Christianity has an evidence-based rooting in history. This presentation looks at the way Jewish scriptures were transmitted through the ages, the way the manuscript evidence shows the reliability of the OT and NT scriptures we have, and how we can trust the dates that the NT scriptures were written.

1. SHARING YOUR FAITH IN A
SKEPTICAL CULTURE
ACF Adult Sunday School
2019
Session 5/6: Can We Trust
the Biblical Accounts of
Jesus?

2. COURSE OUTLINE
Session 1 – Jan 13, 2019: Can I Argue Someone into Heaven?
Session 2 – Jan. 20, 2019: Can Mankind Live Without God?
Session 3/4 – Jan. 27/Feb. 3, 2019: Am I Prepared to Give the Reason for My
Hope in Christ?
Session 5 – Feb. 10, 2019: Can We Trust the Biblical Accounts of Jesus?
Session 6 – Feb. 17, 2019: Can We Trust the Biblical Accounts of Jesus? Pt. 2
Session 7 – Feb. 24, 2019: Does Christianity Have Convincing Answers to
Today’s Most Pressing Issues?

3. COURSE OBJECTIVE
The goal of this course is to:
Help us become more responsive, confident, and capable labourers
in the Harvest.
Then He said to His disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the
workers are few.” Matthew 9:37
Do you not say, ‘There are yet four months, and then comes the
harvest’? Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look on the fields,
that they are white for harvest.
John 4:35

4. SESSION 1: CAN I ARGUE SOMEONE
INTO HEAVEN?
This session we explored:
How are people saved anyway? (Really believing, and persisting)
What kind of culture do we find ourselves in? (Diverse, biased
against Christianity)
What are the most common barriers to being open to God in our
culture?
This session’s takeaway:
Understanding God’s design for the church’s part in saving the lost
and how that looks today. (Knowing them and Communicating:
speaking truth, in friendship, and example/deeds, and other
communication methods as God leads.)

5. SESSION 2: CAN MANKIND LIVE
WITHOUT GOD?
This session we explore:
What do people want out of life?
What four elements define a person’s worldview?
What is the message of the Gospel and how does it answer our
needs?
This session’s takeaway:
Understanding God’s design for human fulfillment and how
the Gospel answers this. (Humans are incomplete without God,
as well as separate and rebels by nature. The Gospel shows that
there can be reconciliation with God and true fulfillment in a life
with Him.)

6. SESSION 3/4: AM I PREPARED TO
GIVE A REASON FOR MY HOPE IN
CHRIST?
This session we explore:
What are the reasons that you have for being a Christian?
How many areas of supporting evidence for the faith are there?
How can we increase our preparedness to give our reasons?
This session’s takeaway:
Understanding what has contributed to your faith and
increasing in your ability/readiness to express it. (Know your
story and objective evidence for Christianity, taking
opportunities)

7. SESSION 5: CAN WE TRUST THE
BIBLICAL ACCOUNTS OF JESUS?
This session we explore:
Is there real historical evidence for Jesus?
Can the reliability of scripture (what was written and when it was
written) be demonstrated historically?
How do the lives of the apostles attest to the truth of scripture?
This session’s takeaway:
Growing in our ability to demonstrate that Jesus and the scriptures
have a foundation that is both historical and accurate, and to show
how this supports the faith.

8. WHAT OTHER EVIDENCE IS THERE
FOR THE PERSON OF JESUS?
What historical evidence is there for Jesus, other than the Bible?
Tacitus – Roman Historian
Pliny the Younger – Roman Governor
Josephus, Lucian, Babylonian Talmud
http://www.faithfacts.org/search-for-truth/maps/archaeological-and-external-evidence

9. WHAT OTHER EVIDENCE IS THERE
FOR THE PERSON OF JESUS?
“Nero fastened the guilt ... on a class hated for their abominations,
called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name
had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of
Tiberius at the hands of ... Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous
superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only
in Judaea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome....”
Tacitus, Annals 15.44 (~A.D. 64)
What kind of evidence does this provide?
Solid, historical (secular) references to Biblical people/events:
Pontius Pilot, the execution of Christ, the expansion of Christianity.

10. WHAT OTHER EVIDENCE IS THERE
FOR THE PERSON OF JESUS?
“They were in the habit of meeting on a certain fixed day before it
was light, when they sang in alternate verses a hymn to Christ, as to
a god, and bound themselves by a solemn oath, not to any wicked
deeds, but never to commit any fraud, theft or adultery, never to
falsify their word, nor deny a trust when they should be called upon
to deliver it up; after which it was their custom to separate, and then
reassemble to partake of food – but food of an ordinary and
innocent kind..”
Pliny the Younger, Letter to Emperor Trajan (~A.D. 112)
What kind of evidence does this provide?
Solid, historical (secular) data on the beliefs of early Christians: The
divinity of Christ, the seriousness of following Christ’s ways,

11. HOW DID THE BIBLE GET HERE?
All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for
reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness;
2 Timothy 3:16
Claim: The Bible is a recent composition made up by deluded
people and is therefore unreliable.
How would fixing the date of the manuscripts to be at the claimed
date of origin, and their accuracy compared to the originals affect
this claim?
A real composition made by agreeing people. You’d have to account
for the success of the following.

