apologetics 102, wk3: reliability of the nt

Introduction toApologetics

Text

A Case for God

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Which God?

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Only the Immaterial Exists

Only the Material Exists

Both the Material and Immaterial Exist

TextOrigin, Meaning, Morality, Destiny4 Questions:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2253655/Band-Aid-image-starving-children-Africa-warns-Oxfam-charity-says-people-longer-moved-continents-problems.html

1. Kalam Cosmological Argument 2. Design (Fine Tuning) Argument

3. Moral Argument

A Case for God

This means that …

The cause of the universe is...• powerful

• intelligent

• willful

• necessary

• immaterial

• timeless

• spaceless

• moral

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Which God is like that?

WHICH THEISM?

3 Alternatives

JudaismChristianityIslam

JudaismrejectsJesus’ teachings

Resurrection

New Testament

Islamrejects

Resurrection

New Testament

Christianitymust address

NT Reliability

Resurrection

Issue 1NT RELIABILITY

NT CANON5 Criteria1. from Apostolic age

2. authored by Apostle /associate

3. agree with undisputed scriptures

4. in continuous use

5. evidence of inspiration

“The Bible is full of errors!... and it’s 2000 years old!! You can’t honestly tell

me you believe that fairy tale?!!?”

It’s full of ERRORS!

It’s OLD!

"The interval between the dates of the original composition and the earliest extant evidence becomes so small as to be negligible, and the last foundation for any doubt that the scriptures have come down to us substantially as they were written has now been removed."

Sir Frederic Kenyon, former Director of the British Museum

What about ‘Other Gospels’?

“If Christianity is true, why is nothing written about Jesus in any ancient secular literature? Surely if he’d really been here, and something as significant as a resurrection had occurred, we’d hear about it throughout ancient history. Everybody would have written about it. But where is it? It’s only in the Bible, and you can’t believe that because those writers were biased. There isn’t any other first century reference to Jesus because none exists. It’s all a myth.”

It’s a Myth!

ANCIENT SECULARJesus in

literature

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tacitus

Roman Sources

Tacitus Suetonius Pliny the Younger Emperor Trajan Emperor Hadrian

Tacitus, Annals 15.44

“... to suppress the rumor, (Nero) falsely charged with the guilt, and punished, Christians.... Christus, the founder of the name, was put to death by Pontius Pilate, procurator of Judea in the reign of Tiberius: but the pernicious superstition, repressed for a time broke out again....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tacitus

Jewish Sources

Josephus Talmud

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“At this time there was a wise man who was called Jesus. His conduct was good and (he) was known to be virtuous. And many people from among the Jews and the other nations became his disciples. Pilate condemned him to be crucified and to die. But those who had become his disciples did not abandon his discipleship. They reported that he had appeared to them three days after his crucifixion, and that he was alive; accordingly he was perhaps the Messiah, concerning whom the prophets have recounted wonders.

Josephus

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tacitus

Greek Sources

Thallus Phlegon Lucian Mara Bara-Serapion

“On the whole world there pressed a most fearful darkness; and the rocks were rent by an earthquake, and many places in Judea and other districts were thrown down. This darkness Thallus, in the third book of his History, calls, as appears to me without reason, an eclipse of the sun.

Julius Africanus, AD221

“This phenomenon, evidently, was visible in Rome, Athens, and other Mediterranean cities. According to Tertullian...it was a “cosmic” or “world event.” Phlegon, a Greek author from Caria writing a chronology soon after 137 A.D., reported that in the fourth year of the 202nd Olympiad (33 A.D.) there was “the greatest eclipse of the sun” and that “it became night in the sixth hour of the day (noon) so that stars even appeared in the heavens. There was a great earthquake in Bithynia, and many things were overturned in Nicaea.

Paul Maier, Pontius Pilate

“The reason for the paucity of references to Christianity in the first century classical literature is not far to seek. From the standpoint of imperial Rome, Christianity in the first hundred years of its existence was an obscure, disreputable, vulgar oriental superstition, and if it found its way into official records at all these would most likely be the police records, which (in common with many other first century documents that we should like to see) have disappeared.

F.F. Bruce, The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable?

Nothing Written about Jesus

Edwin Yamauchi

“We would know that first, Jesus was a Jewish teacher; second, many people believed that he performed healings and exorcisms; third, some people believed he was the Messiah; fourth, he was rejected by the Jewish leaders; fifth, he was crucified under Pontius Pilate in the reign of Tiberius; sixth, despite this shameful death, his followers, who believed that he was still alive, spread beyond Palestine so that there were multitudes of them in Rome by AD 64; and seventh, all kinds of people from the cities and countryside - men and women, slave and free - worshipped him as God.

“The evidence for our New Testament writings is ever so much greater than the evidence for many writings of classical authors, the authenticity of which no one dreams of questioning. And if the New Testament were a collection of secular writings, their authenticity would generally be regarded as beyond all doubt.

F.F. Bruce, The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable?

It’s Full of Contradictions!

1978http://unleashingfruitfulness.com/chicago-statement-on-biblical-inerrancy/

Inerrancy Debate

History must be treated as history, poetry as poetry, hyperbole and metaphor as hyperbole and metaphor, and generalization and approximation as what they are. Differences between literary conventions in Bible times and in ours must be observed: non-chronological narration and imprecise citation were conventional. Genealogies were written differently 3000+ years ago. They did not share our modern demand for precision, so it is no error not to have achieved it.

66, 1500, 40+, 3 = 1