Class on the Case for Christ

Introduction – Why study the facts about JC?

Introduction of my credentials.

1)Why study the historical evidence of Jesus Christ?

a)The Christian faith is based on the historical fact of Jesus Christ and the claims of the Bible. Refute it and Christianity falls.

Paul, in I Cor. 15 puts it, For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance : that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Peter, and then to the Twelve. After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles... and if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith.

b)This either put Christian in a very precarious position (if the evidence is weak) or, it firmly plants Christians as people who can seek object truth about their own faith.

c)The goal of this class is to expose to you the various object proofs there are concerning Christianity in the area of history, archeology, and logic. We will cover these topics in a overview fashion but I will delve deeper at times. We will poke holes in the ground to mine for gold.

d)To know that your faith is based on fact is an exciting revelation. It strengthens one faith, supporting it like the frame of a house. Ultimately, we are people who seek the truth and that truth will set us free.

2)Is it enough to study the evidence? To know the truth is not necessarily to commit oneself to it. I may know the facts about the need to exercise and stay fit but that does not mean I will do it. It is the same way with Christianity. Belief is a funny thing. If a person is determined to believe in something illogical or irrational, he can. Example : TV missing example. Studying the facts behind Christianity can bring one to the edge of a cliff. Knowing that he has a parachute, he will be safe. It is his faith, informed faith, not blind faith that will allow him to jump.

Questions from The Case for Christ

Teacher: Gregory Chao

Dates: December 2, 9, 16

References: The New Evidence that Demands a Verdict by Josh McDowell

What do we know about the eyewitnesses of Christ?
What specific evidence do you have that about authors of the gospels?
When someone writes a biography these days, they delve into the person’s life but the gospels aren’t written like that. They only focus on about 3 years of Jesus’ life. Why?
What is Q?
Is John’s very explicit claims of Jesus as God consistent with the other gospels?
How do you respond to the critics that say that the gospels where written so far after the event that legends developed and distorted Jesus who was actually only a wise teacher?
Intention Test: Were the first century writers even interested in recording what actually happened?
Ability Test: Were the first century writers able to write a reliable record of history?
Consistency Test: Aren’t there irreconcilable discrepancies among the various gospels?
Bias Test: Did the gospel writers skew the material since they were biased toward Jesus?
Cover up test: When people testify, they often leave out embarrassing or hard to explain facts. Are there such facts in the gospels?
Corroboration test: When the gospels mention people, places and events, do they check out to be correct in cases in which they can be independently verified?
Adverse Witness Test: Were other present who would have contradicted or corrected the gospels if they had been distorted or false?
If all we have are copies of copies, how can we have confidence that the NT bear resemblance to the original texts?
How did the early church leaders determine which books would be considered authoritative and which would be discarded?
What outside sources of the NT do we have by Early Church Fathers?
What outside sources of the NT do we have from Non-Christians?

Class on The Case for Christ

By Lee Strobel

1)Eyewitness Evidence

a)What do we know about the eyewitnesses of Christ?

i)Background: The authors of the gospels are anonymous but it is generally agreed that the authors were Matthew (one of the twelve), John Mark (a companion of Peter), Luke (Paul’s beloved physician), and John (one of the twelve, beloved by Jesus). Except for John, these were unlikely characters to author the gospels.

ii)Question: What specific evidence do you have that about authors of the gospels?

(1)The oldest and most significant testimony comes from Papias (125 AD) affirming Mark’s gospel that he “made no mistake” and “did not include any false statement”

(2)Irenaeus (180 AD) said, “Matthew published his own Gospel among the Hebrews in their own tongue, when Peter and Paul were preaching the Gospel in Rome and founding the church there. After their departure, Mark, the disciple and interpreter of Peter, himself handed down to us in writing the substance of Peter's preaching. Luke, the follower of Paul, set down in a book the Gospel preached by his teacher. Then John, the disciple of the Lend, who also leaned on his breast, himself produced his Gospel while he was living at Ephesus in Asia.”

iii)Conclusion: Very early evidence shows direct or indirect eyewitness testimony

b)When someone writes a biography these days, they delve into the person’s life but the gospels aren’t written like that. They only focus on about 3 years of Jesus’ life. Why?

i)Literary – This is in the style of the biographies of the ancient world. Chronology was not as important, nor verbatim test but essence was emphasized. Ancient Greek and Hebrew has no quotation marks.

ii)Theological – Gospel were written to tell a message that is based on the historically fact of Christ death and resurrection.

c)What is Q?

i)Q is a hypothesis. German scholar in the 1800’s tried to isolate the source material for the gospels by studying the common material. They found all of Mark contained in Matthew and Luke. Common material in Luke and Matthew that they called Q. Material unique to Matthew (M) and material unique to (L). This, in and of itself, not that remarkable. It leads one to believe that Mark was the earliest gospel. However, these german scholars (Bultmann) went further to conclude that only Q is valid and the rest is fabrication. Even if you limit your knowledge to Q, you do not get a substantially different picture of Jesus.

