Apologetics 12: New Testament Trustworthiness
For the New Testament we can employ several of the same lines of reasoning as the Old Testament, though there are a couple more to consider like internal evidence and messianic prophecies that help bolster the case. Furthermore, many people’s lives have been changed by reading and believing the words of the New Testament. No other book has such a legacy for radical life transformation.
If you would like to take this class for credit, please contact the Atlanta Bible College so you can register and do the necessary work for a grade.
Notes:
Reason #1: Archeology Supports the Bible
- Handout from Skeptics Search for God pages 227 to 234
- Handout from Case for Christ pages 92-99
- Building Belief, pages 145-146
- In Defense of the Bible ed. by Cowan and Wilder pages 236-239
Reason #2: Unflattering Honesty
- Consider the heroes of faith and their recorded failures:
- If they made it up, why would they paint themselves so true to life (moles and all)?
- Peter’s denials (Matthew 26.69-74)
- Paul’s persecution of the church (Acts 8.1-3)
- All of this is evidence that the Bible is legitimate—it honestly chronicles what happened. And if we can trust it when people would be inclined to change it for the sake of embarrassment, we can certainly trust it on matters such as the kingdom and the crucifixion/resurrection of Christ.
Reason #3: Changed Lives
- There is an old story about an atheist who challenged a Christian to a debate. The Christian responded, if you can provide me with one person who has been delivered from alcoholism, drug addictions, sexual perversion, violence, or another significant vice by atheism then I will debate you. And I will bring a dozen who have drastically changed as a direct result of their belief in the Bible.
Reason #4: Preservation
- Antiochus Epiphanes tried to destroy the Hebrew bible and Jewish practices
- The Roman Emperor Diocletian, following an edict in ad 303, attempted to destroy every New Testament
- 25 years after Diocletian, the next emperor, Constantine, paid for 50 more bibles to be copied
- Voltaire (18th century) predicted within a hundred years the bible would be gone, but 50 years after he died, the Geneva Bible Society used his house and printing press to produce many more bibles
- Today the bible is available in more languages than any other book (over 500)
- This reason alone does not prove the bible is true, but it coheres with the idea. In other words, if the bible were from God, we would expect he would have his hand on it to preserve it throughout the centuries
Reason #5: Internal Evidence
- What sort of books are the Gospels?
- What did the writers think they were doing?
- Luke 1.1-4; 2 Peter 1.16; 1 Corinthians 15.6
- they claim to have reported historical facts accurately
Reason #6: Messianic Prophesies
- Ralph Muncaster has calculated the odds of 118 non-messianic historical prophecies being true to be 1 chance in 10118. Thus it is more likely that the Bible is true than this pen will hit the floor when I drop it! In other words, to not believe in the Bible is more suicidal than to jump off a cliff and think that the law of gravity will not take effect!
- Promise to Abraham
- (Genesis 12:3, 18:18, 22:18)
- (Acts 3:25-26)
- Prophet like Moses
- (Deuteronomy 18:15-19)
- (Acts 3:22-23, John 1:43-49, 6:13-14)
- Raised from the dead
- (Psalm 16:10)
- (Acts 13:33-37
