Apologetics Lecture 5 Support For Biblical Authority

So, what is the answer to the objection that Christians are arguing in a circle when they point to verses in Scripture for proof that the Bible is inspired?

Everyone has a standard of truth, whether logic, scientific investigation, or the Bible and they claim it is self-authenticating and needs no proof. So, don’t let anyone say you are arguing in a circle (and that they aren’t) and claim that’s a bad thing; they do it too. If they say “You’re arguing in a circle” say…

1.How do you know the Bible is false? (this will reveal their ultimate standard of truth)

a.“b/c the scientific method says it’s wrong on many places”

2.So, scientific method is a way we should determine truth? “Right.” Prove it!

b.They would need to use an outside source to avoid circular reasoning and if they do use another source, that would defeat their own argument!

Point: Everyone argues in a circle when attempting to determine the ultimate criterion for truth.

From My doctrinal statement

I believe appropriate evidence for the inspiration of the Bible only comes from itself; it is self-authenticating.

The charge that this is circular reasoning could be answered by, instead of quoting Bible passages, conducting an investigation concerning the reliability of the Bible as a historical document. However, this is also arguing in a circle because it assumes in advance, not only the validity of rationality and historical investigation, but that rationality and historical investigation are the ultimate criterion for truth.

I do not believe that they are; only God and His Word are the ultimate criterion for truth. Therefore, all arguments addressing ultimate intellectual criterion require some degree of circularity.

On top of that, however, the Bible records multiple, independent attestations from reliable witnesses who affirmed the authority and verbal inspiration of the Bible. For example, Christ clearly indicated that He believed that the Old Testament is inspired (Matt. 4:4, 7, 10; 21:13, 16, 42; 22:29; Mk. 7:9-13; Jn. 10:35). This belief is seen in His claim that the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy was necessary (Mk. 14:49; Jn. 13:18; 17:12; Mt. 26:31, 54, 64). Christ assumed that the miracles recorded in the OT actually happened (Mt. 12:40-41; 19:3-6; Lk. 4:25-27; 17:26-32; 20:37; Jn. 3:14; 6:49). Other testimonies include the apostles, Moses, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, and Malachi.

I wanted to address that to let you know that the best argument that the Bible is God’s Word is that it is self-authenticating. It doesn’t need any outside judgment (logic, history, science, etc.) to help us understand that it is God’s Word.

Nevertheless, the typical arguments for the reliability of the Old and New Testaments are useful. So we will deal with them now. First the Old Testament…

Old Testament

Intro: How would you discover the original wording of a document if you didn’t have the original, but you had several copies?

We don’t have any original NT or OT document. We can’t be certain we have the original wording, right? Hardly!

Three categories lead us to the conclusion that the Old Testament is historically reliable: the transmission process, archaeology, and fulfilled prophecy (shared in the NT section, dealt with more later).

Transmission

During the 2000 years before Jesus birth, Jewish scribes reproduced the Old Testament by painstakingly copying it by hand.

Scribes would carefully count every line, word, and letter in order to guarantee the accuracy of what they copied.

Are they close to the original documents? How do we know?

By comparing ancient copies of the Old Testament with recent copies of the Old Testament, textual scholars have demonstrated that the Old Testament of today is virtually identical to the original documents.

Previous to the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1947, the oldest Old Testament manuscript we had was the Masoretic text which is dated about A.D. 900.

When the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered, we now possessed at least fragments of almost every book in the Old Testament, dating back to 150 BC.

An important find was 2 complete copies of the book of Isaiah.

By comparing the Dead Sea Scrolls of Isaiah (150 BC) with the Isaiah of the Masoretic text (A.D. 900), we found that the two texts were 95% similar. The 5% of variation were mainly simple errors (‘pen slips’) or variations in spelling. Keep in mind that these two texts were 1000 years apart. Therefore, if these two texts were so similar after 1000 years from 150 BC to A.D. 900, 1000 years to 1150 BC would also not present much change either.

