May 24, 2025 • 45 mins
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
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to Faithfully Living, the Podcast where we
learn how to live for Christ inour daily lives.
I'm Dwan, your host, and Iwould like to invite you on a
journey with me to explore andlearn how to be a faithful
follower of Christ.
Hey everyone, welcome toFaithfully Living, the podcast,
(00:27):
where we strive to encourage youto live for Christ faithfully.
We're offering guidance on howto study the Bible, how to
understand the Bible better andhow to remain faithful to
historic Christianity in acontemporary society.
So over the last couple ofepisodes, if you've been
listening, we have been lookingat and discussing all things
(00:50):
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 goodidea to kind of end cap this
(01:13):
series with a conversation withLisa Quintana and how we can
know and have reliability of theNew Testament, especially the
how can we trust the Gospels.
So we dive into a conversationof some ways that we know that
(01:36):
the New Testament is true and wespecifically hone in on the
reliability of the Gospels.
So I hope you enjoy thisconversation.
Lisa has been on the podcastbefore, but just in case you
don't know anything about her,let me tell you a little bit
about her.
So Lisa is a Christianapologist and the lead
(01:58):
instructor at City Church andChristian Life College in
Madison.
She's a contributing writer forthe Worldview Bulletin and
occasionally speaks onapologetics Published.
Lisa's blogs have beenpublished on numerous websites,
including Apologia, homeschoolDevotional, the Pope's Egg,
(02:22):
reasonable Faith devotional, thepoked egg, reasonable faith,
the biola university chimesnewsletter and many articles for
the women in apologeticswebsite.
Lisa has taught and mentoredwas taught and mentored by sean
mcdowell, world renownedapologist, biola professor,
author and YouTube host.
(02:43):
She lives with her husband ofover 32 years and has two grown
children, so I hope you willenjoy this conversation that we
have in today's episode.
Hi, lisa, thanks for being onthe show.
Well, thank you so much forhaving me.
(03:03):
I'm excited about this topic.
We're getting ready to talkabout the reliability of the New
Testament, especially theGospels.
So could you tell us like whyis the reliability of the Bible,
especially the Gospels, areimportant for us in our
Christian faith?
Speaker 2 (03:24):
Yeah, it is so important, isn't it?
A simple answer is that ittells us everything we need to
know about Jesus, so the mainparts of who he is and what he
said and what we are to do inresponse to these things.
So if the Gospels are notreliable, we would be hard
pressed to know very much aboutJesus at all, or what he said or
(03:47):
what he did.
So it's really vital to theChristian faith that we can
trust the eyewitness accounts inthe New Testament stories and
it's really important also torecognize that Jesus made such
an impact on all of history andhis impact really changed the
(04:09):
course of culture.
And I don't know if you'veheard of J Warner Wallace?
Yeah Well, he wrote an entirebook called the Person of
Interest and he's a homicideinvestigator and he learned how
to find details to solve crimeswithout physical evidence.
So this latest book that hewrote, he takes all of those
(04:30):
skills and he investigates howJesus has impacted history and
the culture and arts I meannearly every area of society.
He carefully sifts through allthe evidence without even
relying on the New Testament.
So it's not surprising that heconcludes that Jesus really
greatly impacted world historyand culture outside of the
(04:52):
Gospels.
So I guess all this to say isthe ripple effect of Christ's
life is huge and that doesn'thappen with an everyday average
person.
So something is very differentin the life of Christ.
So I mean in Western cultures.
Every time you write the date,for instance, you're indirectly
acknowledging the impact Jesusmade on the world, because the
(05:13):
date is reflective on whenChrist entered the world.
So the gospels, man, are thecatalyst that drove these
changes in world history.
So it is so, so important thatyou know, we know, that they're
reliable and how their effect onreally the world that we have
has been.
I mean, there's so many thingsthat you probably don't even
(05:37):
realize that come from aChristian worldview and the
impact that Jesus had on theworld.
Speaker 1 (05:43):
I guess it just goes to prove that Jesus was a
historical figure that we canpoint to in history.
Like he gave us, he left us,that he left that mark.
Speaker 2 (05:58):
Absolutely, and I think sometimes people forget
that.
You know, the Christian faithisn't blind.
It's not a blind faith at all.
It's based on a real person whodid real things and had a huge
impact on how we live today.
So I think it's reallyimportant that people realize
that the Gospels are soimportant, to know who Jesus was
(06:21):
and what he did and why therewas such a huge snowball effect
of his impact on the world.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
So what do we mean when we say the Gospels are
inspired and authoritativeaccording to Scripture?
Speaker 2 (06:39):
Yeah, good question.
So the reliability of the NewTestament focuses a lot on the
historicity of it, right?
But then there's there'sanother whole aspect to the
bible it's a spiritual book.
So it's a historical book, butit's also spiritual, right.
So inspiration means that theholy spirit inspired the authors
(06:59):
of these various books in thebible, and so they hold
authority in that they tell usabout God, his requirements of
how to restore relationship withhim.
So that's ultimately what theentire Bible is about.
It's the story of humanitybeing in exile from God and then
God's plan to have peoplereturn to him, so it's a story
(07:21):
of redemption and it's, you know, the inspiration of the Spirit
of God worked differently inevery single person that wrote
the book, or wrote all thedifferent books, but there was
just an inspiration of what towrite, what to record, how to
record it.
(07:41):
You know, the Holy Spirit alsobrought back to memory a lot of
details, and Jesus even saidthat to his disciples.
He says you know, I'm going tohelp you remember, you know.
And so I think inspirationmeans all those things, but
ultimately, that is the HolySpirit that inspires people to
be able to write these thingsdown, and because of that it it
(08:07):
holds authority.
Speaker 1 (08:08):
And it also kind of holds authority too, because you
know how God told us beforehandin the old Testament like these
things were going to happen.
So how do the gospels alignwith the biblical prophecies
about the coming of the Messiah?
Speaker 2 (08:25):
Oh yeah, that's another.
Coming of the Messiah.
Oh yeah, that's another.
These are good questions.
Well, just to sort of backpedalfor a second, the Bible also, I
just wanted to tell yourlisteners, was written by 40
human authors for 1500 years onthree different continents.
1,500 years on three differentcontinents.
(08:49):
So, yes, it's written by men,but believed to be inspired by
the Spirit of God as the storyunfolds into one continuous
narrative and that culminates inthe salvation for all the
people who believe.
And it's important tounderstand, the Bible's not put
together chronologically, sowhen you read it it won't read
like a novel, right?
Right, the Bible is acollection of individual books
arranged by type of literature,so that's really important to
(09:10):
remember.
But the coolest thing about howthis is a continuous narrative
kind of goes into that questionyou just asked, because it's a
narrative that points to thecoming of the Messiah by a bunch
of biblical prophecies, forinstance the prophet Isaiah.
He wrote many messianicprophecies and including one of
(09:33):
the most important and one ofthe most incredible ones was in
the famous Suffering Servant andthat is in chapter 53 of the
book of Isaiah.
Do you know very much about theSuffering Servant?
And that is in chapter 53 ofthe book of Isaiah.
Do you know very much about theSuffering Servant prophecy?
A little bit, tell us about it.
So yeah, so this is a passagethat oftentimes is not even read
(10:00):
in synagogues, is not even readin synagogues after the Torah
reading.
They read the Torah every yearon this thing called the.
It's called the Haftarah, andso they read passages from the
prophets in the synagogues.
But they don't usually readchapter 53.
(10:20):
And some say it's because it'squote unquote.
The forbidden chapter right andother state is simply because
certain verses are left out thatdon't really relate to any
consolations for the Jewishpeople.
And this ritual that they dowhen they read these things in
the synagogue is supposed to besort of like consoling and
(10:40):
helping out.
You know, the Jewish peoplehave been through a lot, right,
so they have tried to findscripture verses that kind of
give them consolation, but theydo skip over Isaiah 53, which is
kind of interesting that theydo that.
And again, it could just besimply because it doesn't really
offer them very muchconsolation.
But I'm going to read a coupleof verses out of here for you
(11:05):
and you're going to see why it'sso.
Uh, crazily, like prophetic, soum, again it's.
It's um isaiah.
Chapter 53 is called sort of uhreferred to the suffering
servant, and it goes on.
It says uh, verse.
One.
Who would have believed what wejust heard?
When the lord's's power revealedthrough him, he sprouted up
(11:25):
like a twig before God, like aroot out of parched soil.
He had no stately form ormajesty that might catch our
attention, no special appearancethat we should want to follow
him.
He was despised and rejected bypeople, one who experienced
pain and was acquainted withillness.
People hid their face from him.
He was despised and weconsidered him insignificant.
(11:48):
But he lifted up our illnesses.
He carried our pain Even thoughwe thought he was being
punished, attacked by God andafflicted for something he had
done.
He was wounded because of ourrebellious deeds, crushed
because of our sins.
