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When I came to Bethany Lutheran College as a student, I was confronted with what I call two essential questions. I came to Bethany as an agnostic. I was not a Christian. And the two questions were these: who am I? And who was Jesus Christ? And so when I came onto the campus of Bethany Lutheran College, I was confronted with these two questions, even if I didn’t know it.

I was confronted with these two questions in chapel, in my religion class, and my discussions with professors and with other students. It’s that second question though I want to focus on today. Who is Jesus Christ? Who did he claim to be? And that’s a good place to start, because that’s essentially where the New Testament, the Gospels, start too. You know, Jesus asked his disciples, “who do people say that I am? Who do you say that I am?” (Mark 8:27) Or John the Baptist said, “are you the one who was to come, or should we expect somebody else?” (Matthew 11:3) The disciples asked on the Sea of Galilee. “Who is this man that even the waves and the sea obey him?” (Mark 4:41) And of course, the antagonistic Jews would ask, “who do you think you are? Who do you claim to be?” (John 10:24) And Jesus, of course, would answer those questions, sometimes indirectly, sometimes quite directly. And when you look at how he answered them. We have to conclude that who he claimed to be was rather outrageous, at least very, very strange.

So let’s just take a look at some of these claims that Jesus made about himself. Let’s start with maybe some of the ones that aren’t so outrageous, but just a little bit odd. So for example, in Matthew chapter five, Jesus says five times “you have heard that it was said.” (Matthew 5:21, 27, 33, 38, 43) Then he quotes from Scripture, and then he says, “but I say to you.” Strange. Jesus, are you saying that your words are on the same level or even above the words of the Old Testament scriptures? Or here’s something Jesus does a couple of times. In one instance, this is from the Gospel of John. “You search the scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life. And these are the scriptures that testify about me.” (John 5:39) Whoa, Jesus, you’re saying the Old Testament is about you?

There are many times when Jesus referred to himself as the Son of Man. In fact, that was his favorite title for himself. But that title, Son of Man, means much more than he was just a mere human being. You look at the context where he claimed himself to be the Son of Man, it’s quite striking what he’s really saying. So, for example, he says, “the Son of Man has authority on Earth to forgive sins.” (Mark 2:10) He says, “The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.” (Matthew 12:8) That’s very interesting. What is he saying there? He’s saying, well, I know what the Sabbath is all about. It’s mine. He’s saying, “the Son of Man gives his life as a ransom for many.” (Matthew 20:28) He says, “The Son of Man is coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory with his angels.” (Matthew 16:27, 26:64) So all of a sudden it’s quite clear. It’s becoming quite clear. It should be becoming quite clear that he is saying some things that are really rather outrageous.

And then, of course, we have those other very clear statements where he says, “I and the Father are one.” (John 10:30) Or that famous line in the Gospel of John “before Abraham was, I am.” (John 8:58) And the Jews knew exactly what he meant when he claimed that title for himself I am he was claiming to be the eternal God. And so they picked up stones to stone him.

If you want to do something interesting as you read through the Gospels, I would suggest this. Put a little CL next time you come across a claim in the Gospels, a claim of Christ about himself. What I found, I’ve done this a couple of times, in the Gospel of Matthew 46 times you find rather outrageous claims that Christ makes about himself. 32 times in the Gospel of Mark, 70 times in the Gospel of Luke, over 100 times in the Gospel of John. Outrageous claims that Jesus is making about himself. So let me give you an illustration of how outrageous these claims are.

There was a minister who, a number of years ago went to visit a psychiatric hospital, and when he went into the hospital, a resident from that hospital came up to him and said, “do you know that I am the second son of god?” And the minister said, “no, I don’t know that. How do you know that?” And the resident said, “well, god told me.” And then another resident from across the room said, “no, I didn’t.” In other words, these claims of Jesus are so outrageous that in the words of C.S. Lewis, you can only come to one of several conclusions. Either he was a lunatic or he was a liar, a blasphemer, which many Jews believe, or something worse. In fact, many of the Jews thought he was possessed. Or he is exactly who he claimed to be Lord, God in human flesh. In other words, Jesus has not left open to us the option that he might be merely a man, merely even a great man. No, either he is a lunatic, a liar, a blasphemer, demon possessed, or he’s exactly who he claimed to be.

Let me go back to those two questions now. Who am I? The reality is, I am a great sinner in need of a being who is even a greater Savior than I am a sinner. Who was Jesus Christ? He is exactly who he claimed to be the Son of God in human flesh, who came for all mankind, who was sent by his father to live the life that we could not live to die the death that we were supposed to die because of our sins, to rise from the dead for us to prove that he was in fact the Son of God, and that sins have been paid for and that they are all forgiven in him.

