian bias. Those who see the Bible as God’s word are shocked with my “liberal” interpretation of evidence, acknowledging the possibility of errors and classifying passages that contradict science as allegory and metaphor. Objectivity is elusive, but I do my best to challenge my conclusions, looking diligently for evidence and reasonable arguments contrary to what I find most likely.
As with scientific evidence, I hold out uncertainty and the possibility that I can’t see my own bias, but I must decide what appears most likely using my analytical abilities as objectively as I can. Claims of the Bible vary, but some come with extremely convincing credentials.
New Testament Historicity. Historians evaluate the historical reliability of ancient manuscripts by answering a variety of questions such as:
How long after the events described was the text written?
How close in time are the earliest manuscripts to the original writing?
How many copies are there?
Are the copies consistent (accurately copied)?
How complete is the text?
Is anything in the text validated by other writings or archeology?
How sincere were the authors?
The Bible, particularly the New Testament (NT), far exceeds other ancient manuscripts in all of these categories. The closest competitor for the first 4 questions is Homer’s Iliad and you can see below that it’s not even in the same league as the NT. Historians trust that the writings of Tetralogies by Plato are close to his original works, but his works aren’t even in the same league as Homer.
New Testament Historicity Comparison[38], [39], [40]
Time Gap Copies Completeness Accuracy
New Testament 25-60 years 5750 99.5% 99.9%
Iliad by Homer 500 years 643 95% 95%
Tetralogies by Plato 1300 years 7 - -
Timing of when the NT was originally written is vital. We know that early copyists were meticulous in their efforts to copy these sacred writings perfectly, so the most likely time for error to enter the account is before the events were first put in writing. We know this time was short because the book of Acts had to be written less than 30 years from the crucifixion of Jesus.
No mention of fall of Jerusalem in AD 70
No reference to the Jewish War in AD 66
No hint of Nero’s persecution starting in AD 65
Apostle Paul still alive (He was executed around AD 65.)
Apostle James still alive. (He was executed around AD 62 according to Josephus.)
Jewish Temple still standing with active sacrifices (It was destroyed in AD 70.)[41]
Most of the epistles and the book of Luke were written before Acts because Acts records events following those writings. Scholars believe Mark was written before Luke because Luke used material from Mark. They also believe Matthew was written before, or close to Luke for similar reasons. Experts date some creeds, such as the one recorded in 1 Corinthians 15:1-8, to within a few years after Jesus died.[42]
Many Bible critics try to date Acts after 70 AD. They argue that Luke simply chose to end his story with Paul imprisoned in Rome, but I’ve never heard a good justification for this argument. Luke ends his story so abruptly that it seems something interrupted him while he was still recording events of the early church with a primary focus on Paul. Throughout his narrative, Luke took great pains to record key events (along with some mundane details) related to the beginning and spread of Christianity. He included important details related to key people, including James, Peter, and Paul. All 3 of these evangelists were executed in the 7th decade, between 62 and 65 AD. Then Jerusalem and the temple were destroyed in 70 AD.
If Luke was able to keep writing, he surely would have written about these events. It makes no sense for him to stop abruptly with Paul imprisoned in Rome, unless that’s were Paul was when his writing was interrupted. It seems quite plausible that something happened to Luke during Nero’s persecutions which started in 64 AD, but his writings were preserved and reproduced during ensuing years. Some editing could have happened after 70 AD, but the primary writing must have been complete before 64 AD.
Ancient NT manuscripts date much closer to the events and the original writing than most ancient documents from that time. Historians who dispute authorship dates rationalize the later to justify their materialist presuppositions, but even the later dates they claim are much closer to events than the authorship of other documents from antiquity.
The time gap from the original writing to our earliest copies of the entire NT is less than 200 years with some fragments less than 100 years. No other document written so long ago comes close. Others range from 500 to 1500 years .[43]
Many historical events are accepted as real based on mention by one writer, but many events in the NT are recorded by multiple writers and some are confirmed by extra-Biblical writings. Most key events of the Gospels are recorded by 4 to 7 NT writers and many are confirmed by at least one non-Christian source such as Josephus, Tacitus, Suetonius, Thallus, and the Jewish Talmud. These non-Christian sources confirm the following 12 historical aspects of the NT.