He endured All of this, hadwandered off like sheep.
(12:15):
All of us had wandered off likesheep.
Each of us had strayed off onhis own path, but the Lord
caused the sin of all of us toattack him.
He was treated harshly andafflicted, but he did not even
open his mouth.
Like a lamb, led to theslaughtering block, like a sheep
, silent before her shearers, hedid not even open his mouth.
(12:37):
He was led away after an unjusttrial, but who even cared?
Led away after an unjust trial,but who even cared?
Indeed, he was cut off from theland of the living because of
the rebellion of his own people.
He was wounded.
They intended to bury him withcriminals, but he ended up in a
rich man's tomb because hecommitted no violent deeds, nor
(12:58):
had he spoken deceitfully,though the Lord desired to crush
him and make him ill.
Once restitution is made, hewill see descendants and enjoy
long life, and the lord'spurpose will be accomplished
through him.
Having suffered, he willreflect on his work.
He will be satisfied when heunderstands what he's done.
My servant will acquit many.
(13:19):
He, for he, carried their sinsI.
I mean this is insane.
This was written.
I mean it was literally writtenlike hundreds and hundreds of
years before Jesus even was ablink of the eye.
I mean, these are a collectionof verses that are so obviously
(13:40):
speaking about Jesus that it'spretty hard to say.
Well, that's just coincidence.
I mean, that's a prophecy andit was written hundreds of years
before Christ even was here,and Isaiah is really a great
prophet.
Isaiah 9, verses 6 and 7, isanother really famous one, for a
(14:03):
child will be born to us, a sonwill be given to us.
All government will rest on hisshoulders.
His name will be calledWonderful Counselor, mighty God,
eternal Father, prince of Peace.
There will be no end to theincrease of his government, or
of peace, or the throne of Davidand over his kingdom, to
establish it, to uphold it withjustice and righteousness from
(14:25):
then on and forevermore.
So I read these and I get likechills.
I know yes, and then you thinkabout, like, what did Jesus
actually say on the cross?
So the gospel writers recordthat Jesus cried out my God, my
God, why have you forsaken me?
In Matthew 27 and Mark 15, 34.
(14:45):
So this comes directly fromPsalm 22.
So if you read the wholechapter you'd be blown away at
the references written downhundreds of years before Jesus
walked the earth that directlyreflect what happened to him,
like Psalm 22, 18, they dividemy clothes among them and cast
lots for my garments.
I mean.
(15:05):
So there's Psalms, there'sprophecies in Isaiah.
Isaiah 7 says he's going to beborn of a virgin.
Micah 5.2 says he's going to beborn in Bethlehem.
Genesis 12.3, that he's adescendant of Abraham.
Jeremiah 23, verse 5, adescendant of David.
(15:27):
I mean, I have 1, 2, 3, 4, Ihave like 12 more and I don't
want to, don't want to yourlisteners, but but I just this
is how we know that the Bible iswritten and divinely inspired,
ultimately, by God.
So so the theospels align withthese biblical prophecies about
the Messiah because they werefulfilled in the Gospels.
(15:49):
So all of these things.
Matthew records that he was adescendant of David, right?
Matthew also records that Herodwas killing infants and
Jeremiah talked about that inJeremiah, chapter 31.
I mean the betrayed for 30pieces of silver.
That was in Zechariah, chapter11.
It was fulfilled in Matthewcrucified with criminals, that
(16:14):
suffering servant chapter.
That I read chapter 53, that'sfulfilled in Luke.
I mean it's pretty, I don'tknow.
It's pretty undeniable that thegospel is definitely in line
with biblical prophecies aboutMessiah.
So that's another reallyinteresting aspect.
(16:34):
That happened and I had readonce that the odds of that
happening, that Jesus fulfilledall of these things in his
lifetime the odds wereinsurmountable.
You can't even add them up.
They're just that one personcould actually fulfill all those
scriptures.
So it's pretty convincing to me.
Speaker 1 (16:51):
Yeah, it's in the details, in the prophecies.
But only God can like foretellthose details.
Absolutely Let us know thatthis actually is going to happen
.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
Absolutely.
It's just really.
I mean, I have been reading theBible now for over 30 years and
I still find things in it thatI'm like, wow, look at that, I
didn't see that also verifiedhistorically, you know, like
(17:39):
Galilee and those kinds ofthings and a lot of these other
religious texts, they're morepoetic and they don't really
have like specific places thatthey name.
So the Bible is definitelydefinitely a different,
different type of book, for sure.
Speaker 1 (17:54):
And you, you would think, with all of these, this
evidence in detail, that therewouldn't be any kind of like
myths floating around, but theyare.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
So what are some?
Speaker 1 (18:09):
myths that are spread about the reliability of the
New Testament, or some commonones in our culture today.
Speaker 2 (18:16):
Yeah, I would say they're not much.
I would sort of reword that andsay 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 ofmisunderstandings about how the
Bible has been copied over theyears.
A lot of people think it's beenlike telephone tag, where you
(18:40):
know it's copied by one personand that one person then changes
it and copies it and theychange it and change it down the
line and then by the time youget to the Bible that we have
today, it's been changed so muchyou can't even possibly know
what the originals are, andthat's a huge misunderstanding
of how biblical manuscripts arecopied.
So there's one really hugeamount of evidence that we can
(19:04):
verify for why the copying hasbeen accurate, and that's the
amount of manuscript evidencethat we have.
So this is significant becausewe have over 5,800 ancient
manuscripts and what that doesis that gives us a checks and
balances kind of error-freesystem.
(19:24):
Because you have that manymanuscripts, you can go over all
of them and compare andcontrast and make sure that the
language is lining up, and soyou don't just have one book
that you're looking at.
You have 5,800 of them, and soyou don't just have one book
that you're looking at.
You have 5,800 of them and areally good site to go check out
how they do all that is theCenter for the Study of New
(19:45):
Testament Manuscripts, and thisis where scholars have digitized
all known Greek manuscripts ofthe New Testament and they have
digital photographs online.
So you can actually go onlineto the Center for the Study of
New Testament Manuscripts andyou can actually look at these
things and they're really cool,you know.
And so they take all theseancient manuscripts, yeah, and
(20:06):
they're able to.
You know, they have all thesescholars right.
These guys geek out on thisstuff, and I'm thankful for
those guys right, becausethey're the ones that have to go
through all the details andmake sure everything lines up,
and this one manuscript lines upwith the other one, and they
compare and contrast, and sothat's really probably the
primary sort of checks andbalances system that we have
(20:29):
that shows that the documentshave not been changed.
And then there's anothermisunderstanding that they think
, well, there's been a bunch oferrors.
So sort of an infamous NewTestament scholar, bart Ehrman.
He's a professed agnostic andhe's famous for his books that
claim that all of these errorsare happening and there's, you
(20:49):
know, you can't really trust theBible.
And he's a New York Timesbestseller and so he's actually
influencing a lot of people, youknow, to believe these things
that are against the Bible.
And he says oh yeah, there'sliterally thousands of errors in
the Bible.
And here's where he doesn'tsort of like footnote that
because there are copyist errors, right, but because we have so
(21:12):
many manuscripts they've beencaught, so they can catch when
there's an error.
So we could, they can compareagainst all those other
manuscripts.
So because of that we canchange and check the errors.
And most of the errors aresimply misspelled names or
flipped numbers or simple littlechanges.
(21:33):
Like one manuscript will saylike the gospel of saint john,
and the other one will say thegospel of John.
So the error is oh, one persondidn't use the word saint.
Like, those errors have nomajor doctrinal errors at all,
they're just like little thingsthat they catch.
(21:54):
And so, you know, bart Ehrmankind of spreads this sort of
false idea that oh, there's somany changes, we don't even know
what's in there.
And yet because of these greatNew Testament scholars they're
called textual critics, they goback and they're able to go and
find all of these things andcorrect them.
(22:14):
And that's really typical ofancient manuscripts.
I mean, all of everything weknow about ancient history has
been copied by hand.
Because, you know, we have toremember, the printing press
wasn't even around until theyear 1500, or somewhere in the
1500.
And so prior to that, they werejust copied by hand.
And so, yeah, there's going tobe a few errors, but when you
(22:36):
have that many manuscripts tocompare them to, you catch them.
So there's another error.
Yeah, there's going to be a fewerrors, but when you have that
many manuscripts to compare themto, you catch them.
So there's another error,though that is a little bit more
serious, and that's the endingof Mark's gospel.
And you know that is not anerror that they're trying to
hide Most of the books.
If you have a study Bible, theynote in your study Bibles that
(22:56):
there is you know, some peoplewonder about the ending there's,
like, I think, eight versestoward the end that they're like
well, maybe they were addedlater, but that's not a big deal
, it's just, you know, okay,some of the manuscripts that
they found didn't have thoselast eight verses, and some of
them do.
And there is a really cool newguy out.
(23:19):
He's got a YouTube channel andall this stuff.
