Faithfullyliven:the podcast
Do you want to learn how to study the Bible? Do you wish you could understand the Bible better? Do you want to know how you can remain faithful to historic Christianity in our contemporary society? Let's take a journey to explore and learn how to be a faithful follower of Christ. Faithfullyliven, the podcast is here to uplift your soul and encourage you to live a life honoring to God
Faithfullyliven:the podcast
Trusting the Gospels with Lisa Quintana
Show Notes
Connect with Lisa
Check out Lisa Quintana’s blog Think Divinely at https://thinkdivinely.com/
LisaQthinkdivinely@gmail.com
Read Isaiah 53, Psalms 22
Resources
Can We Trust the Gospels? By Peter J. Williams
Why Should I Trust the Bible ? Answers to Real Questions and Doubts People Have About the Bible By William D. Mounce
Without a Doubt Answering the 20 Toughest Faith Questions By Kenneth Samples
Cold-Case Christianity: A Homicide Detective Investigates the Claims of the Gospels by J. Warner Wallace
Wes Huff The Gospel of Mark is missing its ending? Let me explain... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9RsHnb7huk
Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts https://www.csntm.org/
Do you want to learn how to study the Bible? Check out the YouTube channel Faithfullyliven youtube.com/@faithfullyliven
Do you want to read about how to live faithfully? Check out the blog http://lyfe102.org
Get a free Road Map to get started learning how to study the Bible https://mailchi.mp/88f9c9405da0/bible-study-road-map
Welcome to Faithfully Living, the Podcast where we learn how to live for Christ in our daily lives. I'm Dwan, your host, and I would like to invite you on a journey with me to explore and learn how to be a faithful follower of Christ. Hey everyone, welcome to Faithfully Living, the podcast, where we strive to encourage you to live for Christ faithfully. We're offering guidance on how to study the Bible, how to understand the Bible better and how to remain faithful to historic Christianity in a contemporary society. So over the last couple of episodes, if you've been listening, we have been looking at and discussing all things about the Bible. So we have been looking at, like the authority of scripture, the importance of the Bible, the characteristics of the Bible, the necessity, the clarity, the inerrancy and then the canon of scripture. So I thought it would be a good idea to kind of end cap this series with a conversation with Lisa Quintana and how we can know and have reliability of the New Testament, especially the how can we trust the Gospels. So we dive into a conversation of some ways that we know that the New Testament is true and we specifically hone in on the reliability of the Gospels. So I hope you enjoy this conversation.
Speaker 1:Lisa has been on the podcast before, but just in case you don't know anything about her, let me tell you a little bit about her. So Lisa is a Christian apologist and the lead instructor at City Church and Christian Life College in Madison. She's a contributing writer for the Worldview Bulletin and occasionally speaks on apologetics Published. Lisa's blogs have been published on numerous websites, including Apologia, homeschool Devotional, the Pope's Egg, reasonable Faith devotional, the poked egg, reasonable faith, the biola university chimes newsletter and many articles for the women in apologetics website. Lisa has taught and mentored was taught and mentored by sean mcdowell, world renowned apologist, biola professor, author and YouTube host.
Speaker 1:She lives with her husband of over 32 years and has two grown children, so I hope you will enjoy this conversation that we have in today's episode. Hi, lisa, thanks for being on the show. Well, thank you so much for having me. I'm excited about this topic. We're getting ready to talk about the reliability of the New Testament, especially the Gospels. So could you tell us like why is the reliability of the Bible, especially the Gospels, are important for us in our Christian faith?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it is so important, isn't it? A simple answer is that it tells us everything we need to know about Jesus, so the main parts of who he is and what he said and what we are to do in response to these things. So if the Gospels are not reliable, we would be hard pressed to know very much about Jesus at all, or what he said or what he did. So it's really vital to the Christian faith that we can trust the eyewitness accounts in the New Testament stories and it's really important also to recognize that Jesus made such an impact on all of history and his impact really changed the course of culture. And I don't know if you've heard of J Warner Wallace? Yeah Well, he wrote an entire book called the Person of Interest and he's a homicide investigator and he learned how to find details to solve crimes without physical evidence. So this latest book that he wrote, he takes all of those skills and he investigates how Jesus has impacted history and the culture and arts I mean nearly every area of society. He carefully sifts through all the evidence without even relying on the New Testament. So it's not surprising that he concludes that Jesus really greatly impacted world history and culture outside of the Gospels.
