1 Credible Scripture is Trustworthy! Luke 1:1 4 September 22 nd, 2013 Dr. Michael T. Carey I was at a social gathering with good friends who I knew to be skeptics about Christianity. The grandfather said this about his young grandson, He s really interested in ancient mythology so I gave him a book of the stories told by the Vikings, the Greek and Roman gods, as well as the legends about Jesus. I flinched, but reminded myself that aspects of the New Testament do resemble the ancient myths among the pagan religions there were other stories about gods who become human, were born to virgins, and then did things to liberate humans. C. S. Lewis acknowledged this similarity while highlighting the crucial difference: The story of Christ is simply a true myth: a myth working on us the same way as the others, but with the tremendous difference that it really happened (God in the Dock, 1972). J.R. Tolkien, who wrote the Lord of the Rings, was also a believer. Tolkien wrote: Legend and History have met and fused (Leaf and Tree, 1965). The Bible is NOT just the stuff of legends! While some of its 66 books are not intended to be historical, most of the Bibles books are based on actual events. Today we ll focus on the New Testament, since the stories of Jesus are the core of our faith. They are NOT just the stuff of legends; they are the credible testimony of actual eyewitnesses. Look at how Luke begins his Gospel. It was probably written in the 80s A.D., 50 years after Jesus was raised. He wasn t an eyewitness, so Luke was careful to base his account on eyewitness accounts: Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us, just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word. With this in mind, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, I too decided to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught. Luke was aware that non Jewish officials would read his Gospel, so he referred to historical events, like the census ordered by Caesar Augustus when Quirinius was governor of Syria before Jesus was born (2:1). In his 2 nd Epistle, Peter declared that we did not follow cleverly devised stories when we told you about the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ in power, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. (1:16) It would be nice to have video recordings of Jesus death and resurrection. But recording devices didn t existent until the phonograph we have no idea what Abraham Lincoln s voiced sounded like in order to play Lincoln the actor Daniel Day Lewis spent months researching eyewitness accounts. We have no secular record of Jesus in 30 AD. There weren t any newspapers until after Gutenberg invented the printing press. The Roman Empire didn t
keep records of who they crucified at the time of his death Jesus was nobody probably hundreds of people were crucified around the Empire that week. What we have are stories by people who cared. Without any way to document what happened, assuming that Jesus would soon return, these eyewitnesses focused their energies on spreading the news. When they became old, Gospels were written to record their testimony. Probably the earliest eyewitness account in the Bible was provided by Paul when he quoted those who saw Jesus empty tomb and beheld his resurrected form. Paul didn t meet Jesus until the Lord appeared to him in resurrected form when Paul was traveling to Damascus to arrest believers. So in 55 AD, Paul wrote: 2 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 Cephas, and then to the Twelve. After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. (15:3 6) 25 years after these events happened, Paul passed onto the new believers in a whole nother part of the word what he had received news of first importance: that the Christ [the Messiah] died for our sins according to the Scriptures [that is, Jesus fulfilled the Old Testament prophecies], that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day according to those Scriptures appearing to at least 500 disciples. So how can we trust that this core message didn t get exaggerated over those 25 years? I see two compelling signs of their credibility. First, for Jews to say that the Messiah died is a nonsensical statement, unless you experienced something that compels you to believe that it s true. The Jewish Messiah was supposed to kick Rome s tail to put it bluntly but Rome tortured Jesus to death in shame. Many times before Jesus, revolutionaries claimed to be the Messiah, and when Rome crucified them, their followers abandoned them. When Jesus suffered the same fate, many Jews said definitely not the Messiah. But Jewish eyewitnesses said He is the Messiah he won over evil through resurrection. His suffering fulfilled Isaiah s prophecy about a suffering servant who would conquer through sacrificial love. For Jews like Paul to believe this incredible news required great eyewitness credibility. It also refers to 500 witnesses. Its one thing to base your life on Mohammed saying I had a vision and wrote it down ; or to read the Book of Mormon as a sacred text because Joseph Smith said an angel Moroni appeared to me in order to give additional revelations. Of course there are visions and angels in the New Testament books, but they are credible because hundreds of people saw a public execution and a public resurrection which contradicted what they previously believed, then went to their death saying It is true, Jesus the crucified Messiah is the risen Lord of all.