His name is Wes Huff.
Have you heard of?
Speaker 1 (23:23):
him.
Yes, I have.
Speaker 2 (23:25):
Yeah.
So he has a really good YouTubevideo on the ending of Mark and
he explains it very well.
So if you have a chance andyou're interested in finding out
what the big deal is about theending of Mark, check out Wes
Huff's video on that one, and heexplains it really well, much
better than I could do it.
And then there's one othererror that they caught and that
(23:45):
was the woman who was caught inadultery in John's gospel.
That's in John chapter eight,verses one through 11.
When the scribes and thePharisees are bringing a woman
accused of adultery to Jesus,intending to trap him, but Jesus
, instead of condemning her, hechallenges the accusers to cast
the first stone right.
(24:05):
And that's a really famousstory and I actually really like
that story.
But they said that it was notfound in the oldest manuscripts,
so some scholars don't think itshould be included in our
Bibles today.
But other scholars say, yeah,it's in other manuscripts and
maybe they're not as old, butthey should be included because
it does really show thecharacter of Christ and it does
(24:28):
align with many other stories.
So they think that it issomething that should be
included and that's why it isincluded.
But if you notice that there'salso a note in your Bibles about
that.
So all this to say is that theerrors have been corrected, and
these two are the more majorerrors.
And they're not really errors,they were just left out in some
(24:50):
manuscripts and some manuscriptshad them and some manuscripts
didn't, and so there's afootnote in your Bibles about
that.
So it's not like this bigconspiracy where they're trying
to cover this stuff up, right?
So of those who wereeyewitnesses of the events, so
(25:22):
the Gospels come from the firstgeneration of Christians who
were alive at the time when theywere written and therefore they
could corroborate the stories.
So, for instance, mark was anassistant to Barnabas and Paul
no later than the 50s and we'renot talking about 1950s, we're
talking about the 50s.
And then Luke accompanied Paulin the 50s and the early 60s,
(25:47):
and so Matthew and John wereactual disciples of Christ, and
their gospels were dated to bemaybe as late as the 80s, but
that's still.
If you think about it, jesusdied at 33, right?
I mean this is within 10, 15,20 years of when Jesus passed
away.
And you know, for us today thatmeans, oh my gosh, you know,
that's like 15 years ago.
Why would they wait?
(26:07):
But back then, you know, backthen biographies typically
weren't written real quick, sooftentimes they were written
about 100 years after a persondied.
So our gospels are actuallyrelatively quick and they were
written about 100 years after aperson died.
So our gospels are actuallyrelatively quick and they're
written relatively quick whenyou compare them to other
ancient biographies.
(26:27):
So all this to say, we know wehave the originals, the original
language, at least because ofthe fact that the people that
wrote them were alive and couldhave corroborated them when they
were being copied, and socopies were often made and they
were circulated among the newchurches.
And then there's letters thatwere discovered written by early
church leaders in the firstcentury and early second century
(26:50):
, and they also quote largeportions of the gospels.
So we have letters from churchfathers.
We've got early dating of thegospels.
We've got people that wouldhave corroborated the fact that,
yeah, this is exactly what wentdown.
I can verify that, you know,and so that's how we know we
have the originals.
Any ancient history, all ancienthistory, has been copied over
(27:12):
the years because they werewritten on parchment paper and
it just didn't last, it wasn'tarchival, and so they had to
have scribes, and these scribesare really well-trained and they
would turn around these thingsand write them often and they
would have checks and balances.
(27:33):
They'd count the many words oneach line to make sure they were
getting it all right.
So it was a big deal back then.
Scribes were like a big, hugepart of the profession back then
and that's what they did.
So I think that we can berelatively, you know,
comfortable saying that we dohave the originals, that we have
the original language, and sothat's another sort of myth or
(27:54):
misunderstanding.
And then, lastly, bart Ehrmanhas gone, gone after memory, and
he he said well, how do we know?
How do we know these guys canremember all this stuff?
So the dates of the gospels youknow were written are
considered by scholars evenamong mainstream scholars who
disbelieve that Jesus was theMessiah to have been recorded
(28:16):
within time limits of reliablememory.
So most of us have really goodlong-term memory recall when
there are significant eventshappening in our lives.
So, for instance, when amarriage proposal happens, you
recall the details of that event, even though it happened years
ago.
Plus, the disciples werestudents of their rabbi, so
(28:36):
Jesus was a rabbi, and asstudents they were oftentimes
required to memorize theirrabbi's teachings.
So that was common practice andthey may have heard certain
sermons and teachings more thanonce.
So, for instance, the Sermon onthe Mount is very similar to
the Sermon on the Plain, and sothat Sermon on the Plain was in
(28:56):
the Book of Luke.
Sermon on the Mount was inMatthew, and so that Sermon on
the Plain was in the book ofLuke, sermon on the Mount was in
Matthew, and so they're verysimilar sermons.
And so it probably I mean Jesusprobably said you know the same
sermon several times.
And so you know the Jewishpeople, they were really good at
memorizing stuff.
We're not so good today becausewe can't even I can't even
remember my cell phone number.
I don't have to remember itbecause it's there for me.
(29:18):
But back then they you knowthat's kind of what they did
they sat around and like okay,let's memorize scripture.
I mean it wasn't a lot ofentertainment stuff going on
back then, so that was theirentertainment man, they didn't
have technology like we do.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
So those are some of the commonmisconceptions, like oh, you
know, we can't trust memory, wedon't think we have the
(29:39):
originals, there's been allthese errors, I mean.
All of those things have beenrefuted and I think it's really
important that you need to knowthat these are reliable
documents.
Speaker 1 (29:49):
And then I think you kind of touched on a little bit
of the some like historicalfacts about the reliability of
the New Testament as far as likenot many um historic,
historical, I guess documents wehave.
We don't have the original, wehave copies of right.
(30:11):
The copies of those articlesare about those people right,
exactly, and that's again.
Speaker 2 (30:18):
That's just.
I mean, there is no originalsfrom ancient literature.
They just didn't survive, rightso they had all these scribes
doing it and it was a big dealfor scribe jobs.
But there are historical factsthat do also support the
reliability of the New Testament.
For instance, in the Gospels,the Gospel writers reference
(30:38):
places right so they referencetown names and regions, they
reference bodies of water andother places that can be
historically verified.
So you can't really fake thatright.
No, I mean, people back thendidn't have access to much
information like we do today, sothey didn't even have maps,
right, they had barely had anymaps.
(30:59):
So it's likely that you knowthey had these areas in their
accounts because they werereally there, right, they really
saw these things at the placesthat they mentioned.
And then also, another reallygood sort of historical fact is
the use of names.
So they used popular Jewishnames in the Palestine area.
(31:22):
So even one century later,popular names change, kind of
like they do today.
Like when I was born, lisa wasthe number one most popular name
to call your daughter Today,when's the last time you heard
anybody calling their newbornbaby Lisa?
No, I haven't.
(31:42):
No, I know I totally lostpopularity.
But the same thing goes withthe Jewish names in the
Palestine area.
So the point I'm trying to makeis that that one, that one
century when Jesus was alive onearth, that those names were
very specific to that century.
And so you can rely on that,because even a century later
(32:09):
there's going to be differentchanges in names and stuff.
So that's another way that theyknow about, sort of the
reliability of the New Testament.
And then, of course, youprobably realize that
archaeological finds have alsonever contradicted the New
Testament Gospels.
So there's a pilot stone andossuaries have also been found
(32:32):
tangible evidence that alignswith the details in the Gospels.
And every time they findsomething new, they uncover
something and they're like, ohyeah, this was in the Bible.
And so these are the kinds ofthings that I think make the
Bible again very unique amongother religious texts, because
they have, you know, archaeology, they have these names, they
(32:54):
have these places, and thatmakes it unique that these
people were telling the story,because these stories and these
things weren't.
They were just eyewitnesses toall this stuff.
Speaker 1 (33:06):
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 gospelsand they all don't?
They have some similarities toit, but you know, critics often
argue like they're contradictingeach other.
(33:26):
So how can we reconcile thosedifferences?
Speaker 2 (33:30):
Yeah.
So critics, you know,oftentimes don't give God the
benefit of the doubt, right,they assume inaccuracies are
errors or, you know, somehowfalse or something like that.
And what we have to remember issometimes we just don't
understand a certain passagebecause of an ancient cultural
practice or a custom that'sforeign to us, or it's a
(33:52):
misunderstanding of word usage,or they don't understand how
eyewitness testimony works.
That's probably the biggest one.
You know, rarely do peoplerecall the exact same things in
a given event.
Matter of fact, if there wereexact same stories in the
gospels, critics would thenclaim that the writers just
basically copied each other.
So you can't win for losing onthat one right.
(34:14):
And then sometimes, you know,really honestly, you can't
always satisfy a hard critic.
