Top Ten Reasons We Know the New Testament Writers Told the Truth

Is the New Testament True? The Writers Abandoned Long-Held Sacred Beliefs

Posted on September 7, 2015 by Reasons for Hope 315 in Reliable Documents, Top Ten Reasons We Know the New Testament Writers Told the Truth | Leave a comment

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Is the New Testament True? The Writers Abandoned Long-Held Sacred Beliefs

How do we know that the writers of the New Testament wrote the truth and weren’t just making it up? Because they abandoned many of their long-held sacred beliefs and practices and adopted new ones. What’s more they did not deny their testimony under persecution or threat of death. We’ll explore this as we wrap up the top ten reasons we know the New Testament writers told the truth.

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They didn’t just say it, they backed it up with dramatic action

Virtually overnight they abandoned many of their more than 1,500 year old sacred beliefs and practices. Among the institutions they give up are the following:

The animal sacrifice system – they replace it forever with the one perfect sacrifice of Christ

The binding supremacy of the Law of Moses – they say it’s powerless because of the sinless life of Christ

Strict monotheism – they now worship Jesus, the God-man, despite the fact that
1) their most cherished belief had been “Hear O Isreal: The Lord our God, the Lord is one” (Dt 6:4) and
2) man worship has always been considered blasphemy and punishable by death.

The Sabbath – they no longer observe it even though they’ve always believed that breaking the Sabbath was punishable by death

Belief in a conquering Messiah – Jesus is the opposite, he’s a sacrificial lamb (at least on his first visit)

That’s quite a dramatic change.

And it’s not just the New Testament writers who do this. Thousands of Jerusalem Jews, including Pharisee Priests, convert to Christianity and follow the New Testament writers in abandoning these treasured beliefs and practices.

J.P. Moreland helps us understand the magnitude of this,
“[The Jewish people] believed that these institutions were entrusted to them by God. They believed that to abandon these institutions would be to risk their souls being damned to hell after death. Now a rabbi named Jesus appears from a lower-class region. He teaches for three years, gathers a following of lower- and middle-class people, gets in trouble with the authorities, and gets crucified along with thirty thousand other Jewish men who are executed during this time period.
But five weeks after he’s crucified, over ten thousand Jews are following him and claiming that he is the initiator of a new religion. And get this: they’re willing to give up or alter all five of the social institutions that they have been taught since childhood have such importance both sociologically and theologically… Something very big was going on.”

How do you explain these monumental shifts if the New Testament writers were making up a story? How do you explain them if the Resurrection did not occur?

Surprising New Beliefs and Practices

Not only do these new believers abandon their long-held beliefs and practices, they also adopt some new radical ones. These include:

Sunday Worship - a work day, as a new day of worship

Baptism - as a new sign that one was a partaker in a new covenant (as circumcision was a sign of the old covenant)

Communion - as an act of remembrance of Christ sacrifice for their sins. Communion is especially inexplicable unless the Resurrection is true. Why would Jews make up a practice where they symbolically eat the body and drink the blood of Jesus?

What’s more, the writers of the New Testament endured persecution and even death for all this and none of them recanted their testimony.

If you ask me, this is all good evidence that what they wrote was true.  What do you think?

Source: I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist

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Is the New Testament True? The Evidence of Unembellished Miracle Accounts

Posted on July 26, 2015 by Reasons for Hope 315 in Reliable Documents, Top Ten Reasons We Know the New Testament Writers Told the Truth | Leave a comment

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Is the New Testament True? The Evidence of Unembellished Miracle Accounts

How do we know that the writers of the New Testament wrote the truth and weren’t just making it up? Because they described the miracles they witnessed like other historical events: with simple, unembellished accounts.  We’ll explore this as we continue with the top ten reasons we know the New Testament writers told the truth.

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Legend or History?

