Can We Trust the Bible? (Part 1)

Hi, we're going to take a look at what is the Bible, how do we get the Bible, and can we trust the Bible? Now the simple answer to that question is yes, we can trust the Bible. But the deeper question is, why can we trust the Bible? Let's dig in. So what do the skeptics and the atheists say? So this is the famous Albert Einstein who says, the word God is for me nothing more than an expression and a product of human weakness. The Bible, a collection of honorable but still primitive legends, which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation, no matter how subtle, can for me change this. This is famous Mark Twain saying, the Bible has noble poetry in it and some good morals and a wealth of obscenity and upwards of a thousand lies. And then finally, the famous Richard Dawkins in his book, The God Delusion, saying, when one person suffers from a delusion, it's called insanity. When many people suffer from a delusion, it's called religion. So this is a four-part series. We're going to be looking right now at history one. Again, what is the Bible? How do we get the Bible? The second part is history two, looking at the supposed contradictions throughout the Bible, and that the Bible was supposedly written by just mere men a long time ago. In part three, we cover archeology of the Old Testament, and in part four, we cover archeology of the New Testament. So my name is Jason. I'm not a historian, archeologist. I'm not a theologian or a philosopher. So I'm going to be referencing 11 PhDs. These are highly credentialed people in the following areas. But before we get started, let's watch a quick 30-second video.

When you think of best-selling books, what titles come to mind? Perhaps The Lord of the Rings. It's sold 150 million copies worldwide, which puts it in third place. A Tale of Two Cities has sold 200 million copies. That's good enough for second place, but it's still not the all-time best. The number one best-selling book in all of history is the Bible. In fact, the Bible has sold over 5 billion copies, and it's been translated into more than 2,000 languages. So the first question, what is the Bible? Well, it was composed over 1,500 years by over 40 different authors. These authors were kings, shepherds, doctors. They were rabbis, tax collectors, fishermen, and even a general from every walk of life. They were in different situations. For instance, while at peace or at war, while in exile, while traveling, while in dungeons and in palaces. Different moods and the heights of joy and the depths of despair. The Bible was written in three languages. But the thing that is absolutely significant is there is one story that continues from Genesis all the way to the last book of the Bible, the book of Revelation. And this is theologian Dr. Henry Morris III. He wrote about the Bible's uniqueness. He said, The Bible has a unique historical basis. Other religions are based on subjective teachings of their founders. Biblical teachings are based on objective and demonstrable facts. For instance, the creation, the fall, the flood, the life and work of redemption of Christ. So can we trust the Bible? Let's look at 10 different evidences that highly support that we can trust the Bible confidently.

Number one is there's thousands, literally thousands of archaeological finds. So there are biblical figures, people that archaeology confirms, not just in the Old Testament, but also in the New Testament. So you can see on this list on the slide of so many different people in the Old Testament and in the New Testament that archaeology confirms these were not mythical characters in some story, but these were actual historical people that lived back in history. Today, all major biblical cities and geographical features have also been located. So you can see on the slide, there are numerous cities throughout the biblical area that have been confirmed in archaeology. And in the book, Questioning the Bible, 11 Major Challenges to the Bible's Authority by Jonathan Morrow, he says that all told, 84 facts have been confirmed in the final 16 chapters of the book of Acts alone. And then in the words of the late great archaeologist, Professor William F. Albright, who's since passed, he said, there can be no doubt that archaeology has confirmed the substantial historicity. the Old Testament tradition. And this is a Dr. Bryant Wood. He is a PhD in archaeology. He says, in every instance where the findings of archaeological pertain to the biblical record, the archaeological evidence confirms, sometimes in detailed fashion, the historical accuracy of Scripture. In those instances where the archaeological findings seem to be at variance with the Bible, the discrepancy lies with the archaeological evidence, i.e. improper interpretation, a lack of evidence, etc. Not with the Bible. And this is famous professor of archaeology at Yale University, Miller Burroughs. He's since passed, but he said, on the whole, however, archaeological work has unquestionably strengthened confidence in the reliability of the scriptural record. More than one archaeologist has found his respect for the Bible increased by experience of excavating in Palestine. Archaeology has, in many cases, refuted the views of modern critics. It has shown, in a number of instances, that these views rest on false assumptions and unreal artificial schemes of historical development. This is a real contribution and not to be minimized. But the doctor

goes on further to say, the excessive skepticism of many liberal theologians stems not from careful evaluation of the available data, but from an erroneous predisposition against the supernatural. Now, we're going to go into a lot more detail on this in part three and four, where we take a closer look at specific Old Testament and New Testament archaeological examples. So, example number two is the transmission process of the scribes. Now, you can see on the slide here, there's a number of books in what we call the Old Testament, and there's a number of books in the New Testament. So, two questions to ask about this. How did we get the Old Testament and the New Testament books that we have today? And this is referred to by theologians as the canon process. How do we get the books that we have? Who chose them, and how did they come into play? And then, secondly, was the copying process accurate over the millennia? We're going to look at that now in a couple of videos. Nowadays, the Bible is frequently printed as one book, but for more than 1,000 years, most people encounter the Bible as a library of multiple volumes or multiple scrolls. In light of this history, it's not so surprising that not all Bibles today contain exactly the same set of books. But if the Bible isn't always the same, then what do we mean when we talk about the Bible? The Bible is a collection. Specifically, it's the full collection of books that Jewish and Christian communities around the world have historically accepted as being uniquely authoritative. The Jewish Bible today is known as the Tanakh. It contains the Torah, the Nevi'im, and the Ketuvim. The Christian Bible contains the Old Testament and the New Testament. Each testament contains several smaller collections. The biggest difference between the Jewish Tanakh and the Christian Bible is the New Testament. Most Christian traditions today agree that the New Testament contains 27 books. By contrast, major Christian traditions disagree about how many books belong in the Old Testament. The Protestant Old Testament matches the Jewish Tanakh in content, but some books are organized differently. The Roman Catholic Old Testament matches the Protestant Bible in organization, but the Catholic Old Testament contains more books. Eastern