There is no reason to doubt that the Bible we have today is the Bible that was God’s word when originally inspired. Therefore, the Old Testament text we have today is by no means corrupt; instead, it is very well preserved.

Archaeology

Archaeology has demonstrated the historical reliability of the Old Testament by uncovering hundreds of historical facts.

Archaeology and the Bible agree that…

• Moses wrote the Pentetauch: Elba Tablets

◦ Starting in 1974 archaeologists unearthed 17,000 tablets at Tell Mardikh in Syria. These tablets date back to the time of Moses.

◦ Critics of the Bible have claimed that Moses could not have written the Pentateuch because Moses lived before the invention of written language and therefore could not have written the Pentateuch.

◦ However, this discovery proves that written language existed at least 1000 years before Moses. This helps substantiate Moses as the author of the Pentateuch.

Archaeology and the Bible also agree that…

• Israel derives its ancestry from Mesopotamia (Genesis 11-12)

• The world’s languages likely arose from a common origin (Genesis 11).

• Jericho and other cities mentioned in the Old Testament, so thought to have been legendary, now proven to be true.

• The Hittite civilization existed (mentioned first in Genesis 15:20) during the time of Abraham. Before archaeological discoveries, the Old Testament was the only source we had for Hittite information.

• Social customs found in the Old Testament are harmonious with archaeological discoveries.

We could also talk about Sodom and Gomorrah, Jericho, Saul, David, and Solomon.

The Old Testament is reliable!

New Testament

First, considering the New Testament, how do we know that what we have today is close enough to the original writings so as to be historically reliable? To answer this question, we need to investigate the bibliographical evidence. What we will discover is…surprise surprise… that the New Testament documents today are virtually identical to the originals.

NT: Bibliographical Evidence

First, let’s investigate the available number of New Testament documents from the ancient world.

https://danielbwallace.com/2018/05/23/first-century-mark-fragment-update/

The Available Number of New Testament Documents

The number of available copies of documents from the ancient world helps us to rely upon the historicity of the original document.

Why this Matters: Let’s say an archaeologist discovers an ancient document that makes extraordinary claims about a man who is able to do extraordinarily miraculous things. This document is the only one of its kind. We have no translation or historical reference to these events. Would you trust it as historically reliable? No.

But, if you had thousands of copies recording the exact same events, you would be more likely to trust it as historically reliable.

Facts: There are 20,000+ partial and complete Greek copies of the New Testament, copied from the 2^nd through the 15^th centuries in Greek, Syriac, Latin, Coptic, and Aramaic. For example, we may have in existence hundreds of copies of the Sermon on the Mount and also hundreds of copies of the entire Greek New Testament. [124+ manuscript within 300 years]^[1]

It is widely recognized that the books of the New Testament were the most frequently copied and widely circulated books of the ancient world.

Not only do we have Greek copies of the documents themselves, but we have quotations from the early church fathers whose writings can be dated within decades after the original disciples. This would include men like Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Clement, Origen, Tertullian, and Eusebius.

In fact, the quotations are so numerous that if no copies of the New Testament existed, some scholars conclude that the entire NT (minus 11 verses)^[2] could likely be reproduced from the quotations of the early church fathers themselves.

To summarize here: The number of available manuscripts and writings of the NT in our possession today help us conclude that we have the readings of the original NT in our possession.

Secondly, let’s investigate the time span between the events in our New Testament actually occurring as compared to when they were first written down.

To ask a question, “how long was it from when the event happened to when the event was first recorded to have happened?”

For example, how long was it from when Jesus was raised from the dead in Matthew to when Matthew actually wrote down the fact that Jesus was raised from the dead?

Time Span between the Date of the Actual Events and The Record of the Event

If the time span between original document and the event that it records is a relatively short period of time, we are more likely to trust the historicity of the original document. But if the time span between the original document and the event that it records is a long period of time, we are less likely to trust the historicity of the original document.

