Why the Bible Might Be More Accurate Than You Think

When you write about religion, you expect to get some hate.

But, even I was surprised by the strong reaction that some readers had to my article on the non-Biblical evidence for the existence of a historical Jesus. There I was trying to counter the view that, without the Bible, the claims of Christianity don’t stack up. However, it seemed like the very suggestion that Jesus might have actually been a real person made some people downright angry.

One reader called me, and I quote, “The most retarded retard who ever walked the face of the Earth,” but has since deleted the comment. Perhaps he had an attack of conscience.

Now, I accept that when you put your beliefs out there in the public sphere, they are open to critique — and that’s fine. However, how is a non-believer labeling a believer “stupid” for holding to their strongly held convictions any better than a believer labeling a non-believer “Stupid” for the same? They are both equally arrogant and intolerant. As for me, I respect your right to not believe and do my best to love you just the same.

Nonetheless, at the risk of being crucified, now that I’ve written about the non-Biblical evidence for the existence of Christ, I am going to take it one step further. I will attempt to explain why I think the Bible is a reliable source of information about Jesus Christ and, in fact, informs my belief that Christ really was the Messiah.

I find it odd that many people dismiss the Bible as a reliable document, out of hand, when the evidence I find causes me to believe it is, in fact, worthy to be trusted. What I am about to share with you in this article is satisfactory for me to hold that view. It may not be enough for you — and that’s ok. But, here is why I believe that the Bible points to the fact that Jesus Christ not only existed but that it is reasonable to believe that he may very well be the very son of God.

The Old Testament prophecies

Atheist Bertrand Russell was once quoted as saying: “If I heard a voice from heaven that predicted a series of things and they came to pass, then I’d have to believe there is a God.” Yet, according to J.H. Sailhaimer, author of ‘The Messiah and the Hebrew Bible,’ the Old Testament not only predicts the coming of a Messiah, but it also describes and identifies that Messiah in some detail.

There are repeated references to the coming Christ throughout the Old Testament. Approximately four dozen prophesies concerning the Messiah appear in the Old Testament, penned between 1700BC and 400BC. For example, the Old Testament predicts the Messiah would be from the Tribe of Judah (Genesis 49:10), a descendant of King David (Jeremiah 23:5), born in Bethlehem (Micah 5:2) but called out of Egypt (Hosea 11:1).

Moreover, it was prophesied that the Christ would be preceded by a messenger (Malachi 3:1), would teach in parables (Psalm 78:1–2) and that he would enter Jerusalem riding on the colt of a donkey (Zechariah 9:9). The Old Testament reveals that the Christ would be betrayed for 30 pieces of silver (Zechariah 11:12), forsaken by his friends (Zechariah 13: 7), and accused by false witnesses (Psalm 35:11). It also reveals that men would cast lots for his clothing (Psalm 22:18), that none of his bones would be broken (Exodus 12:46), and that he would be buried in a rich man’s tomb (Isaiah 53:9).

Psalm 22 predicts that his hands and feet would be pierced (although crucifixion was yet to be invented). And I could go on. The most remarkable aspect of these predictions is that the New Testament reveals that they were all fulfilled in the life of Jesus some 1700 to 400 years after they were written.

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

Now, it would be fair to say that ancient Jewish people lived in messianic expectation. Therefore, a skeptic might argue that an individual aware of the prophecies of the coming Christ might establish themselves as a messianic figure. However, there are certain aspects of one’s life, such as one’s ancestry and birthplace, that one has no control over. Moreover, while the Jews were anticipating the coming Christ, they were generally expecting a military leader or earthly king who would restore Israel to its former glory. They were not expecting a suffering servant. Anyone seeking to establish themselves as the Christ may well have done so through military might — inspiring an uprising to drive out the Romans. Jesus was simply not what the Jews were expecting.