Orthodox Christians have even more books in their Old Testaments. Why do different Christian traditions have the same New Testament, but disagree about the part of the Bible they share with Judaism? The answer is timing. Have you ever thought about how different books became part of the Bible? Each book went through at least three basic stages. First, it was composed. Second, it was circulated and used, first on a smaller scale and then more widely. In many cases, it was also collected together with related books. Lastly, all the books and smaller collections were confirmed as part of a closed canon. This happened when most communities who used these books officially agreed that no more books should be added to or subtracted from the overall collection. This process finalized the Bible of today. Let's have a moment of honesty here. Everything we believe hangs on this book being true. A book that's been copied by hand in a game of telephone lasting centuries. Yeah, let's deal with that doubt for a minute. To trust this book, you have to trust the people that made it. So, let's look at the work of a scribe responsible for the Torah. Before he can ever touch ink to paper, there are 4,000 rules he has to memorize. He's a professional, responsible for every stage of production, preparing the calfskin, creating a grid with pinholes and string, so each letter is in the same place. Each word reads with the same ease and accuracy as the original. Even the tedious task of preparing a day's worth of ink from gall nuts, he copies one word at a time, first saying, then writing, then saying it again. Make a mistake on God's name? He starts the whole document over. Every single letter, 304,805 of them,

is written according to a prescribed set of strokes. He writes with a feather quill, by candlelight, with ink that bleeds and runs, and the letters must not touch. We're talking about a lifetime of backbreaking dedication, and that means this book is not just any book. It means that the words it contains, God meeting his people face-to-face, God leading, protecting, providing for them, those words can't be a mistake. So we're forced to deal not just with words, but with the living God himself. And let's look to the famous Josh McDowell for a couple words about the transmission process of these scribes. Have you ever thought that you were disciplined, or that you had commitment to detail? If you ever think you are, then take also a good look at the Jewish scribes who copied the scriptures. When they finished, like the book of Isaiah, with thousands of words, to make sure they had an exact copy, they would go back and count every single consonant and indicate the center consonant. They could tell if they'd added or left out a consonant and which one. Then they would go back and count every single word and indicate the center word, because they had a master copy that indicated what the center consonant was of each consonant

and the center word of every single book of the Old Testament. And if they had found more than three mistakes, they had to destroy the manuscript. You say, what? Yeah, just three mistakes is all they could correct. If more than that, then what they would do, they would take that manuscript and put it into a wooden cupboard called the genitza. Then when that cupboard was full, they would take them out and bury them. Why would they do that? Because they didn't want anyone even to read a manuscript that had an error in it. And then when they finished a new copy, normally we, like with the New Testament, we give the greatest authority to the oldest manuscript. The Jews didn't do that. They gave equal authority to the new manuscript. Now why? For this reason. They had been so careful in the way they copied it. So many built-in checkpoints, when they finished, they knew they had a replica of the one they were copying. And the older manuscript could become defaced, it would fade, and could be damaged and misread. And they didn't want to do that. So they would take the old manuscript and use it in what they would call the synagogue schools, like a Sunday school.

And then when it became a little too worn to be used there, they would take that manuscript and put it also into the wooden cupboard called the genitza. And then they were taken out and buried. And the reason they did that, they were so committed to the fidelity of Scripture that when they finished copying, they knew they had an exact copy. And this would help people to understand it better and to pronounce it better. And that's why we don't have a lot of old manuscripts. They were destroyed. But the lack of those manuscripts in no way takes away from the authority of what we do have. And many historians down through the years have confirmed the accuracy of these scribes. Wow. God went out of his way to make sure that even today, we could open the Scriptures and with confidence say, thus saith the Lord. Now let's look at our third example, the criterion of embarrassment. So the criterion of embarrassment is used in biblical scholarship to identify events or sayings in the Bible that are likely to be historically authentic because they would have been embarrassing for the early church to invent. So some examples of this in history is you can see on the slide here, this is some examples of statues or murals depicting Queen Hatshepsut from the fifth Pharaoh