Embellished and extravagant details are strong signs that a historical account has legendary elements. For example, there’s a legendary account of Christ’s resurrection that was written more than 100 years after the actual event. It’s from the apocryphal forgery known as the Gospel of Peter. It says,

“Early in the morning, as the Sabbath dawned, there came a large crowd from Jerusalem and the surrounding areas to see the sealed tomb. But during the night before the Lord’s day dawned, as the soldiers were keeping guard two by two in every watch, there came a great sound in the sky, and they saw the heavens opened and two men descend shining with a great light, and they drew near to the tomb. The stone which had been set on the door rolled away by itself and moved to one side, and the tomb was opened and both of the young men went in.
Now when these soldiers saw that, they woke up the centurion and the elders (for they also were keeping watch). While they were yet telling them the things which they had seen, they saw three men come out of the tomb, two of them sustaining the other one, and a cross following after them. The heads of the two they saw had heads that reached up to heaven, but the head of him that was led by them went beyond heaven. And they heard a voice out of the heavens saying, ‘Have you preached unto them that sleep?’ The answer that was heard from the cross was, ‘Yes’”

This account includes a walking, talking cross and people with heads that reached up to heaven.  Those are the kinds of embellished details that we find in legendary accounts.  The New Testament resurrection accounts contain noting like that.  The Gospels give matter of fact, almost bland descriptions of the resurrection.

Mark described it this way…

“But when they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had been rolled away. As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man dressed in a white robe sitting on the right side, and they were alarmed. “Don’t be alarmed,” he said. “You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter, ‘He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.’” Trembling and bewildered, the women went out and fled from the tomb. They said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid.” (Mark 16:4-8)

Here’s Luke’s account

“They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus.  While they were wondering about this, suddenly two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning stood beside them.  In their fright the women bowed down with their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead?  He is not here; he has risen! Remember how he told you, while he was still with you in Galilee:  ‘The Son of Man must be delivered over to the hands of sinners, be crucified and on the third day be raised again.’”  Then they remembered his words.” (Luke 24:2-8)

Here’s Matthew’s

“There was a violent earthquake, for an angel of the Lord came down from heaven and, going to the tomb, rolled back the stone and sat on it. His appearance was like lightning, and his clothes were white as snow.  The guards were so afraid of him that they shook and became like dead men.  The angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified.  He is not here; he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay.  Then go quickly and tell his disciples: ‘He has risen from the dead and is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him.’ Now I have told you.” (Matt 28:2-7)

Matthew’s account was a little more dramatic, but nothing like a walking, talking cross.

Not What You Would Expect

The resurrection is the central event of Christianity.  If it was a made-up story designed to convince skeptics, then the New Testament writers would have made their accounts longer with more detail.  They would have probably said that they witnessed Jesus physically rising from the dead. That would have certainly been dramatic and moving.  Instead they get to the tomb after he has risen and they make no attempt to dress up their discovery with exaggerated descriptions or talking crosses.

Matthew, Mark and Luke don’t even say anything about the theological implications of the resurrection and John only does so in one sentence.  It seems that the gospel writers were concerned with getting the history correct, not inventing some new theology. Their level-headedness is also on display with the other miracles they record.  Something to think about.

Source: I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist

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Is the New Testament True? The Writers Challenged Readers to Check Out the Facts

Posted on June 23, 2015 by Reasons for Hope 315 in Reliable Documents, Top Ten Reasons We Know the New Testament Writers Told the Truth | Leave a comment

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Is the New Testament True? The Writers Challenged Readers to Check Out the Facts

How do we know that the writers of the New Testament wrote the truth and weren’t just making it up? Because they challenged their readers to check out verifiable details, even about miracles.  We’ll explore this as we continue with the top ten reasons we know the New Testament writers told the truth.

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Luke, Peter and Paul all clearly stated that what they wrote was true.  Of course anyone can say that but they also called on their readers and listener’s own recollections of what they were talking about.  What’s more they challenged them to check out things that could easily be verified.  Let’s look at a couple of examples.

Paul wrote to the people in the city of Corinth that there were 500 eyewitnesses to the risen Jesus, “most of whom are still alive” he said. (1 Corinthians 15:3-6)  He was saying, “You can go ask these witnesses today and verify what I’m saying.”