Perhaps the fulfillment of the Old Testament prophesies by Jesus was mere coincidence. Who knows? But it is interesting that mathematician Peter W. Stoner calculated the probability of just eight of the four dozen prophesies being fulfilled in the life of one man as one in one hundred million billion. Thus, it would be virtually impossible for one to fulfill the prophecies concerning the Messiah, either by coincidence or intent, unless one were actually the Messiah.

Perhaps the writers of the gospels themselves, being aware of the messianic prophesies and having the benefit of viewing Old Testament prophesies in light of New Testament events, altered the details of Jesus’s life to make it appear that Jesus was the Christ. This brings us to a key point. Can the gospel accounts of Jesus’ life be trusted as reliable? Since most of the information we have about Jesus comes from the gospels, it is worth examining this at length.

The accuracy of the gospels

The New Testament contains four accounts of Jesus’ life — four biographies called Gospels, from which we draw much of our knowledge of Jesus. While modern biographies are generally written in chronological order, with attention given to all stages of the subject’s life, ancient Greek biographies recorded events based on key lessons to be learned from the subject. Moreover, considerably more attention was given to a subject’s character and example. The Gospels are consistent with other ancient biographies in that there is little information about Jesus’ early life and much about his teaching and the events leading up to his crucifixion.

According to Biblical scholar Raymond E. Brown, it is widely accepted that the synoptic gospels were authored either by eyewitnesses of Jesus or those who knew eyewitnesses of Jesus. According to theologians G.D. Fee and D. Stuart, the gospel of Matthew was most likely written by Jesus’ tax-collecting disciple, the Gospel of Mark by a companion of another of Jesus’ disciples, and the gospel of Luke by a companion of the Apostle Paul. Scholars believe that these authors may have drawn from the same source material or even from each other because they recount many of the same stories and events.

The Gospel of John is noticeably different, indicating that it was written using different source material, or purposely constructed from a different perspective, or with a different audience in mind. There is limited consensus over the authorship of John, but the most widely accepted view is that Jesus’s closest disciple wrote it. According to Craig Blomberg, author of ‘The Historical Reliability of the Gospels,’ regardless of the differences in opinion over the authorship of the gospels, it is well accepted, even in liberal circles, that all four gospels were written before the end of the first century AD, within the lifetime of eyewitnesses of Jesus’s life who could have acted as a corrective had the accounts been inaccurate.

The Gospels were written within thirty to sixty years of Jesus’ death — which you might think is an unreasonably long period of time later. And by modern standards, that would be a fair assessment. However, it was a very short period of time in comparison to other ancient literature. Certainly, there was insufficient time for legendary influences to expunge the historical facts. Compare the Gospels to Plutarch’s biography of Alexander the Great, written in the late first century AD, around 400 years after Alexander the Great’s death in 323BC. Over a period of four centuries, history may tend towards mythologization, but the comparatively short period of time between Jesus’s life and the construction of the Gospels makes this a less likely prospect for Jesus’s biographies.

While several decades may have passed between Jesus’s life and the production of the gospels, other sections of the New Testament contain creeds relating to Jesus, established by the early church, which can be dated to within twenty to thirty years of Jesus’ death. For example, Paul writes in Philippians 2: 6–11 that Jesus was “in very nature God,” and in Colossians 1: 15–20 that Jesus is “The image of the invisible God.”

Moreover, according to Christopher Roland, author of ‘Christian Origin,’ before 130 AD, no-one else had ever been given the title of ‘Messiah.’ Yet, within twenty years of his death, the term ‘Christ’ had become so affixed to Jesus’s name in that it more or less functioned as a personal name (that is, Jesus Christ).

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The religious skeptic might argue that perhaps the Gospel accounts of Jesus’s life have been altered over time. However, because there are so many copies of Biblical manuscripts, we can be confident that the Gospels have been accurately reproduced. Archaeologists have recovered portions of the Biblical record that date within a few generations of the originals. For example, the Beatty Biblical Papyrus contains fragments of the New Testament dated from the third century.