of the 18th dynasty of ancient Egypt. And these are examples where they were damaged or demolished. abolished to remove her, the queen, from history and therefore her influence on Egyptian life. And if you look at this inscription, you can see in the middle of it where somebody has chiseled her literally out of the stone. They wanted to remove her from every part of Egypt. Somebody did not like that queen at all. And here's another example. This is the Aztec emperors that would order the burning of all historical artifacts. If they had history they didn't like, they would remove it because it was embarrassing to them or their empire. Only the Hebrews and the Hithites were committed to retaining embarrassing details in their history, according to the famous historian Josephus. We can see this in the Bible, in the Old Testament. Here's some examples. The Egyptian women saving Moses. Now, nowadays, we see women action heroes all the time in movies. But back then, for a woman in history to save a historical heroic man would have been very embarrassing to preserve in history. We have a depiction of the Israelites as consistently sinful and fickle. We have Moses as a murderer. We have King Saul, who is continually paranoid. We have King David, the famous adulterer. We have Rahab, the famous prostitute. King Solomon, a serial polygamist. And then Balaam, he had argued and was corrected by his own donkey. How embarrassing are these examples? Also in the New Testament, we have Peter like Peter. We have Peter that's rebuked by the Lord. We have Peter that's publicly denying Jesus three times. We have Thomas, the famous doubter of Jesus. All the disciples ran away. Again, we have women that are the brave ones and the faithful ones running to the tomb. And then we have John and James, who argued to sit at the right hand of the Lord. We have disciples that kept falling asleep when asked to keep watch, and the list could go literally on and on. These examples highlight the biblical writer's commitment to transmitting all the facts of history and not just cherry-picking the good stuff that made them look good. All right, example number four is the Dead Sea Scrolls. Hopefully you've heard about the Dead Sea Scrolls before, but before we cover the Dead Sea Scrolls, we need to get some context. Let's look. From about 500 AD to 1000 AD, there was a group of scribes called the Masoretes, and they carefully copied the Old Testament scrolls. They were preserved and are now called the Masoretic Texts. The oldest existing copies of the Masoretic Texts have been dated to about 1000 AD, and they've been kept in Leningrad,

Russia. Now, since the Russians have changed the name of the city from Leningrad, it's now called St. Petersburg. But those ancient texts are still referred to as the Leningrad Codex. These were by far the oldest texts that biblical scholars had for a long time, but that meant a big gap between what we have and the original documents. But in 1947, everything changed. The Dead Sea Scrolls were found in caves in a place called Qumran. And I want to introduce you to Dr. Craig Evans. He has a PhD in biblical studies, and he has extensive experience regarding these Dead Sea Scrolls. So, we want to look at what the doctor has to say about when and how the Dead Sea Scrolls were found. Let's check it out. Well, in the modern times, the first discovery was made, we think, in 1947. I say modern times because we've learned since that it's possible some of the caves near Qumran that contain manuscripts were discovered in antiquity, because we actually have some ancient references to scrolls with Hebrew characters coming to light near Jericho. But in modern times, we think it was 1947, the Bedouin give us the story. Anyway, that's the traditional date. And so, cave one was found. Of course, caves get their numbers in order of their discovery. So, from 1947 to 1956, 11 caves were found. We didn't know how many they were, because so many of them were in fragments, and so the work has been ongoing. Today, the count is 900 and some, and you know I fudge a little bit when I say that, because we really don't know precisely how many scrolls have been recovered from Qumran and other areas in the Dead Sea region. And please understand, when we say the Dead Sea Scrolls, they weren't found in the Dead Sea, they were found in caves to the west of the Dead Sea, in these cliffs mostly, a place like Nachal Hever and a few other places, but mostly at Qumran. under 1,000 scrolls, and they were found in the 40s and 50s. Scholars have been studying them since. There was a great breakthrough in the 90s when a whole bunch of fragments finally began to be published. So just about all of them are out. There might be still a few fragments awaiting publication. Yeah, so we're talking about,

the count is over 900, you're saying, and when you add the fragments, we're talking about thousands and thousands of fragments. Is that correct? Yes, thousands of fragments, maybe 20,000 fragments. But the actual scroll count as discrete documents is somewhere in the 900s. Well, now let's look at what actually was found in these caves. People do need to know that of these, let us say, almost 1,000 scrolls, about 220, so we're talking 22, 23% are Bible scrolls. And if we talk about the Old Testament as 39 books, and that's usually how Christians count the books of the Old Testament, we have all of them except the book of Esther. And Ezra and Nehemiah, they were combined as one scroll. We have a piece of Ezra, so we assume Nehemiah was there as well. So you have 38, basically. You could say 38 out of 39 books, but we have multiple copies. The people watching the program need to know there was no such thing as a Bible, a single book. There was no Old Testament that had everything together. The biblical books were individual, and so we have multiple copies of Genesis, Deuteronomy, Psalms, and Isaiah, for example. And then in some cases, just a fragment of one copy of a writing.

So 22% Bible scrolls. What about the rest? Commentaries, calendars, interpretations of the law, community rules about how they should live, visions, apocalyptic material about future events, things like that as well. About 10% is in Aramaic. Most of it's Hebrew. And then just a few, about two dozen fragmentary documents from Cave 7 are in Greek. Now, if we look at a closeup from chapter 53 of the Great Isaiah Scroll, you can see on the slide here, over on the left, you can note how well the text is preserved in the Hebrew. And part of the reason these papyri and these texts are so well preserved is you can see on the right side of the screen, the two clay jars in the Jordan Museum. What would happen is these ancient texts would be the ones that were housed inside these clay jars ended up lasting. They didn't get eaten by rodents or insects or just devastated by the effects of time. But the ones that were preserved inside the scrolls were preserved really, really well. Well, let's look at Dr. Evans on the significance of the Isaiah Scrolls. Well, for one thing, it's very old. It's at least 150 BC, maybe 200 BC.