Speaker 2:So I guess all this to say is the ripple effect of Christ's life is huge and that doesn't happen with an everyday average person. So something is very different in the life of Christ. So I mean in Western cultures. Every time you write the date, for instance, you're indirectly acknowledging the impact Jesus made on the world, because the date is reflective on when Christ entered the world. So the gospels, man, are the catalyst that drove these changes in world history. So it is so, so important that you know, we know, that they're reliable and how their effect on really the world that we have has been. I mean, there's so many things that you probably don't even realize that come from a Christian worldview and the impact that Jesus had on the world.
Speaker 1:I guess it just goes to prove that Jesus was a historical figure that we can point to in history. Like he gave us, he left us, that he left that mark.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, and I think sometimes people forget that. You know, the Christian faith isn't blind. It's not a blind faith at all. It's based on a real person who did real things and had a huge impact on how we live today. So I think it's really important that people realize that the Gospels are so important, to know who Jesus was and what he did and why there was such a huge snowball effect of his impact on the world.
Speaker 1:So what do we mean when we say the Gospels are inspired and authoritative according to Scripture?
Speaker 2:Yeah, good question. So the reliability of the New Testament focuses a lot on the historicity of it, right? But then there's there's another whole aspect to the bible it's a spiritual book. So it's a historical book, but it's also spiritual, right.
Speaker 2:So inspiration means that the holy spirit inspired the authors of these various books in the bible, and so they hold authority in that they tell us about God, his requirements of how to restore relationship with him. So that's ultimately what the entire Bible is about. It's the story of humanity being in exile from God and then God's plan to have people return to him, so it's a story of redemption and it's, you know, the inspiration of the Spirit of God worked differently in every single person that wrote the book, or wrote all the different books, but there was just an inspiration of what to write, what to record, how to record it. You know, the Holy Spirit also brought back to memory a lot of details, and Jesus even said that to his disciples. He says you know, I'm going to help you remember, you know. And so I think inspiration means all those things, but ultimately, that is the Holy Spirit that inspires people to be able to write these things down, and because of that it it holds authority.
Speaker 1:And it also kind of holds authority too, because you know how God told us beforehand in the old Testament like these things were going to happen. So how do the gospels align with the biblical prophecies about the coming of the Messiah?
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, that's another. Coming of the Messiah. Oh yeah, that's another. These are good questions.
Speaker 2:Well, just to sort of backpedal for a second, the Bible also, I just wanted to tell your listeners, was written by 40 human authors for 1500 years on three different continents. 1,500 years on three different continents. So, yes, it's written by men, but believed to be inspired by the Spirit of God as the story unfolds into one continuous narrative and that culminates in the salvation for all the people who believe. And it's important to understand, the Bible's not put together chronologically, so when you read it it won't read like a novel, right? Right, the Bible is a collection of individual books arranged by type of literature, so that's really important to remember. But the coolest thing about how this is a continuous narrative kind of goes into that question you just asked, because it's a narrative that points to the coming of the Messiah by a bunch of biblical prophecies, for instance the prophet Isaiah. He wrote many messianic prophecies and including one of the most important and one of the most incredible ones was in the famous Suffering Servant and that is in chapter 53 of the book of Isaiah. Do you know very much about the Suffering Servant? And that is in chapter 53 of the book of Isaiah. Do you know very much about the Suffering Servant prophecy? A little bit, tell us about it.
