Biblical Reliability

In my book, Cold Case Christianity, I attempt to evaluate the gospel accounts with the same criteria used by jurors to assess the reliability of eyewitnesses in a criminal case. In California, jurors are encouraged to ask themselves, “How well could the witness see, hear, or otherwise perceive the things …

My journey toward Christianity began when I examined the gospels in order to uncover the words of Jesus. I was interested in Jesus as nothing more than a source of ancient wisdom and my curiosity about him caused me to begin sifting through the New Testament gospels. I was immediately …

As a detective, I’ve learned how to sift through eyewitness testimony. There are times when an eyewitness gets it right and times when a witness is simply wrong about a claim. Sometimes the witness is inadvertently mistaken, and sometimes the witness is intentionally lying. In spite of this, juries can …

On the final page of the paperback edition of Misquoting Jesus, Bart Ehrman famously listed the “Top Ten Verses That Were Not Originally in the New Testament.” In an effort to discredit the reliability of the New Testament text, Ehrman offered this list to demonstrate the existence of many late …

I often receive emails (or posts) from skeptics who contest my trust in the gospel eyewitness accounts given recent studies and articles that challenge the reliability of eyewitness testimony. Eyewitness testimony, they argue, is “the least reliable form of evidence in a criminal trial”. If this is the case, why …

When trying to establish the reliability of eyewitnesses in cold case investigations, I use a template that I learned from criminal trials (I’ve written about this at length in my book). One of the four areas I examine is whether or not an eyewitness account can be verified in some …

I’ve had my share of homicide cases that involved unanswered questions. In fact, every case raises a number of substantial and difficult issues. In my most recent investigation, a “no body, missing” from 1981, the biggest question was simply, “What did the defendant do with the victim’s body?” Another important …

Many Christians are unaware of the ancient legends, distortions and stories about Jesus known as the “non-canonical gospels”. Maybe that’s why opportunistic skeptics are able to make outrageous and profitable claims about Jesus every Christmas and Easter season. In just the past few years we’ve endured the timely arrival of …

In the movie, God’s Not Dead 2, I was asked to defend the historicity of Jesus and the eyewitness reliability of the Gospels. Skeptics sometimes claim the New Testament Canon was the creation of 4th Century Catholic Church councils, rather than the reliable preservation of 1st Century disciples of the …

In the movie, God’s Not Dead 2, I was asked to defend the historicity of Jesus and the eyewitness reliability of the Gospels. As a skeptic, I believed that the story of the Resurrection was either a late distortion (a legend) created by Christians well after the fact, or a …