I’m David Thompson, director for the center for Apologetics and Worldviews.

In part one, I dealt with the reliability of the transmission of the New Testament and the 5500 plus copies we have, have led scholars to conclude, quote,

That we can reconstruct the original words of the New Testament within 99% accuracy.

So, you know, what we have is what was originally written, but that doesn’t mean it was necessarily reliable historically.

For example, if I were to give you, my journal from yesterday and tell you to copy it word for word, and you did that, we’d have a a reliable transmission. But that doesn’t mean that my journal was accurate historically, or the copy was accurate historically. Maybe I exaggerated, or maybe I created a legend. Or maybe I just simply told some lies.

Are the New Testament writings accurate historically or are they myth, or are they legend, or are they fiction? Or are they purposeful lies? Many believe that the Gospels and the book of Acts are not reliable historically, and you might be one of them. Even Christians have doubts about the historical reliability of what’s recorded there, and you might be be one of them.

There are a number of things that we could point to that helps support the historical reliability of the Gospels and the book of aActs, but I’m just going to mention a few. This is not by any means exhaustive.

First of all, the Gospels and the book of Acts have details of various kinds that you normally never find in myths or legends or even fictions from that that time period.

For example, you have many people listed by name and described. A lot of these names are also confirmed by non-biblical sources, or they’re confirmed by archeology. You also have places and cities and mountains and roads mentioned by name, sometimes with the mileage listed in between. You have buildings and structures described in some detail. We have details about traveling by sea. The cargo, the rigging, the names of the seas. You have descriptions of currents, of weather, patterns, of storm patterns. In other words, what we have here in the Gospels and the book of Acts, they’re written not as if they’re myth or legend. They’re written as if they’re real historical events. And so the question is not whether or not they’re myth or legend versus history, but the question is, are they reliable history versus unreliable or inaccurate history?

Second, the author of Luke and the book of Acts, makes a very important statement concerning how he went about his research and his investigations. Here’s what he said.

Many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things that have been accomplished among us, just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word have delivered them to us, it seemed good to me also, having followed all things closely for some time past, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, that you may have certainty concerning the things you have been taught. (Luke 1:1-4)

And so you know these words, they have the ring of integrity and truthfulness. Let me just give you one example from the book of Acts real quickly here.

You know, Luke was a companion of Saint Paul and some of its missionary trips. And Luke again admits that he he talked with the eyewitnesses many times. And one of the things that Luke records when he’s with Paul is what Paul does in making the case, making the defense for the truth of Christianity before a governor Festus and King Agrippa. And here are the words that that the Luke records of Paul. He says,

“I am not out of my mind, most excellent Festus, but I am speaking true and rational words. For the king knows about these things, and to him I speak boldly. For I am persuaded that none of these things has escaped his notice, for this has not been done in a corner. (Acts 25:25-26)

Again, Luke claims to have talked to the eyewitnesses, and sometimes he was there, as with the case of Paul here. And so if what he recorded was not true, somebody could have easily challenged him, because these were obviously public events that many people took notice on.

Third, we have at least three writers of the New Testament claiming to be eyewitnesses. Peter, for example, says,

For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. For when he received honor and glory from God the Father, and the voice was borne to him by the Majestic Glory, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased,” we ourselves heard this very voice borne from heaven, for we were with him on the holy mountain. (2 Peter 1:16-18)

Again, integrity. Truthfulness. That’s what we’re confronted with here. Now, just because someone says he is a eyewitness, that doesn’t mean he was. So here’s a fourth and final point I’d like to share with you today that help you know, you might say verify, the truthfulness or the reliability of the history that we find in the New Testament.

We have records of the lives and the deaths of the apostles recorded by early church fathers. They testify that the apostles went out right away for the rest of their earthly lives, preaching and evangelizing in order to convert people to Christianity. Have them come to the Christian faith. And when they’re out there evangelizing, they’re preaching, and they’re teaching as if everything recorded in the Gospels and the book of Acts is absolutely true. And they did this despite the dangers they would be facing, persecution, imprisonment, torture. And even death.

And what’s recorded for us is that all of the apostles, with the exception of John the Apostle, who died a natural death, all of them were said to have been martyred. If the events recorded about Jesus of Nazareth, his life, his suffering, his death, and his resurrection, if these events were not true, it is hard to explain their willingness to suffer and especially to die if these events were not true, because if anyone would have known these events were not true, it would have been the apostles.

