Even a casual reading of the gospels reveals passages that differ from one another when describing the same event. Are these irreconcilable contradictions? How are we to assess these differences? Detective Jimmy Wallace (J. Warner’s son) tackles this important issue as part of his Incarnate Investigation Video Series. To see …
Read More »How Important was the Principle of Embarrassment in Your Assessment of the Gospels? (Video)
The gospel authors describe embarrassing details about the disciples. Does this prove the writers are telling the truth? This clip was taken from J. Warner Wallace’s interview with Ragnhard Petersen, the general secretary of the student movement in the Faroe islands called KFS (the Faroese version of Intervarsity). To see more …
Read More »Resources to Help You Defend the Historicity of Jesus
Skepticism related to Jesus of Nazareth generally takes one of two forms: those who don’t even believe He ever existed, and those who acknowledge Jesus as an historical figure but deny He is God. In a prior post I assembled all the articles here at ColdCaseChristianity.com defending the Deity of …
Read More »Rapid Response: It’s Impossible to Verify What the Gospels Say About Jesus
In our Rapid Response series, we tackle common concerns about (and objections to) the Christian worldview by providing short, conversational responses. These posts are designed to model what our answers might look like in a one-on-one setting, while talking to a friend or family member. Imagine if someone made the following claim: …
Read More »How Can We Trust the Gospels as Eyewitness Accounts? (Cold Case Christianity Broadcast #107)
In this episode of the Cold-Case Christianity Broadcast, J. Warner answers listener email and discusses the nature of the New Testament Gospels. Can they legitimately be considered “eyewitness accounts”? If so, how do we overcome the fact that they would not qualify as anything other than “hearsay” accounts in a …
Read More »Why Shouldn’t We Trust the Non-Canonical Gospels Attributed to Peter?
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 …
Read More »What Motivated Early Non-Canonical Writers to Modify the Story of Jesus?
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 …
Read More »The Unsurprising Depth and Variety of Ancient Stories Written About Jesus
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 …
Read More »Why I Know the Story of Jesus Wasn’t Changed Over Time
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 …
Read More »Does the Temple Prediction Invalidate the Early Dating of the Gospels?
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 …
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