They'll always be looking forwhat they consider errors or
contradictions, and there may besome, but I personally, I mean,
I'm this is not, you know, I'mnot a biblical scholar, I'm not
a Christian apologist, but Idon't really know all the
(34:35):
nuances, but I I don't know ofany, any of these kinds of
things that make a hugedifference in what the gospels
proclaim.
So you know that, these littlenuances of what, what the
eyewitness people saw, thelittle changes here and there it
still doesn't change themessage of who Christ was and
(34:55):
what he did, and that stillremains solid.
So oftentimes the personclaiming to see a contradiction,
they don't really have aspecific one.
A lot of times people justheard it through the grapevine.
In other words, they sawsomething on the internet or
something, but they don't reallyhave a bona fide concern.
You know, sometimes they justthrow it out there like, oh, I
(35:16):
heard this and stuff, and so thebest thing you can do is say
you know well, like what is itspecifically that you think is
contradictory?
And if you don't know theanswer, just say you know what?
That's a good question.
I don't really know, but let meget back to him and look into
it and then you can Google itand see what comes up in trusted
(35:36):
websites.
There's so many good websitesout there.
I mean Sean McDowell's got agreat site, cold Case
Christianity, reasonable Faith,wes Huff, frank Turek.
I mean there's a lot ofinformation you can find now and
you can find out that sometimesthese contradictions aren't
really contradictions at all.
It's just a different viewpoint.
Speaker 1 (35:54):
Yeah, like you said, different eyewitnesses because
we don't always remember thesame detail.
Speaker 2 (36:01):
Right, and there's also a book.
It's a little old, a littleoutdated now, but it's written
by a guy named Gleason Archerand it's called the Encyclopedia
of Bible Difficulties and sothat you can go to a specific
like verse and if there's likesome sort of weird thing that
you don't really understand, hekind of unpacks it, of unpacks
(36:29):
it.
So there's a lot of ways tofind out, like if a person has a
really bona fide concern, wellthen let them know that you'll
look into it and get back tothem.
But I don't.
I've never had anybody come upand like show me something like
blatantly contradictory.
I think it's oftentimes just amisunderstanding or something
that they just didn't completelylook at the whole context.
Oftentimes, if things arepulled out of context, that's
where things get really messedup, you know.
Speaker 1 (36:50):
For sure, or they heard somebody say yeah.
Yep, all right, so we went overa lot of things here.
Yeah, we have the reliabilityof the New Testament, especially
the gospel.
So what could be like threesimple facts that Christians can
use to respond to people whohave that misunderstanding about
(37:14):
the gospel?
Speaker 2 (37:16):
Yeah.
So, like a lot of skeptics willclaim that the gospels are like
myths or legends, and legendstake time to develop.
So typically three to fivegenerations is what they take.
So, given that a singlegeneration is generally
considered to be 20 to 30 years,reflecting the time it takes
for children to grow up and havetheir own children, that would
(37:39):
be at the minimum 60 to 150years after the events occurred,
and that's when a myth or alegend could develop.
Well, the gospels were writtenand recorded within the lifetime
of the disciples and copiedearly.
So there was not enough timefor that to develop, to become
legendary.
And if the gospels werefabricated then it's highly
(38:02):
unlikely that many of thedisciples would have willingly
died for a lie.
Mm-hmm, I mean, I know thatthat's been thrown out there a
lot, but it's a good one.
It's like if you think thatsomething's not true, you're not
going to like die for it.
So and then you know, I guessthe so legends take time to
(38:22):
develop, People won't die for alie.
And then I guess extra biblicalsources and archaeological
evidence do point to thehistoricity of the Gospels.
Writings by early Romanhistorian like Tacitus and
Josephus also mention Jesus andthe early church and
archaeological discoveries likethe Pontius Pilate stone also
(38:44):
corroborate the detailsmentioned in the gospel.
So you know, there's extrabiblical sources, there's all
these evidence that we can lookat and these are the simple
facts that we can use to respondto any skeptics that claim that
, you know, the gospels arelegends, Because legends, again,
they take time to develop andthe gospels are written really
quickly, I mean compared toother ancient literature.
Speaker 1 (39:17):
Yeah, to develop and the gospels are written really
quickly, I mean, compared toother ancient literature, yeah,
hmm.
Well, that those are three goodones there.
Speaker 2 (39:24):
So you said um let it didn't take time for legends to
develop.
Develop um remind me those lethere, yeah, so legends take time
to develop, they wouldn't diefor yeah, I mean, the disciples
would not have died for a lie.
And then extra biblical sourcesand archaeological evidence
point to the historicity of theGospels.
Speaker 1 (39:50):
And that's unique among other religious texts as
well, because a lot of theseother religious texts don't have
that historicity backing themup.
Yeah, so I think those are somegood key takeaways from having
our confidence in thereliability of the Gospels that
Christians or believers can takeaway to have a confident
(40:10):
trustworthiness of the NewTestament.
Speaker 2 (40:13):
For sure.
Yeah, I mean, just use yourcritical thinking skills.
Does it make sense that somecommon Jewish carpenter would
have had so much influence onthe world?
Yeah, there have been othergurus and other spiritual
leaders, but no one has affectedhistory of the world more than
Jesus Christ.
I mean this should make anybodypause and wonder why and then
(40:36):
finally consider how the Biblehas changed lives.
Millions I mean really actuallybillions of people read the
words of Christ and areprofoundly changed by them.
I mean, the Bible is still thebest selling book of all time.
Is that a coincidence?
Billions of people read thewords of Christ and are
profoundly changed by them?
I mean, the Bible is still thebest selling book of all time.
Is that a coincidence?
No, yeah, I don't think soeither.
(40:57):
Absolutely not.
Speaker 1 (40:58):
Yeah Well, it's just amazing.
You know how God left us hiswritten word and how it
correlates to like we can see itin history.
How things align accurately,you know all the way through.
So I'm just really gratefullike God thought of enough of us
(41:20):
to point us to salvation, butalso leave a record of us to
know him better and to make himknown.
Speaker 2 (41:28):
And now we have the Holy Spirit.
So we have the Bible and theHoly Spirit.
So once you become a believerand you have the Holy Spirit,
come and live literally insideyou.
You are the new temple, right?
I mean, that's something thatpeople sometimes, I think,
forget.
It's like we are the temple ofgod, and so not only do we have
(41:51):
the bible, but because we havethe spirit, we have access to
the holy spirit.
The holy spirit sometimes willhelp us to understand the bible,
and oftentimes, when I read thebible, I'll ask god.
I'll say you know, lord, pleasehelp me to understand and and
see something new or or revealsomething to me today that maybe
I hadn't seen before.
And so the Bible is not justthe historical manuscript, but
(42:15):
it is spiritual, and so it needsto be read in a spiritual way.
So I highly recommend that,when you get your Bible, pray
before you read it.
Speaker 1 (42:24):
Yeah, definitely so that's a good, that's a good
note to end on.
Speaker 2 (42:29):
That's awesome.
Speaker 1 (42:30):
Thanks, Lisa, for being on the show and sharing
your knowledge with us on how wecan truly believe that the
Bible is God's Word.
Speaker 2 (42:41):
You know, just talking about this stuff made me
like it just pumps me up evenmore.
I'm like, yes, this is true.
Yes, anyways, thanks so muchfor having me up even more.
I'm like, yes, this is true.
Yes, anyways, thanks so muchfor having me on the show.
It was a pleasure.
All right, thanks, all right.
God bless you.
Speaker 1 (43:01):
So what is your view of the Bible now?
Like I said earlier at thebeginning of this episode, I've
talked about how we have beengoing through a series of
looking at how the Bible, howimportant the Bible is in the
(43:21):
life of us as believers, of usas believers, and after
recording this episode, it justgoes 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 thepages, and also, like at the end
(43:45):
, how lisa reminded us that wehave 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 holyspirit and then we have god's
written word in our hands.
That that's a powerfulcombination that we can
experience every day if we onlytake the time to read God's word
(44:11):
.
So I hope this series on theBible was helpful, and then also
this last in-cap episode on howwe can truly trust God's word.
And the Gospels are just onepart, you know, of the Bible we
didn't go into like how can werely and trust the whole Bible
(44:33):
as a whole, but just fromlearning about the gospels we
can see how much we can trustGod in his word.
You know God is reliable, he'sfaithful.
He's given us his word that wemay know him and to make him
(44:54):
known.
So I hope this.
Like I said, I hope this serieswas helpful and enlightening
for you.
I will put the references thatLisa made in the show notes
where you can check those out,and and I'll also have some
other resources if you want todive deeper into learning more
facts about the reliability ofthe Gospels and the Scriptures.
(45:16):
All right, so thanks forlistening to this episode and
remember until next time.
God is always good and he'salways faithful.
Until next time, god is alwaysgood and he's always faithful.
Thank you for listening to thepodcast.
Do me a favor by following thepodcast and leaving a review to
help spread the word.
(45:37):
I look forward to hearing fromyou.