Here’s the point. And here’s a good way to put it. People do not willingly submit themselves to persecution and to suffering and to death for something they know to be a lie. You know, a lot of people will die for something, but they’re dying for something they think is the truth. But if they know it’s a lie, then that’s a different story.

You don’t die for something that you know to be a lie. On the other hand, people might be willing to suffer and die for something they are convinced is not a lie, for something they know is is true. Especially if that something determines where they will spend eternity, heaven or hell. And that’s exactly what that something, the recorded events in the life of Christ, that’s exactly what those events determine. The difference between heaven and hell.

So these several things taken together, the many kinds of details that you don’t find in myth or fiction or legend, and the fact that we have people who are saying, I did the careful investigation or who were eyewitnesses, and the willingness of the apostles to suffer and die for something that they knew was not a lie. All this helps confirm the historical reliability of the Gospels and the book of Acts.

In other words, they confirm the virgin birth of Christ. They confirm the deity and the humanity of Christ. They confirm his miracles. They confirm his suffering and death and his resurrection, his ascension to the right hand of his father. And not only do they confirm these events, but they also confirm that these events are the factors that determine where one spends eternity.

So if you are a Christian, be assured that these these records are not only reliable, but they’re true. And therefore because of Christ, you are a forgiven child of God. Your eternal destiny is heaven, all because of Christ alone. And if you are not a Christian, you are invited to become one. Your eternal destiny depends on it.

My name is David Thompson. I’m the director for the center for Apologetics and Worldviews. Thank you for joining us.

Is the New Testament reliable? I’m not asking if the New Testament at this point is inerrant or inspired. Just is it reliable? The reason I ask that question is because many people ask that question and they say no, and you may be one of them. Even Christians will question whether or not the New Testament is reliable. So, I’m going to tackle this question from two different perspectives.

Here in this video, I’ll be asking the question is the New Testament reliable in terms of its transmission? Again, people say, no, they don’t think so. They would maybe say it’s something like this. If we were to compare the original writings to the original autographs with the copies that followed in the years or the decades or even the centuries that follow, we would find a drastic difference.

Or to put it another way, they would say, we have no idea what was in those original writings. There was too much time between the original writings and the copy, too much time, too many differences, too many additions or whatever. Since we do not have the original, is it possible that we can figure out what the originals said based on the copies that we do have?

So, let’s lay down some ground rules here. And these are ground rules that are used by, the scholars to ask and try to answer these kinds of questions. And, and the first ground rule is this. And I’m simply going to quote from one of these, New Testament scholars. And this man happens to be not a Christian, and this is what he says.

This is ground rule number one. The more manuscripts you have, the more likely it is that you can figure out what the authors originally said. So how many copies do we have? Well, let’s first of all, for comparison’s sake, look at some of the other ancient writings that we have you go to, for example, Homer’s Iliad. It’s quite amazing.

We have about 1800 copies, some say only 700, but a lot of people say about 1800 copies. What about the other ancient writings? Well, it goes downhill from there. Whether you’re talking about Plato or Aristotle’s or Sophocles or Josephus or Tacitus, when we go down to those other writers, we have maybe at the very most for several of them, close to 500, some, maybe 300, but you jump down to 100 or less, sometimes only ten, or maybe only a few.
So not very many copies or manuscripts.

What about the New Testament? For the New Testament, we have about 5800 copies or manuscripts, and that’s only including the Greek copies. If we include the Coptic or the Syriac or the Latin copies, we’re talking about 25,000 to 35,000 copies. And so, this number just blows the others out of the water.

Let me quote again from that prominent non-Christian scholar. Here’s what he said.

We have more manuscripts for the New Testament than for any other book from the ancient world. Many, many more manuscripts than we have for the writings of Homer, Plato, Cicero, or any other important author. That is good news. The more manuscripts you have, the more likely it is you can figure out what the authors originally said.

All right, now let’s go to the second ground rule. The narrower the gap between the original writings and the earliest copy, the more narrow it is, the better it is to try to figure out what the original writers wrote. So again, going back to those ancient, writings outside of Scripture, Homer again, the Iliad, it’s really quite amazing.

There’s a time gap between when he originally wrote the Iliad and the earliest copy of about 400 years, 400 years. But then you look at the other ancient writings, and you’re looking at anywhere from 750 years to 1400 years, with an average being close to about a thousand years between the original and the earliest copy. Now, it’s interesting that these scholars are still convinced that they can come really, really close to what the original writers wrote based on the copies they do have even though you have this time gap.