Speaker 2:So yeah, so this is a passage that oftentimes is not even read in synagogues, is not even read in synagogues after the Torah reading. They read the Torah every year on this thing called the. It's called the Haftarah, and so they read passages from the prophets in the synagogues. But they don't usually read chapter 53. And some say it's because it's quote unquote. The forbidden chapter right and other state is simply because certain verses are left out that don't really relate to any consolations for the Jewish people. And this ritual that they do when they read these things in the synagogue is supposed to be sort of like consoling and helping out. You know, the Jewish people have been through a lot, right, so they have tried to find scripture verses that kind of give them consolation, but they do skip over Isaiah 53, which is kind of interesting that they do that. And again, it could just be simply because it doesn't really offer them very much consolation. But I'm going to read a couple of verses out of here for you and you're going to see why it's so. Uh, crazily, like prophetic, so um, again it's. It's um isaiah.
Speaker 2:Chapter 53 is called sort of uh referred to the suffering servant, and it goes on. It says uh, verse. One. Who would have believed what we just heard?
Speaker 2:When the lord's's power revealed through him, he sprouted up like a twig before God, like a root out of parched soil. He had no stately form or majesty that might catch our attention, no special appearance that we should want to follow him. He was despised and rejected by people, one who experienced pain and was acquainted with illness. People hid their face from him. He was despised and we considered him insignificant. But he lifted up our illnesses. He carried our pain Even though we thought he was being punished, attacked by God and afflicted for something he had done. He was wounded because of our rebellious deeds, crushed because of our sins. He endured All of this, had wandered off like sheep.
Speaker 2:All of us had wandered off like sheep. Each of us had strayed off on his own path, but the Lord caused the sin of all of us to attack him. He was treated harshly and afflicted, but he did not even open his mouth. Like a lamb, led to the slaughtering block, like a sheep, silent before her shearers, he did not even open his mouth. He was led away after an unjust trial, but who even cared? Led away after an unjust trial, but who even cared? Indeed, he was cut off from the land of the living because of the rebellion of his own people. He was wounded. They intended to bury him with criminals, but he ended up in a rich man's tomb because he committed no violent deeds, nor had he spoken deceitfully, though the Lord desired to crush him and make him ill.
Speaker 2:Once restitution is made, he will see descendants and enjoy long life, and the lord's purpose will be accomplished through him. Having suffered, he will reflect on his work. He will be satisfied when he understands what he's done. My servant will acquit many. He, for he, carried their sins I. I mean this is insane.
Speaker 2:This was written. I mean it was literally written like hundreds and hundreds of years before Jesus even was a blink of the eye. I mean, these are a collection of verses that are so obviously speaking about Jesus that it's pretty hard to say. Well, that's just coincidence. I mean, that's a prophecy and it was written hundreds of years before Christ even was here, and Isaiah is really a great prophet. Isaiah 9, verses 6 and 7, is another really famous one, for a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us. All government will rest on his shoulders. His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, mighty God, eternal Father, prince of Peace. There will be no end to the increase of his government, or of peace, or the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish it, to uphold it with justice and righteousness from then on and forevermore. So I read these and I get like chills.
Speaker 2:I know yes, and then you think about, like, what did Jesus actually say on the cross? So the gospel writers record that Jesus cried out my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? In Matthew 27 and Mark 15, 34. So this comes directly from Psalm 22. So if you read the whole chapter you'd be blown away at the references written down hundreds of years before Jesus walked the earth that directly reflect what happened to him, like Psalm 22, 18, they divide my clothes among them and cast lots for my garments. I mean.
Speaker 2:So there's Psalms, there's prophecies in Isaiah. Isaiah 7 says he's going to be born of a virgin. Micah 5.2 says he's going to be born in Bethlehem. Genesis 12.3, that he's a descendant of Abraham. Jeremiah 23, verse 5, a descendant of David. I mean, I have 1, 2, 3, 4, I have like 12 more and I don't want to, don't want to your listeners, but but I just this is how we know that the Bible is written and divinely inspired, ultimately, by God.
