Last week, we began considering whether it is possible to believe the Bible is true.

The outspoken atheist and author Sam Harris once said,

“Tell a devout Christian that his wife is cheating on him, or that frozen yogurt can make a man invisible, and he is likely to require as much evidence as anyone else… Tell him that the book he keeps by his bed was written by an invisible deity who will punish him with fire for eternity if he fails to accept its every incredible claim about the universe, and he seems to require no evidence whatsoever.”[i]

Can we trust the Bible? Do Christians believe the Bible with “no evidence whatsoever”? What is the evidence that it is trustworthy?

The challenge that is made against the Bible is that it isn’t a trustworthy document. We can’t trust that the Bible's historical account is accurate.

These are serious questions, and they deserve thoughtful responses.

Last week, we began with the first of seven responses to this question. The first response is that the writers of the New Testament themselves claimed that what they wrote was history, not fable or legend. We will continue with the second through sixth responses to whether there are reasons to believe the Bible.

Second, the books were penned too early to be legends. The first New Testament book was written 15-20 years after Jesus’ crucifixion, and the final book was written around 65 years later. You could imagine if a book came out claiming that it wasn’t terrorists, but a squadron of alien ships that destroyed the Twin Towers on 9/11 that there would be plenty of witnesses who were there to discredit the hoax. If the authors of the New Testament were perpetrating a hoax, the stakes of their hoax were far higher and their claims were far more ridiculous. The New Testament authors claimed that the Son of God walked on earth, performed miracles, was crucified by the Romans, was resurrected from the dead, and then appeared to thousands of people.

Discrediting this ridiculous claim would have been as simple as bringing out eyewitnesses and discrediting these absurd claims. Better yet, these claims could have easily been discredited by unearthing the body of this supposed Son of God and showing his body. The Romans and Jews couldn’t have been more motivated to find Jesus’ body and discredit this hoax. And yet there were no eyewitnesses brought forward to debunk the ludicrous claims of the followers of Jesus, and there was no body that was brought forward.

The third reason to believe the veracity of the history told by the gospels is how the writers depict themselves in their gospels.

One of the most accepted theories by critics of the reason for the disciples’ propagation of the myth of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ was to raise their own status as leaders in a new religious movement. This theory falls apart, however, in a number of ways. When you read the gospel accounts, the disciples come off as faithless, petty, selfish, deserters, cowards, and flat-out dumb. If they’re trying to prop themselves up they do an abysmal job.

In addition, every one of the apostles except John was likely killed for his faith.[ii] John was exiled by Rome and lived out his last days in in-house arrest. Paul gave up an illustrious career and in return, was beaten, imprisoned, and ultimately killed for his faith in Jesus. And not a single one of the disciples renounced their story, even under the threat of death. If the authors of the New Testament fabricated these stories to raise their standing as power brokers of a new religion, they failed miserably and paid the ultimate penalty in doing so.

The fourth proof we have of the trustworthiness of the accounts is that at the most critical moment for evidence, the witness of the resurrection of Jesus, the first witnesses are all women. And this was in a culture where a woman’s testimony was so diminished that it wasn’t even considered valid in court. If the apostles fabricated these stories, they were extremely foolish in having women being the first witnesses of the resurrected Jesus.

A fifth consideration regarding whether the Bible is full of fables or is actual history is found in testing the accounts against contemporary experts in the field of recollective memory and of oral tradition. Psychiatric recollective memory experts of oral history say that markers of reliable oral history involve names, unnecessary details, and sharing stories for a particular perspective (rather than from the perspective of an all-knowing author). The gospels share all of these attributes.[iii]

Just to give you a quick taste of this, take a look at just one verse in Mark’s telling of Jesus’ crucifixion. The scene's setting is that Jesus has just been handed over to crucifixion by the Governor, Pontius Pilate. Jesus is beaten, stripped of his clothing, a crown of thorns is placed on his head, and a purple cloak is draped around him as the soldiers mock him as the so-called “King of the Jews.” Then Mark writes:

“And they compelled a passerby, Simon of Cyrene, who was coming in from the country, the father of Alexander and Rufus, to carry his cross” (Mark 15:21).

This brief verse shows distinctive markers of reliable recollective oral history. Mark writes from a particular perspective. Mark includes unnecessary details: that someone was forced to carry Jesus’ cross, and the name of not only the person who carried the cross is given, but the names of his two sons are given. Why these unusual details be present? Experts in oral history say that one of the reasons for these kinds of detail is that it allows the story to be verified. Simon and his sons likely lived near the audience that Mark was writing to. Mark was encouraging his audience to test the truthfulness of his story.[iv]

The sixth reason that the New Testament can be trusted is that the New Testament is not the only place where the life of Jesus is attested. Several non-Christian sources including the Jewish historian Josephus and the Roman historian Tacitus attest Jesus.[v]

On Saturday we will consider the final reason it is reasonable to trust that the Bible is reliable.

[i] Sam Harris, The End of Faith, 19. Quoted in Mark Clark, The Problem of God, 64.

[ii] https://www.christianity.com/church/church-history/timeline/1-300/whatever-happened-to-the-twelve-apostles-11629558.html

[iii] See Bauckham, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses for a detailed consideration of this issue.

[iv] See also 1 Corinthians 15:1-6, where Paul emphasizes the eyewitnesses of the resurrected Jesus.