Paul made another claim to the Corinthians that he wouldn’t have made unless he was telling the truth.  In his second letter to the Corinthians, Paul declared that he previously performed miracles for them.  Speaking of his own qualifications as an apostle, someone who speaks for God, Paul reminded the Corinthians that, “The things that mark an apostle – signs, wonders and miracles – were done among you with great perseverance” (2 Corinthians 12:12)

Why would he write that to the Corinthians unless he really had done miracles for them?  Certainly they knew if he had.  He would have destroyed his credibility completely be asking them to remember miracles that he had never done for them.  It seems to me what he wrote must have been true.

If I was making something up, I wouldn’t state a whole bunch of things that people could easily check out and find to be untrue.  The New Testament’s original readers were in a better position to verify the facts and since they found it to be credible, I believe we can too.

For a refresher on when the New Testament documents were written, see here.

Source: I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist

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Is the New Testament True? The Evidence of Divergent Eyewitness Details

Posted on May 18, 2015 by Reasons for Hope 315 in Reliable Documents, Top Ten Reasons We Know the New Testament Writers Told the Truth | Leave a comment

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Is the New Testament True? The Evidence of Divergent Eyewitness Details

How do we know that the writers of the New Testament wrote the truth and weren’t just making it up? Because they included details which might be seen as contradictory.  How is that evidence that that what they wrote is true?  I’ll explain that as we continue with the top ten reasons we know the New Testament writers told the truth.

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Contradictions?

Critics are quick to cite the apparently contradictory Gospel accounts as evidence that the Gospels can’t be trusted for accurate information. For example, Matthew says there was one angel at the tomb while John mentions two. Isn’t this a contradiction that blows the credibility of these accounts? No, divergent details actually strengthen the case that these are eyewitness accounts.

How so? First, notice that the angel accounts are not actually contradictory. Matthew does not say there was only one angel at the tomb. But why did Matthew mention only one angel if two were really there? For the same reason two different newspaper reporters covering the same event choose to include different details in their stories. Two independent eyewitnesses rarely see all the same details and will never describe an event in exactly the same words. They’ll record the same major event (Jesus rose from the dead) but may differ on the details.

In fact when a judge hears two witnesses giving the same word-for-word testimony, what does he rightly assume? Collusion – the witnesses got together beforehand to make their stories agree.

So it’s perfectly reasonable that Matthew and John’s accounts have differences, they were both recording eyewitness testimony. Maybe only one angel spoke. Maybe one was more prominent than the other. We don’t know. We just know such differences are common among eyewitnesses.

J. Warner Wallace is a cold-case homicide detective and a former atheist.  He’d heard testimony in cases for years and when he looked in depth at the New Testament gospels he was struck very strongly by the eyewitness nature of the accounts.

No Collusion

It’s clear that the New Testament writers didn’t get together to smooth out their testimonies. That means they certainly were not trying to pass off a lie as the truth. If they were making it up they’d be sure to be consistent. But such harmonization didn’t happen, and this confirms the genuine eyewitness nature and independence of each writer.

So even though some of the details differ, this is what we’d rightly expect from eyewitnesses, if we think about it.  While others may think that these divergent details harm the credibility of the writers, I think they actually reinforce their truthfulness. There was no conspiracy, they just each reported the events as they saw them. What do you think?

Source: I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist

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Is the New Testament True? The Evidence of Verifiable Historical Details

Posted on April 19, 2015 by Reasons for Hope 315 in Reliable Documents, Top Ten Reasons We Know the New Testament Writers Told the Truth | Leave a comment

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Is the New Testament True? The Evidence of Verifiable Historical Details

How do we know that the writers of the New Testament wrote the truth and weren’t just making it up? Because they included many historical details that can and have been verified.  Today (in my 50th post here on the blog) we’ll explore that as we continue with the top ten reasons we know the New Testament writers told the truth.