1. Jesus was from Nazareth.
2. He lived a virtuous life.
3. He performed unusual feats.
4. He introduced new teachings contrary to Judaism.
5. He was crucified under Pontius Pilate.
6. His disciples believed he rose from the dead.
7. His disciples denied polytheism.
8. His disciples worshiped him.
9. His teachings spread rapidly, and the number of his disciples grew quickly.
10. His followers believed their spirits were immortal.
11. His followers had contempt for death.
12. His followers renounced material goods.[44]
More than 20 non-Christian sources from the years 30-130 confirm details of the life of Jesus.[45]
[38] Norman Geisler. A Popular Survey of the New Testament. (Baker, 2007), page 13, 16.
[39] Norman Geisler. Has the Bible Been Accurately Copied Down Through the Centuries. (Southern Evangelical Seminary & Bible College. https://ses.edu/has-the-bible-been-accurately-copied-down-through-the-centuries/, 2018), paragraph 8.
[40] Josh D. McDowell and Clay Jones. A Bibliographic Test. https://www.josh.org/wp-content/uploads/Bibliographical-Test-Update-08.13.14.pdf, (2014) (Adapted from an earlier article by Clay Jones, The Bibliographical Test Updated, Christian Research Journal, Vol. 35, no. 2, 2012), pages 2-7.
[41] Geisler, 2007, page 16.
[42] Douglas Groothuis. Christian Apologetics: A Comprehensive Case for Biblical Faith. (Intervarsity Press, 2011), pages 438-439.
[43] Geiser, 2018, New Testament section.
[44] Geisler, 2007, page 21.
[45] Gary R. Habermas, Dealing with Doubt (Moody Press, 1990), Chapter 3, Section A1c.
Archeology. Archeologists for years have been skeptical of the Bible’s historical accuracy because it seemed to contradict many of their findings, but over time, new archeological finds have validated many people, places, and events in the Bible. We’re slowly learning that many things in the Bible that had been assumed false by archeologists are actually true.[46] There are some details in the Bible that don’t align with archeology as I discussed near the end of Chapter 3. These conflicts weigh against doctrines of inerrancy, but they don’t discredit all of the Bible. No historical document is inerrant.
Sincerity of Authorship. The NT stands alone in this category. Most ancient historical documents were produced by individuals with a motivation to win the favor of powerful officials or profit personally in some way. Early Christians faced rejection from friends and family, excommunication from their religious community, loss of business, harassment, arrest, torture, and death. Writing these documents never won favorable treatment from powerful officials.
Even the content of the documents reveals sincerity. The New Testament gives an honest portrayal of the disciples and apostles behaving foolishly with the kind of actions most authors would omit because they want to give a favorable portrayal of their heroes. (Consider Peter's denial, slowness of all the disciples to understand the teachings of Jesus, bickering among disciples, a mother asking for promotion for her disciple sons, Paul and Barnabas separating in a dispute over John-Mark, etc.) The accounts also include honest representation of embarrassing details such as women being the first to discover the empty tomb and see the resurrected Jesus. If they were inventing or embellishing the story one of the key disciples would most likely be the first to see Jesus. In their culture, the testimony of women wasn't considered reliable.
Coherency. The Bible was written over thousands of years by extremely diverse authors, under dramatically different conditions, in 3 different languages. You would expect such a collection of writings on controversial subjects to be incoherent and full of contradictions, but the Bible miraculously flows into a coherent story. Of course, there are some inconsistencies and apparent contradictions, but nothing anywhere near what we would expect under these circumstances. (I’ll go into this more later.)
[46] John D. Currid. 10 Crucial Archeological Discoveries Related to the Bible. (Crossway, 2018), https://www.crossway.org/articles/10-crucial-archaeological-discoveries-related-to-the-bible/.
Prophecy. The Bible also contains hundreds of fulfilled prophecies. The most extraordinary prophecies were fulfilled by Jesus Christ. We have copies of the book of Isaiah dated before the birth of Jesus that contain specific details about the life, suffering, and death of Jesus. We have a prophecy from Daniel 9:25-26 predicting the exact day for Jesus entering Jerusalem on Palm Sunday.[47] When the NT was written, no one knew this! Modern research revealed the detailed dates demonstrating this prophecy’s fulfillment. Daniel 9:25-26 not only predicts the time Jesus would come to Jerusalem, but it predicted that Jesus would be put to death. It also predicted the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple, which happened just a few decades after Jesus died.