Welcome to Faithfully Living, the Podcast where we
learn how to live for Christ inour daily lives.
I'm Dwan, your host, and Iwould like to invite you on a
journey with me to explore andlearn how to be a faithful
follower of Christ.
Hey everyone, welcome toFaithfully Living, the podcast,
(00:27):
where we strive to encourage youto live for Christ faithfully.
We're offering guidance on howto study the Bible, how to
understand the Bible better andhow to remain faithful to
historic Christianity in acontemporary society.
So over the last couple ofepisodes, if you've been
listening, we have been lookingat and discussing all things
(00:50):
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 goodidea to kind of end cap this
(01:13):
series with a conversation withLisa Quintana and how we can
know and have reliability of theNew Testament, especially the
how can we trust the Gospels.
So we dive into a conversationof some ways that we know that
(01:36):
the New Testament is true and wespecifically hone in on the
reliability of the Gospels.
So I hope you enjoy thisconversation.
Lisa has been on the podcastbefore, but just in case you
don't know anything about her,let me tell you a little bit
about her.
So Lisa is a Christianapologist and the lead
(01:58):
instructor at City Church andChristian Life College in
Madison.
She's a contributing writer forthe Worldview Bulletin and
occasionally speaks onapologetics Published.
Lisa's blogs have beenpublished on numerous websites,
including Apologia, homeschoolDevotional, the Pope's Egg,
(02:22):
reasonable Faith devotional, thepoked egg, reasonable faith,
the biola university chimesnewsletter and many articles for
the women in apologeticswebsite.
Lisa has taught and mentoredwas taught and mentored by sean
mcdowell, world renownedapologist, biola professor,
author and YouTube host.
(02:43):
She lives with her husband ofover 32 years and has two grown
children, so I hope you willenjoy this conversation that we
have in today's episode.
Hi, lisa, thanks for being onthe show.
Well, thank you so much forhaving me.
(03:03):
I'm excited about this topic.
We're getting ready to talkabout the reliability of the New
Testament, especially theGospels.
So could you tell us like whyis the reliability of the Bible,
especially the Gospels, areimportant for us in our
Christian faith?
Speaker 2 (03:24):
Yeah, it is so important, isn't it?
A simple answer is that ittells us everything we need to
know about Jesus, so the mainparts of who he is and what he
said and what we are to do inresponse to these things.
So if the Gospels are notreliable, we would be hard
pressed to know very much aboutJesus at all, or what he said or
(03:47):
what he did.
So it's really vital to theChristian faith that we can
trust the eyewitness accounts inthe New Testament stories and
it's really important also torecognize that Jesus made such
an impact on all of history andhis impact really changed the
(04:09):
course of culture.
And I don't know if you'veheard of J Warner Wallace?
Yeah Well, he wrote an entirebook called the Person of
Interest and he's a homicideinvestigator and he learned how
to find details to solve crimeswithout physical evidence.
So this latest book that hewrote, he takes all of those
(04:30):
skills and he investigates howJesus has impacted history and
the culture and arts I meannearly every area of society.
He carefully sifts through allthe evidence without even
relying on the New Testament.
So it's not surprising that heconcludes that Jesus really
greatly impacted world historyand culture outside of the
(04:52):
Gospels.
So I guess all this to say isthe ripple effect of Christ's
life is huge and that doesn'thappen with an everyday average
person.
So something is very differentin the life of Christ.
So I mean in Western cultures.
Every time you write the date,for instance, you're indirectly
acknowledging the impact Jesusmade on the world, because the
(05:13):
date is reflective on whenChrist entered the world.
So the gospels, man, are thecatalyst that drove these
changes in world history.
So it is so, so important thatyou know, we know, that they're
reliable and how their effect onreally the world that we have
has been.
I mean, there's so many thingsthat you probably don't even
(05:37):
realize that come from aChristian worldview and the
impact that Jesus had on theworld.
Speaker 1 (05:43):
I guess it just goes to prove that Jesus was a
historical figure that we canpoint to in history.
Like he gave us, he left us,that he left that mark.
Speaker 2 (05:58):
Absolutely, and I think sometimes people forget
that.
You know, the Christian faithisn't blind.
It's not a blind faith at all.
It's based on a real person whodid real things and had a huge
impact on how we live today.
So I think it's reallyimportant that people realize
that the Gospels are soimportant, to know who Jesus was
(06:21):
and what he did and why therewas such a huge snowball effect
of his impact on the world.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
So what do we mean when we say the Gospels are
inspired and authoritativeaccording to Scripture?
Speaker 2 (06:39):
Yeah, good question.
So the reliability of the NewTestament focuses a lot on the
historicity of it, right?
But then there's there'sanother whole aspect to the
bible it's a spiritual book.
So it's a historical book, butit's also spiritual, right.
So inspiration means that theholy spirit inspired the authors
(06:59):
of these various books in thebible, and so they hold
authority in that they tell usabout God, his requirements of
how to restore relationship withhim.
So that's ultimately what theentire Bible is about.
It's the story of humanitybeing in exile from God and then
God's plan to have peoplereturn to him, so it's a story
(07:21):
of redemption and it's, you know, the inspiration of the Spirit
of God worked differently inevery single person that wrote
the book, or wrote all thedifferent books, but there was
just an inspiration of what towrite, what to record, how to
record it.
(07:41):
You know, the Holy Spirit alsobrought back to memory a lot of
details, and Jesus even saidthat to his disciples.
He says you know, I'm going tohelp you remember, you know.
And so I think inspirationmeans all those things, but
ultimately, that is the HolySpirit that inspires people to
be able to write these thingsdown, and because of that it it
(08:07):
holds authority.
Speaker 1 (08:08):
And it also kind of holds authority too, because you
know how God told us beforehandin the old Testament like these
things were going to happen.
So how do the gospels alignwith the biblical prophecies
about the coming of the Messiah?
Speaker 2 (08:25):
Oh yeah, that's another.
Coming of the Messiah.
Oh yeah, that's another.
These are good questions.
Well, just to sort of backpedalfor a second, the Bible also, I
just wanted to tell yourlisteners, was written by 40
human authors for 1500 years onthree different continents.
1,500 years on three differentcontinents.
(08:49):
So, yes, it's written by men,but believed to be inspired by
the Spirit of God as the storyunfolds into one continuous
narrative and that culminates inthe salvation for all the
people who believe.
And it's important tounderstand, the Bible's not put
together chronologically, sowhen you read it it won't read
like a novel, right?
Right, the Bible is acollection of individual books
arranged by type of literature,so that's really important to
(09:10):
remember.
But the coolest thing about howthis is a continuous narrative
kind of goes into that questionyou just asked, because it's a
narrative that points to thecoming of the Messiah by a bunch
of biblical prophecies, forinstance the prophet Isaiah.
He wrote many messianicprophecies and including one of
(09:33):
the most important and one ofthe most incredible ones was in
the famous Suffering Servant andthat is in chapter 53 of the
book of Isaiah.
Do you know very much about theSuffering Servant?
And that is in chapter 53 ofthe book of Isaiah.
Do you know very much about theSuffering Servant prophecy?
A little bit, tell us about it.
So yeah, so this is a passagethat oftentimes is not even read
(10:00):
in synagogues, is not even readin synagogues after the Torah
reading.
They read the Torah every yearon this thing called the.
It's called the Haftarah, andso they read passages from the
prophets in the synagogues.
But they don't usually readchapter 53.
(10:20):
And some say it's because it'squote unquote.
The forbidden chapter right andother state is simply because
certain verses are left out thatdon't really relate to any
consolations for the Jewishpeople.
And this ritual that they dowhen they read these things in
the synagogue is supposed to besort of like consoling and
(10:40):
helping out.
You know, the Jewish peoplehave been through a lot, right,
so they have tried to findscripture verses that kind of
give them consolation, but theydo skip over Isaiah 53, which is
kind of interesting that theydo that.
And again, it could just besimply because it doesn't really
offer them very muchconsolation.
But I'm going to read a coupleof verses out of here for you
(11:05):
and you're going to see why it'sso.
Uh, crazily, like prophetic, soum, again it's.
It's um isaiah.
Chapter 53 is called sort of uhreferred to the suffering
servant, and it goes on.
It says uh, verse.
One.
Who would have believed what wejust heard?
When the lord's's power revealedthrough him, he sprouted up
(11:25):
like a twig before God, like aroot out of parched soil.
He had no stately form ormajesty that might catch our
attention, no special appearancethat we should want to follow
him.
He was despised and rejected bypeople, one who experienced
pain and was acquainted withillness.
People hid their face from him.
He was despised and weconsidered him insignificant.
(11:48):
But he lifted up our illnesses.
He carried our pain Even thoughwe thought he was being
punished, attacked by God andafflicted for something he had
done.
He was wounded because of ourrebellious deeds, crushed
because of our sins.
He endured All of this, hadwandered off like sheep.