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Suppose someone wrote a book in 1980 describing your hometown as it was that year.  In the book the author correctly describes:

  • Your town’s politicians
  • it’s unique law and penal codes
  • the local industry
  • local weather patterns
  • local slang
  • the town’s roads and geography
  • it’s unusual topography
  • local houses of worship
  • area hotels
  • town statues and sculptures
  • the depth of the water in the town harbor

and numerous other unique details about your town that year.

So if the author claimed he had visited your town that year, or said he had gotten good information from people who had been there –
would you think he was telling the truth?  I think so, because he provides details that only an eyewitness could provide.

Well that’s the kind of testimony we have throughout much of the New Testament.

Acts

Luke includes the most eyewitness details.  In the second half of the book of Acts he displays an incredible knowledge of local places, names, environmental conditions, customs and circumstances that only an eyewitness would know.

Classical scholar and historian Colin Hemer chronicles Luke’s accuracy in the book of Acts verse by verse.  He identifies 84 facts in the last 16 chapters of Acts that have been confirmed by historical and archeological research.

Roman Historian A.N. Sherwin-White said of Luke’s accuracy in Acts, “For Acts the confirmation of history is overwhelming… Any attempt to reject its basic historicity must now appear absurd. Roman historians have long taken it for granted.”

The Gospel of Luke

What about Luke’s Gospel?  Luke names 11 historically confirmed leaders in the first three chapters alone.  Listen to all the details he includes at the start of chapter 3.

“In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea, and Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip tetrarch of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene, during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John the son of Zechariah in the wilderness.  And he went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. ” Luke 3:1-3

Would you add all of those verifiable details if you were making it up?

F.F. Bruce said, “A writer who thus relates his story to the wider context of world history is courting trouble if he is not careful; he affords his critical readers so many opportunities for testing his accuracy. Luke takes this risk, and stands the test admirably.”

Frank Turek and Norman Geisler share another historically accurate detail that can be found in Luke 22:44. That’s where Luke records that Jesus was in agony and sweat drops of blood the night before the crucifixion.  Apparently, Jesus was experiencing a rare stress-induced condition we know today as hematohidrosis. That’s when tiny blood vessels rupture due to extreme stress, thus allowing blood to mix with sweat. Since Luke probably didn’t know of this medical condition 2,000 years ago, he could not have recorded it unless he had access to someone who saw it.

The Other Gospels

Since Luke seems to be telling the truth, then so are Mark and Matthew because their gospels tell the same basic story, and Craig Blomberg did a similar study on John’s Gospel and he came up with 59 historically confirmed or at least historically probable details.

I don’t know about you, but I certainly believe the New Testament writers have passed the historical test. If they were making it up they wouldn’t have included so many details, and they wouldn’t have gotten them right. The New Testament is the stuff of history, not fiction.

Source: I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist

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Is the New Testament True? The Evidence of Resurrection Details That Would Not Have Been Invented

Posted on March 23, 2015 by Reasons for Hope 315 in Reliable Documents, Top Ten Reasons We Know the New Testament Writers Told the Truth | Leave a comment

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Is the New Testament True? The Evidence of Resurrection Details That Would Not Have Been Invented

How do we know that the writers of the New Testament wrote the truth and weren’t just making it up? Because they included details surrounding the resurrection of Jesus that they would not have invented.  We’ll explore that today as we continue with the top ten reasons we know the New Testament writers told the truth.

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In addition to including embarrassing details regarding themselves and Jesus, the New Testament writers also recorded events relating to the resurrection that they would not have made up.

The Burial of Jesus

They record that Jesus was buried by Joseph of Arimathea, a member of the Sanhedrin, which was the Jewish ruling council that had sentenced Jesus to die for blasphemy. Considering the bitterness some Christians harbored against the Jewish authorities, why would they put a member of the Sanhedrin is such a favorable light?