The other thing about it is all 66 chapters of Isaiah are there. And we're missing maybe a line or two or a few words at the bottom of the scroll where there was some decay. So the big takeaway is it's very old. It's 1,200 years older than our oldest copy of Isaiah in the Leningrad Codex, which dates to about 1,000 AD. So we go back in time 12 centuries and it's the same text. So that's one of the big takeaways, though there are some other interesting things about the Great Isaiah Scroll too. So what happens when we compare the Masoretic Texts, these Leningrad Codex from about 1,000 AD, and we put them right beside the Dead Sea Scrolls that date all the way back to about 150, sometimes as much as 250 BC? Well, are they different? Did they change? I mean, that's a significant amount of time. Were there changes? Let's see what the doctor says. Well, the Masoretes were these Hebrew scribes who in the time of the church began to put in dots and dashes and little signs that made it clear how the vowels would be sounded out. And this is much later. Well, the question was always, do the scrolls at Qumran really reflect the text as it was preserved later? This is an important question

because if you pick up your English Bible and turn to what we call the Old Testament, That's an English translation of Codex Leningrad for the most part that the Masoretes the Masoretes scholars preserved and Vocalized with the vowel sounds. Well, did they get it? Right? Did they bungle it? You know, can you trust our English Bibles that are based on it? Well, thanks to the Dead Sea Scrolls it turns out we can because that is the same Hebrew Back in the time of Jesus and even earlier so that's one of the big takeaways for the Dead Sea Scrolls and that is this Leningrad Codex and other Hebrew Bibles that date to about a thousand AD They got it, right They really do preserve the text very faithfully and the Great Isaiah Scroll is is a showcase example of that Yeah, you know, it's a complicated Question the copying of the text over history, you know, there's two things as the church has always asked You know, can we trust that that process has has been preserved not infallibly? but in principle God has providentially preserved it and the scrolls show that and Secondly has the check text been significantly altered, you know Did the Leningrad Codex reflects what it said a thousand years before and the answer is a resounding. Yes And you know, let me elaborate on that Henry because there are a lot of people That that are interested in this question. You have skeptics that say old chant changes have been made And the people who believe in the Bible aren't sure they wonder You know every manuscript in antiquity, you know before the Gutenberg press They were written out by hand. That's what the word manuscript means. It means something written out by one's hand manus and Always there are mistakes and then of course there's proofreading and then our corrections are made and so most manuscripts are copied very well I have studied Manuscripts that are not scripture Manuscripts from antiquity and they are not carefully copied in many cases you have wild changes So if you want to know you want to contrast scripture with other writings heretical writings For example books that are outside of the Bible. Yes, you see massive changes

Whereas the biblical books you don't see that it's always the same There is no we don't have a copy of Isaiah that's missing three chapters right in the New Testament same thing We don't have a copy of Matthew that only has 25 chapters instead of 28 Yes, we don't have a copy of Philippians. It has only two chapters instead of four We're not missing verses we're not missing whole chapters We do have a few textual questions here and there but there are tiny in number Tiny in percentage and people need to know that the scriptures have been very faithfully copied So when you sit down and open up the Bible you start reading anywhere I don't care Old Testament New Testament anywhere what you're reading Actually is what was written a long time ago and you can be confident of that So this does beg the question but the critics say the Bible it's been changed so much Is the Bible corrupted over time? And of course in recent years there's been some noise in the popular media about You know, there's been changes made in the Bible. Sometimes it's this silly conspiracy stuff The text of scripture has been altered for some political reason or theological reason. Well, that's a lot of nonsense The scribes in antiquity were professional people. They were paid to copy accurately and Not to make changes and besides a lot of scribes weren't theologians. They weren't biblical exegetes They weren't interpreters They didn't know what kind of changes to make even if they had had the idea to make a change That's one of the really silly things about this idea that Christian writings were altered to reflect some orthodox future orthodox view of the Bible future orthodox view about Jesus how in the world Would a scribe in the second century know what the Nicene Creed was going to be in the fourth century? I mean, it's really quite silly and a lot of these professional copyists Uh, they weren't Christians at all And and now if we go back to the old testament, it's the same thing No scribe is going to take the liberty to to leave a chapter out Or to insert a verse or to change something to introduce a new idea Right, that would be unthinkable and so the only uh mistakes that are made in copying scripture are accidental mistakes usually involving the eye where somebody