Speaker 2:So so the theospels align with these biblical prophecies about the Messiah because they were fulfilled in the Gospels. So all of these things. Matthew records that he was a descendant of David, right? Matthew also records that Herod was killing infants and Jeremiah talked about that in Jeremiah, chapter 31. I mean the betrayed for 30 pieces of silver. That was in Zechariah, chapter 11. It was fulfilled in Matthew crucified with criminals, that suffering servant chapter. That I read chapter 53, that's fulfilled in Luke. I mean it's pretty, I don't know. It's pretty undeniable that the gospel is definitely in line with biblical prophecies about Messiah. So that's another really interesting aspect. That happened and I had read once that the odds of that happening, that Jesus fulfilled all of these things in his lifetime the odds were insurmountable. You can't even add them up. They're just that one person could actually fulfill all those scriptures. So it's pretty convincing to me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's in the details, in the prophecies. But only God can like foretell those details. Absolutely Let us know that this actually is going to happen.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. It's just really. I mean, I have been reading the Bible now for over 30 years and I still find things in it that I'm like, wow, look at that, I didn't see that also verified historically, you know, like Galilee and those kinds of things and a lot of these other religious texts, they're more poetic and they don't really have like specific places that they name. So the Bible is definitely definitely a different, different type of book, for sure.
Speaker 1:And you, you would think, with all of these, this evidence in detail, that there wouldn't be any kind of like myths floating around, but they are.
Speaker 2:So what are some?
Speaker 1:myths that are spread about the reliability of the New Testament, or some common ones in our culture today.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I would say they're not much. I would sort of reword that and say it's not a myth as much as a misunderstanding. I think yeah, because yeah, number one is that the documents have been changed. So a lot of, a lot of misunderstandings about how the Bible has been copied over the years. A lot of people think it's been like telephone tag, where you know it's copied by one person and that one person then changes it and copies it and they change it and change it down the line and then by the time you get to the Bible that we have today, it's been changed so much you can't even possibly know what the originals are, and that's a huge misunderstanding of how biblical manuscripts are copied. So there's one really huge amount of evidence that we can verify for why the copying has been accurate, and that's the amount of manuscript evidence that we have. So this is significant because we have over 5,800 ancient manuscripts and what that does is that gives us a checks and balances kind of error-free system.
Speaker 2:Because you have that many manuscripts, you can go over all of them and compare and contrast and make sure that the language is lining up, and so you don't just have one book that you're looking at. You have 5,800 of them, and so you don't just have one book that you're looking at. You have 5,800 of them and a really good site to go check out how they do all that is the Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts, and this is where scholars have digitized all known Greek manuscripts of the New Testament and they have digital photographs online. So you can actually go online to the Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts and you can actually look at these things and they're really cool, you know. And so they take all these ancient manuscripts, yeah, and they're able to. You know, they have all these scholars right. These guys geek out on this stuff, and I'm thankful for those guys right, because they're the ones that have to go through all the details and make sure everything lines up, and this one manuscript lines up with the other one, and they compare and contrast, and so that's really probably the primary sort of checks and balances system that we have that shows that the documents have not been changed.
Speaker 2:And then there's another misunderstanding that they think, well, there's been a bunch of errors. So sort of an infamous New Testament scholar, bart Ehrman. He's a professed agnostic and he's famous for his books that claim that all of these errors are happening and there's, you know, you can't really trust the Bible. And he's a New York Times bestseller and so he's actually influencing a lot of people, you know, to believe these things that are against the Bible. And he says oh yeah, there's literally thousands of errors in the Bible. And here's where he doesn't sort of like footnote that because there are copyist errors, right, but because we have so many manuscripts they've been caught, so they can catch when there's an error. So we could, they can compare against all those other manuscripts. So because of that we can change and check the errors.
Speaker 2:And most of the errors are simply misspelled names or flipped numbers or simple little changes. Like one manuscript will say like the gospel of saint john, and the other one will say the gospel of John. So the error is oh, one person didn't use the word saint. Like, those errors have no major doctrinal errors at all, they're just like little things that they catch. And so, you know, bart Ehrman kind of spreads this sort of false idea that oh, there's so many changes, we don't even know what's in there.
Speaker 2:And yet because of these great New Testament scholars they're called textual critics, they go back and they're able to go and find all of these things and correct them. And that's really typical of ancient manuscripts. I mean, all of everything we know about ancient history has been copied by hand. Because, you know, we have to remember, the printing press wasn't even around until the year 1500, or somewhere in the 1500. And so prior to that, they were just copied by hand. And so, yeah, there's going to be a few errors, but when you have that many manuscripts to compare them to, you catch them.