Critics claim that parts of this prophecy was fulfilled hundreds of years earlier, close to the time that it was written, but that event doesn’t fulfill all the details of the prophecy. It’s also possible for prophecies to have multiple fulfillment events. If I had to choose between the two, Jesus makes such an astounding match to the details of the prophecy that his triumphal entry wins hands down.
This Daniel 9 prophecy is just one example. The complete record of fulfilled prophecy in the Bible is powerful and well documented in other books so I won’t go into detail here.
Variations. Many people claim differences among the Gospel stories indicate that they are false, but the types of variations we see in the Gospels actually confirm their validity. When testimonies vary on minor details but agree on major points, that demonstrates that the testimonies are independent and credible. We may not know exactly what happened in the varying details, but the areas of agreement are more credible because of those variations. The accounts are less likely to be a collaboration of conspirators if the stories vary on minor points .[48]
The gospel accounts agree very effectively on all major Christian beliefs. Variations occur only on irrelevant points such as reporting how many angels were at the tomb of Jesus or whether Jairus said his daughter was dead or dying.
The words of Jairus form the only irreconcilable contradiction I’ve been able to find in the NT. We have three different variations on this incident.
“While he was saying this, a synagogue leader came and knelt before him and said, ‘my daughter has just died. But come and put your hand on her, and she will live.’”[49]
“Then one of the synagogue leaders, named Jairus, came, and when he saw Jesus, he fell at his feet. He pleaded earnestly with him, ‘My little daughter is dying. Please come and put your hands on her so that she will be healed and live.’”[50]
“Then a man named Jairus, a synagogue leader, came and fell at Jesus’ feet, pleading with him to come to his house because his only daughter, a girl of about twelve, was dying.”[51]
Matthew has Jairus claiming his daughter is dead. Mark and Luke write that Jairus said his daughter is dying. What did Jairus say, “dead” or “dying”? This is exactly the kind of variation we would expect from independent accounts of real events. We could go with “dying” because it’s two against one, but it really doesn’t matter. What counts here is that we have three independent accounts of a miraculous event. These documents give us confidence that Jairus was a synagogue ruler who came to Jesus seeking healing for his daughter and Jesus delivered.
Critics love to point out variations in the resurrection narratives, particularly details regarding what the women saw when. These details are inconsequential compared to the main point—they saw Jesus alive again! The variations confirm the independence of the accounts and increase the trustworthiness of their agreement on main points.
Undesigned Coincidences. There are numerous validating connections between NT writings that clearly weren’t intended by the authors. For example, Matthew writes about King Herod wondering if Jesus could be John the Baptist returning from the dead. Matthew records him sharing this thought with his servants.[52] An obvious question arises as to how the author of Matthew would know what King Herod said in a private conversation with his servants? Critics cite this as evidence that the story is invented or highly embellished, assuming the author couldn’t possibly know such details. Critics make similar complaints about accounts of Pontius Pilate’s conversations with Jesus and his wife’s warnings about her dream.
Plausible explanations speculate that a servant, guard, spouse or someone else knowledgeable of these events shared them with the gospel authors. In most cases these explanations are pure speculation because we have no evidence supporting them. But in the case of Herod’s wonderings of John the Baptist we do.
Luke records that “Joanna the wife of Chuza, the manager of Herod’s household” was a follower of Jesus Christ, supporting his ministry.[53] The fact that Matthew doesn’t mention Joanna as his source, and Luke doesn’t connect her to the story of John the Baptist’s beheading gives it strong credibility. It’s obviously not a product of collaboration or deliberate embellishment. It’s only by undesigned coincidence that this plausible source of information is revealed. Such undesigned coincidences are common in independent eyewitness accounts, but almost never happen with invented or highly embellished stories.[54]
[47] J. Warner Wallace. Perhaps the Greatest Old Testament Prophecy of All. (Cold Case Christianity, 2019), https://coldcasechristianity.com/writings/perhaps-the-greatest-old-testament-prophecy-of-all/.
[48] J. Warner Wallace. Why We Should Expect Witnesses to Disagree. (Cold Case Christianity, 2015), https://coldcasechristianity.com/writings/why-we-should-expect-witnesses-to-disagree/.
[49] Holy Bible, NIV, Matthew 9:18.
