I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist (43 page)

Pilate is a prominent figure in all four Gospels and is cited by Paul.
¹⁵
This same Pilate appears on several occasions in two of Josephus’s works (
Antiquities
and
The Wars of the Jews
), and is identified in an ancient inscription as the prefect (governor) of Judea. This archaeological discovery was made in the Israeli costal town of Caesarea in 1961.

In addition to Pilate, Matthew, Luke, and John specifically name another leader who figured prominently in Jesus’ death—the high priest Caiaphas, who sentenced Jesus to die.
¹⁶
Caiaphas is not only mentioned by Josephus, but his actual bones were discovered in a fantastic archae- ological discovery in 1990. This discovery was made possible by an ancient burial practice of the Jews.

From about 20 B.C. to A.D. 70 the Jews had a custom of exhuming the body of an important person about a year after his death and placing the remains in a small limestone box called an ossuary. In a tomb located to the south of Jerusalem, several of these ossuaries were discovered, one of which bore the Aramaic inscription “Yehosef bar Kayafa” (Joseph son of Caiaphas). Inside were bones of an entire fam-ily: four young people, an adult woman, and a sixty-year-old man. The man is very likely the former high priest Joseph Caiaphas—the same man whom Josephus identified as the high priest
¹⁷
and the same man the New Testament says sentenced Jesus to die.
¹⁸
So now we not only have non-Christian written references to the high priest at Jesus’ trial; we also have his bones!
¹⁹

As table 10.1 illustrates, there are several other New Testament figures confirmed outside the New Testament. These include Quirinius, Sergius Paulus, Gallio, Felix, Festus, Augustus Caesar, Tiberius Caesar, and Claudius.
²⁰
What else could the New Testament writers have done to prove that they were eyewitnesses who were not making up a story?

T
HE
N
EW
T
ESTAMENT
: A H
ISTORICAL
N
OVEL OR
N
OVEL
H
ISTORY
?

In spite of these 140-plus eyewitness details and 30-plus references to real people, a hardened skeptic might say, “But that doesn’t necessarily mean that the New Testament is true. Suppose it’s a historical novel—fiction set in a real historical context—something similar to a Tom Clancy novel?”

There are many problems with this theory. First, it can’t explain why independent non-Christian writers collectively reveal a storyline similar to the New Testament. If the New Testament events are fictional, then why do the non-Christian writers record some of them as though they actually occurred?

Second, it can’t explain why the New Testament writers endured persecution, torture, and death. Why would they have done so for a fictional story? (More on this in the next chapter.)

Third, historical novelists usually do not use the names of real people for the main characters in their stories. If they did, those real people—especially powerful government and religious officials—would deny the story, destroy the credibility of the authors, and maybe even take punitive action against them for doing so. As we have seen, the New Testament includes at least thirty actual historical figures who have been confirmed by non-Christian sources, and many of these are prominent and powerful leaders.

Finally, since the New Testament contains multiple independent accounts of these events by nine different authors, the historical novel theory would require a grand conspiracy over a 20- to 50-year period between those nine authors, who were spread all over the ancient world. This is not plausible either. In fact, the assertion that the New Testament events are part of a grand conspiracy exists only in novels. In the real world, such assertions are crushed by the weight of the evidence.

T
HE
N
EW
T
ESTAMENT
: O
NE
S
OURCE OR
M
ANY
?

“Wait!” the skeptic might protest. “You might have eyewitness testimony, but you can’t believe the New Testament because it’s just from one source. They are not ‘multiple independent accounts’ as you say!” This is a common error skeptics make because they fail to distinguish between the Bible as a “religious book” and the historical documents that comprise the Bible.

When considering the historicity of the New Testament, we constantly must remind ourselves that the New Testament we see in the Bible is a
collection
of largely independent writings from the pens of nine different authors. It was not written or edited by one person or by the church. While the New Testament writers describe many of the same events and may even draw material from the same earlier sources, the evidence indicates that the New Testament documents contain several lines of independent eyewitness testimony.

How do we know we have independent eyewitness testimony? Because 1) each major author includes early and unique material that only eyewitnesses would know, and 2) their accounts describe the same basic events but include divergent details. Why are divergent details important? Because if the accounts were all from one source or a single editor, there would be harmonization, not divergence of details. When early accounts tell the same basic story but include divergent details, historians rightly conclude they have independent eyewitness accounts of actual historical events (historical test #3 from page 231. The story cer- tainly cannot be made up, because independent sources could never invent the same fictional story.