What about the New Testament? What kind of time gap do we have there? Well, we have, you know, thousands of copies that date from 400 years or later than the original writings. But we also have literally dozens and dozens and dozens of copies that date within 400 years. And you have about 100 copies that date within 300 years. You have about 50 copies that date even earlier. And then you have several copies that date between 50 and 100 years after the original. So, you have a very narrow time gap between the originals and the earliest copies. And again, none of the other ancient writings come close to that.

Let’s go to the third ground rule. The copies that exist must show a high degree of consistency. And if there are differences or variants, as we call them, they cannot be significant. And here’s where some might say, “aha! There must be a transmission reliability problem for the New Testament because we have thousands of variants.”

And we Christians, we say, yeah, we do. We do have all those variants. As Christians, we believe it’s the originals, the original writings, the original autographs that were inspired and inerrant. Those who copied them were humans and so they’re bound to make mistakes, make changes and so forth. But the question is not how many variants there are, but the kind of variants there are, and are they significant?

Here’s what the New Testament scholars, both Christian and non-Christian, agree upon. They say that 95% of the variants are things like spelling mistakes, or a different way of spelling the same word, or a change in the word order or synonyms. For example, one early copy might say something like “and he said,” and then a later copy says, “and Jesus said.”

Now, it’s obvious that they both mean exactly the same thing. And then there’s another 4.4% of the variants that are slightly more meaningful. And these are the kind of variants that you might find in the footnotes in your Bible. A footnote that might say something like “another manuscript says,” in other words, there can be differences in words. One copyist might put down one word, another copyist might put down a different word, and they might have different meanings, or they might have somewhat similar meanings. But here again, when you look at these differences that are, you know, somewhat meaningful, they make absolutely no difference whatsoever in terms of content or history or teachings.

So now we’re accounting for 99.4% of the variants. And that leaves us with 0.6% of the variants. And the scholars, the critical scholars call these 0.6% variants, they call them meaningful and viable. Well, what would they include? They just add just a few things. For example, they include Mark chapter 16 and where it ends. Some of the older copies end with verses beyond verse eight, some of the earlier copies end at verse eight. Does it make a difference? It doesn’t make a difference whatsoever. The copies that include verses beyond verse eight just add a few more details. Another example would be the woman caught in adultery from John chapter eight. Some of the copies don’t include that account of the woman caught in adultery and some of the later copies do.

Does that make a difference? Well, it might make a difference in terms of whether or not that event really occurred, but it doesn’t make a difference whatsoever in the content, the teachings, or the history of the New Testament. Whether you look at the earliest copies or the copies made hundreds of years later there is complete consistency. There’s no evolution. We would say the content, the history and the teachings are there from the earliest to the latest copies.

Here’s what the New Testament critical scholars, conclude. And again, I’m going to quote from this very prominent non-Christian scholar, this is what he says. Scholars are convinced that we can construct the original words of the New Testament with reasonable, although not with 100% accuracy. Well, 99.4% accuracy. That’s pretty good.

And so, what does this mean? It means if you are a Christian, you can be confident that what you read is what was originally written. And it also means that because you believe that these words were inspired by the Holy Spirit, that you are forgiven over your doubts. You’re forgiven of all sins you’ve committed or ever will commit.

Because the heart and center of the New Testament is Jesus of Nazareth, who he is, what he taught, what was done to him, what he did, and of course, what he wants you to know more than anything: that you are a forgiven Child of God.

If you are not a Christian, you’re invited to become one. But that is a very humbling thing, because the Holy Spirit will have to bring you to understand and confess your sinfulness. But it’s also the most comforting thing, because the Holy Spirit will then bring to you the forgiveness of all your sins accomplished by Christ alone. You don’t deserve it. I don’t deserve any. But it would be true. And that’s why we call it Amazing Grace.

In the meantime, I would encourage you to consider this amazing reliability of the transmission of the New Testament, and then also to consider whether or not what is written there is true what it says about you, but it says about heaven and hell, what it says about Jesus.

This is David Thompson, the director for the center for Apologetics and Worldviews. Thank you for joining us.

Luke 24:37-43, John 20:24-28,30-31

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Not too long ago, Peace Devotions received some comments which we could call not very friendly, but very much welcome. And so if you sent in any of those comments, thank you. We’ll try to deal with some of those in the days ahead.

The one that I want to deal with today is the comment that had to do with the existence of Jesus. The comment was this.

Frankly, you don’t even have any evidence for Jesus.