[50] Holy Bible, NIV, Mark 5:22-23.
[51] Holy Bible, NIV, Luke 8:41-42.
[52] Holy Bible, NIV, Matthew 14:2.
[53] Holy Bible, NIV, Luke 8:1-3.
[54] Lydia McGrew. Hidden in Plain View: Undesigned Coincidences in the Gospels and Acts. (Deward Publishing, 2017).
Evidence for the Old Testament. Evidence for historical accuracy and divine inspiration of the NT is very strong, but people sometimes dismiss the OT even if they believe the NT. I think this is a mistake because evidence supports trust in the message of the OT, even though it’s not at the same level as the NT.
Connections Between Testaments. If you believe the NT, then Jesus was God in flesh and his word carries more weight than any human being who ever lived. Jesus made it very clear that his “new covenant”[55] doesn’t make the OT scriptures irrelevant. They are very much a part of our faith.
Jesus said, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them,”[56] validating the importance of the OT which contains “the Law” and “the Prophets.” He occasionally referred to OT passages in his teaching.
Acts 15 frees Christians from following the OT laws, but it is still a huge part of our heritage and theology. Much of the OT points to Jesus and his mission on earth, so to fully understand the Gospel of Jesus Christ we need to understand the OT messages connected to the NT.[57]
Jesus refers to himself as “The Son of Man”[58]. To understand this reference, we need the OT book of Ezekiel that it comes from. John the Baptist refers to Jesus as “the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!”[59] Without reading the OT passages about sacrificing a lamb as atonement for sin we wouldn’t have a clue what that meant. The NT discusses how Jesus Christ made “atonement” for our sins[60], a concept that the OT explains in depth. The Apostle Paul wrote that “Christ redeemed us …”[61] referring to the OT principle of kinsman redeemer defined in the law and illustrated in Hebrew history, most notably in the book of Ruth.
Connections between the OT and NT are extensive, appearing on almost every page of the NT. It seems ludicrous to me to suggest the OT is irrelevant or just an ancient myth given its connection to the NT. Even if you don’t accept the divine inspiration of the NT, evidence exists to give the OT historical significance and consider the possibility of divine origins
[55] Holy Bible, NIV, Luke 22:20.
[56] Holy Bible, NIV, Matthew 5:17.
[57] Longman, page 5.
[58] Holy Bible, NIV, Matthew 8:20; 16:13; 17:9; etc. This phrase appears numerous times in each of the 4 Gospels.
[59] Holy Bible, NIV, John 1:29.
[60] Holy Bible, NIV, Romans 3:25; Hebrew 2:17.
[61] Holy Bible, NIV, Galatians 3:13.
Prophecy. As I discussed above, many prophecies in the OT have been confirmed fulfilled by independent, secular, historical research. These prophecies justify consideration that the OT was guided, at least in part, by divine inspiration.
Archeology. Archeology also confirms a significant number of events, places, and people recorded in the historical narrative of the OT.[62] That’s the main reason atheists acknowledge that the OT isn’t entirely myth. They’re more inclined to say some if it is pure myth, and some is historical narrative that’s been exaggerated and modified. But we know the discipline practiced by ancient Hebrews in passing down oral and written history, especially concerning the Holy Scripture. We have ancient documents spanning 1000 years where only a few changes happened, and those were mostly punctuation or spelling; nothing of significant meaning changed.[63]
Some archeological evidence contradicts OT history. Some of these contradictions may come from errors in assumptions made by archeologists and historians, but even if some are errors in the OT, that does not discredit the OT completely. It simply weighs against the traditional view that God controlled the writing of the Bible to make every word true.
[62] Dennis Moles and Ryan Whitson. Reasons to Believe. (Aneko Press, 2016).
[63] Moles and Whitson. Page 47.
Distinction from Ancient Myths. Some opponents of the Bible try to connect it to local religious myths by pointing out similarities in portions of the narrative, but those similarities are minor and superficial. The Hebrew faith documented in the OT stands out with striking distinction from the religious myths of ancient people in the region or anywhere else in the world. The region where Hebrews lived is referred to as the Ancient Near East (ANE) and included Egypt, Greece, Canaan, and numerous other nations. I discussed the Genesis 1 alignment with modern cosmology in Chapter 3. No other ancient origins myth comes close to aligning with modern cosmology. The list of additional distinguishing characteristics of the Hebrew faith is long!