Speaker 2:So there's another error. Yeah, there's going to be a few errors, but when you have that many manuscripts to compare them to, you catch them. So there's another error, though that is a little bit more serious, and that's the ending of Mark's gospel. And you know that is not an error that they're trying to hide Most of the books. If you have a study Bible, they note in your study Bibles that there is you know, some people wonder about the ending there's, like, I think, eight verses toward the end that they're like well, maybe they were added later, but that's not a big deal, it's just, you know, okay, some of the manuscripts that they found didn't have those last eight verses, and some of them do. And there is a really cool new guy out. He's got a YouTube channel and all this stuff. His name is Wes Huff. Have you heard of?
Speaker 1:him. Yes, I have.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So he has a really good YouTube video on the ending of Mark and he explains it very well. So if you have a chance and you're interested in finding out what the big deal is about the ending of Mark, check out Wes Huff's video on that one, and he explains it really well, much better than I could do it. And then there's one other error that they caught and that was the woman who was caught in adultery in John's gospel. That's in John chapter eight, verses one through 11. When the scribes and the Pharisees are bringing a woman accused of adultery to Jesus, intending to trap him, but Jesus, instead of condemning her, he challenges the accusers to cast the first stone right. And that's a really famous story and I actually really like that story. But they said that it was not found in the oldest manuscripts, so some scholars don't think it should be included in our Bibles today. But other scholars say, yeah, it's in other manuscripts and maybe they're not as old, but they should be included because it does really show the character of Christ and it does align with many other stories. So they think that it is something that should be included and that's why it is included. But if you notice that there's also a note in your Bibles about that. So all this to say is that the errors have been corrected, and these two are the more major errors. And they're not really errors, they were just left out in some manuscripts and some manuscripts had them and some manuscripts didn't, and so there's a footnote in your Bibles about that. So it's not like this big conspiracy where they're trying to cover this stuff up, right?
Speaker 2:So of those who were eyewitnesses of the events, so the Gospels come from the first generation of Christians who were alive at the time when they were written and therefore they could corroborate the stories. So, for instance, mark was an assistant to Barnabas and Paul no later than the 50s and we're not talking about 1950s, we're talking about the 50s. And then Luke accompanied Paul in the 50s and the early 60s, and so Matthew and John were actual disciples of Christ, and their gospels were dated to be maybe as late as the 80s, but that's still. If you think about it, jesus died at 33, right? I mean this is within 10, 15, 20 years of when Jesus passed away. And you know, for us today that means, oh my gosh, you know, that's like 15 years ago. Why would they wait? But back then, you know, back then biographies typically weren't written real quick, so oftentimes they were written about 100 years after a person died. So our gospels are actually relatively quick and they were written about 100 years after a person died. So our gospels are actually relatively quick and they're written relatively quick when you compare them to other ancient biographies.
Speaker 2:So all this to say, we know we have the originals, the original language, at least because of the fact that the people that wrote them were alive and could have corroborated them when they were being copied, and so copies were often made and they were circulated among the new churches. And then there's letters that were discovered written by early church leaders in the first century and early second century, and they also quote large portions of the gospels. So we have letters from church fathers. We've got early dating of the gospels. We've got people that would have corroborated the fact that, yeah, this is exactly what went down. I can verify that, you know, and so that's how we know we have the originals.
Speaker 2:Any ancient history, all ancient history, has been copied over the years because they were written on parchment paper and it just didn't last, it wasn't archival, and so they had to have scribes, and these scribes are really well-trained and they would turn around these things and write them often and they would have checks and balances. They'd count the many words on each line to make sure they were getting it all right. So it was a big deal back then. Scribes were like a big, huge part of the profession back then and that's what they did. So I think that we can be relatively, you know, comfortable saying that we do have the originals, that we have the original language, and so that's another sort of myth or misunderstanding.
