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 .."