1. Cosmology Alignment. See Chapter 3.
2. Transcendence. The God of the Bible is transcendent from the physical universe. He created the universe and exists separate from it; he is over it, precedes it, outlasts it, controls it, and is unchanged by it. This creator is the only God, supreme above all beings. This belief, held by the Hebrews, differs dramatically from other ANE beliefs which held that many gods existed as part of the physical universe. They influence the physical world but did not create it and cannot exist separate from it.
3. Creation. God created the universe. “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”[64] No other religion had ever proposed such a thing.[65] All other ANE beliefs held that earth came from some sort of conflict that reordered existing matter, but the Bible presents it coming directly from the will of God as a brand-new thing that didn’t exist until God willed it.[66]
3. Satisfaction. God finds satisfaction in the universe; no other ANE god did. “God saw all that he had made, and it was very good”.[67]
4. Spiritual God. The Bible presents God as a spirit, existing prior to everything else: “the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters …”[68] and “God is spirit …”[69] All other ANE beliefs had material gods existing within the material universe.[70]
5. Focus on Humans. The Bible brings humans on the picture as God’s greatest achievement or final goal of creation while other ANE beliefs make humans to be a less consequential spin-off from the cosmic conflict.[71] “God created mankind in his own image … God blessed them and said to them, ‘Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground. … I give you … everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food.’ … God saw all that he had made, and it was very good.”[72]
6. Good God. Other ANE beliefs had gods who were undependable and self-serving.[73] The God of the Bible receives the most noble, perfect characterization possible: loving, faithful, true, upright, generous, patient, slow to anger, just, merciful, kind, and true.[74]
7. Sexuality. The Bible gives God male gender pronouns to make him personal, not sexual. He never engages in sexual reproduction or sexual acts of pleasure. The gods of other ANE beliefs all engage in sexual activity and produce offspring through that activity. Nor does the Bible allow for sex as a form of worship the way other ANE faiths did.[75]
8. No Sorcery. The Bible presents the only ANE religion that prohibits magic and sorcery.[76] “Let no one be found among you who sacrifices their son or daughter in the fire, who practices divination or sorcery, interprets omens, engages in witchcraft, or casts spells, or who is a medium or spiritist or who consults the dead. Anyone who does these things is detestable to the Lord; because of these same detestable practices the Lord your God will drive out those nations before you.”[77] All these things were practiced in the other ANE faiths as ways to manipulate the gods.
9. Obedience. The OT repeatedly commands the Hebrews to relate to God through obedience. God wants to bless them and will, through his covenant relationship, if they will only obey. “All nations on earth will be blessed, because you have obeyed me.”[78] Other ANE faiths had gods who didn’t really care about humans. Through manipulative practices, humans tried to make the gods do favors for them.[79]
10. Origin of Good and Evil. In the Bible, the struggle between good and evil unfolds with the tension between God and humans. God strives to relate to humans and give them all the goodness he created, while humans constantly rebel against God’s will. Humanity is the center of the struggle between good and evil. Other ANE beliefs leave man more as a hapless bystander caught up in the cosmic struggle between good and evil forces beyond their control.[80]
11. Free Will. The Bible goes completely against ANE norms regarding human choice. Deterministic beliefs dominated throughout the region, portraying human choice as an illusion. In the Bible, “human choices … shape the direction of events on earth.”[81] In scripture, history unfolds through the interaction of choices humans make in their free will and the interventions of God to carry out his plans.
12. Flawed Heroes. The free will concept is why the Bible contrasts so dramatically with other ANE stories in the characterization of its heroes. From Adam to the Apostles, characters in the Bible receive brutally honest accounting of their failures and defeats along with their successes and triumphs. This honest portrayal, and its emphasis on the importance of the individual, stand in “contrast to the rest of the ancient world.”[82] Egypt, for example, portrayed each Pharoah as a flawless leader with divine power.
13. Salvation. The most distinctive feature of the Bible by far is God’s plan of salvation. From the very beginning God knew we humans would rebel and separate ourselves from him, so he worked out a way for us to return to fellowship with our Creator. He took on human form and proved his love by suffering and dying on our behalf. He redeemed us from the guilt of our sin, saving us from the just penalty of our selfishness. He enters into our lives by his Holy Spirit to give us freedom from sin. Nothing resembling this loving gift of our Creator exists in any other religion.