And why would they have put Jesus in the tomb of a Jewish authority? If Joseph didn’t really bury Jesus, the story would have been easily exposed as a fraud by the Jewish enemies of Christianity. But no one ever denied the story

The First Witnesses

All four Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, say that the first witnesses of the empty tomb and those who first learned of the resurrection were women. Luke even admits that one of those women, Mary Magdalene, had been demon-possessed. This would never be included in a made up story.

Not only would a once demon-possessed person make a questionable witness, but women in general were considered unreliable witnesses in the first century. A woman’s testimony carried no weight in a court of law. These witnesses would only hurt your attempt to pass off a lie as the truth.

The Conversion of Priests

“Why didn’t the risen Jesus appear to the Pharisees?”, is a popular question asked by skeptics. The answer might be that it wasn’t necessary. This is often overlooked, but many priests in Jerusalem became believers. Luke writes, “The number of disciples in Jerusalem increased rapidly, and a large number of priests became obedient to the faith.” (Acts 6:7) These priests eventually initiated a controversy that took place later in the Jerusalem church. It says that during a council meeting, “some of the believers who belonged to the party of the Pharisees stood up and said, ‘The Gentiles must be circumcised and required to obey the law of Moses.’” (Acts 15:5)

The council resolved the issue, but the point is, Luke would not have included those details if they were fiction. Everyone would have known Luke was a fraud if there were not significant converts from the priests and Pharisees. Why would Luke have given them an easy way to expose his lies with unnecessary details at that?

The Explanation of the Jews

The Jewish explanation of the empty tomb was that the disciples stole Jesus’ body. Matthew says, “this story has been widely circulated among the Jews to this very day.” That means Mathew’s readers and the Jews themselves would know whether or not he was telling the truth.

Again, why would he give his readers such an easy way to expose his lies?

Put yourself in the New Testament writer’s sandals as you consider these details.

If you didn’t read my series of posts on the evidence for the resurrection last Easter, I encourage you to do so this year.

Source: I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist

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Is the New Testament True? The Evidence of the Quoting of Jesus

Posted on February 16, 2015 by Reasons for Hope 315 in Reliable Documents, Top Ten Reasons We Know the New Testament Writers Told the Truth | Leave a comment

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Is the New Testament True? The Evidence of the Quoting of Jesus

How do we know that the writers of the New Testament wrote the truth and weren’t just making it up? Because they carefully distinguished Jesus’ words from their own. Even though quotation marks were not in use in first century Greek (nor were red letters), the New Testament  writers distinguished Jesus’ words very clearly.  Most Bibles today that have Jesus’ words in red letters are almost identical in that respect, showing how easy the New Testament writers made it to see what Jesus said and what he didn’t say.  Why is that important?, you ask.  We’ll explore that today as we get back to the top ten reasons we know the New Testament writers told the truth.

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What is the Significance?

Why is this important that the New Testament writers clearly distinguished Jesus’ words from their own?  Because it would have been very easy for them to solve first century theological disputes by just putting words in Jesus’ mouth.  Imagine if you were just making up the “Christian story” and trying to pass it off as the truth.  If therefore there came some disputes in this church you started, if some people in the church started arguing for things you didn’t agree with, wouldn’t you simply make up more quotes from Jesus to convince stubborn people to see things your way?

There were disputes in the first century over things like the necessity of circumcision, the obeying of the law of Moses, the practice of speaking in tongues, and the role of women in the church.  Those things may sound familiar as some of them are still disputes today.  So imagine you were a church leader in the first century, a writer of the New Testament, and you had made the whole thing up.  All the saying of Jesus in the gospels you just made up. So think how easy it would have been to end all debate on these controversial issues by just making up more quotes from Jesus.

Paul could have just written in his first letter to the church in Corinth that Jesus said such and such about speaking in tongues.  But neither Paul nor any of the other New Testament writers ever did that.  They stayed true to what Jesus said and didn’t say.  Paul did quote Jesus a few times but not on those controversial issues and on one occasion he went out of his way to explicitly distinguish his own words from those of Jesus (1 Cor 7:10-12).

Ask yourself, Why would the New Testament writers have been so careful about the words of Jesus if they were not telling the truth?