The scriptures are trustworthy; if you are ever going to believe anything, these are credible accounts of what God has done to give people love and life. Yes, it would be nice to have ancient non Christian confirmation: Roman records about Jesus, etc., but God chose to send his Son to live in the most obscure part of the Roman Empire nobody in Rome cared what happened in Galilee. Archeology has given us confirmation that Pontius Pilate was the local governor at the time of Jesus death a plaque honoring him was found in the ruins of an outdoor theatre. It is a little weird to claim that the greatest person who ever lived was unknown to his government. Mark Roberts writes about this dilemma in his book Can We Trust the Gospels? His college roommate Larry had a friend who would rehearse playing the cello in their dorm s common room. Mark would hear him and think Wow! That s pretty good! But he never bothered to meet this cello player or attend any of his concerts: 3 Little did I know that Larry s friend would someday be considered the best cello player in the world I wished that I had the chance to meet Yo Yo Ma when I had the chance or at least listen to more of his music. But when I was in college, cellists were off my radar screen completely. Similarly, in the first century A.D., Jesus was almost completely off the radar screen of the Roman Empire it wasn t until the second century that people outside of the Christian church began to care about Jesus. (139 40) While they have no record of Jesus, officials in the Roman Empire confirm that the early church was teaching then what the Bible tells us now. In 109 A.D. Tacitus wrote his history of the Roman Empire, including this explanation of why Nero persecuted the Christians back in 64 A.D.: Christus, from whom the name [Christians] had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judaea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome. (Tacitus: Annals 15.44, 109 A.D.) The extreme penalty refers to crucifixion and the most mischievous superstition probably refers to claiming that Jesus rose from the dead. From this point on there are many references to the spread of Christianity in the 100s and 200s. None prove Christianity; these non Christian authorities often refer to the Christians courage when persecuted, their remarkable love for each other, their mixing of the social classes, their care for the poor, and their rescuing of unwanted babies left to die. In recent years there has been amazing verification of scripture s accuracy. I m just going to name several ways that scientific methods are verifying the Bible s accuracy. Perhaps you got nervous when you heard reports that the original manuscripts have disappeared, and
that some errors crept into the copies when scribes copied the previous manuscripts. Here s great news: computer analysis of more than 5,000 ancient manuscripts demonstrates that 99% of what is written is undisputed; none of the 1% that is disputed is a crucial passage. For example, in some manuscripts Mark s Gospel ends with a statement about believers handling poisonous snakes without dying; most other manuscripts don t. Thankfully the scholars have determined that some scribe inserted the snake handling passage because the Book of Acts tells us that Paul survived a snake bite. You can still watch the reality TV show about snake handling Christians in Tennessee. By comparing the manuscripts secular scholars have confirmed the accuracy of the Bible. A slam dunk happened when they found the Dead Sea Scrolls in the 1940s. They were hidden by a Jewish sect facing annihilation in 70 A.D. Included in the discoveries was a whole scroll of Isaiah. When compared to scrolls newer by hundreds of years, there were no significant changes. The Holy Spirit has given us God s Word, in part because so many scribes were faithful stewards of that Word. Hundreds of archeological discoveries verify that the places mentioned in the Bible were accurate. Our Media Center has DVD studies led by Middle Eastern archeologists. Sometimes a group wanting publicity (and money) will trumpet a discovery that questions the core of our faith, like last year when the Discovery Channel featured a newlydiscovered bone box with Jesus name on it the name was later shown to be a forgery by secular Israelis. Or the radical Jesus Seminar, scholars are far outside the mainstream; when the Nag Hammadi Codices were discovered in Egypt, these people suggested that newlydiscovered documents might be truer than the Gospels in the Bible. These Gospels suggest that Jesus was married and had a much more political agenda the basis for The DaVinci Code book and movie. It troubles me to meet people who lost their confidence in the Bible because The Gospel of Thomas isn t in it. There s a good reason for it: The Gospel of Thomas and the other Gnostic Gospels were written hundreds of years after the true Gospels by people who didn t like the original story! I guess we ll be correcting falsehoods like this until mainstream scholarship catches up with the charlatans who profit from making scandalizing claims about Jesus. All we can do is use logic and science to show that the biblical story is credible and compelling, then challenge people to obtain personal authentication. Once you discover that Christianity is based on credible eyewitness testimony (unlike other religions scriptures); once you realize that the scriptures themselves have survived more critical analysis than any other pre modern documents; then you must decide whether to test what the scriptures teach by living Jesus life. At the end of the day, living biblically will validate the Bible. As Paul wrote to Timothy: 4 All Scripture is God breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. (2 Timothy 3:16 17)
You ll discover that scripture is God breathed as you study it, memorize it, and ponder it; then let it teach you, correct you, and train you for the best work. As you can tell, I m a heady guy who believes the Bible makes sense; yet I also believe because I ve confirmed its truth in my heart. This week I wrote my blog about how to discover God s will: I discovered God s will by recognizing the Lord s answers to my prayer. I learned this by living as if the Bible is true, and then discovered the joy and adventure of following Jesus. 5