leaves out a phrase Accidentally because he goes from a word that looks the same to the next word as he's looking back and forth Looking at the copy that he's writing looking at the exemplar that he's looking at So mistakes like that can be made but then of course, there's a corrector who reads Yes. And of course, we have the manuscripts and you see the corrections where some guy goofs and leaves out a word, somebody else writes it in the margin and puts little dots that go back to the place where it's supposed to be. I've looked at these manuscripts, I've been in the Vatican, I've looked at Codex Vaticanus, I've looked at P75, I've looked at a number of manuscripts, I've held them in my hands, you can see how carefully it's done, and when they do make a mistake, it's been corrected. So this idea of mistakes and so on is quite silly, and people need to know that these copies have been made very, very faithfully, and scholars know this, and so when we sit down and look at the Hebrew text, or the Greek New Testament, we know we're looking at the text, and we interpret it, and we theologize according. Yeah, yeah, I think that's a good word of admonition for the church, and in the cases of, you know, you think back if you're a scribe, or I'm thinking about it, like altering the biblical text, well even if someone had the gall to do that, we have so many other manuscripts that would show, if they somehow got away with it, it would show that it was done, so you would see that as an inferior text. So let's look at our fifth evidence, which is the bibliographical evidence. So the early manuscripts, and when historians are looking at historical documents, let's look at this example on the slide of Tacitus. He is a famous historian, and his book, The Annals, it was written in about 100 AD. We have 33 manuscripts, copies of that, and the earliest manuscript that we as historians currently have dates back to 850 AD. So you can see the yellow line is quite long. Another example of this would be the famous historian, Herodotus, in his book, The History. It was written in 480 BC, but the earliest manuscripts, you can see that yellow line of history from when it was written to the actual early manuscripts we have, 900 AD,

so a significant amount of time between when the original was written, and then the earliest copy that historians have. But there's 109 manuscripts in possession for the historians. Next up is famous Plato, and in his works that date back to 400 BC, we have many more manuscripts, over 210, which is a good thing. The more manuscripts, the more helpful, and you can see the yellow line of history between when they were written and the earliest manuscripts is quite a long yellow line of history. Now when we go to Caesar, we have even more of his copies of the Gallic Wars. We've got 251 examples of manuscripts of his writing. You can also see the yellow line of history is much smaller than, say, Plato, which is a good thing for the credibility of Caesar. And then finally, if we look at Homer's famous work, the Iliad, you can see that the small line of history is very small, and we have almost 2,000 copies or manuscripts of Homer. So looking at these different non-biblical historical documents, I would say, just looking at the data, that Homer, because we have the most manuscripts, and because it has the smallest amount of time, that yellow line of time, Homer's Iliad would be the most credible looking at this data. But how does this stack up to the New Testament, for instance? Well, the New Testament has lots and lots and lots and lots of examples of manuscripts. In fact, it dwarfs the amount of manuscripts of the non-biblical historical documents. Almost 24,000 known copies of the New Testament manuscripts. Not only that, but they were written between 50 to maybe at the max 100 AD. So we have a very tiny line, yellow line of history, and we have an unbelievable amount of manuscripts. And when you compare the credibility of comparing the biblical texts to non-biblical texts, the biblical historical account far outweighs the non-biblical historical documents. Evidence number six is the New Testament internal evidence test. So the ability to tell the truth is closely related to a witness's nearness, both geographically and chronologically, to the events recorded. The New Testament accounts of the life and teachings of Jesus, they were recorded by

men who either had been witnesses themselves, eyewitnesses, or who related accounts of eyewitnesses of the actual events and teachings of Christ. So Dr. John McRae, he's a professor of New Testament and archaeology at Wheaton College, about Luke. He's eloquent. He's eloquent. His Greek approaches classical quality. He writes as an educated man and archeological discoveries are showing over and over again, that Luke is an accurate in everything that he says. And Luke was not the only biblical writer concerned about accuracy. So we can see in second Peter, the apostle saying, we are not making up clever stories. We told you about the powerful coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. We saw his majestic splendor with our own eyes. And then the apostle John says, we proclaim to you what we ourselves have actually seen and heard so that you may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the father and with his son, Jesus Christ. These are eyewitness accounts. In the new Testament, we have accounts of Christ being circulated within the lifetimes of his contemporaries. These people whose lives overlapped his could certainly confirm or deny the accuracy of the accounts. In advocating their case for the gospels, the apostles had appealed, even when confronting their most severe opponents, to common knowledge concerning Jesus. They not only said, Hey, look, we saw this, or we heard that, but they turned the tables and said right in front of their adversaries, their critics. They said, you also know about these things. You saw them, you yourselves know it. Peter said, men of Israel, listen to these words, Jesus, the Nazarene, a man arrested to you by God with miracles and wonders and signs, which God

performed through him in your midst, just as you yourselves know. Evidence number seven is in the new Testament, we have Josephus. Now, in evidence number six, we were talking about internal evidences, biblical internal evidences. Now we're going to shift focus to external evidences. So I want to introduce you to Flavius Josephus. He was a Jewish historian. He lived from 37 AD to about 100 AD. This was a Jewish rabbi. He was not friendly of Christianity. He was absolutely not a Christian. His two main works were, number one, The Jewish War. Josephus wrote this in between 70 to 79 AD, and then later on, he wrote The Antiquities of the Jews in about 94 AD. So you can see on the slide, a picture of Josephus, and then there's also a great book that was written about Josephus. It's called The Essentials, written by Dr. Paul Meyer, and this actually compiles both of Josephus' works into one book. So first, let me just talk a little bit about Josephus and his book about The Jewish War. So in history, there's different anchor points of when historians know certain things happened. And one of the most famous points in history is in 70 AD, which is the fall of Jerusalem and the Jewish temple. It was absolute destruction. So what had happened, let me tell you a little bit about Josephus. Josephus was a Jew. He was a rabbi, and he could see that leading up to 70 AD, that the Jewish people were getting more and more irritated by the Romans that they had been conquered by for a long time.