The Bible is so distinct from other ancient beliefs in so many ways as to preclude it from being a natural evolution of religious myth.[83]
But even though we can’t objectively dismiss the OT as just another myth derived from older myths, many people are reluctant to accept it as a revelation from the Creator because it portrays his character in apparently contradicting ways, which I address below.
[64] Holy Bible, NIV, Genesis 1:1.
[65] J. Oswalt. The Bible among the Myths: Unique Revelation or Just Ancient Literature? (Zondervan, 2009), page 64.
[66] Oswalt, page 66.
[67] Holy Bible, NIV, Genesis 1:31.
[68] Holy Bible, NIV, Genesis 1:2.
[69] Holy Bible, NIV, John 4:24.
[70] Oswalt, page 65.
[71] Oswalt, page 68.
[72] Holy Bible, NIV, Genesis 1:27-31.
[73] Oswalt, page 70.
[74] Holy Bible, NIV, Genesis 24:27; 34:6; Deuteronomy 4:31; 32:4; 1 Samuel 9:6; James 1:5; 2 Peter 3:9.
[75] Oswalt, page 71-74, 81.
[76] Oswalt, page 75.
[77] Holy Bible, NIV, Deuteronomy 18:10-12.
[78] Holy Bible, NIV, Genesis 22:18. See also Deuteronomy 11:27; 28:1-2; Luke 11:28 and many other passages.
[79] Oswalt, page 76.
[80] Oswalt, page 78.
[81] Oswalt, page 126.
[82] Oswalt, page 124.
[83] Oswalt, Chapter 1.
Debunked? Not Even Close. I occasionally hear claims that the Bible has been “debunked.” I agree that the fundamentalist view of the King James Bible being perfect and error free has been shown false, but claiming that the entire Bible has been “debunked” is baseless. Much of the Bible has been shown to be true. The most important point of Christianity, the resurrection of Jesus Christ, has been under attack for 2000 years and no one has been able to prove it false. Many people have proposed alternative hypotheses, but none of these adequately explains the evidence. Every speculative scenario comes with highly unlikely presumptions. These elaborate rationalizations give those who presuppose nothing supernatural ever happens a justification to dismiss the overwhelming historicity credentials of the NT.
Alternatives. Richard Carrier proposed that the gospel story began as fiction but grew into literal belief over time as the originators of the fictional story died off.[84] The problem with this theory is that early epistles such as 1 Corinthians demonstrate literal belief in the resurrection within a few years after Jesus lived when many eyewitnesses were still alive.[85]
Bart Erhman proposed that Jesus led a small group of revolutionaries who wanted to overthrow Roman rule, but over time “false memories” crept into the story.[86] The problem with this theory is the degree that the story changed. The few decades between the death of Jesus and the writings about him aren’t nearly enough time for such extensive change to happen. There would also be alternative gospels that contradict each other, but such alternatives didn’t arise until much later.
Consider the following 4 hypotheses as explanations for the New Testament:
Original myth that grew to become believed (Carrier)
Original history that developed into myth, false memories (Ehrman)
Perfectly true, infallible word of God dictated by the Holy Spirit (fundamentalism)
A sincere but imperfect record of historical events (evidentialism)
Unless you have a presuppositional bias against the supernatural, Jesus rising from the dead is by far the most reasonable explanation for the NT documents. The presupposition that the Bible is the perfect, complete, literal word of God also clashes with evidence. Most likely the NT authors recorded historical events reliably with some minor errors. Divine guidance seems to have minimized the frequency of errors, but didn’t completely override human frailties.
[84] Richard Carrier. On the Historicity of Jesus: Why We Might Have Reason for Doubt. (Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2014).
[85] Groothuis, pages 438-439.
[86] Bart Ehrman. Jesus Before the Gospels. (HarperCollins, 2016).
Contradictions. I touched on contradictions a little in my discussion of “variations” that validate the independent nature of the various accounts of the NT. I discussed the variations in the 3 reports of the healing of Jairus’s daughter. This is the only clear, irreconcilable contradiction I have found in the entire Bible. That should strike anyone as astounding evidence that there’s something extremely unusual about this book. It should be riddled with thousands of direct, irreconcilable contradictions, considering the diversity of writings contained there.