(12:15):
All of us had wandered off likesheep.
Each of us had strayed off onhis own path, but the Lord
caused the sin of all of us toattack him.
He was treated harshly andafflicted, but he did not even
open his mouth.
Like a lamb, led to theslaughtering block, like a sheep
, silent before her shearers, hedid not even open his mouth.
(12:37):
He was led away after an unjusttrial, but who even cared?
Led away after an unjust trial,but who even cared?
Indeed, he was cut off from theland of the living because of
the rebellion of his own people.
He was wounded.
They intended to bury him withcriminals, but he ended up in a
rich man's tomb because hecommitted no violent deeds, nor
(12:58):
had he spoken deceitfully,though the Lord desired to crush
him and make him ill.
Once restitution is made, hewill see descendants and enjoy
long life, and the lord'spurpose will be accomplished
through him.
Having suffered, he willreflect on his work.
He will be satisfied when heunderstands what he's done.
My servant will acquit many.
(13:19):
He, for he, carried their sinsI.
I mean this is insane.
This was written.
I mean it was literally writtenlike hundreds and hundreds of
years before Jesus even was ablink of the eye.
I mean, these are a collectionof verses that are so obviously
(13:40):
speaking about Jesus that it'spretty hard to say.
Well, that's just coincidence.
I mean, that's a prophecy andit was written hundreds of years
before Christ even was here,and Isaiah is really a great
prophet.
Isaiah 9, verses 6 and 7, isanother really famous one, for a
(14:03):
child will be born to us, a sonwill be given to us.
All government will rest on hisshoulders.
His name will be calledWonderful Counselor, mighty God,
eternal Father, prince of Peace.
There will be no end to theincrease of his government, or
of peace, or the throne of Davidand over his kingdom, to
establish it, to uphold it withjustice and righteousness from
(14:25):
then on and forevermore.
So I read these and I get likechills.
I know yes, and then you thinkabout, like, what did Jesus
actually say on the cross?
So the gospel writers recordthat Jesus cried out my God, my
God, why have you forsaken me?
In Matthew 27 and Mark 15, 34.
(14:45):
So this comes directly fromPsalm 22.
So if you read the wholechapter you'd be blown away at
the references written downhundreds of years before Jesus
walked the earth that directlyreflect what happened to him,
like Psalm 22, 18, they dividemy clothes among them and cast
lots for my garments.
I mean.
(15:05):
So there's Psalms, there'sprophecies in Isaiah.
Isaiah 7 says he's going to beborn of a virgin.
Micah 5.2 says he's going to beborn in Bethlehem.
Genesis 12.3, that he's adescendant of Abraham.
Jeremiah 23, verse 5, adescendant of David.
(15:27):
I mean, I have 1, 2, 3, 4, Ihave like 12 more and I don't
want to, don't want to yourlisteners, but but I just this
is how we know that the Bible iswritten and divinely inspired,
ultimately, by God.
So so the theospels align withthese biblical prophecies about
the Messiah because they werefulfilled in the Gospels.
(15:49):
So all of these things.
Matthew records that he was adescendant of David, right?
Matthew also records that Herodwas killing infants and
Jeremiah talked about that inJeremiah, chapter 31.
I mean the betrayed for 30pieces of silver.
That was in Zechariah, chapter11.
It was fulfilled in Matthewcrucified with criminals, that
(16:14):
suffering servant chapter.
That I read chapter 53, that'sfulfilled in Luke.
I mean it's pretty, I don'tknow.
It's pretty undeniable that thegospel is definitely in line
with biblical prophecies aboutMessiah.
So that's another reallyinteresting aspect.
(16:34):
That happened and I had readonce that the odds of that
happening, that Jesus fulfilledall of these things in his
lifetime the odds wereinsurmountable.
You can't even add them up.
They're just that one personcould actually fulfill all those
scriptures.
So it's pretty convincing to me.
Speaker 1 (16:51):
Yeah, it's in the details, in the prophecies.
But only God can like foretellthose details.
Absolutely Let us know thatthis actually is going to happen
.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
Absolutely.
It's just really.
I mean, I have been reading theBible now for over 30 years and
I still find things in it thatI'm like, wow, look at that, I
didn't see that also verifiedhistorically, you know, like
(17:39):
Galilee and those kinds ofthings and a lot of these other
religious texts, they're morepoetic and they don't really
have like specific places thatthey name.
So the Bible is definitelydefinitely a different,
different type of book, for sure.
Speaker 1 (17:54):
And you, you would think, with all of these, this
evidence in detail, that therewouldn't be any kind of like
myths floating around, but theyare.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
So what are some?
Speaker 1 (18:09):
myths that are spread about the reliability of the
New Testament, or some commonones in our culture today.
Speaker 2 (18:16):
Yeah, I would say they're not much.
I would sort of reword that andsay 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 ofmisunderstandings about how the
Bible has been copied over theyears.
A lot of people think it's beenlike telephone tag, where you
(18:40):
know it's copied by one personand that one person then changes
it and copies it and theychange it and change it down the
line and then by the time youget to the Bible that we have
today, it's been changed so muchyou can't even possibly know
what the originals are, andthat's a huge misunderstanding
of how biblical manuscripts arecopied.
So there's one really hugeamount of evidence that we can
(19:04):
verify for why the copying hasbeen accurate, and that's the
amount of manuscript evidencethat we have.
So this is significant becausewe have over 5,800 ancient
manuscripts and what that doesis that gives us a checks and
balances kind of error-freesystem.
(19:24):
Because you have that manymanuscripts, you can go over all
of them and compare andcontrast and make sure that the
language is lining up, and soyou don't just have one book
that you're looking at.
You have 5,800 of them, and soyou don't just have one book
that you're looking at.
You have 5,800 of them and areally good site to go check out
how they do all that is theCenter for the Study of New
(19:45):
Testament Manuscripts, and thisis where scholars have digitized
all known Greek manuscripts ofthe New Testament and they have
digital photographs online.
So you can actually go onlineto the Center for the Study of
New Testament Manuscripts andyou can actually look at these
things and they're really cool,you know.
And so they take all theseancient manuscripts, yeah, and
(20:06):
they're able to.
You know, they have all thesescholars right.
These guys geek out on thisstuff, and I'm thankful for
those guys right, becausethey're the ones that have to go
through all the details andmake sure everything lines up,
and this one manuscript lines upwith the other one, and they
compare and contrast, and sothat's really probably the
primary sort of checks andbalances system that we have
(20:29):
that shows that the documentshave not been changed.
And then there's anothermisunderstanding that they think
, well, there's been a bunch oferrors.
So sort of an infamous NewTestament scholar, bart Ehrman.
He's a professed agnostic andhe's famous for his books that
claim that all of these errorsare happening and there's, you
(20:49):
know, you can't really trust theBible.
And he's a New York Timesbestseller and so he's actually
influencing a lot of people, youknow, to believe these things
that are against the Bible.
And he says oh yeah, there'sliterally thousands of errors in
the Bible.
And here's where he doesn'tsort of like footnote that
because there are copyist errors, right, but because we have so
(21:12):
many manuscripts they've beencaught, so they can catch when
there's an error.
So we could, they can compareagainst all those other
manuscripts.
So because of that we canchange and check the errors.
And most of the errors aresimply misspelled names or
flipped numbers or simple littlechanges.
(21:33):
Like one manuscript will saylike the gospel of saint john,
and the other one will say thegospel of John.
So the error is oh, one persondidn't use the word saint.
Like, those errors have nomajor doctrinal errors at all,
they're just like little thingsthat they catch.
(21:54):
And so, you know, bart Ehrmankind of spreads this sort of
false idea that oh, there's somany changes, we don't even know
what's in there.
And yet because of these greatNew Testament scholars they're
called textual critics, they goback and they're able to go and
find all of these things andcorrect them.
(22:14):
And that's really typical ofancient manuscripts.
I mean, all of everything weknow about ancient history has
been copied by hand.
Because, you know, we have toremember, the printing press
wasn't even around until theyear 1500, or somewhere in the
1500.
And so prior to that, they werejust copied by hand.
And so, yeah, there's going tobe a few errors, but when you
(22:36):
have that many manuscripts tocompare them to, you catch them.
So there's another error.
Yeah, there's going to be a fewerrors, but when you have that
many manuscripts to compare themto, you catch them.
So there's another error,though that is a little bit more
serious, and that's the endingof Mark's gospel.
And you know that is not anerror that they're trying to
hide Most of the books.
If you have a study Bible, theynote in your study Bibles that
(22:56):
there is you know, some peoplewonder about the ending there's,
like, I think, eight versestoward the end that they're like
well, maybe they were addedlater, but that's not a big deal
, it's just, you know, okay,some of the manuscripts that
they found didn't have thoselast eight verses, and some of
them do.
And there is a really cool newguy out.
(23:19):
He's got a YouTube channel andall this stuff.
His name is Wes Huff.