There’s no evidence for the existence of Jesus? What would you say? We might be tempted to say, well, the Bible says that he existed. The problem with that, of course, is that these people, maybe yourself included, if you’re one of these people, you don’t believe in the reliability of the Bible. You believe it’s perhaps just a book of fables and myths and fiction. So the question that could be asked is, are there any other sources out there, non-Christian sources, secular sources that deal with the existence of Jesus? And the answer is yes. There’s there’s plenty of sources out there, up to two dozen. But let me just mention several of them for us today.

You have the historian, the Jewish Roman historian by the name of Josephus. He talks about Jesus twice. You have the Roman historian Tacitus. He mentions Jesus. You have the historian, another Roman historian by the name of Suetonius, another one by the name of Thallus. You have a historian by the name of Lucian. He also engaged in satire when he talked about his history. You have a government authority by the name of Pliny the Younger. You have a man who, while he was in jail, wrote a letter to his son talking about the existence of Jesus. And this was the end of the first century.

And then also, I think what’s very important is you have the Jewish Talmud, Babylonian Talmud, which was written anywhere from 70 to the end of the second century AD. And this Talmud talks about Jesus as a sorcerer and was performing some sort of magic or miracles, leading Jewish people astray. He was put to death by hanging, and he was put to death on the Passover.

So you have these in all other kinds of non-Christian sources out there talking about the existence of Jesus. So all of these speak of his death, most of them by crucifixion, they mention that. They were trusted historians. They were those who were neutral towards Christianity. Most of them were, you could classify as enemies of Christianity. So you have all these sources saying the same thing that he existed. To put another way, if your enemies say you existed, you probably existed.

But then we come to another testimony, one that many people don’t want to accept at this point. And maybe you’re one of those and that’s okay. Ask you to consider this. And that’s the New Testament source. Actually, it’s not just one source. It’s 27 sources all in one volume we call the New Testament. And I believe that the New Testament is inspired and inerrant, and I’m not asking any unbelievers out there to me to accept that at this point, but I would challenge them with this question. Are these sources in any sense, to any degree, historically reliable? They claim to be written by those who were either eyewitnesses or those who had contact with the eyewitnesses, and they all say the same thing, just like the non-Christian sources say that he was living. He talked, he walked, he preached, he died. And so it’s worth considering whether or not these Christian sources are historically reliable.

So the question that should be asked is not did he exist? Because, you know, the verdict is very clear. Whether you’re talking about the New Testament sources or you’re talking about non-Christian sources, whether you’re talking about those who were followers of Jesus or those who were his enemies, those who believed in the miraculous, or those who thought Christianity was just a bunch of bunk. They all say the same thing. They all conclude that he really existed. And so the question is not did he exist? But the crucial question, the really crucial question is who is this man that existed?

I would like to deal with that at more length in another episode, but I would like to say one thing about that particular question right now for your thought. If you’re a Christian, to encourage you that these questions can be answered if you’re not a Christian, to consider these answers. When Jesus was crucified and he died. The last thing any of his disciples expected to find was Jesus alive again. Fully alive three days later. But then these reports started sneaking out that some people had seen him alive, and the disciples just wrote it off for the most part. But then all of a sudden on that Sunday, he appeared to ten of them. And here’s how one of the sources reports that event, and this report was written by a man named Luke, a doctor, a physician, who relied on those who were eyewitnesses at the time. This is what he wrote.

They were startled and frightened, thinking they saw a ghost. He said to them, “Why are you troubled, and why do doubts rise in your minds? Look at my hands and my feet. It is I myself! Touch me and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have.”
When he had said this, he showed them his hands and feet. And while they still did not believe it because of joy and amazement, he asked them, “Do you have anything here to eat?” They gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it and ate it in their presence. (Luke 24:37-43)

Now they weren’t all present. One of them that was not present at the time was one of the disciples called Thomas. And so here we read in another account of a man who was an eyewitness. He said,

Now Thomas, one of the Twelve, was not with the disciples when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord!”
But he said to them, “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.”
A week later his disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them. Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!”
Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.”
Thomas said to him, “My Lord and my God!” (John 20:24-28)

And then John the writer concludes that chapter by saying,

Jesus performed many other miraculous signs in the presence of his disciples that are not written in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name. (John 20:30-31)

So there you go. The evidence is put forth by Christ Himself. But regarding his existence, there’s really no doubt even the non-Christian scholars of the day, history scholars of today all acknowledged that he really existed. And the real crucial question is who is this man that existed? The Son of God, and through him and through Christ, through faith in him. We have life in his name.

My name is David Thompson. I’m the director for The Center for Apologetics and Worldviews. Thank you for joining us.