The earliest fragments of John are dated around 100–150AD. Furthermore, many copies of Biblical manuscripts in many languages have been uncovered, allowing historians to cross-check them and identify what the original document contained. Over twenty-four thousand manuscripts of the New Testament have been discovered. According to Biblical historians, N.L. Geisler and W.E. Nix, The New Testament “has not only survived in more manuscripts than any other book from antiquity, but it has survived in a purer form than any other book… a form that is 99.5% pure.”

Compare this to the next best preserved ancient manuscript, Homer’s Iliad, which has less than six hundred and fifty manuscripts, the earliest of which is dated almost a thousand years after the original. The gospel record is so reliable it led renowned theologian F.F. Bruce to conclude, “There is no body of ancient literature in the world which enjoys such a wealth of good textual attestation as the New Testament.”

Because the Gospels were written in the ancient biographical style by close witnesses to Jesus’ life, written down shortly after and reliably reproduced, we can, with confidence, rely on what is written within them. It is clear that the authors of the Gospels and Jesus’s followers believed that Jesus was the Christ. It is an idea that can be traced through the Gospels from before Jesus’ birth until after his death.

What Jesus said of himself

Many of my readers have said to me, “Sure… Jesus was likely a real historical person, but that doesn’t mean he was the Son of God.”

Certainly, even though many of those surrounding Jesus, including the Gospels’ authors, believed that Jesus was the Christ, it is important to ask what Jesus had to say about his own identity. Jesus never referred to himself as Messiah, but Jesus was likely called the Messiah by others, as all four Gospels agree that the title “King of the Jews” was associated with the crucifixion narrative.

What is important to note is that Jesus never corrected those who confessed Him as the Christ. Take Peter’s confession, for example (Matthew 16:16). Jesus did not directly affirm or deny that He was the Christ. Instead, he insists that the disciples keep this knowledge to themselves. Furthermore, when Jesus is questioned at his trial by the High Priest — “Are you the Christ?” he replies in the positive in Mark’s Gospel, whereas elsewhere he states, “You say that I am.” Perhaps Jesus was aware of the common perceptions of what the Messiah would do for Israel — namely, lead a military campaign against the Roman oppressors — and wanted to distance himself from that idea.

Image by Photosebia on Shutterstock

Whilst Jesus never called himself Messiah, there are other indications that he was aware of this identity. For example, his use of the term Abba (a word for Father indicating a close intimacy) is distinctive of Jesus and showed that Jesus saw himself as having a unique relationship with God. In fact, Jesus claimed that he had been sent by God (John 12: 44–46), that he had exclusive knowledge of God (Matthew 11:27), and even that to see him was to see God (John 14:9). Moreover, Jesus claimed that he had authority over the Sabbath (Mark 2.28), claimed to be able to forgive sins (Mark 2:5), and even claimed that to him had been granted authority over all people to give eternal life (John 17:2). For a man to make these claims, he had to have been lying, or crazy, or both — unless he saw them as true.

The claim that he had knowledge or wisdom given to him from the Father suggests that Jesus saw himself as the unique mediator of the revelation of God, and thus God’s unique Son. What one must remember is that the Jewish religious leaders ultimately killed Jesus because he claimed to be the Christ (Matthew 26), and so there must have been sufficient proof, at least in their minds, that Jesus had, in fact, made this claim.

Good enough for me

At the end of the day, the belief that Jesus was the Christ is a matter of faith. No matter how much proof one possesses, there is still a leap of faith required to accept that Jesus not only existed but also was the son of God.

Sometimes I feel like people are disappointed in me for maintaining my Christian faith, as if my journey to “enlightenment” ought to include coming to believe exactly the same things they do (or do not). While, I have walked away from the institutionalized church, I have never rejected Jesus.

One thing I know for certain: A person isn’t a ‘retard’ for believing in Him, any more than a person is a ‘retard’ for not believing in Him. You make up your own mind, and I’ll respect you all the same. As for me, I am comfortable with my choice.

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This post was previously published on MEDIUM.COM.

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