And the Jews were getting more and more frustrated with these Romans that had them basically under their iron fist. And so Josephus said to the Jews at the time, guys, we need to calm down a little bit because we're going to make the Romans so mad, they're going to destroy our city of Jerusalem, and they might even destroy our temple. And so eventually the Romans said, you know what? We've had enough with you Jewish people. We're actually going to destroy this. And so enmarched legions of the Roman army. And so what happened to Josephus is he turned from a priest, a rabbi, and he turned into a Jewish general. And he enlisted because he wanted to defend Jerusalem. And he was eventually captured during this battle, during the siege. And the Roman general at the time, Vespasian, said, you know what? Instead of killing you, I'm going to keep you around because you, Josephus, are a little bit entertaining to me. And there was an interesting prophecy that Josephus told this Roman general. He said, in four years, you will become Caesar. You will become the Roman emperor. And actually four years later, shortly after, or during this time of the siege, Vespasian became the Roman emperor. Very interesting history. Now, later on in the antiquities. this book of the antiquities. It covered the Jewish history of Egypt, the Jews in Syria, in Palestine, from the creation all the way to Nero's reign. Additionally, Josephus covered the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Persians, and Rome. But he also documented key biblical New Testament people.

For instance, Josephus talked about King Herod. He talked about Pontius Pilate. He talked about Jesus of Nazareth. He talked about John the Baptist, and James, the brother of Jesus. He talked about all of these people, not as some Bible story or character, but as actual historical people. So I wanna introduce you to this book, and Dr. Schmidt, he got his PhD from Princeton University, and he wrote this book about Josephus. Josephus and Jesus is the book, actually. It's 400 pages, and he covers the TF controversy, the Testimonium Flavium, and so I'm gonna refer to that as the TF controversy for short, because when Josephus was talking about Jesus of Nazareth specifically, the TF, it's a brief account of Josephus' antiquities that the name Jesus was mentioned, his crucifixion under Pilate, and he describes the followers who persisted after Jesus' death, and it appears in Book 18 of Josephus, but the most controversial thing that Josephus talked about was Jesus was the Christ, or Jesus was the Messiah, and so the controversy is that historians, more recently, thought no way would a Jewish rabbi say that in a historical account,

so what critics have said is hundreds of years later, some Christians crept in and inserted that language that Jesus was the Christ, or Josephus thought Jesus was the Messiah, and here lies the controversy. Well, just not to give away the whole book, but Dr. Schmidt's thesis is that no, that's not the case at all, that the actual writings of Josephus are original, and they were not corrupted later by Christians, so that's the first 200 pages of this book. What also is fascinating about this book is in the second 200 pages, I call it part two, Dr. Schmidt showcases how over 10 prominent people that Josephus knew were highly likely to have been present at Jesus's actual trial. Josephus, he was a Pharisee, his parents were both well-connected, his mother was from royalty, his father from an eminent priestly line, and then he knew King Negrippa II, several high priests, at least two he knew directly, he knew several Jewish senators, and was highly connected to the Herodian dynasty of the time. So you can see a link on QR code, but there's an interview, it's about an hour long, of Dr. Schmidt talking about both part one and part two, in the description below in this video, I'll have a link to this interview with Dr. Schmidt,

it is fascinating history. Just another side note, Josephus, he said he had direct knowledge of the first men among us that accused Jesus. So some of these could well have been those direct accusers at Jesus's trial. And so if you wanted a visual of this, you can see on the slide in the lower left, you have Josephus, who was originally a Pharisee, he was a priest, but when it was eminent that the Roman legions were about to siege and destroy Jerusalem, Josephus turned into a general under a man named Ananias II. As you move up on the left, you can see Ananias II, he was the brother-in-law of a guy named Caiaphas. Now Caiaphas was the high priest, as we move to the right, top right, he was the high priest, he was the son-in-law of Ananias, but Caiaphas was the man that officially had Jesus put to death in about 33 AD. So we talked about Josephus, now let's look at another external evidence, I wanna introduce you to Tacitus. Tacitus was not a Jew, he was a Roman, he was a Roman historian that lived around 56 AD to about 120 AD, again, not a friend of Christianity and definitely not a Christian. His main work was the Annals, it was written around 116 AD and provided a year-by-year history of the Roman Empire

from the death of Augustus in 14 AD all the way to the death of Nero in 68 AD. Let's just focus in on a little bit of his work that is really interesting. It says here in his Annals, it says, and a most mischievous superstition. Thus checked for the moment, again broke out, not only in Judea, but the first source of evil, but even in Rome." Okay, what is he talking about? Well, Tacitus says here, Christus, basically referring to Christ, the founder of the name, had undergone the death penalty in the reign of Tiberius by sentence of the procreator Pontius Pilate. There's some things that really stand out here from a biblical point of view, because you have Tacitus, a Roman historian. He's obviously mocking Christianity as a mischievous superstition, but he's also connecting a lot of historical points that Christ, the founder, was a historical person. He had undergone the death penalty by the actual Tiberius, the ruler of the time, and was sentenced by the local procurator, Pontius Pilate. He's speaking externally of historical people. Evidence number eight is New Testament, the early dates of the gospel. William F. Albright, who was the world's foremost biblical archaeologist, he said, we can already say emphatically that there are no longer any solid basis for dating any of the books in the New Testament after 80 AD. Two full generations after the dates between 130 and 150, given by the more radical New Testament critics, and reiterated this view in an interview later. He said, in my opinion, every book of the New Testament was written by baptized Jews between the 40s and the 80s of the first century, very probably sometime between 50 and 75 AD. This is Sir William Ramsey. He's one of the greatest archaeologists who have ever lived. He was eventually compelled to consider the writings of Luke, the author of the Book of