Why this Matters: This is because of a number of factors:

• The greater the distance between the original document and the actual event it records, the greater the room for error. How certain are we that no one made a mistake through the oral transmission from when the event happened to when the event was recorded?

◦ If the time is short, there is less room for error.

◦ If the time is great, there is more room for error.

· E.g., if the original copy of the account of Columbus’ sailing the ocean blue was written by “Bob” just 30 years ago and the event was in 1492, we’d all wonder if Bob made a historical mistake, since there was 500 years from when the event happened to when it was first put on paper. Where did he get his information?

• The greater the distance between the original document and the actual event it records, the greater the room for legend or myth to develop. How do we know that over time, no one ever tried to embellish the story?

◦ If the time is short, there is less room for legend or myth to develop.

◦ If the time is great, there is more room for legend or myth to develop.

· E.g., if the original copy of the account of Columbus’ sailing the ocean blue was written by “Bob” just 30 years ago and the event was in 1492, we’d all wonder if Bob started his own legend or myth for some honest religious purpose, since there was 500 years from when the event happened to when it was first put on paper. Who could possibly prove/disprove it was legend?

• The greater the distance between the original document and the actual event it records, the greater the room for deception. How can we be certain that a liar was not the first to record the events? Unless there are multiple witnesses, you are less likely to trust the historicity of the document.

◦ If the time is short, there is less room for a lie to begin. Others would know and squelch the error.

◦ If the time is great, there is more room for a lie to begin. No one else would be able to disprove it.

· E.g., if the original copy of the account of Columbus’ sailing the ocean blue was written by “Bob” just 30 years ago and the event was in 1492, we’d all wonder if Bob intentionally lied for his own gain, since there was 500 years from when the event happened to when it was first put on paper. Who could disprove him?

Facts: The time span from when the events actually happened to when the original document was penned is shorter for the New Testament than for any other ancient document of its time.

No other ancient document even compares to the short time span from when the NT events happened to when they were first recorded. The New Testament wins hands down.

The synoptic Gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, were very likely written within 30 years of Jesus death. The renowned Greek scholar John A.T. Robinson dates all of the New Testament books before the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70, less than 40 years after the death of Christ.^[3]

Because of (1 the volume of New Testament copies and because of (2 the short time span between when the original document was written and the actual event, we can be more certain that the New Testament is not a compilation of fraudulent documents. We can be more certain that they were written by the men who claim wrote them and that the documents accurately reflect history.

Time Span between the Date of the Original Document and the Existing Copies

Thirdly, not only should we consider the date between when the event happened and the original document of that event, but we should also consider the date of the original document and the copies of the original document.

For example, how long was it from when Matthew recorded the resurrection to when the copies of the original document that we have in our possession can be dated?

We have other fragments dating from early in the second century A.D. (early 100’s). Earliest is Rylands P⁵², fragment of John 18:31–33, 37–38, dating no later than A.D. 125.

This chart demonstrates that, out of all other ancient documents, the NT has the fewest number of years between the original document (e.g., Matthew) and the copy of the document (the copy of Matthew). It also demonstrates that we have more copies of the NT than any other ancient document.

