Biblical Reliability

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 …

Many of my articles here at ColdCaseChristianity.com investigate issues and passages commonly offered as examples of “contradictions” between Gospel accounts. One such alleged contradiction seems to exist in the description of the women who discovered the empty tomb of Jesus. How many women visited the tomb? One? Two? Three? It …

The Gospel of Matthew is a reliable New Testament record of the life and ministry of Jesus, but this ancient document isn’t the only text attributed to the ex-tax collector formerly known as Levi. Other slightly less ancient texts also claim to have been written by the same man who …

The Gospel of Mark is a reliable account of the life and ministry of Jesus, but this ancient document isn’t the only text attributed to this companion of Paul, Peter and Barnabas. Another slightly less ancient text called the Secret Gospel of Mark claims to have been written by the …

The Gospel of John is a reliable addition to the New Testament Canon, but this ancient document isn’t the only text attributed to this disciple of Jesus. Another slightly less ancient text called the The Apocryphon of John claims to have been written by the same man who wrote the …