Acts. The archaeologist observed with meticulous accuracy of the historical details and gradually changed his attitudes towards the Book of Acts. He was forced to conclude, Luke is a historian of the first rank. This author should be placed among the very greatest of historians. Because of Luke's accuracy, Ramsey finally concluded that Acts could not have been a second century document, but belonged rather in the mid first century. Something that I think is unbelievable about Sir Ramsey is Sir Ramsey spent years, he went out to Asia Minor, he thought that Luke was a fraud. He did not think any of the facts that Luke mentioned were real. He spent years researching the Book of Acts and what the claims were that Luke made. He was forced to make these statements. Unbelievable. He thought Luke was a historian of the first rank. Some New Testament critics claim that all the Gospels plus Acts were written after 70 AD, some 40 years after Jesus' death. While this is possible, it seems very unlikely. There are good reasons to believe that at least Mark, Luke, and Acts were written before 62 AD. J. Warner Wallace in his book, Cold Case Christianity, provides several pieces of evidence that lead to this conclusion. So Wallace starts with the failure of the New Testament writers to mention perhaps the most significant Jewish historical event in the first century, the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple in 70 AD. Second, Wallace points out that even before the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple, the city of Jerusalem was under assault. No aspect of this three-year siege is described in any New Testament document. And then third, Luke failed to mention the deaths of Peter and Paul in the Book of Acts. The Apostle Paul was martyred in the city of Rome in 64 AD, and Peter was martyred shortly after in 65 AD.

While Luke wrote extensively about Paul and Peter in the Book of Acts and featured them prominently, he said nothing about their deaths. Evidence number nine is the New Testament accounts of James and Paul. These are the scoffers that became Christians. So while growing up with Jesus, the brother, James, did not believe his brother was the son of God, according to scripture. But, this is a big but, something happened to James. After Jesus was crucified and buried, James was then preaching in Jerusalem. He was saying, I'm James, a slave servant of God and the Lord Jesus Christ. Eventually, James was clubbed and stoned to death in 62 AD on orders from Ananias the high priest. What could have changed James from an embarrassed scoffer to a man willing to die for his brother's deity? In 1st Corinthians 15, we see Scripture say, then after Christ's resurrection, he was seen by James. Something significant, incredible happened when James saw Jesus in the resurrected state. It was a life change. And did you know, the New Testament does not record the details of James's death, but Josephus, Jewish historian, records James's death. So he did not use the New Testament as a source. Dr. J.P. Moreland, he writes, the gospels tell us Jesus's family, including James, were embarrassed by what he was claiming to be. They didn't believe in him. They confronted him. In an ancient Judaism, it was highly embarrassing for a rabbi's family not to accept him. Therefore, the gospel writers would have no motive

for fabricating this skepticism if it wasn't true. Later, the historian Josephus tells us that James, the brother of Jesus, who was the leader of the Jerusalem church, was stoned to death because his belief in his brother. And then let's look at this other scoffer that became Christian, Paul. He began his pursuit to the death of all Christians in Acts 26, and he was single-mindedly, he had began to destroy the church in the book of Acts. And again, another big but, something happened to Paul. On his way to Damascus church, he too was intercepted by the resurrected Christ. So first, Paul's character was radically transformed. Second, Paul's relationship with the followers of Jesus was transformed. They were no longer afraid of him. Paul actually said he stayed with the believers in Damascus for several days. Third, Paul's message was radically transformed. And fourth, Paul's mission was radically transformed as well. The historian Philip Schaaf said that this conversion of Paul marks not only a turning point in his history personally, but also an important epoch in the history of the apostolic church, and consequently, the history of all mankind. It was the most fruitful event since the miracle at Pentecost, and secured the universal victory of Christianity.

And evidence number 10 is fulfilled prophecy. So I'm sure you know this, because I definitely know that to accurately and consistently predict the future is a big deal. It's basically impossible. But biblical prophecy often is not only predicting future events in history, but it's also casting judgments during that specific time. So let's take a look at this. In the book of Daniel, in chapter seven and eight in the Old Testament, this was written during the time of about 540 to 530 BC, during Daniel's exile in Babylon. The prophet Daniel predicts the rise and fall of Babylon, which is where he was living at the time. He then goes on to look into the future and predicts the rise and fall of the Persian Medes Empire, and then also the Greeks, and then finally the Roman Empire. Some of these predictions are hundreds and hundreds of years after Daniel lived, and he accurately predicted the rise and fall of these massive civilizations. So when we're looking at prophecy, and specifically fulfilled prophecy, there's different types of biblical prophecy. We might be familiar with apocalyptic prophecy, which is talking about the end of the world and stuff like that. There's foretelling, which is basically foretelling future events to come. There's conditional prophecy,