Speaker 2:And then, lastly, bart Ehrman has gone, gone after memory, and he he said well, how do we know? How do we know these guys can remember all this stuff? So the dates of the gospels you know were written are considered by scholars even among mainstream scholars who disbelieve that Jesus was the Messiah to have been recorded within time limits of reliable memory. So most of us have really good long-term memory recall when there are significant events happening in our lives. So, for instance, when a marriage proposal happens, you recall the details of that event, even though it happened years ago.
Speaker 2:Plus, the disciples were students of their rabbi, so Jesus was a rabbi, and as students they were oftentimes required to memorize their rabbi's teachings.
Speaker 2:So that was common practice and they may have heard certain sermons and teachings more than once. So, for instance, the Sermon on the Mount is very similar to the Sermon on the Plain, and so that Sermon on the Plain was in the Book of Luke. Sermon on the Mount was in Matthew, and so that Sermon on the Plain was in the book of Luke, sermon on the Mount was in Matthew, and so they're very similar sermons. And so it probably I mean Jesus probably said you know the same sermon several times. And so you know the Jewish people, they were really good at memorizing stuff. We're not so good today because we can't even I can't even remember my cell phone number. I don't have to remember it because it's there for me. But back then they you know that's kind of what they did they sat around and like okay, let's memorize scripture. I mean it wasn't a lot of entertainment stuff going on back then, so that was their entertainment man, they didn't have technology like we do.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. Yeah. So those are some of the common misconceptions, like oh, you know, we can't trust memory, we don't think we have the originals, there's been all these errors, I mean. All of those things have been refuted and I think it's really important that you need to know that these are reliable documents.
Speaker 1:And then I think you kind of touched on a little bit of the some like historical facts about the reliability of the New Testament as far as like not many um historic, historical, I guess documents we have. We don't have the original, we have copies of right. The copies of those articles are about those people right, exactly, and that's again.
Speaker 2:That's just. I mean, there is no originals from ancient literature. They just didn't survive, right so they had all these scribes doing it and it was a big deal for scribe jobs. But there are historical facts that do also support the reliability of the New Testament. For instance, in the Gospels, the Gospel writers reference places right so they reference town names and regions, they reference bodies of water and other places that can be historically verified. So you can't really fake that right.
Speaker 2:No, I mean, people back then didn't have access to much information like we do today, so they didn't even have maps, right, they had barely had any maps. So it's likely that you know they had these areas in their accounts because they were really there, right, they really saw these things at the places that they mentioned. And then also, another really good sort of historical fact is the use of names. So they used popular Jewish names in the Palestine area. So even one century later, popular names change, kind of like they do today. Like when I was born, lisa was the number one most popular name to call your daughter Today, when's the last time you heard anybody calling their newborn baby Lisa? No, I haven't. No, I know I totally lost popularity. But the same thing goes with the Jewish names in the Palestine area.
Speaker 2:So the point I'm trying to make is that that one, that one century when Jesus was alive on earth, that those names were very specific to that century. And so you can rely on that, because even a century later there's going to be different changes in names and stuff. So that's another way that they know about, sort of the reliability of the New Testament. And then, of course, you probably realize that archaeological finds have also never contradicted the New Testament Gospels. So there's a pilot stone and ossuaries have also been found tangible evidence that aligns with the details in the Gospels. And every time they find something new, they uncover something and they're like, oh yeah, this was in the Bible. And so these are the kinds of things that I think make the Bible again very unique among other religious texts, because they have, you know, archaeology, they have these names, they have these places, and that makes it unique that these people were telling the story, because these stories and these things weren't. They were just eyewitnesses to all this stuff.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it just goes to show you the congruency. Yes, everything for that time, yep In history. Yeah, absolutely so. Of course we have four gospels and they all don't? They have some similarities to it, but you know, critics often argue like they're contradicting each other. So how can we reconcile those differences?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So critics, you know, oftentimes don't give God the benefit of the doubt, right, they assume inaccuracies are errors or, you know, somehow false or something like that. And what we have to remember is sometimes we just don't understand a certain passage because of an ancient cultural practice or a custom that's foreign to us, or it's a misunderstanding of word usage, or they don't understand how eyewitness testimony works. That's probably the biggest one. You know, rarely do people recall the exact same things in a given event. Matter of fact, if there were exact same stories in the gospels, critics would then claim that the writers just basically copied each other. So you can't win for losing on that one right. And then sometimes, you know, really honestly, you can't always satisfy a hard critic. They'll always be looking for what they consider errors or contradictions, and there may be some, but I personally, I mean, I'm this is not, you know, I'm not a biblical scholar, I'm not a Christian apologist, but I don't really know all the nuances, but I I don't know of any, any of these kinds of things that make a huge difference in what the gospels proclaim. So you know that, these little nuances of what, what the eyewitness people saw, the little changes here and there it still doesn't change the message of who Christ was and what he did, and that still remains solid.