d)Is John’s very explicit claims of Jesus as God consistent with the other gospels?

i)The use of the term “Son of Man” is not a term of humanity but a direct reference to Daniel 7:13-14. "In my vision at night I looked, and there before me was one like a son of man, coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into his presence. He was given authority, glory and sovereign power; all peoples, nations and men of every language worshiped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed.” This is someone who approaches God directly with universal dominion

ii)Jesus claims forgiveness of sin (Mark 2, Matt 9). Jesus says “Whoever acknowledges me, I will acknowledge before my Father in heaven.” (Matt 10, Luke 12) Final judgment is based on one’s reaction to Him. There are many more examples.

e)How do you respond to the critics that say that the gospels where written so far after the event that legends developed and distorted Jesus who was actually only a wise teacher?

i)The standard scholarly dating of Mark (70 AD), Matthew and Luke (80 AD), and John (90 AD) are within a lifetime of the actual events.

ii)Compared to other documents of antiquity, the NT greater than 10 times more text and 10 times closer time gap (see table below)

Author / Book / Date Written / Earliest Copies / Time Gap / No. of Copies
Homer / Iliad / 800 BC / c, 400 BC / 400 yrs / 643
Herodotus / History / 480-425 BC / c. 900 AD / 1350 yrs / 8
Thucydides / History / 460-400 BC / c. 900 AD / 1300 yrs / 8
Plato / 400 BC / c. 900 AD / 1300 yrs / 7
Demosthenes / 300 BC / c. 1100 AD / 1400 yrs / 200
Caesar / Gallic Wars / 100-44 BC / c. 900 AD / 1000 yrs / 10
Livy / History of Rome / 59 BC-17 AD / 4th century (partial)
mostly 10th century / 400 yrs
1000 yrs / 1 partial
19 copies
Tacitus / Annals / 100 AD / c. 1100 AD / 1000 yrs / 20
Pliny Secundus / Natural History / 61-113 AD / c. 850 AD / 1000 yrs / 7
New Testament / 50-100 AD / c 114 AD (fragment)
c. 200 AD (books)
c. 250 AD (most of NT)
c. 325 AD (complete NT) / 50 yrs
100 yrs
150 yrs
225 yrs / 5366

Table 1 – Comparison between NT manuscripts and other accepted factual documents of Antiquity.

iii)A strong case for an even earlier dating can be made for Luke. Based on Acts, Paul had not died yet which means that it would be dated earlier than 62 AD. Since Act is a second of a two part book, the book of Luke was written even earlier. This would put Mark at about 50-60 AD, 30 year after the death of Jesus.

iv)The gospel were written after almost all the letters of Paul which probably began in the 40’s. In addition, we find in Philippian 2:6-11 and Colossians 1:15-20 creeds that were even earlier than Paul’s writings. Another creed in I Corinthian 15:3 is very significant. “For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Peter, and then to the Twelve. After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born.” Paul is using these creeds during his ministry in the 40’s which means that they must have been developed in the 30’s.

2)Testing the Eyewitness Evidence

a)Intention Test: Were the first century writers even interested in recording what actually happened?

i)Luke was explicitly states that he tried to get the fact correct in Luke 1. Mark and Matthew do not explicit states this intent but are clearly of the same genre and style. John states in 20:31, “these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Son of God.

b)Ability Test: Were the first century writers able to write a reliable record of history?

i)Jewish culture was built up on preserving the scripture of the OT. Rabbis became famous for having the entire OT committed to memory. The oral tradition was not like playing telephone. In telephone, half the fun is to have the next person not get it right. In the oral tradition, you take great care to pass on the exact information from person to person. And, the word for word memorization is constantly checked by the community.

c)Consistency Test: Aren’t there irreconcilable discrepancies among the various gospels?

i)There are numerous points at which the gospels appear to disagree ranging from minor variations in wording to more famous contradictions. Some amount of discrepancies actually help the case of independent witnesses. The discrepancies have to be dealt with on a case by case basis. Some examples: Luke says the centurion sent elders while Matt said that he himself went to see Jesus. (Answer: This might have been an acceptable practice back then.) Jesus sent demons into the swine at Gerasa in Mark and Luke while Matt says it was Gadara (Answer: one is a town and one is a province). The point is that there are rational explanations for the differences in the accounts.

d)Bias Test: Did the gospel writers skew the material since they were biased toward Jesus?

i)Although there is this possibility, the disciples had nothing to gain except criticism, ostracism and martyrdom. They certainly had nothing to win financially. If anything, this would have provided pressure to keep quiet and deny Jesus yet, because of their integrity, they proclaimed what they saw even though it resulted in suffering and death.

e)Cover up test: When people testify, they often leave out embarrassing or hard to explain facts. Are there such facts in the gospels?

i)There are actually quite a bit. There are a large body of “hard saying” of Jesus. There is much embarrassing material about the disciples

f)Corroboration test: When the gospels mention people, places and events, do they check out to be correct in cases in which they can be independently verified?

i)The more people explore this, the more details get confirmed. Within the last 100 years, archaeology has repeatedly unearthed discoveries that have confirmed specific references in the gospels, particularly the gospel of John.

g)Adverse Witness Test: Were other present who would have contradicted or corrected the gospels if they had been distorted or false?

i)Many people had reason for wanting to discredit this movement and would have done so if they could. This was especially so among the Jew. Yet, the Christian movement took root in Jerusalem, the very heart of the Jewish faith.