which is dependent on a response. So for instance, the Old Testament, if the Israelites did good in the eyes of the Lord, then something good would happen for them. If they did not do good in the eyes of the Lord, then something bad would happen. But I wanna zero in on, regarding fulfilled prophecy, on messianic, the coming of the Messiah. Now the Old Testament contains 60 major messianic prophecies and approximately 270 ramifications that were fulfilled in one person, Jesus Christ. Now on the slide here, there is a whole list of different fulfilled prophecies. I'm not gonna go through them all, but if at the top we look at Isaiah chapter seven, there's the prediction of the Old Testament of a virgin born Messiah, and then it's fulfilled in the New Testament in Luke chapter one. If we go down to the middle, we have Isaiah 53, the prophecy says that the Messiah will be rejected by the Jews, and then it's fulfilled in the New Testament, John chapter one, verse 11. And then we also have in Psalm 16, down at the bottom on the slide, we have a prophecy predicting that he will, his resurrection, and then it's fulfilled in Matthew chapter 28. So the math when it comes to fulfilled prophecy is crazy. In order to fulfill just eight messianic prophecies, according to mathematician Peter Stoner, the odds would be one in ten to the seventeenth power, or one in basically a

billion, gazillion, trillion. There's just a lot of zeros. The odds are astronomical according to the math. And this is Josh McDowell again saying, many men have claimed to be the Jewish Messiah, but only one, Jesus Christ, appealed to the fulfilled prophecy to substantiate his deity, and only his credentials back up those claims. But the critics say, but the critics say, Jesus deliberately attempted to fulfill the Jewish prophecies. When Herod asked the chief priests and the scribes where Christ was to be born, they replied, in Bethlehem, for this is what the prophets wrote. Well most messianic prophecies were well beyond Jesus' control. For instance, it's very hard to predict where you're going to be born. But some other examples of this is that he would be betrayed by Judas, his betrayal price, the manner of the Messiah's death, people's reactions, the mocking and spitting, the casting of dice for his clothes, the soldiers being hesitant to tear his clothes, the birth lineage from Shem and Abraham and David, the fall of the temple after his passing, three days and then he would resurrect from the dead. How on earth could you deliberately attempt to fulfill those prophecies? And then just on a side note, we've gone through ten examples of why we can trust the Bible, but scoffers and skeptics often talk about the Council of Nicaea. So let's talk about, for a moment, what about the Council of Nicaea? The skeptics and atheists claim that the Roman Emperor Augustine in 325 AD dictated his emperor which books were canon and which books were merely tossed to history. For instance, the Gnostic Gospels and the Apocrypha. So let's look at this Council of Nicaea in 325. Let's look at two things, what the council was and what the council wasn't. So what it was, it was in fact convened by the Roman Emperor Constantine. He invited 1,800 bishops but only 300 were able to attend for various reasons. And what they were deciding on primarily was what's called Arianism because during that time in the 4th century there were people that were heretics that were stating that Christ was godlike but he was not co-equal within the Trinity. So that they were saying that Jesus was created, that he was born, and then kind of morphed into the Trinity. And these early church fathers said, nope, that is absolutely heresy. This Arianism was

condemned and during that time the Nicaean Creed was developed and rolled out. Now let's look at what the council wasn't. It was not cherry-picking books that were to be in the Bible and not in the Bible. And this sort of silliness of choosing the books of which ones were in and out by the Roman Emperor at the time was really glorified during the 2003 by a book that came out, The Da Vinci Code, by author Dan Brown. This was a mystery thriller. This was not a historical book. And some things that can absolutely go against this from a historical point of view is that the canon of the New Testament, for instance, was pretty much solidified by about 170 AD in the Morantian canon. The only books that were by 170 AD that were looking at was Hebrews, James, and John 3 were the books that were in contention by early church fathers. But for the most part, by 170 AD the New Testament canon was worked out. And then all of the canon, Old Testament and New Testament canon, was absolutely done in play by 300 AD by the Sinaticus Codex, the Venaticus Codex, that were established firmly by the early 3rd century. So this talk in the 4th century of the Nicaean Council is basically from a mystery thriller. And we don't want to get our theology from a mystery thriller. So let's just wrap up with some resources that I highly recommend. I always plug and recommend a couple books. Number one is Josh McDowell's book, and also his son Dr. Sean McDowell put this book together, More Than a Carpenter. This book is a very quick, I think a very easy read, and makes a compelling case of why Christianity, the Bible, and Jesus are absolutely the way to go. Another great book, The Case for Christ, written by Lee Strobel. Lee Strobel was an adamant atheist. He was a writer for the Chicago Tribune. He did extensive research to try and prove the Bible was not reliable, and he was converted to Christianity in the process. A book I mentioned earlier, Questioning the Bible, 11 Major Challenges to the Bible's Authority by Mr. Amaro. Great book. And then finally, if you want to take an intensive, long look at this, Evidence Demands a Verdict by Josh McDowell and Dr. Sean McDowell is an extensive resource to look at the questions and the topics that I mentioned. Now, additional resources and

all the videos that I played in this talk will be in the description. You'll see all those links there. Thank you so much for your time.