Speaker 2:So oftentimes the person claiming to see a contradiction, they don't really have a specific one. A lot of times people just heard it through the grapevine. In other words, they saw something on the internet or something, but they don't really have a bona fide concern. You know, sometimes they just throw it out there like, oh, I heard this and stuff, and so the best thing you can do is say you know well, like what is it specifically that you think is contradictory? And if you don't know the answer, just say you know what? That's a good question. I don't really know, but let me get back to him and look into it and then you can Google it and see what comes up in trusted websites. There's so many good websites out there. I mean Sean McDowell's got a great site, cold Case Christianity, reasonable Faith, wes Huff, frank Turek. I mean there's a lot of information you can find now and you can find out that sometimes these contradictions aren't really contradictions at all. It's just a different viewpoint.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like you said, different eyewitnesses because we don't always remember the same detail.
Speaker 2:Right, and there's also a book. It's a little old, a little outdated now, but it's written by a guy named Gleason Archer and it's called the Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties and so that you can go to a specific like verse and if there's like some sort of weird thing that you don't really understand, he kind of unpacks it, of unpacks it. So there's a lot of ways to find out, like if a person has a really bona fide concern, well then let them know that you'll look into it and get back to them. But I don't. I've never had anybody come up and like show me something like blatantly contradictory. I think it's oftentimes just a misunderstanding or something that they just didn't completely look at the whole context. Oftentimes, if things are pulled out of context, that's where things get really messed up, you know.
Speaker 1:For sure, or they heard somebody say yeah. Yep, all right, so we went over a lot of things here. Yeah, we have the reliability of the New Testament, especially the gospel. So what could be like three simple facts that Christians can use to respond to people who have that misunderstanding about the gospel?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So, like a lot of skeptics will claim that the gospels are like myths or legends, and legends take time to develop. So typically three to five generations is what they take. So, given that a single generation is generally considered to be 20 to 30 years, reflecting the time it takes for children to grow up and have their own children, that would be at the minimum 60 to 150 years after the events occurred, and that's when a myth or a legend could develop.
Speaker 2:Well, the gospels were written and recorded within the lifetime of the disciples and copied early. So there was not enough time for that to develop, to become legendary. And if the gospels were fabricated then it's highly unlikely that many of the disciples would have willingly died for a lie. Mm-hmm, I mean, I know that that's been thrown out there a lot, but it's a good one. It's like if you think that something's not true, you're not going to like die for it. So and then you know, I guess the so legends take time to develop, People won't die for a lie.
Speaker 2:And then I guess extra biblical sources and archaeological evidence do point to the historicity of the Gospels. Writings by early Roman historian like Tacitus and Josephus also mention Jesus and the early church and archaeological discoveries like the Pontius Pilate stone also corroborate the details mentioned in the gospel. So you know, there's extra biblical sources, there's all these evidence that we can look at and these are the simple facts that we can use to respond to any skeptics that claim that, you know, the gospels are legends, Because legends, again, they take time to develop and the gospels are written really quickly, I mean compared to other ancient literature.
Speaker 1:Yeah, to develop and the gospels are written really quickly, I mean, compared to other ancient literature, yeah, hmm. Well, that those are three good ones there.