From Carm.org

Author	Original Date Written	Earliest Copy	Approximate Time Span between original & copy	Number of Copies	Accuracy of Copies
Lucretius	died 55 or 53 B.C.		1100 yrs	2	—-
Pliny	61-113 A.D.	850 A.D.	750 yrs	7	—-
Plato	427-347 B.C.	900 A.D.	1200 yrs	7	—-
Demosthenes	4^th Cent. B.C.	1100 A.D.	800 yrs	8	—-
Herodotus	480-425 B.C.	900 A.D.	1300 yrs	8	—-
Suetonius	75-160 A.D.	950 A.D.	800 yrs	8	—-
Thucydides	460-400 B.C.	900 A.D.	1300 yrs	8	—-
Euripides	480-406 B.C.	1100 A.D.	1300 yrs	9	—-
Aristophanes	450-385 B.C.	900 A.D.	1200	10	—-
Caesar	100-44 B.C.	900 A.D.	1000	10	—-
Livy	59 BC-AD 17	—-	???	20	—-
Tacitus	circa 100 A.D.	1100 A.D.	1000 yrs	20	—-
Aristotle	384-322 B.C.	1100 A.D.	1400	49	—-
Sophocles	496-406 B.C.	1000 A.D.	1400 yrs	193	—-
Homer (Iliad)	900 B.C.	400 B.C.	500 yrs	643	95%
New Testament	1^st Cent. A.D. (50-100 A.D.	2^nd Cent. A.D. (c. 130 A.D. f.)	less than 100 years	5600	99.5%

This matters because unlike any other ancient work, not enough time elapsed between

• when Jesus lived, taught, died, and rose again, to when

• these teachings and events were recorded

to allow for misrepresentation or the development of legend. Thirty years is not enough time for legend or misrepresentation to develop. Some eyewitness or relative of an eye witness could easily squelch the errors. We have no ancient record of someone’s attempt at refuting the NT claims of Jesus’ death and resurrection.

Also, not enough time elapsed between

• the original writing and

• the copies we possess

to allow for transmission errors. Less than 100 years is not enough time for transmission errors. Again, some eyewitness or relative of an eye witness could easily squelch the errors. We have no ancient record of someone’s attempt at refuting the NT claims of Jesus’ death and resurrection.

Therefore, the New Testament is an accurate reflection of the events of Jesus and his disciples.

The lack of textual corruption

Fourthly, lastly, we should investigate whether the text of the New Testament is corrupted. When you compare the copies of the New Testament, textual critics^[4] estimate that only one half of one percent of the New Testament has credible doubt about what the original actually said. This does not affect any doctrine or historical reliability. See last column in above chart.

Textual critics agree that the New Testament is unquestionably nearly perfect in regards to attempting to discover the wording of the original documents. Perhaps the greatest textual critic of the 20^th century, Sir Frederick Kenyon, said,

The interval between the dates of original composition [of the New Testament] and the earliest extant evidence becomes so small as to be in fact negligible, and the last foundation for any doubt that the Scriptures have come down to us substantially as they were written has now been removed. Both the authenticity and general integrity of the books of the New Testament may be regarded as finally established.

Ok, great. But are the NT documents themselves reliable? They pass the historical reliability test; they are clearly credible, historical documents. Perhaps the writers were all mistaken in some way?

How do you determine if a testimony is reliable or credible or not?

NT: Internal Evidence

“Internal” meaning “within the document itself.”

To determine reliability of the document, we need to run it through 2 tests:

1.The law of evidence

2.Primary source of value

1.The law of evidence

• Don’t assume error or fraud.

◦ Evaluate the claims of a document and do not assume fraud or error.

◦ Fraud or error can only be included if the author disqualifies himself because he has made a contradiction or because of clear factual inaccuracies.

◦ Difficulties and unsolved problems (e.g., when did Christ die on Thursday or Friday?; How can one God exist in three persons?) do not allow us to claim that the document is fraudulent or erroneous.

• Don’t allow external presuppositions to contradict internal evidence.

◦ Allow Scripture to interpret itself and give Scripture a fair hearing.

◦ If there is something that a document claims to have happened and it seems to be extraordinary (for example, the resurrection or miracles in general), don’t allow presuppositions or preconceived assumptions govern your notion as to whether that document is true (e.g., science doesn’t allow for resurrection, but if we live in theistic universe, miracles make sense). Allow the document to form up its worldview.

◦ The NT is clearly self-consistent, and we can answer supposed “contradictions.”

• Don’t allow a witness to testify on the basis of what others have told him.

◦ In other words, if a witness was on the witness stand and all he claimed was, “well, so-and-so told me it was true.”