The sparsity of contradictions contributes to my belief that God guided the writing and copying of the Bible, but he obviously used humans in the process. There are many apparent contradictions that require such complex rationalization to reconcile that I seriously doubt the Bible is a perfect, infallible message from God as many Christians claim. Evidence simply doesn’t support that position. Infallibility is a theology question which I will address in the theology chapter. Here I focus on historicity, so I want to look at the claims that contradictions discredit historicity.
This is another area where people tend to gravitate to presuppositional extremes. Bible critics claim that “the Bible is full of contradictions” while apologists claim there are no contradictions in the original writings. Critics interpret various passages of the Bible with a slant that creates contradictions, refusing to acknowledge ambiguity that allows for harmonized interpretations. Apologists presume a harmonized interpretation, refusing to acknowledge that in some cases the harmonized interpretation is not what the passages appear to communicate in an unbiased study.
An exhaustive study of all claimed contradictions could produce a multi-volume text so I’ll focus on a few illustrative examples here.
Was Jairus’s daughter dead or dying? As discussed earlier, this is the only irreconcilable contradiction I’ve found that appears undeniably traceable to the original writings. Perhaps there are others that I’m not aware of, but this one alone convinces me that the Holy Spirt didn’t dictate to the Bible authors in a way to prevent all human error. This variation doesn’t discredit the historicity of the Bible. All historical documents contain errors. Minor variations support the independent nature of reports.
How many Charioteers did King David Kill? 2 Samuel 10:18 says King David killed 700 Aramean charioteers in a battle. 1 Chronicles 19:18 records King David killing 7000 Aramean charioteers in the same battle. This could be a contradiction in the original writings or a copy error. Either way, it also indicates that God’s guidance hasn’t given us a Bible that’s completely free of human error. The reality that factual contradictions like this are so rare in the Bible indicates that the authors and copyists were meticulous with integrity and perhaps they received some divine guidance.
Easy Contradictions. Easy Contradictions. As a pre-teen boy I was disturbed with the account of Jesus saying “the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.”[87] If Jesus died on a Friday and rose on a Sunday, he was dead for portions of 3 days, but he was only in the tomb for 2 nights. This 3-night/2-night contradiction bothered me for years. Finally, I reasoned that Jesus must have been speaking idiomatically using a common expression not meant to be taken with literal precision.
If I complained of abdominal pains that lasted 3 days, that wouldn’t mean exactly 72 hours. My pain could have started Friday evening and faded early Sunday morning which is actually about 36 hours—half the precise time of 3 days. I’d say 3 days simply because I remember suffering pain over the 3 days, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. We usually speak loosely when we speak of days, not with hourly precision.
Since the author of Matthew appears to have given his account considerable effort and care, it seems he would have noticed the discrepancy between this passage and his record of Jesus dying on Friday evening and rising on Sunday morning. The most sensible explanation is that “three days and three nights” was a common idiom that the author would assume would be taken to mean a general time period spanning 3 days of the week. Just like we know when someone says it’s raining cats and dogs there aren’t really cats and dogs falling from the sky.
Difficult Contradictions. Many apparent Biblical contradictions are easy to explain, but some are more challenging. For example, Mark testifies that women, including Mary Magdalene, found the tomb of Jesus empty with angels telling them he had risen and to share the news with his disciples, but “They said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid.”[88] John wrote that Jesus appeared to Mary and she told the disciples about it.[89]
We can explain this by assuming the women were afraid to tell anyone at first, but Mary found the courage after Jesus appeared to her. That’s plausible, but sounds like a presumptive rationalization to skeptics. A more objective assessment would guess that Mark didn’t know the details that John knew and omitted them, giving a less complete and accurate account. That still fails to discredit the account of the resurrection as historically credible.
Bible critics are fond of pointing out apparent contradictions as if it discredits everything in the Bible. None of their claimed contradictions discredit critical events or doctrines of the Christian faith. The differences may cast doubt on doctrines of inerrancy and some minor details, but the accounts agree on important points such as the resurrection.
