www.theapollosproject.com www.chapbettis.com 1 Christianity, if - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation
www.theapollosproject.com www.chapbettis.com 1 Christianity, if false, is of no importance, and if true, of infinite importance. The only thing it cannot be is moderately important. - C. S. Lewis www.theapollosproject.com
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Matthew Kalman, Time Magazine, September 5, 2009 ”If its dates were genuine, the burial box — or ossuary — could well be circumstantial evidence for the existence of Jesus of Nazareth, a tenet supported
a generation after his crucifixion and, of course, by the faith of hundreds of millions through 2,000 years.
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Charles Templeton’s fictional archaeologist in the novel Act of God The [Christian] church bases its claims mostly on the teaching of an obscure young Jew with messianic pretentions who, let’s face it, didn’t make much of an impression in his lifetime. There isn’t a single word about him in secular history. Not a word. Not a mention of him by the Romans. Not as much as reference by Josephus.
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Josephus, a Jewish historian (A.D. 38-97) wrote about Jesus in his Jewish Antiquities.
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“Jesus was a wise man who did surprising feats, taught many, won over followers from among Jews and Greeks, was believed to be the Messiah, was accused by the Jewish leaders, was condemned to be crucified by Pilate, and was considered to be resurrected.”
Antiquities of the Jews, Book 18, Chapter 3, Section 3, Arabic text version,
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Pliny the Younger, in a letter to the Emperor Trajan in about 112, says,
“They are in the habit of meeting on a certain fixed day before it is light, when they sang in alternate verses a hymn to Christ as to a god, and bound themselves by a solemn oath, not to do any wicked deeds, but never to commit any fraud, theft or adultery, never to falsify their word, nor deny a trust when they should be called upon deliver it up; after which it was their custom to separate, and then reassemble to partake of food – but food of an ordinary an innocent kind. [Letters 10:96]
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"The Christians, you know, worship a man to this day—the distinguished personage who introduced their novel rites, and was crucified on that account. … You see, these misguided creatures start with the general conviction that they are immortal for all time, which explains their contempt
among them; and then it was impressed on them by their
that they are converted, and deny the gods of Greece, and worship the crucified sage, and live after his laws. All this they take quite on faith, with the result that they despise all worldly goods alike, regarding them merely as common property." Lucian, The Passing of Peregrinus
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The Koran mentions Jesus It tells us he was a miracle worker, virgin born, a prophet of God. It also rejects the divinity of Jesus and says that the people were fooled by the apparent crucifixion. The Koran was written around 653 AD 900 miles away. Therefore it is not a reliable witness to what happened.
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Even the Jewish Talmud, written by the Jewish leaders who opposed Jesus, concurs about the major events of his life. From the Talmud, we learn that Jesus
▪ was conceived out of wedlock, ▪ gathered disciples, ▪ made blasphemous claims about himself, ▪ and worked miracles, but these miracles
are attributed to sorcery and not to God.
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1.
Josephus
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Tacitus
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Pliny the Younger
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Phlegon – a freed slave who wrote history
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Thallus – a first century historian
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Seutonius – a Roman historian
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Lucian – a Greek satirist
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Celsus – a Roman philosopher
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Mara Bar-Serapion – a private citizen to his son
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Even if we had no Gospels, from non-Christian ancient writings we can know:
Passover time, being considered a Jewish king.
days later.
“sorcery.”
Divine. Doesn’t this confirm the view of Christ presented in the gospels?!!
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Matthew Kalman, Time Magazine, September 5, 2009 ”If its dates were genuine, the burial box — or ossuary — could well be circumstantial evidence for the existence of Jesus of Nazareth, a tenet supported
a generation after his crucifixion and, of course, by the faith of hundreds of millions through 2,000 years.
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We have four ancient biographies of Jesus written by:
Matthew – a disciple and eyewitness. John – a disciple and eyewitness Mark – wrote down Peter’s eyewitness account Luke – a Gentile doctor who interviewed eyewitnesses
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We have trusted other writers for
information about the ancient world:
Josephus Tacitus Pliny the Younger But when it comes to the four
biographies of Jesus, suddenly we cannot trust them!
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I certainly rely on the gospels to provide a narrative outline to my biography of Jesus of Nazareth, but my primary source in recreating Jesus’ life are historical writings about first century Palestine, like the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus… The gospels are not, nor were they ever meant to be, historical documentations of Jesus’ life. These are not eyewitness accounts of Jesus’ words and deeds.They are testimonies of faith composed by communities of faith written many years after the events they
not Jesus the man. The gospels are of course extremely useful in revealing how the early Christians viewed Jesus. But they do not tell us much about how Jesus viewed himself. To get to the bottom of that mystery, which is what I try to do in the book, one must sift through the gospel stories to analyze their claims about Jesus in light of the historical facts we know about the time and world in which Jesus lived.
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Surprise! Arguments searching for
Jesus are really about the reliability of the biographies.
Like an illusionist, they have
misdirected our attention.
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Jesus’ life and miracles
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Mark Matthew Luke John Mark Matthew Luke John
What is the Date? Quality?
What is the Quality? Writing
Gospels Our first physical copies
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Objection: They are biased witnesses. They want me to believe that Jesus is the Messiah. Response: Then we can’t trust the Holocaust witnesses. Truth: When authors know that they are describing unbelievable events, it causes them to be even more truthful.
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Modern historians tend to discount the eyewitness testimony of Jesus' disciples written down in the Gospels, because they think that they are biased and therefore unreliable as historians. However... "Thucydides, Polybius, Josephus and Tacitus - were convinced that true history could be written only while events were still within living memory, and they valued as their sources the oral reports of direct experience of the events by involved participants in them. ... [because a] person involved remembers better than a disinterested
who relied largely on written sources." -Richard Bauckham
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Objection: There is a time gap between the events of Jesus and the writing of the gospels. There were spread orally and like the children's game of telephone, the truth get's garbled. Response: Yes, they were written later. But like the Telephone game played OUT LOUD. And the gospels are written by eyewitnesses.
