Matts Theory of Life

11 Reasons We Can Trust the Gospels
by: Graig L. Blomberg

1. We have highly reliable copies of the texts of what the Gospel writers wrote
More than 5,000 ancient copies of parts or all of the New Testament allow us to reconstruct what the inspired authors wrote.
This compares with at best a couple of dozen copies that exist for any other ducuments of antiquity.

2. The recorders of the Gospels were in a position to report accurate historical information.
Matthew and John were apostles who accompanied Jesus.
Mark, according to Early Church tradition, got the bulk of his information from Peter, while Luke describes how he interviewd EYEWITNESSES of the lief of Jesus Christ.

3. All four Gospels were written by the end of the first century-within 70 years of the events that are recorded.
The Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke were probably written within about 40 years of death of Jesus.
Hostile eyewitnesses who opposed Christ could easily have discredited and stopped the spread of the Gospels if the writers had fabricated their stories.

4. The Gospel writters wanted to preserve history accurately.
They believed that Christianity was unique among the religions of the world in that JEsus died and rose again to bring about the possibility of salvation for all people. Christian claims depend on the historicity of the story of Jesus.

5. Oral tradition faithfully preserved Jesus' teachings and deeds prior to the writing of the Gospels
Today we often think it is impossible for people to preserve accurately large amounts of information when passing it along by word of mouth. but ancient Jews and Greeks alike cultivated the art of memorization enabling them to transmit faithfully information as lengthy as the Old Testament and the epics of Homer. Thus people could easily have memorized information the length of a Gospel.

6. The literary genre of the Gospels most resembls that of other ancient histories and biographies taht are considered trustworthy.
These include Josephus, Thucydides and Herodotus. Luke's preface particularly resembles that beginnings of other scientific and even medical literature of the day.

7. The Gospels are filled with "hard sayings" ascribed to Jesus that probably would not have been included if the Gospel recorders felt free to play fast and loose with history.
These include Jesus Christ's challenging ethical teachings, epitomized in the Sermon on the Mount and His radical demands about renouncing material possessions and family ties, as well as statements that seem to conflict with His teachings elsewhere.

8. The silence of the Gospels on certain topics suggests that the later Church DID NOT anachronistically add in subsequent guidance from God into their accounts of earthly Jesus.
Many critics have argued taht the Early Christians could have mixed the teachings from Jesus' earlthy ministry with the guidance that HE gave later through the Holy Spirit. In that case, not all of the sayings ascribed to Jesus in the Gospels would actaully have been spoken by Him in the flesh. But this argument does not stand because we read nothing in the Gospels about the problems of circumcising Gentiles or speaking in tongues, two debates which threatened to divide Christianity within a generation of JEsus' life. (That Jesus should not have addressed these issues while on earth is not surprising, because thos issues did not affect His followers who were an exlusivelhy JEsish group within Isreal.)

9. The testimony of non-Christian writers confirms the general contours of Christ's life.
Other ancient Jewish, Greek and Roman historians wrote taht JEsus was conceived out of wedlock; that He ministered during the time of John the Baptist and exorcised demonposessed individuals; and that He had a reputation of being a miracle worker.
Moreover, Jesus gathered disciples, and He was arrested by Jewish leaders for blasphemy but was crucified by the Romans under Pontius Pilate as a political threat. Jesus' followers believed Him to be raised from the dead, and they worshiped Him as God.
In an age when almost all historians wrote almost exclusively about political and military events and about official, institutionalized forms of religion, the existence of even this much hsitorical information is significant.

10. Archaeology has confirmed even more circumstantial details in the Gospels.
The five colonnades of the Bethesada pool, the pool of Siloam, Jcaob's well in Sychar, an instcription about Pontius Pilate as the Roman procurator of Judea, and the tomb of Caiapas have all been discovered. In each case, a place or practice previously doubted has now been vindicated.

11. The testimony of other early Christian writers supports details found in the Gospels.
We must not forget that most Early Christians were convered from Judaism or paganism to Christianity in part of the basis of the compelling evidence of the life of Jesus Christ. Within the New Testament, the Apostle Paul and the other writers allude to many details about Jesus, often in documents that predate the written Gospels, showing that the writers had independent access to information later recorded in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke an dJohn. These 11 arguments, each one alone or all together, do not prove the reliablility of every verse in the Gospels. But the arguments do suggest that historic Christian belief is not merely "a leap of faith" but is reasonable.
Ultimatley, however, only the conviction of the Holy Spirit can move a person from intellectual belif in the Gospels' accuracy to a commitment to Jesus as a faithful diciple.