By these criteria, we know that John and Mark are independent, and we know that Luke and Matthew differ enough from Mark and from one another to be the products of independent attestation as well. So there are at least four independent sources for the basic New Testament story, and, adding Paul (1 Cor. 15:8) and Peter (1 Pet. 1:21) to the mix, there are at least six independent sources for the Resurrection.

Six sane, sober eyewitnesses, who refuse to recant their testimony even under the threat of death, would convict anyone of anything in a court of law (even without the additional lines of corroborating evidence that support the New Testament story). Such eyewitness testimony yields a verdict that is certain beyond a reasonable doubt. Unless you saw the event yourself, you can’t be any more certain that those historical events actually occurred.

S
UMMARY
A
ND
C
ONCLUSION

1. We saw from chapter 9 that:

a. The New Testament documents are early and contain even earlier source material.

b. At least 10 ancient non-Christian writers within 150 years of his life give information about Jesus, and their collective references provide a storyline consistent with the New Testament.

2. From this chapter we conclude:

a. The New Testament contains at least four to six lines of
early, independent eyewitness
written testimony. We conclude this because:

i. The major New Testament writers record the same basic events with diverging details and some unique material.

ii. They cite at least thirty real historical figures who have been confirmed by ancient non-Christian writers and various archaeological discoveries.

iii. Luke peppers the second half of Acts with at least 84 historically confirmed eyewitness details and includes several others in his Gospel.

iv. Luke’s proven trustworthiness affirms that of Matthew and Mark because they record the same basic story.

v. John includes at least 59 historically confirmed or historically probable eyewitness details in his Gospel.

vi. Paul and Peter provide the fifth and sixth written testimonies to the Resurrection.

b. Since this early, independent eyewitness testimony is within one generation of the events, the New Testament events cannot be considered legendary.

So there’s no question that real historical events are at the core of the New Testament.
The bottom line is that a skeptic has to have a lot
of faith to believe that the New Testament is fictional.

However, there are more issues to investigate before concluding that the New Testament is definitely historically reliable. For example, how do we know that the eyewitness testimony is not exaggerated or embellished? That’s the question we’ll address in the next chapter.

11

The Top Ten Reasons
We Know the
New Testament Writers
Told the Truth

“Why would the apostles lie? . . . If they lied, what was
their motive, what did they get out of it? What they got
out of it was misunderstanding, rejection, persecution,
torture, and martyrdom. Hardly a list of perks!”

—PETER KREEFT

WE HAVE SEEN very powerful evidence that the major New Testament documents were written by eyewitnesses and their contemporaries within 15 to 40 years of the death of Jesus. Add to that the confirmation from non-Christian sources and archaeology, and we know beyond a reasonable doubt that the New Testament is based on historical fact. But how do we know the authors did not exaggerate or embellish what they say they saw? There are at least ten reasons we can be confident that the New Testament writers did not play fast and loose with the facts.

1. T
HE
N
EW
T
ESTAMENT
W
RITERS
I
NCLUDED
E
MBARRASSING
D
ETAILS
A
BOUT
T
HEMSELVES

One of the ways historians can tell whether an author is telling the truth is to test what he says by “the principle of embarrassment” (historical test #7 from page 231). This principle assumes that any details embarrassing to the author are probably true. Why? Because the tendency of most authors is to leave out anything that makes them look bad.

How does the New Testament measure up to the principle of embarrassment? Let’s put it this way: If you and your friends were concocting a story that you wanted to pass off as the truth, would you make yourselves look like dim-witted, uncaring, rebuked, doubting cowards? Of course not. But that’s exactly what we find in the New Testament. The people who wrote down much of the New Testament are characters (or friends of characters) in the story, and often they depict themselves as complete morons:

They are dim-witted—numerous times they fail to understand what Jesus is saying (Mark 9:32; Luke 18:34; John 12:16).

They are uncaring—they fall asleep on Jesus twice when he asks them to pray (Mark 14:32-41). The New Testament writers later believe Jesus is the God-man, yet they admit they twice fell asleep on him in his hour of greatest need! Moreover, they make no effort to give their friend a proper burial, but record that Jesus was buried by Joseph of Arimathea, a member of the Jewish Sanhedrin—the very court that had sentenced Jesus to die.

They are rebuked—Peter is called “Satan” by Jesus (Mark 8:33), and Paul rebukes Peter for being wrong about a theological issue. Paul writes, “ When Peter came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he was clearly in the wrong” (Gal. 2:11). Now keep in mind that Peter is one of the pillars of the early church, and here’s Paul including in Scripture that he was wrong!