Have you heard of?
Speaker 1 (23:23):
him.
Yes, I have.
Speaker 2 (23:25):
Yeah.
So he has a really good YouTubevideo on the ending of Mark and
he explains it very well.
So if you have a chance andyou're interested in finding out
what the big deal is about theending of Mark, check out Wes
Huff's video on that one, and heexplains it really well, much
better than I could do it.
And then there's one othererror that they caught and that
(23:45):
was the woman who was caught inadultery in John's gospel.
That's in John chapter eight,verses one through 11.
When the scribes and thePharisees are bringing a woman
accused of adultery to Jesus,intending to trap him, but Jesus
, instead of condemning her, hechallenges the accusers to cast
the first stone right.
(24:05):
And that's a really famousstory and I actually really like
that story.
But they said that it was notfound in the oldest manuscripts,
so some scholars don't think itshould be included in our
Bibles today.
But other scholars say, yeah,it's in other manuscripts and
maybe they're not as old, butthey should be included because
it does really show thecharacter of Christ and it does
(24:28):
align with many other stories.
So they think that it issomething that should be
included and that's why it isincluded.
But if you notice that there'salso a note in your Bibles about
that.
So all this to say is that theerrors have been corrected, and
these two are the more majorerrors.
And they're not really errors,they were just left out in some
(24:50):
manuscripts and some manuscriptshad them and some manuscripts
didn't, and so there's afootnote in your Bibles about
that.
So it's not like this bigconspiracy where they're trying
to cover this stuff up, right?
So of those who wereeyewitnesses of the events, so
(25:22):
the Gospels come from the firstgeneration of Christians who
were alive at the time when theywere written and therefore they
could corroborate the stories.
So, for instance, mark was anassistant to Barnabas and Paul
no later than the 50s and we'renot talking about 1950s, we're
talking about the 50s.
And then Luke accompanied Paulin the 50s and the early 60s,
(25:47):
and so Matthew and John wereactual disciples of Christ, and
their gospels were dated to bemaybe as late as the 80s, but
that's still.
If you think about it, jesusdied at 33, right?
I mean this is within 10, 15,20 years of when Jesus passed
away.
And you know, for us today thatmeans, oh my gosh, you know,
that's like 15 years ago.
Why would they wait?
(26:07):
But back then, you know, backthen biographies typically
weren't written real quick, sooftentimes they were written
about 100 years after a persondied.
So our gospels are actuallyrelatively quick and they were
written about 100 years after aperson died.
So our gospels are actuallyrelatively quick and they're
written relatively quick whenyou compare them to other
ancient biographies.
(26:27):
So all this to say, we know wehave the originals, the original
language, at least because ofthe fact that the people that
wrote them were alive and couldhave corroborated them when they
were being copied, and socopies were often made and they
were circulated among the newchurches.
And then there's letters thatwere discovered written by early
church leaders in the firstcentury and early second century
(26:50):
, and they also quote largeportions of the gospels.
So we have letters from churchfathers.
We've got early dating of thegospels.
We've got people that wouldhave corroborated the fact that,
yeah, this is exactly what wentdown.
I can verify that, you know,and so that's how we know we
have the originals.
Any ancient history, all ancienthistory, has been copied over
(27:12):
the years because they werewritten on parchment paper and
it just didn't last, it wasn'tarchival, and so they had to
have scribes, and these scribesare really well-trained and they
would turn around these thingsand write them often and they
would have checks and balances.
(27:33):
They'd count the many words oneach line to make sure they were
getting it all right.
So it was a big deal back then.
Scribes were like a big, hugepart of the profession back then
and that's what they did.
So I think that we can berelatively, you know,
comfortable saying that we dohave the originals, that we have
the original language, and sothat's another sort of myth or
(27:54):
misunderstanding.
And then, lastly, bart Ehrmanhas gone, gone after memory, and
he he said well, how do we know?
How do we know these guys canremember all this stuff?
So the dates of the gospels youknow were written are
considered by scholars evenamong mainstream scholars who
disbelieve that Jesus was theMessiah to have been recorded
(28:16):
within time limits of reliablememory.
So most of us have really goodlong-term memory recall when
there are significant eventshappening in our lives.
So, for instance, when amarriage proposal happens, you
recall the details of that event, even though it happened years
ago.
Plus, the disciples werestudents of their rabbi, so
(28:36):
Jesus was a rabbi, and asstudents they were oftentimes
required to memorize theirrabbi's teachings.
So that was common practice andthey may have heard certain
sermons and teachings more thanonce.
So, for instance, the Sermon onthe Mount is very similar to
the Sermon on the Plain, and sothat Sermon on the Plain was in
(28:56):
the Book of Luke.
Sermon on the Mount was inMatthew, and so that Sermon on
the Plain was in the book ofLuke, sermon on the Mount was in
Matthew, and so they're verysimilar sermons.
And so it probably I mean Jesusprobably said you know the same
sermon several times.
And so you know the Jewishpeople, they were really good at
memorizing stuff.
We're not so good today becausewe can't even I can't even
remember my cell phone number.
I don't have to remember itbecause it's there for me.
(29:18):
But back then they you knowthat's kind of what they did
they sat around and like okay,let's memorize scripture.
I mean it wasn't a lot ofentertainment stuff going on
back then, so that was theirentertainment man, they didn't
have technology like we do.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
So those are some of the commonmisconceptions, like oh, you
know, we can't trust memory, wedon't think we have the
(29:39):
originals, there's been allthese errors, I mean.
All of those things have beenrefuted and I think it's really
important that you need to knowthat these are reliable
documents.
Speaker 1 (29:49):
And then I think you kind of touched on a little bit
of the some like historicalfacts about the reliability of
the New Testament as far as likenot many um historic,
historical, I guess documents wehave.
We don't have the original, wehave copies of right.
(30:11):
The copies of those articlesare about those people right,
exactly, and that's again.
Speaker 2 (30:18):
That's just.
I mean, there is no originalsfrom ancient literature.
They just didn't survive, rightso they had all these scribes
doing it and it was a big dealfor scribe jobs.
But there are historical factsthat do also support the
reliability of the New Testament.
For instance, in the Gospels,the Gospel writers reference
(30:38):
places right so they referencetown names and regions, they
reference bodies of water andother places that can be
historically verified.
So you can't really fake thatright.
No, I mean, people back thendidn't have access to much
information like we do today, sothey didn't even have maps,
right, they had barely had anymaps.
(30:59):
So it's likely that you knowthey had these areas in their
accounts because they werereally there, right, they really
saw these things at the placesthat they mentioned.
And then also, another reallygood sort of historical fact is
the use of names.
So they used popular Jewishnames in the Palestine area.
(31:22):
So even one century later,popular names change, kind of
like they do today.
Like when I was born, lisa wasthe number one most popular name
to call your daughter Today,when's the last time you heard
anybody calling their newbornbaby Lisa?
No, I haven't.
(31:42):
No, I know I totally lostpopularity.
But the same thing goes withthe Jewish names in the
Palestine area.
So the point I'm trying to makeis that that one, that one
century when Jesus was alive onearth, that those names were
very specific to that century.
And so you can rely on that,because even a century later
(32:09):
there's going to be differentchanges in names and stuff.
So that's another way that theyknow about, sort of the
reliability of the New Testament.
And then, of course, youprobably realize that
archaeological finds have alsonever contradicted the New
Testament Gospels.
So there's a pilot stone andossuaries have also been found
(32:32):
tangible evidence that alignswith the details in the Gospels.
And every time they findsomething new, they uncover
something and they're like, ohyeah, this was in the Bible.
And so these are the kinds ofthings that I think make the
Bible again very unique amongother religious texts, because
they have, you know, archaeology, they have these names, they
(32:54):
have these places, and thatmakes it unique that these
people were telling the story,because these stories and these
things weren't.
They were just eyewitnesses toall this stuff.
Speaker 1 (33:06):
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 gospelsand they all don't?
They have some similarities toit, but you know, critics often
argue like they're contradictingeach other.
(33:26):
So how can we reconcile thosedifferences?
Speaker 2 (33:30):
Yeah.
So critics, you know,oftentimes don't give God the
benefit of the doubt, right,they assume inaccuracies are
errors or, you know, somehowfalse or something like that.
And what we have to remember issometimes we just don't
understand a certain passagebecause of an ancient cultural
practice or a custom that'sforeign to us, or it's a
(33:52):
misunderstanding of word usage,or they don't understand how
eyewitness testimony works.
That's probably the biggest one.
You know, rarely do peoplerecall the exact same things in
a given event.
Matter of fact, if there wereexact same stories in the
gospels, critics would thenclaim that the writers just
basically copied each other.
So you can't win for losing onthat one right.
(34:14):
And then sometimes, you know,really honestly, you can't
always satisfy a hard critic.