◦ His testimony would be thrown out.

◦ We want to hear from a witness who was an eyewitness of the event that they recorded.

◦ See 1 John 1:1.

• Don’t allow un-cross-examined testimonies.

◦ If a witness experiences intense cross-examination, we can place more confidence in his testimony.

◦ Amazingly, those who claim to have witnessed the resurrection were cross examined by hostile enemies.

◦ These enemies could have destroyed Christianity if the early Christians’ testimony contradicted known facts at the time.

1.Primary source of value

Another support for the reliability of the New Testament when we think of internal evidence is how valuable the primary sources that were used by the writers were. For example, Matthew and John were both eyewitnesses while Mark and Luke interviewed eyewitnesses. Mark interviewed Peter for his gospel and Luke used various sources.

Firsthand eyewitness testimony (either eyewitness or an interview of an eyewitness): Luke 1:1–3; John 19:35; 20:30–31; 21:24; Acts 10:39–42; 1 Cor. 15:6–8; 1 Pet. 5:1; 2 Pet. 1:16; 1 John 1:1–3.

Appeal to witnesses: Acts 2:22; 26:24-28; 1 Co. 15:6

• Peter says, “Men of Israel, you have seen Jesus work miracles!”

• Paul says, “Festus, these events did not occur in a corner, in secret; many people witnessed these things. I am appealing to you based on the fact that many people witnessed these things.”

• Paul says to the Corinthians (1 Co. 15:6), “You can go interview eyewitnesses to the resurrection.”

Thus, when Paul wrote the book of First Corinthians, it was during the lifetime of those who witnessed the resurrection. Again, no contrary evidence to the Gospels account of the resurrection exists, which we would expect, given how fast Christianity spread and if it were easily falsifiable.

“Negative” Events Recorded: Contrary to Expectation if NT is False

The record of ‘negative’ elements in the NT is contrary to expectation if the NT is a forgery.

The New Testament authors report events about themselves that seem unfavorable. For example, Peter denying Jesus and the disciples arguing about which would be the greatest in the kingdom. They also recorded their own abandoning of Jesus and that when Jesus predicted his death and resurrection, they clearly “didn’t get it.”

Jesus is recorded as to have been angry and full of pain and emotional distress at the cross. So there seems to be a lot of negative elements recorded that you would think would have been removed in order to gain a following. Clearly, whoever wrote the NT didn’t have their own agenda in mind! They didn’t want to make themselves look good in order to promote their new religion.

NT: External

Having examined internal evidence, let’s move to the external evidence. By external evidence we mean evidence from outside the NT. Is the NT the only historical source of information on the events of the NT? No! If we have more witnesses, then we have a more credible case.

Christian Sources

Citing references from the early church fathers, we can show that…

• There is early attestation that Mark wrote the book of Mark after having interviewed Peter. (Eusebius quotes Papias, who wrote in AD 130).

• Polycarp, approx. AD 70-150, can claim, “86 years I have served him and he has done me no wrong. How can I speak evil of my king who saved me?” If he served the Lord Jesus for 86 years, that must mean that the truths found in the New Testament would have been written early and Polycarp would have known about them in his life from approx. AD 70-150.

• Both Papias and Polycarp reference the resurrection. If they reference the resurrection in the first century, the news about the resurrection had to have been published in the first century. Therefore, this includes at least all four Gospels. So, all 4 gospels were written in the first century since men in the 2^nd century were writing about it.

• Also, see 1 Corinthians 15:1-4. This probably quotes an old Christian teaching that Paul received from the earliest disciples.

• He received the teaching of 1 Co. 15:1-4 likely no later than his visit to Jerusalem in the year 36 (Galatians 1:18). Thus, Paul’s reception of this teaching can be dated within 3-5 years after Jesus death.

So, we have multiple Christian testimonies of the reliability of the NT documents, both internal (Paul) and external (Papias, Polycarp).