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Objection: They are ancient documents and not reliable. We don’t have the
Response: Let’s think about how other ancient documents are judged – for example, Plato’s Republic
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1.Time Gap 2.Number of Copies 3.The Agreement Between
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Writing of Gospels Our first physical copies
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Author Written Earliest Copy Span # of Copies
Plato’s Tetralogies 400s B.C 200s B.C. 200 years 238
Tacitus Annals 100 A.D. 1050 A.D. 1000 years 36
Caesar’s Gallic Wars 58-50 B.C. 800s A.D. 900 years 49 Thucydides History 460-400 B.C. 200 B.C. 200 years 188
Pliny the Elder’s Natural History
79 A.D. 400s A.D. 400 years 200 Homer (Iliad) 900 B.C. 400 B.C. 500 years 1900
New Testament 50-100 A.D.
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Author Written Earliest Copy Span # of Copies
Plato’s Tetralogies 400s B.C 200s B.C. 200 years 238 Tacitus Annals 100 A.D. 1050 A.D. 1000 years 36 Caesar’s Gallic Wars 58-50 B.C. 800s A.D. 900 years 49 Thucydides History 460-400 B.C. 200 B.C. 200 years 188 Pliny the Elder’s Natural History 79 A.D. 400s A.D. 400 years 200 Homer (Iliad) 900 B.C. 400 B.C. 500 years 1900
New Testament 50-100 A.D.
NT)
NT) 50 years 100 years 150 years 225 years 5,856 Greek 23,968 including Latin Coptic, Ethiopian, Syrian, Slavic, etc.
Source: Evidence that Demands a Verdict, Josh MdDowell, p. 52, 56
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The New Testament is the most
The New Testament has the
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When we compare the copies, how
much are we not sure of? How much disagrees?
Iliad has a 5% textual corruption NT has a .5% textual corruption. That’s right -- POINT 5%. Meaning 99.5% pure.
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How is history proven? Eyewitnesses Are the Gospels written by Eyewitnesses? Four strong pieces of evidence.
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eyewitness.
by eyewitnesses.
and cultural facts.
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Luke 1:1-4 – Many have undertake to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us, just as they were handed down to us
by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word. With this in mind, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning,
I too decided to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught.
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John 19:35 – The man who saw it has given testimony and his testimony is true. Iranaeus says Matthew composed his gospel while Peter and Paul were preaching the Gospel and founding the church in Rome. Mark is a well know NT character. His mother’s home was were Peter went (Acts 12:12 ff). He is a helper on the journeys. Tradition states that he wrote from Peter’s point of view. Much internal evidence points to this.
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For example Mark 15:21
21 A certain man from Cyrene,
Simon, the father of Alexander and Rufus, was passing by on his way in from the country, and they forced him to carry the cross. ct. Romans 16:13 No reason to include unless readers knew Alexander and Rufus and could verify!
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But can eyewitnesses be trusted? They included the embarrassing parts:
▪Peter include his own betrayal ▪the disciples include their own “denseness.”
What do they gain from writing?
▪ Fame? Fortune? ▪ No - Death and Suffering! ▪ They have no motive for embellishing!
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Archaeology Supports Example - Pilate
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Geography Supports Culture Supports
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The Jewish Temple was destroyed in AD 70 fulfilling many of Jesus’ predictions and proving that worship had shifted away from the temple. Yet, the Book of Acts makes no mention of
the destruction of the Temple (AD 70) or the death of Paul (AD 65), James (AD 62) (even though martyrdom of
Stephen was included)
the fire of Rome and persecution of Christians (AD 64)
This strongly suggests it was written before those things happened.
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This strongly suggests Acts was written before 62 A.D. AND Acts refers to Luke’s former book.
Therefore, Luke was written before 62 AD.
And the gospel of Luke seems to rely on the stories in the gospel of Mark.
Therefore, Mark was written earlier.
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eyewitness.
written by eyewitnesses.
and cultural facts.
Evidence is very strong they were written by eyewitnesses.
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Clement (c. AD 95) cites: Matthew, Mark, Luke, Romans, 1 Corinthians, Ephesians, 1 Timothy, Titus, Hebrews, James, 1 Peter. Ignatius (c. AD 107) cites: Mathew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts, Romans, 1 & 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 1 Thessalonians, 1 & 2 Timothy, Titus, Philemon, Hebrews, James, 1 & 2 Peter, 1 & 3 John, Revelation. Other Church Fathers quote extensively.
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The Gospels are reliable history because
1. Number of manuscripts. 2. Purity of the manuscripts. 3. Eyewitnesses. 4. External agreement.
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The Gospel of Thomas? The Gospel of Peter? The Gospel of Mary? The Secret Gospel of Mark? 1. “They are not a gospel. 2. Nor written by __________ .” 3. They have later dating. They have
4. They reflect Gnostic elements that the church was battling in the first century.
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The Gospel of Thomas? The Gospel of Peter? The Gospel of Mary? The Secret Gospel of Mark? 5. They are not mentioned by the church fathers. To the contrary, Irenaeus of Lyons writing in about 160AD declares that there were four and only four gospel. The DaVinci Code idea of political exclusion in AD 325 is not based on fact.
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Now that we have seen that the Gospels are reliable history…… We must think about this… “All who are on the side of truth listen to me,” said Jesus. Are we willing to read these historical accounts of Jesus to seek to know more about him?
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