Source: I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist

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Is the New Testament True? The Evidence of the Demanding Sayings of Jesus

Posted on December 1, 2014 by Reasons for Hope 315 in Reliable Documents, Top Ten Reasons We Know the New Testament Writers Told the Truth | Leave a comment

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Is the New Testament True? The Evidence of the Demanding Sayings of Jesus

How do we know that the writers of the New Testament wrote the truth and weren’t just making it up? Because not only did they include embarrassing details about themselves and Jesus, they also included some very demanding sayings of Jesus.

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If the New Testament writers were making up a story, they certainly didn’t make one up that made life easier for them.  This Jesus that they wrote about had some very demanding standards.

The Sermon on Mount, recorded in Matthew chapter 5, does not appear to be a human invention.  Jesus said…

  • “I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart”
  • “I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, causes her to become an adulteress, and anyone who marries a divorced woman commit’s adultery”
  • “I tell you, Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. If someone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. Give to the one who ask you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.”
  • “I tell you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven.”
  • “Be perfect… as your heavenly Father is perfect”
  • “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”
  • “Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.”

All these commands are difficult or impossible for human beings to keep and seem to go against the natural best interested of the men who wrote them down.  They are certainly contrary to the desires of many today who want a religion of spirituality that has no moral demands.

Consider the extremity and undesirable implications of these commands…

  • If thinking about a sin is sinful, then everyone – including the New Testament writers – is guilty
  • To set such a stringent standard for divorce and remarriage does not appear to be in the earthly best interests of the men who recorded this saying
  • To not resist the insults of an evil person is to resist our basic human instincts, it also sets up an inconvenient standard of behavior for the apostles, who were undergoing persecution when this saying was written down
  • To pray for our enemies goes well beyond any ethic ever uttered and commands kindness when hate is natural
  • To not accumulate financial wealth contradicts our deepest desire for temporal security
  • To be perfect is an unattainable request for fallible human beings
  • To not judge unless our own lives are in order counters our natural tendency to point out fault in others

These commands are clearly not the commands that people would invent and impose on themselves.

Frank Turek and Norman Geisler say, “Who can live up to such standards? Only a perfect person. Perhaps that’s exactly the point.”

I know that I can’t live up to them and I have a very hard time believing that someone would decide to make up a religion and in doing so, invent a standard that they could never keep.  If I was making it up, I’d make up something manageable that I could keep and look good at.  I wouldn’t make up something that shows how bad of a sinner I am.  Thankfully I believe that Jesus died on the cross to pay for my sins so that my eternal destiny isn’t based on what I can do, but instead, when I place my faith in Christ and accept him as my savior, my eternal destiny is based on what Jesus has done.

Source: I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist

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Is the New Testament True? The Evidence of Embarrassing Testimony About Jesus

Posted on November 17, 2014 by Reasons for Hope 315 in Reliable Documents, Top Ten Reasons We Know the New Testament Writers Told the Truth | Leave a comment

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Is the New Testament True? The Evidence of Embarrassing Testimony About Jesus

How do we know that the writers of the New Testament wrote the truth and weren’t just making it up? Because not only did they included embarrassing details about themselves, as we saw last week, they also included embarrassing details about Jesus as well as difficult sayings made by him.

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In addition to being honest about themselves they were honest about Jesus. You might not have thought of the Bible saying anything embarrassing about Jesus but consider these details that the writers included.

Embarrassing Details

Jesus…

  • is considered “out of his mind” by his own family
  • is not believed by his brothers
  • is thought to be a deceiver
  • is deserted by most of his followers
  • turns off “Jews who had believed in him” to the point they want to stone him
  • is called a drunkard
  • is called demon-possessed
  • is called a madman
  • had his feet wiped with the hair of a prostitute (an act which could have been perceived as a sexual advance)
  • is crucified by the Jews and Romans despite the OT saying “anyone who is hung on a tree is under God’s curse” (Dt 21:23)

These are details they would have wanted to leave out, yet they included them.  They certainly aren’t details they would have made up.
The best explanation for them is that these things actually happened and the writers of the New Testament were committed to honestly recording what happened, even when it wasn’t helpful.

