Chapter 3: Were Jesus' Biographies Reliably Preserved?

2 issues:

were jesus' biographies reliably preserved?

no surviving original copies, but this is not unique to the bible.

what unique to the bible is:

1.unprecedented multiplicity of its copies (5,664 greek manuscripts, and lots of other translations)
- Tacitus' Annals of Imperial Rome ; only 2 manuscripts survived
- Josephus' Jewish Wars ; only 9 manuscripts survived
- Homer's Iliad ; 650 greek manuscripts

2. copies are agree with each other
errors did crept in, but:
- inconsequential variations (but greek is an inflected language) form
- spelling differences form
- no church doctrines are in jeopardy because of those errors

3. copies are scattered across different geographical areas

4. commenced within 100-150 years after the events (oldest copy of John written in 100-150, ....in egypt, far from ephesus)
- Tacitus' Annals of Imperial Rome ; written in 116, oldest copy written in 850.
- Josephus' Jewish Wars ; written in 1st century, oldest copy written in 4th century.
- Homer's Iliad ; written in 800 BC, oldest copy written in 2nd/3rd century.


whether equally accurate biographies have been suppressed by the church?

a.k.a. canon, 3 criteria:
1. apostolic authority
written by the apostles or followers of the apostles
2. rule of faith
should be congruent with normative basic christian tradition
3. continuous acceptance and usage by the church at large

greater part of NT is settled using criteria above within the first 2 centuries (4 gospels fall to this category), by congregations scattered over wide area.

canon is a list of authoritative books, instead of an authoritative list of books.
NT didn't derive their authority from being selected, each was already authoritative before canon.

Chapter 2: Do The Biographies of Jesus Stand Up to Scrutiny?

Let's get back to the 'good witness' part for a bit, let's scrutinize our gospels by couple of tests.

Test 1: The Intention Test
"Were the writers of the gospels intended to accurately preserve history?"
Take a look at Luke's preface.
Take a look at the gospels as a whole: no blatant mythologizing, no flourishing outlandishes.

Test 2: The Ability Test
"even if the writers intended #1, were they able to do so?"
the middle-east back then was pretty much an oral culture, heck, there were rabbis who could commit all OT to memory.
this wasn't 100% memorization, however. there's 10-40% variance in given passage in the gospels, but there were fixed points, which is perfectly acceptable by ancient standard.
Moreover, there was a check-and-balance mechanism in early christianity to control this variance.

Test 3: The Character Test
"truthful writers?"
10 out of the 11 remaining apostles put to grisly death for living out their faiths.

Test 4: The Consistency Test
"Any consistency in various gospel accounts?"
Keeping #2 in mind, the gospels are extremely consistent by ancient standard.
Simon Greenleaf: "enough discrepancies to show that there's no previous concert among the writers, while there's substancial agreement to show the independence of writing the same events."
Hans Stier: "agreement over basic data and divergence of details suggest credibility."

Test 5: The Bias Test

Test 6: The Cover-Up Test
While there are precedences for omitting, paraphrasing things, the gospels are not covering-up things.
There were plenty of:
1. hard-sayings of Jesus
2. embarassing materials about Jesus
3. embarassing materials about the disciples

Test 7: The Corroboration Test
Most archaelogy findings confirmed Gospels' accounts, tiny minority created new problems.

Test 8: The Adverse Witness Test
Jesus' miracles are even confirmed in later Jewish writings.
Also, Christianity took roots in Jerusalem, the very place where Jesus did his ministry, crucified, died, resurrected. Adverse witnesses abound to counter the belief of Christians, but that didnt happen.

".. evidence can never compel or coerce faith. we cannot supplant the role of the Holy Spirit .."

The Case for Christ - Part 1 : Examining the Record

Chapter 1

Can The Biographies of Jesus Be Trusted?

Good witness:

1. "eyewitness", should be there to see the events

2. Have no bias / ulterior motives

3. The witness her/his self is truthful and fair

Throughout "The Case for Christ - Part 1 : Examining the Record" We will see whether our gospels can be categorized as good witness documents.

4 gospels:

1. Mark

Written by Mark, Peter's interpreter, in 50AD

2. Matthew

Written by Matthew, one of the twelve, in 80AD

3. Luke

Written by Luke, Apostle Paul's travelling companion, in 80AD

4. John

Written by John, one of the twelve, in 90AD

Nearly every NT scholars accept that the claimed writers and time of writings are exactly as given above.

The above gospels are written documents, if we go even deeper in search of other supporting records, there's also early church creed as recorded in 1 Corinthians that put the core faith of Christianity in 35AD... merely 5 years after Jesus' death and resurrection.

Gospels are full of theological agenda!

True, so are nearly every non biblical historical records that are accepted as trustworthy.

Are the gospels well preserved, free from outside (pagan, legend)  influence?

The gospels were written merely 5 years after the events took place, outstanding from historical perspective. Compare that with Alexander the Great written history... that is accepted as being trustworthy... that is written nearly 500 years after his death.

When the gospels are written, there are many hostile eyewitnesses that could easily debunk the gospels... but that didn't happen.