Non-Christian Sources

Not just Christian, but non-Christian writers living close to the time of Christ support the historical events in the New Testament. If you can have the testimony of those from the outside of your group or even enemies, you are likely to have a reliable document.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-OtP1-NhEw

Josephus

Josephus’ Antiquities of the Jews (93–94 A.D.), includes two references to Jesus in Books 18 and 20 and a reference to John the Baptist in Book 18.

Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man; for he was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews and many of the Gentiles. He was [the] Christ. And when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condem-ned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him; for he appeared to them alive again the third day; as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him. And the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day.

Admittedly, this may not be an authentic reference. See this for more information.

Tacitus, Roman historian (AD 56-120)

“Christus” “was put to death by Pontius Pilate, Procurator of Judea in the reign of Tiberius.”

Pliny the Younger (late 1^st– early 2^nd century), Suetonius (late 1^st– early 2^nd century), Talmud (a record of rabbinic discussions pertaining to Jewish law, ethics, philosophy, customs and history; late first, early second centuries), Mishnah (is the first major written redaction of the Jewish oral traditions called the “Oral Torah”; late first, early second centuries) all make references to Jesus of Nazareth.

So the historical evidence clearly points to the confirmation that Jesus of Nazareth truly existed. Those who would like to claim that he didn’t, have no historical grounds to do so. To deny the existence of Jesus of Nazareth is to throw the historical method out the window.

“Contradictions” in Scripture

The following principles help us to understand apparent discrepancies in the Bible. These are from Josh McDowell’s book, “The New Evidence that Demands a Verdict.”

1.The unexplained is not necessarily unexplainable.

• You may run into an apparent contradiction that you may not have an explanation for.

• That doesn’t mean that explanation does not exist.

2.Fallible interpretations do not mean fallible revelation.

• In interpretation by a critic may then lead to the claim that the revelation is faulty.

• However, the critics interpretation may be inaccurate.

3.Understand the context of the passage.

• Many times, a critic will cite a verse and it will be taken out of context.

• However, if you understand the context, it will resolve the issue.

4.Interpret difficult passages in light of clear ones.

• A critic may bring up a difficult passage.

• In order to interpret it correctly, bring clear passages to bear.

5.Don’t base teachings on obscure passages.

• Paul’s mentioning of “praying for the dead” may not be something you should form a whole doctrine and practice around.

6.The Bible is a human book with human characteristics.

• Literary devices, like hyperbole, should not be taken literally and then demonstrated to be in contradiction to another portion of Scripture.

7.Just because a report is incomplete does not mean it is false.

• For example, Mark 5:1-20 and Luke 8:26-39 (one demoniac) while Matthew 8:28-34 (2 demoniacs).

• These are clearly complementary accounts. In Mark and Luke, clearly “a demoniac” came to Jesus. This does not contradict Matthew’s account when he says that “two demoniacs” come to him.

8.New Testament citations of the Old Testament need not always be exact.

• Keep in mind that New Testament writers often quoted the Greek translation of the Old Testament, the Septuagint.

9.The Bible does not necessarily approve all its records.

• The Bible does not condone everything that it contains. For example, there are lies in the Bible. Just because the Bible records some act of immorality, it does not necessarily mean that the Bible condones that act. For example Rahab’s lie in Joshua 2:4 is not condoned in James 2:25, her faith is.

10.The Bible uses non-technical, everyday language.

• For example, the fact that the sun “sets” does not mean that the Bible teaches that the sun revolves around the Earth.

11.The Bible may use round numbers as well as exact numbers

• Similar to the above, since humans use round numbers we need to allow for numerical differences between books of the Bible.

12.Note when the Bible uses different literary devices.

13.An error in a copy does not equate to an error in the original.

• Inerrancy of the Scripture only refers to the original documents, which we do not have.

14.General statements don’t necessarily mean universal promises.

• Critics will see general statements of truth and assume that they are universal promises. Then, they can point to obvious exceptions. This, they claim, is refuting the Bible.

