The reading from the first Sunday after Easter is where we get our phrase, doubting Thomas: “Jesus said to him, ‘Thomas, because you have seen Me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.’” JOHN 20:29
So it’s fair to ask: “Why do Christians believe the writings of the New Testament?” “Why should others so far removed from the days of Jesus and who are not dissimilar to doubting Thomas believe the Christian message?” Our response is that the New Testament is vivid, fresh, unembellished, detailed, self-incriminating, diverse, but mutually confirming - that is, it is historical and not mythological. The following points elucidate this:
When the tests historiography are applied to the New Testament documents, they show themselves to be as reliable as, or superior to, most other ancient documents.
A critical piece of evidentiary matter is how many manuscript copies exist and how far removed they are in time from the original events. For many ancient historical works we possess only a handful of manuscripts as compared to 1,000s of NT manuscripts that all originate quite soon after the original events. Among the various manuscripts, the accuracy between the various copies is about 99%.
A document has a higher probability of veracity if it is a personal letter - as much of the New Testament is.
A document has a higher probability of veracity if the writers made no attempt to closely harmonize their accounts - the writers of the New Testament and Gospels leave seeming contradictions - but upon a surface reading they are all harmonizable.
A document has a higher probability of veracity if it is a bit unpolished in terms of its style - as much of the New Testament is.
Archeological confirmation exists to the historical reliability of the New Testament.
The New Testament is written by eyewitnesses which is regarded as prima facie evidence of historicity.
The eyewitnesses who were the writers of the New Testament suffered expulsion from their community and in many cases execution without altering their testimony.
If the eyewitness accounts of Jesus’ life and teachings were not true, then how and why would the Church have grown near Jerusalem. Others would simply have stated they knew of this Jesus and what you are hearing is not true. We see no such contemporaneous documentation in history.
The writings of the New Testament include more than thirty specific references to historical people who are verifiable outside of the Bible. Writings of a religious and mythological nature do not include such specificity when it comes to other historic personages.
The writers of the New Testament challenged readers to check out the facts for themselves. We should do the same!
LIKE - COMMENT - SHARE
Comments