Paradoxical Teaching. TThere are some apparently contradictory teachings in the Bible that do have significant theological implications. For example, Sabbath restrictions come with severe penalties in the OT. Violating the Sabbath was a capital offense taken very seriously. In the NT, Jesus takes a casual attitude toward the Sabbath by healing and encouraging his disciples to harvest wheat. He justifies it with a trite (but sensible), “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.”[90]
There are many rational justifications for this, but it still seems inconsistent. We see a similar change in attitude from the OT to the NT regarding circumcision and numerous other doctrines. These could all be paradoxical concepts that don’t really contradict, like a judge who must enforce justice sometimes but shows mercy when appropriate.
Simply dismissing every apparently contradictory teaching as paradoxical seems disingenuous. It possible that some Bible passages fail to reflect the true intentions of God. Maybe Jesus had a more godly grasp of the Sabbath than the OT authors. With all the evidence of divine guidance in the Bible I avoid dismissing any passage casually. When something in the Bible doesn’t make sense, it could be my limited understanding causing the problem.
However I look at these paradoxical passages, they don’t discredit the historicity credentials of the Bible. They only cast doubt on the level of divine guidance and some theologies.
[87] Holy Bible, NIV, Matthew 12:40.
[88] Holy Bible, NIV, Mark 16:8.
[89] Holy Bible, NIV, John 20:16-18.
[90] Holy Bible, NIV, Mark 2:23-27.
Historical Evidence Against God. I discussed scientific evidence against God in the previous chapter, addressing archeology as a branch of science. The evidences I addressed there also qualify as historical evidence. Archeology validates much of the Bible but contradicts some points. We also have historical documents that cast doubt on historicity of the Bible.
Insertions. Scholars agree that some short passages in the NT were added after the original writing. These insertions do not contradict other Biblical content so they could be accurate oral histories that someone simply inserted later. These insertions lack historicity credibility because we don’t know who added them or when, but they do not reduce the credibility of the original documents.
Extra-biblical Contradictions. Archeology and historical documents sometimes appear to contradict details in the Bible. For example, archeology in Egypt implies a timeline of rulers that seems to contradict the early chapters of Genesis. The timelines can only be reconciled if archeologists have made some significant errors. Another example comes from the birth narrative of Jesus in Luke. There’s no record of a census that required people to return to their ancestral hometowns, nor is there a record of a large Roman census near the time that Jesus was born. The absence of evidence isn’t proof that an event didn’t happen, but in this case, it is a glaring shortcoming. There are many records of Roman census taking, enough to cast doubt on Luke’s accuracy for this point. [91] (Christians often dismiss Bible critics like Bart Ehrman because they overstate their arguments. Embracing everything they claim in their biased zeal is certainly a mistake, but rejecting the credible evidence they present lacks intellectual integrity.)
Contradictions and insertions carry significant weight against people who claim the Bible is God’s perfect, infallible word, but I’m not in that camp. Evidence indicates that the Bible is a reliable source of information about ancient history and even appears to have been supernaturally influenced. If biblical perfection and infallibility were key to my belief in a creator, contradictions and insertions would pose a significant problem, but as an evidentialist I don’t subscribe to that presuppositional “the Bible is God’s perfect infallible word” view, so these issues aren’t much concern to me. Still, I put them on the scale as evidences against God because they weaken the Bible’s force in favor of God.
They carry no weight against historicity. All historical documents contain errors, and historians make errors interpreting archeological and document evidence. The Bible qualifies with very high credentials for historicity, particularly the New Testament.
[91] Bart D. Ehrman. The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings. (Oxford University Press, 2011), page 109.
History Conclusion.
Current historical evidence supports historical credibility and possible divine guidance in the Bible but not complete infallible divine control. Intellectual integrity compels me to acknowledge the likelihood of error in the Bible and to live with the additional difficulty that creates in understanding how to apply it to my life. The evidence for divine guidance compels me to search for truth and goodness in the pages of the Bible, hoping God will guide me in my efforts. I remain open and tolerant toward people with different viewpoints.
I’ve examined experiential, scientific, and historical evidence to logically justify trust in a personal God who created everything and trusting the Bible as a message from God, even if it’s not perfectly infallible. We’ve covered strong evidence that:
God, the creator of the universe, exists;
God is personally involved in creation;
The New Testament is historically trustworthy;
The New Testament is inseparably linked to the Old Testament;
The Old Testament could not have evolved from other ancient myths;
The Bible contains historical and figurative messages from God;
Next we’ll consider philosophical arguments for and against God and the Bible.