THE RELIABILITY OF THE NEW TESTAMENT
The New Testament Is Reliable
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10 Extra-Biblical Sources
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24k Manuscripts
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3 E‘s
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400k Biblical Manuscript Variants
DEFINITIONS:
- 10 Extra-Biblical Sources–There are ten known non-Christian writers who mention Jesus within 150 years of his life. They admit 12 statements about early Christianity surprisingly congruent with the New Testament. 1. Jesus lived during time of Tiberius Caesar. 2. He lived a virtuous life. 3. He was a wonder-worker. 4. He had a brother named James. 5. He was acclaimed to be the Messiah. 6. He was crucified under Pontius Pilate. 7. He was crucified on the eve of the Jewish Passover. 8. Darkness and an earthquake occurred when he died. 9. His disciples believed he rose from the dead. 10. His disciples were willing to die for their belief.11. Christianity spread rapidly as far as Rome. 12. His disciples denied the Roman gods and worshiped Jesus as God.
- 24633 Manuscript Evidence – The more manuscripts you have, the easier it is to reconstruct the original. Josh McDowell documented 24,633 New Testament Manuscripts. Thats more manuscripts than any other book in all of history.
- 3 E’s Early Testimony,Embarrassing Testimony Enemy Attestation– If opponents of the eyewitnesses admit certain facts the eyewitnesses say are true, then those facts probably are true (for example, if your mother says you are brave, that might be true; but it’s probably more credible if your archenemy says the same thing).
- 400k Biblical Manuscript Variants– In order to address the issue of accuracy, we need to clear up misunderstandings many critics have concerning “errors” in the biblical manuscripts. Some have estimated there are about 200,000 errors in the New Testament manuscripts. First of all, these are not “errors” but variant readings, the vast majority of which are strictly grammatical (i.e., punctuation and spelling). Second, these readings are spread throughout nearly 5,700 manuscripts, so that a variant spelling of one letter of one word in one verse in 2,000 manuscripts is counted as 2,000 “errors.” IDEFTBAA
Reliablity of the NT Videos: Theistic Side
Take Every Thought Captive . . .
2 Cor.10:5
The New Testament is Not Reliable
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Biased -Written by religious zealots
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No original copies – Telephone game
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400k Errors! Can’t know the original
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Contains Miracles – Can’t be true!
DEFINITIONS:
- Biased – Written by religious zealot’s. zealot. a person who is zealous, esp. to an extreme degree; fanatic. among the ancient Jews, a member of a radical political and religious sect that openly resisted Roman rule in Palestine.
- No Original Copies – We’re sure you remember the child’s game of “telephone.” That’s where one child is given a verbal message to pass to the next child, who passes what he’s heard to the next child, and so on. By the time the message gets to the last child in the chain it barely resembles what the first kid was told. The bible is all copies.
- 400k Errors–There are around 400k errors in the bible, how can it be accurate? If you are honest, it cannot be accurate.
- Contains Miracles –If there are no public, biblical-quality miracles happening today (and if they were, they’d be on the Fox News Channel), then why should I think they happened in the past?” It’s a fair question.