3)The Documentary Evidence

a)If all we have are copies of copies, how can we have confidence that the NT bear resemblance to the original texts?

i)This isn’t an issue with the NT. The NT is far more verifiable than any other document of antiquity in terms of numbers of manuscripts and closeness in time to the original.

ii)We have copies commencing within a couple of generations from the writing of the original compared to 5 to 10 centuries of other documents.

iii)We have translations of the gospels into other languages (Latin, Syriac, and Coptic) and secondary translations (Armenian and Gothic).

iv)Even if we lost all the greek manuscripts, we could piece together the gospel from all the quotations in commentaries. The following are some (not all) of the earlier manuscripts.

Manuscript / Description / Location / Date Written / Comment
John Rylands's MS / Fragment of John / Manchester, England / 130 AD / Defuncts earlier School of NT criticism belief lead of Christian Baur that could not have been written until 160 AD
Bodmer Papyrus II / Most of John's Gospel, Jude, I&II Peter, Luke / Geneva / 200 AD (John)
175-225 AD (Luke, Peter, Jude) / 104 leaves of John 1:1 - 6:11; 6:35-14:26, earliest copy of Jude and I & II Peter, earliest copy of Luke
Chester Beatty Papyri / Major portion of NT / Dublin / 200 AD / This discovery in 1930 reduced the gap between earlier manuscripts and traditional dating to the point of negligible
Diatessaron / Harmony of Gospels by Tatian / 160 AD / Written by Tatian, an early church father
Codex Vaticanus / Entire Bible / Vatican / 325-350 AD / After a 100 years of textual criticism, many consider Vaticanus as one of the most trustworthy manuscripts of the NT
Codex Sinaiticus / All of NT, half of OT / BritishMuseum / 350 AD / Discovered in Mount Sinai Monstery in 1859
Codex Alexandrinus / Entire Bible / BritishMuseum / 400 AD / Written in greek in Egypt
Codex Ephraemi / Entire Bible except 2 Thess and 2 John / Paris / 400 AD / Original writing has been erased and written over. Scholar have been able to see originals
Codex Bezai / Gospels, Acts in Greek and Latin / Cambridge Library / 450 AD
Codex Washingtonensis / Gospels / WashingtonDC / 450 AD

Table 2 – Summary of earliest known manuscripts of the NT

b)How did the early church leaders determine which books would be considered authoritative and which would be discarded?

i)The early church had three criteria: 1) The books must have apostolic authority – that is, written by apostles or by followers of apostles. 2) conformity to the rule of faith. 3) acceptance and usage by the church at large.

ii)There was an agreement of the greater part of the NT within the first two centuries. The NT canon is very clearly obvious when studying the discarded texts. They are written later that the four gospels in the second, -sixth century. They carry names like Gospel of Peter and the Gospel of Mary that are unrelated to their real authorship.

iii)The NT canon was not a result of a series of contest involving church politics. The canon is rather the separation that came about because of the intuitive insight of Christian believers. The canon is a list of authoritative books more than it is an authoritative list of books.

c)What outside sources of the NT do we have by Early Church Fathers?

i)The quotations of the NT from the early church fathers are so numerous that they give overwhelming support to the existence of the 27 books of the NT and reproduce the NT text itself.

ii)If no manuscript of the NT existed, we could reproduce it from the quotations of the early church fathers alone?

Writer / Gospel / Acts / Pauline Epistles / General Epistles / Revelations / Totals
Justin Martyr (133 AD) / 268 / 10 / 43 / 6 / 3 / 330
Irenaeus (170 AD) / 1038 / 194 / 499 / 23 / 65 / 1819
Clement of Alex. (150-212 AD) / 1107 / 44 / 1127 / 207 / 11 / 2406
Origen (185-253 AD) / 9231 / 349 / 7778 / 399 / 165 / 17992
Tertullian (160-220 AD) / 3822 / 502 / 2609 / 120 / 205 / 7258
Hippolytus (170-235 AD) / 734 / 42 / 387 / 27 / 188 / 1378
Eusebius (325 AD) / 3258 / 211 / 1592 / 88 / 27 / 5176
Grand Totals / 19368 / 1352 / 14035 / 870 / 664 / 36289

Table 3 – Extra-biblical NT references from Church Fathers