12. HOW DID THE BIBLE GET HERE?
How did the ancient Jewish scribes make copies of the scriptures?
1. They could only use clean animal skins, both to write on, and
even to bind manuscripts.
2. They must verbalize each word aloud while they were writing.
3. They must wipe the pen and wash their entire bodies before
writing the word "Jehovah," every time they wrote it.
4. There must be a review within thirty days, and if as many as three
pages required corrections, the entire manuscript had to be
redone.
https://scottmanning.com/content/process-of-copying-the-old-testament-by-jewish-
scribes/

13. HOW DID THE BIBLE GET HERE?
How many manuscripts do we have, when were they written, and are
they the same?
Old Testament:
700+ manuscripts
Most ~900 A.D.
Dead Sea Scrolls discovered at Qumran in 1947
Manuscripts from a thousand years earlier (150 B.C.)
When compared, the two sets of manuscripts are seen to be almost
identical. Most errors being penmanship and transpositional errors.
What does that mean?

14. HOW DID THE BIBLE GET HERE?
How many manuscripts do we have, when were they written, and are
they the same?
New Testament:
5,000+ Greek manuscripts
10,000+ Latin manuscripts
9,000+ various language manuscripts
Over 24,000 full/partial manuscripts total
Dated from 100 – 300 years after the originals. (Scholars date originals
at 50-80 A.D.)
No originals but the copies agree enough that we can reconstruct the

15. HOW DID THE BIBLE GET HERE?
How many manuscripts do we have, when were they written, and are
they the same?
Compare the NT manuscripts with other ancient documents:
Caesar’s Commentaries on the Gallic War (written in the 50s BC)—10
copies—~1000 years gap
Tacitus’ Annals of Imperial Rome (written in 116 AD)—20 copies—
~1000 year gap
Plato’s writings—7 copies—~1200 year gap
Homer's Iliad—650 copies—~1000 year gap
(http://www.faithfacts.org/search-for-truth/maps/manuscript-evidence)

16. HOW DID THE BIBLE GET HERE?
How many manuscripts do we have, when were they written, and are
they the same?
Variations in New Testament manuscripts:
99% are of no significance (a missing letter, swapping common words
like Christ Jesus, missing insignificant word)
Of the other 1%, no doctrine or moral commandment is affected
A handful of places there are portions of scripture which the earliest
manuscripts don’t include. Most Bibles will note these areas.

17. HOW DO THE LIVES OF THE
APOSTLES ATTEST TO THE TRUTH
OF SCRIPTURE?Tradition holds that the majority of apostles were killed for their belief.
Peter: the highest possible probability
Paul: the highest possible probability
James, brother of Jesus: very probably true
John, the son of Zebedee: improbable
Thomas: more probable than not
Andrew: more probable than not
James, son of Zebedee: highest possible probability
Philip: possible
Bartholomew: more possible than not
Matthew: possible
James, son of Alphaeus: more possible than not
Thaddeus: possible
Simon the Zealot: possible
Matthias: possible

18. HOW DO THE LIVES OF THE
APOSTLES ATTEST TO THE TRUTH
OF SCRIPTURE?How does this provide evidence?
1. The Christian movement was a resurrection movement from the
earliest point. (Faith grounded in seeing and meeting the risen Lord,
not previous body of believers.)
2. The apostles (first witnesses to the resurrection) became
missionaries. These missionary efforts are supported by both internal
and external evidence.
3. Christians were persecuted in the early church.
4. Although there is not early evidence each of the apostles died as
martyrs, some general claims make that more likely than not.
5. The apostles were willing to suffer ongoing persecution and die for
their faith. They felt the necessity to obey God rather than men (Acts
5:29).

19. HOW DO THE LIVES OF THE
APOSTLES ATTEST TO THE TRUTH
OF SCRIPTURE?How does this provide evidence?
People now can put their faith in their connection to the whole of
Christendom, but the disciples didn’t have that.
People die for what they believe to be true, not for what they know is
false.
They had nothing to gain. Rather, they were persecuted.
They lived and dies as if they had confident hope in the resurrection of
Jesus and therefore their own guaranteed future hope.

20. J WARNER WALLACE
PRESENTATION

21. PREPARATION THROUGH
FOLLOWING
Table Discussion
How often do you see the belief that Jesus/Christianity is a
myth?
In which settings might the content of this lesson be useful to
you?

22. CONCLUSION
Can we trust the Biblical accounts of Jesus Christ?
Yes
How?
1. There is evidence of the person of Jesus being a real, historical
figure. (Secular historical writings)
2. We can rely on the Biblical scriptures being accurate documents
from the era they claim to be from. (Known manuscript evidence)
3. We can see powerful evidence for the claims of these scriptures
and the whole Christian faith because of the lives of the original
witnesses (Apostles). (Dependable traditional sources)