Biblical Reliability

During an interview on Unbelievable? with Justin Brierley, I responded to the objections of two atheists who rejected the reliability of the Gospel accounts on the basis of apparent contradictions with Josephus’ record and a concern about-corroborative evidence. I’ve learned to employ a four-pronged template when assessing the reliability of …

Every Easter season results in a new round of television shows, magazine covers and newspaper articles casting doubt on the historicity of Jesus or the reliability of the New Testament. The major networks and news outlets are willing to talk about Jesus at that time of year, although few of …

John Shelby Spong (retired American Bishop of the Episcopal Church) once wrote an article for the Huffington Post, promoting his book, The Fourth Gospel: Tales of a Jewish Mystic. Spong made several dramatic claims about the Gospel of John: 1) There is no way that the Fourth Gospel was written …

One Sunday in church, our pastor preached from John chapter 11, the Raising of Lazarus. It brought back memories of my old atheistic resistance to this story and reminded me of John Shelby Spong’s comment a few years back challenging the historicity of this event. Spong believes the Gospel writer …

As an unbelieving skeptic, I was willing to accept the possibility that Jesus lived and taught as a 1st Century Rabbi, but I rejected much of the gospel accounts as fiction. I suspected the gospels had been corrupted and altered through the centuries. Defense attorneys often have similar questions about …

While teaching a recent Colson Center Short Course, I was asked about the dating of John’s Gospel. This New Testament text is generally believed to have been written after the other gospels (Mark, Matthew and Luke). I think there are several good reasons to accept this claim, given the historical …

The Book of Genesis has become a lightning rod for skeptics and Christians alike. Sometimes the debate is focused on Genesis 1 and the creation account. What was the length of each “day” recorded here? How do we reconcile apparent contradictions between Genesis Chapter 1 and Chapter 2? As a …

While the absence of any description of the temple’s destruction can reasonably be interpreted as a piece of circumstantial evidence supporting the early dating of the New Testament accounts, skeptics sometimes use this fact to make just the opposite case. Many have proposed that Jesus’s prediction related to the destruction …

Not long ago, Daniel Wallace (no relationship to me, except that all us Wallace’s claim to descend from William) posted some great news about an early fragment of the Book of Romans that was recently discovered. This fragment dates to the early third century which puts it in rare company. …

When skeptics challenge the reliability of the Gospels, they often point to apparent contradictions in the accounts to make their case. One example of this can be found by comparing the demoniacs of Gadara mentioned in Matthew 8:28-34 to the demoniac of Gerasa described in Mark 5:1-20. Both Mark and …