Difficult Sayings

They also included difficult sayings of Jesus.

Jesus…

  • declares “The Father is greater than I” (John 14:28)
  • seems to predict incorrectly that he’s coming back within a generation
  • says about his second coming, that no one knows the time, “not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son”
  • seems to deny his deity by asking the rich young ruler, “Why do you call me good?… No one is good – except God alone” (Luke 18:19)
  • is seen cursing a fig tree for not having figs when it wasn’t even the season for figs
  • seems unable to do miracles in his hometown, except to heal a few sick people

If the writers of the New Testament wanted to prove to everyone that Jesus was God, then why would they make up difficult sayings that seem to argue against his deity?

Jesus also rather morbidly says, “I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you”. (John 6:53)  After this, John says, “From this time on many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him” (John 6:66)

Why would you make that up?  There are reasonable explanations for these difficult sayings, but it doesn’t make sense that they’d make them up.  If true, they’d want to leave them out, but to me it seems they included them because they were committed to being completely accurate and truthful.

Source: I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist

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Is the New Testament True? The Evidence of Embarrassing Testimony

Posted on November 3, 2014 by Reasons for Hope 315 in Reliable Documents, Top Ten Reasons We Know the New Testament Writers Told the Truth | Leave a comment

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Is the New Testament True? The Evidence of Embarrassing Testimony

How do we know that the writers of the New Testament wrote the truth and weren’t just making it up? We’re going to be looking at several pieces of evidence for this off and on over the next few months.  Today we start with the fact that the New Testament writers included embarrassing details about themselves.

Documents

Principle of Embarrassment

The principle of embarrassment says that any details that a writer includes that are embarrassing to him or her are probably true. We understand this.  If you were to make up a story and try to pass it off as true, would you invent details that make you look bad? A writer’s natural tendency is to leave out any details that are embarrassing to them, not to invent and include them. And so when a writer includes embarrassing details about themself, you can be pretty sure they’re true.

So if you and your friends were going to make up a story and tell everyone it was true, would you make yourselves look like dim-witted, uncaring, rebuked, doubting cowards? Of course not, but that’s what we find in the New Testament.

Frank Turek and Norman Geisler point this out and say,

“The people who wrote down the New Testament are characters (or friends of characters) in the story, and often they depict themselves as complete morons.”

If this isn’t obviously true to you, I encourage you to read the New Testament more, especially the Gospels. They show themselves as…

Dim-witted

Numerous times they fail to understand what Jesus is trying to teach them.

Uncaring

They fall asleep on Jesus twice when he askes them to pray for him in his hour of greatest need. When he dies on the cross they make no effort to give him a proper burial.

Rebuked

Peter was the first leader of the church, yet we read of Jesus rebuking him, even calling him “Satan”. Paul also rebuked Peter, opposing him to his face.

Cowards

All but one of the disciples hides when Jesus goes to the cross.  Peter denies even knowing Jesus three times, even though he said he never would. Meanwhile, while the men hide in fear, brave women stand by Jesus, even following him to the cross, and they are the first to discover the empty tomb.

Doubting

Despite being told in advance by Jesus, multiple times, that he would rise from the dead, they are doubtful when they hear of it. Some even doubted after seeing him.

If you were writing and making up the New Testament, would you include these details about yourself? It makes you look bad. It makes he leaders of the new church, that you want people to follow, look bad.

What Would We Read if it Had Been Made Up?

  • They would have left that all out.
  • Instead of cowards we would see bold believers who opposed the crucifixion.
  • They, the men, would have declared it to the fearful women.
  • Jesus would have congratulated them for their great faith.

But we read something very different, don’t we? It seems to me that the writers of the New Testament were committed to writing the truth, even though the truth sometimes made them look bad.

Source: I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist by Turek and Geisler

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