Biblical Reliability

We’ve been investigating the late non-canonical gospels to determine why they were rejected by the Christian community even though they often contain nuggets of truth related to Jesus. These elaborate stories, legends and fabrications were written by authors who were motivated to alter the history of Jesus to suit their …

Several years ago, I had the opportunity to defend the reliability of the New Testament Gospels to the students of San Jose State University. Jane Pantig (the director of the local Ratio Christi chapter) invited me, and I was delighted to come. I’ve been working with Ratio Christi across the …

If you’re trying to determine whether or not the Old Testament is historically reliable, archaeology and ancient non-Biblical records can provide “touch point” corroboration of the Biblical text. But the Old Testament claims to be much more than a reliable record of history; it claims to be the very Word …

When I first began examining the claims of the Book of Mormon, I was an atheist who had just become interested in the person of Jesus. As a skeptic, I understood the importance of corroborative evidence when trying to determine if a witness statement is reliable. I began looking for …

I’ve learned to test witnesses in my criminal investigations before trusting their testimony, and I evaluate them with the template we typically use in jury trials. One dimension of this template is corroboration: Is there any verifying evidence supporting the claims of the eyewitness? Corroborative evidence is what I refer to as “touch point” evidence. …

When I first started investigating the reliability of the New Testament Gospels, I was fascinated by the ancient non-Canonical stories and legends related to Jesus. While they were written too late to be legitimate eyewitness accounts, they were built on the core truths of Gospels (albeit altered and embellished by …

As an early investigator of Christianity, I was interested in everything ever written in antiquity about Jesus. One day, while searching the religion section of a local bookstore, I discovered a book entitled, The Lost Books of the Bible. I purchased it immediately, expecting to find evidence our current understanding …

A recent press release described a conference in the United Kingdom in which two “scholars” argued the story of Jesus was “actually constructed, tip to stern, on prior stories, but especially on the biography of a Roman Caesar” in an effort to keep order amongst the citizenry of Rome. The …

I’ve been investigating murders for over 20 years, and along the way, I’ve learned to appreciate the importance of language selection. Consider the following three statements: “The Nuggets killed the Lakers last night. They beat ‘em by 25 points.” “I love this comic; he always kills me!” “I deeply regret …

I get email occasionally from skeptics who challenge the historicity of Jesus due to what they see as a deficiency in the historical record. If a man such as Jesus really existed, performing miracles and rising from the dead, wouldn’t his life and resurrection have created a much larger historical …