Speaker 2:So you said um let it didn't take time for legends to develop. Develop um remind me those let here, yeah, so legends take time to develop, they wouldn't die for yeah, I mean, the disciples would not have died for a lie. And then extra biblical sources and archaeological evidence point to the historicity of the Gospels.
Speaker 1:And that's unique among other religious texts as well, because a lot of these other religious texts don't have that historicity backing them up. Yeah, so I think those are some good key takeaways from having our confidence in the reliability of the Gospels that Christians or believers can take away to have a confident trustworthiness of the New Testament.
Speaker 2:For sure. Yeah, I mean, just use your critical thinking skills. Does it make sense that some common Jewish carpenter would have had so much influence on the world? Yeah, there have been other gurus and other spiritual leaders, but no one has affected history of the world more than Jesus Christ. I mean this should make anybody pause and wonder why and then finally consider how the Bible has changed lives. Millions I mean really actually billions of people read the words of Christ and are profoundly changed by them. I mean, the Bible is still the best selling book of all time. Is that a coincidence? Billions of people read the words of Christ and are profoundly changed by them? I mean, the Bible is still the best selling book of all time. Is that a coincidence? No, yeah, I don't think so either. Absolutely not.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, it's just amazing. You know how God left us his written word and how it correlates to like we can see it in history. How things align accurately, you know all the way through. So I'm just really grateful like God thought of enough of us to point us to salvation, but also leave a record of us to know him better and to make him known.
Speaker 2:And now we have the Holy Spirit. So we have the Bible and the Holy Spirit. So once you become a believer and you have the Holy Spirit, come and live literally inside you. You are the new temple, right? I mean, that's something that people sometimes, I think, forget. It's like we are the temple of god, and so not only do we have the bible, but because we have the spirit, we have access to the holy spirit. The holy spirit sometimes will help us to understand the bible, and oftentimes, when I read the bible, I'll ask god. I'll say you know, lord, please help me to understand and and see something new or or reveal something to me today that maybe I hadn't seen before. And so the Bible is not just the historical manuscript, but it is spiritual, and so it needs to be read in a spiritual way. So I highly recommend that, when you get your Bible, pray before you read it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, definitely so that's a good, that's a good note to end on.
Speaker 2:That's awesome.
Speaker 1:Thanks, Lisa, for being on the show and sharing your knowledge with us on how we can truly believe that the Bible is God's Word.
Speaker 2:You know, just talking about this stuff made me like it just pumps me up even more. I'm like, yes, this is true. Yes, anyways, thanks so much for having me up even more. I'm like, yes, this is true. Yes, anyways, thanks so much for having me on the show. It was a pleasure. All right, thanks, all right. God bless you.
Speaker 1:So what is your view of the Bible now? Like I said earlier at the beginning of this episode, I've talked about how we have been going through a series of looking at how the Bible, how important the Bible is in the life of us as believers, of us as believers, and after recording this episode, it just goes to show you how much God loves and cares for us. To leave us his written word, his, him talking to us through words that we can read on the pages, and also, like at the end, how lisa reminded us that we have the holy spirit. So we have god. The holy spirit dwells in us, he's, he resides in us. We are a temple of the holy spirit and then we have god's written word in our hands. That that's a powerful combination that we can experience every day if we only take the time to read God's word.
Speaker 1:So I hope this series on the Bible was helpful, and then also this last in-cap episode on how we can truly trust God's word. And the Gospels are just one part, you know, of the Bible we didn't go into like how can we rely and trust the whole Bible as a whole, but just from learning about the gospels we can see how much we can trust God in his word. You know God is reliable, he's faithful. He's given us his word that we may know him and to make him known. So I hope this. Like I said, I hope this series was helpful and enlightening for you.
Speaker 1:I will put the references that Lisa made in the show notes where you can check those out, and and I'll also have some other resources if you want to dive deeper into learning more facts about the reliability of the Gospels and the Scriptures. All right, so thanks for listening to this episode and remember until next time. God is always good and he's always faithful. Until next time, god is always good and he's always faithful. Thank you for listening to the podcast. Do me a favor by following the podcast and leaving a review to help spread the word. I look forward to hearing from you.