They'll always be looking forwhat they consider errors or
contradictions, and there may besome, but I personally, I mean,
I'm this is not, you know, I'mnot a biblical scholar, I'm not
a Christian apologist, but Idon't really know all the
(34:35):
nuances, but I I don't know ofany, any of these kinds of
things that make a hugedifference in what the gospels
proclaim.
So you know that, these littlenuances of what, what the
eyewitness people saw, thelittle changes here and there it
still doesn't change themessage of who Christ was and
(34:55):
what he did, and that stillremains solid.
So oftentimes the personclaiming to see a contradiction,
they don't really have aspecific one.
A lot of times people justheard it through the grapevine.
In other words, they sawsomething on the internet or
something, but they don't reallyhave a bona fide concern.
You know, sometimes they justthrow it out there like, oh, I
(35:16):
heard this and stuff, and so thebest thing you can do is say
you know well, like what is itspecifically that you think is
contradictory?
And if you don't know theanswer, just say you know what?
That's a good question.
I don't really know, but let meget back to him and look into
it and then you can Google itand see what comes up in trusted
(35:36):
websites.
There's so many good websitesout there.
I mean Sean McDowell's got agreat site, cold Case
Christianity, reasonable Faith,wes Huff, frank Turek.
I mean there's a lot ofinformation you can find now and
you can find out that sometimesthese contradictions aren't
really contradictions at all.
It's just a different viewpoint.
Speaker 1 (35:54):
Yeah, like you said, different eyewitnesses because
we don't always remember thesame detail.
Speaker 2 (36:01):
Right, and there's also a book.
It's a little old, a littleoutdated now, but it's written
by a guy named Gleason Archerand it's called the Encyclopedia
of Bible Difficulties and sothat you can go to a specific
like verse and if there's likesome sort of weird thing that
you don't really understand, hekind of unpacks it, of unpacks
(36:29):
it.
So there's a lot of ways tofind out, like if a person has a
really bona fide concern, wellthen let them know that you'll
look into it and get back tothem.
But I don't.
I've never had anybody come upand like show me something like
blatantly contradictory.
I think it's oftentimes just amisunderstanding or something
that they just didn't completelylook at the whole context.
Oftentimes, if things arepulled out of context, that's
where things get really messedup, you know.
Speaker 1 (36:50):
For sure, or they heard somebody say yeah.
Yep, all right, so we went overa lot of things here.
Yeah, we have the reliabilityof the New Testament, especially
the gospel.
So what could be like threesimple facts that Christians can
use to respond to people whohave that misunderstanding about
(37:14):
the gospel?
Speaker 2 (37:16):
Yeah.
So, like a lot of skeptics willclaim that the gospels are like
myths or legends, and legendstake time to develop.
So typically three to fivegenerations is what they take.
So, given that a singlegeneration is generally
considered to be 20 to 30 years,reflecting the time it takes
for children to grow up and havetheir own children, that would
(37:39):
be at the minimum 60 to 150years after the events occurred,
and that's when a myth or alegend could develop.
Well, the gospels were writtenand recorded within the lifetime
of the disciples and copiedearly.
So there was not enough timefor that to develop, to become
legendary.
And if the gospels werefabricated then it's highly
(38:02):
unlikely that many of thedisciples would have willingly
died for a lie.
Mm-hmm, I mean, I know thatthat's been thrown out there a
lot, but it's a good one.
It's like if you think thatsomething's not true, you're not
going to like die for it.
So and then you know, I guessthe so legends take time to
(38:22):
develop, People won't die for alie.
And then I guess extra biblicalsources and archaeological
evidence do point to thehistoricity of the Gospels.
Writings by early Romanhistorian like Tacitus and
Josephus also mention Jesus andthe early church and
archaeological discoveries likethe Pontius Pilate stone also
(38:44):
corroborate the detailsmentioned in the gospel.
So you know, there's extrabiblical sources, there's all
these evidence that we can lookat and these are the simple
facts that we can use to respondto any skeptics that claim that
, you know, the gospels arelegends, Because legends, again,
they take time to develop andthe gospels are written really
quickly, I mean compared toother ancient literature.
Speaker 1 (39:17):
Yeah, to develop and the gospels are written really
quickly, I mean, compared toother ancient literature, yeah,
hmm.
Well, that those are three goodones there.
Speaker 2 (39:24):
So you said um let it didn't take time for legends to
develop.
Develop um remind me those lethere, yeah, so legends take time
to develop, they wouldn't diefor yeah, I mean, the disciples
would not have died for a lie.
And then extra biblical sourcesand archaeological evidence
point to the historicity of theGospels.
Speaker 1 (39:50):
And that's unique among other religious texts as
well, because a lot of theseother religious texts don't have
that historicity backing themup.
Yeah, so I think those are somegood key takeaways from having
our confidence in thereliability of the Gospels that
Christians or believers can takeaway to have a confident
(40:10):
trustworthiness of the NewTestament.
Speaker 2 (40:13):
For sure.
Yeah, I mean, just use yourcritical thinking skills.
Does it make sense that somecommon Jewish carpenter would
have had so much influence onthe world?
Yeah, there have been othergurus and other spiritual
leaders, but no one has affectedhistory of the world more than
Jesus Christ.
I mean this should make anybodypause and wonder why and then
(40:36):
finally consider how the Biblehas changed lives.
Millions I mean really actuallybillions of people read the
words of Christ and areprofoundly changed by them.
I mean, the Bible is still thebest selling book of all time.
Is that a coincidence?
Billions of people read thewords of Christ and are
profoundly changed by them?
I mean, the Bible is still thebest selling book of all time.
Is that a coincidence?
No, yeah, I don't think soeither.
(40:57):
Absolutely not.
Speaker 1 (40:58):
Yeah Well, it's just amazing.
You know how God left us hiswritten word and how it
correlates to like we can see itin history.
How things align accurately,you know all the way through.
So I'm just really gratefullike God thought of enough of us
(41:20):
to point us to salvation, butalso leave a record of us to
know him better and to make himknown.
Speaker 2 (41:28):
And now we have the Holy Spirit.
So we have the Bible and theHoly Spirit.
So once you become a believerand you have the Holy Spirit,
come and live literally insideyou.
You are the new temple, right?
I mean, that's something thatpeople sometimes, I think,
forget.
It's like we are the temple ofgod, and so not only do we have
(41:51):
the bible, but because we havethe spirit, we have access to
the holy spirit.
The holy spirit sometimes willhelp us to understand the bible,
and oftentimes, when I read thebible, I'll ask god.
I'll say you know, lord, pleasehelp me to understand and and
see something new or or revealsomething to me today that maybe
I hadn't seen before.
And so the Bible is not justthe historical manuscript, but
(42:15):
it is spiritual, and so it needsto be read in a spiritual way.
So I highly recommend that,when you get your Bible, pray
before you read it.
Speaker 1 (42:24):
Yeah, definitely so that's a good, that's a good
note to end on.
Speaker 2 (42:29):
That's awesome.
Speaker 1 (42:30):
Thanks, Lisa, for being on the show and sharing
your knowledge with us on how wecan truly believe that the
Bible is God's Word.
Speaker 2 (42:41):
You know, just talking about this stuff made me
like it just pumps me up evenmore.
I'm like, yes, this is true.
Yes, anyways, thanks so muchfor having me up even more.
I'm like, yes, this is true.
Yes, anyways, thanks so muchfor having me on the show.
It was a pleasure.
All right, thanks, all right.
God bless you.
Speaker 1 (43:01):
So what is your view of the Bible now?
Like I said earlier at thebeginning of this episode, I've
talked about how we have beengoing through a series of
looking at how the Bible, howimportant the Bible is in the
(43:21):
life of us as believers, of usas believers, and after
recording this episode, it justgoes 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 thepages, and also, like at the end
(43:45):
, how lisa reminded us that wehave 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 holyspirit and then we have god's
written word in our hands.
That that's a powerfulcombination that we can
experience every day if we onlytake the time to read God's word
(44:11):
.
So I hope this series on theBible was helpful, and then also
this last in-cap episode on howwe can truly trust God's word.
And the Gospels are just onepart, you know, of the Bible we
didn't go into like how can werely and trust the whole Bible
(44:33):
as a whole, but just fromlearning about the gospels we
can see how much we can trustGod in his word.
You know God is reliable, he'sfaithful.
He's given us his word that wemay know him and to make him
(44:54):
known.
So I hope this.
Like I said, I hope this serieswas helpful and enlightening
for you.
I will put the references thatLisa made in the show notes
where you can check those out,and and I'll also have some
other resources if you want todive deeper into learning more
facts about the reliability ofthe Gospels and the Scriptures.
(45:16):
All right, so thanks forlistening to this episode and
remember until next time.
God is always good and he'salways faithful.
Until next time, god is alwaysgood and he's always faithful.
Thank you for listening to thepodcast.
Do me a favor by following thepodcast and leaving a review to
help spread the word.
(45:37):
I look forward to hearing fromyou.
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Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.