• For example, Proverbs 16:7

15.Christ fulfilled the Old Testament law.

• Some critics will talk about the commands in the Old Testament and claim that they are not suitable for today.

• For example, Mark 7:19 could be taken as contradictory to the food laws in the Law of Moses.

• However, you must understand that Christ came to “fulfill the law” (Matthew 5:17) and that Christ is “the end of the law” (Romans 10:4).

• So there is a relationship between the OT and NT that the critic does not understand. It is not that later revelation supersedes previous revelation and we can thereby claim that there is now no contradiction.

• It’s that in God’s administration of his covenants, he has ordained that the new covenant fulfills all of his demands that he had in the old covenant. Christ has fulfilled these things for us. We are under the law of Christ (1 Co. 9:21).

Fulfilled Prophecy

We will deal with fulfilled prophecy when we discuss the person and work of Jesus Christ. However, for now, let it suffice to say that there are over 2000 prophecies in the Bible and several hundred of them apply specifically to events in the life of Jesus Christ. These include his birthplace, tribe, lineage, ministry, the trial, suffering, crucifixion, and the resurrection. All of these were clearly given previous to his birth.

Archaeology

Nelson Gluek, a renowned Jewish archaeologist wrote, “It may be stated categorically that no archaeological discovery has ever controverted a biblical reference.”

Most often when people try to argue that archaeology disproves the Bible, it is generally the case that they have a predisposition against the supernatural.

Archaeology has substantiated hundreds of events and customs as well as cities and geographical features and nations described in the Old Testament.

Many of the facts we now take for granted today were once thought to be legendary because we had no record of them anywhere other than in the Bible. Likewise in the New Testament, archaeology has verified geographical locations, societal customs, events, and names. Archaeology has verified the existence of the city of Nazareth where Jesus was raised as well as other cities in the book of Acts. Paul’s missionary journeys as well have been archaeologically verified. Luke’s account of Joseph and Mary and the census that brought them to Bethlehem has also been verified. The life of Pontius Pilate, the one who sentenced Jesus to death, as well has been shown to be historically accurate.

Luke

At one time, it was argued that Luke was incorrect when he portrayed the existence of a census, as recorded in Luke 2:1-2. Critics argued that Quirinius was not the governor at that time and that everyone did not have to go to his ancestral home.

1.Archaeological discoveries show that the Romans had regular enrollment of taxpayers. It also shows they held censuses every 14 years.

2.Archaeologist later did discover that Quirinius was governor of Syria.

3.Regarding enrollment, a papyrus found in Egypt delineates the conduct of the census. Thus, we have proof that during the Roman period enrollment was required.

In fact, most of the ancient cities mentioned in the book of Acts have been identified. If you add it all up, Luke names 32 countries and 54 cities including nine islands without a historical or geographical error.

Archaeology has discovered inscriptions that prove the worship of the goddess Diana in Acts 19:23-29 as well as an inscription that relates to Acts 21:28. The inscription reads, “no foreigner may enter within the barrier which surrounds the Temple and enclosure. Anyone who is caught doing so will be personally responsible for his ensuing death.”

Paul

Read Romans 16:23. The existence of this city treasurer was determined during an excavation of Corinth in 1929. Pavement was found that had the inscription, “Erastus, curator of public buildings, laid this pavement at his own expense”.

Another inscription have the words “synagogue of the Hebrews” indeed, there was a synagogue in Corinth as described in Acts 18:4-7.

Conclusion: What these evidences do not do is prove that the Bible is inspired. However, it does prove that the Bible is historically reliable.

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Dan Wallace. Debate with Bart Ehrman ↑
Dan Story, Defending Your Faith (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications, 1997), 38-39. ↑
John A. T. Robinson, Redating The New Testament (Philadelphia, PA: Westminster, 1976). ↑
scientists who attempt to establish the accuracy of ancient texts ↑