Summary:

When we look carefully at the objections that people have regarding the historicity of the New Testament, the evidence does not support skepticism and cynicism.

I. The Denial of Miracles

II.The Alleged Inconsistencies of the Testimony of the Gospel Accounts

III. The Difficulty of Trusting Ancient History

IV. The Exclusive Nature of the Gospel and the Claims of Christ

There is no way to convince an individual who wants to hold to any one of these objections, however, none of these reasons provide a foundation upon which to reject the historical nature of the Gospel. The case that I have attempted to make is that it boils down to the willingness of a person to believe; in the possibility that miracles are viable; that each of the alleged discrepancies have plausible solutions; that ancient history not only can be trusted but if the Gospel is true, it must be honestly considered; that truth by its very nature is exclusive.

Can we Trust the New Testament Gospel Documents?

Now that we have examined and attempted to answer the four main objections that people may have regarding the New Testament documents, we will next examine the evidence for the historicity of these narratives. Even if all four of these objections were answered in the affirmative, it does not mean that these documents in question are true. If we concede that miracles are possible, that the alleged contradictions have plausible solutions, that ancient history can be examined and trusted if proven viable and that exclusivity does not disqualify truth claims; it does not mean that these documents (the New Testament and the Gospel records) are true.

Even if all of this is agreed on, we still have not answered the question “Are the New Testament Gospel Documents True?”So how do we determine if the Gospel narratives are historically true? How do we know if these events actually happened? Is there a way to examine documents and acknowledge their trustworthiness? In order to determine the historicity of the New Testament, we must use the same methodology of historical examination that we would use on any set of ancient documents that purport to be providing historical narratives.

Just because these documents contain miracles or material that may have “religious” connotations does not mean that they are therefore removed from this area of investigation. The open-minded, evidenced based inquiry cannot simply dismiss accounts of miracles simply because one does not believe in the supernatural. Because there is a substantial amount of material recorded in the New Testament that contains events that are clearly miraculous, those with a naturalistic view of history are forced to deny the historicity of these narratives because these miracles do not fit within their worldview.

However, the facts of the Gospel are presented as events of history that have actually taken place in time and space. As we examine these facts, we do not presuppose that these miracles happened, but neither do we presuppose that they did not. We examine the events as they unfold in the story and then apply the same reasonable tests to these documents as we would to any other document that is historical in nature. The historical narratives recorded in the New Testament include names of rulers, cities, provinces along with cultural settings, figures of speech, roads, rivers, mountains…. all which can be either confirmed or disproved through the study of Archaeology and in cross examining other historical references and ancient writings.

Biblical scholar, Norman L. Geisler examined the Gospel of Luke and lists Luke’s references to various geographical sites. He found that Luke accurately names and describes (32) countries, (54) cities and (9) islands without a single error. (See Geisler’s book: When Critics Ask -Victor , 1992). As we will discover, the New Testament documents have been confirmed over and over again to provide reliable information on natural events, people and places when examined with this type of background verification. But the New Testament also contains events that are miraculous in nature and because of this dualism, it provides a problem for some people. Those who struggle with miracles hold to an anti-supernatural viewpoint which affirms that we live in a closed universe with only natural causes and effects – no God and no supernatural events.

This viewpoint presupposes the historical conclusion before an investigation into history is even started. Therefore, any evidence for the occurrence of the miraculous within history is simply denied because it does not fit into the anti-supernatural mold.This philosophical bias against miracles means that we must rule out miracles in advance of our historical inquiry and as a result we will have limited ourselves to only one end conclusion which is the one we presupposed before we started. This is neither a scientific nor an evidence based approach and is one that we should not accept.

Instead of simply denying the possibility of the miraculous, an open investigation into the events of history looks to see if miracles have actually taken place. This is the approach that we need to employ regarding the New Testament narratives. As we examined earlier, we must at least keep our minds open to the possibility of the supernatural and then go where the evidence leads us.

There are four key areas of evidence that are used in examining the reliability of historical sources:

1. Who were the authors and were the writers of the documents in a position to be able to tell the truth? When were the narratives written?

2. Were the writers willing to tell the truth?

3. Were the documents that they wrote faithfully preserved?

4. Where possible, do the documents find support from other avenues of investigation and documentation?

Were the writers of the documents in a position to be able to tell the truth? Who wrote the Gospel accounts? Were they eyewitnesses?Did Matthew, the disciple of Jesus, write the Gospel of Matthew? Did Mark (an associate of the apostles) write the Gospel of Mark? Did Luke (an associate of the apostles) write the Gospel of Luke? Did John, the disciple of Jesus, write the Gospel of John? When we examine this, it is not enough to make a claim or provide theories; we must have factual evidence upon which to build a case.

If these men were indeed the authors of the Gospel accounts, then we have good evidence to indicate that the authorship of the Gospels was based on eyewitness sources. However, if the evidence points away from eyewitness authorship, then we must admit this and attempt to identify who the real authors were.