Decoding The Da Vinci Code – part 4
“Is The N.T. a Reliable Witness of Jesus?”
In times like this, people want things to be secure in their lives. They especially want some security in relation to their core beliefs. I mean, what if the Muslims are right and Christians are wrong about their faith? How can we know that what is recorded in the Bible is trustworthy, more trustworthy, than what is found in any other religious book? What if Dan Brown and others are right and there was a massive cover up and conspiracy in the fourth century to change the Bible – to hide the true identity of Jesus?
Dan Brown tries to undermine our trust in the N.T., suggesting that it has been altered to meet an agenda of a powerful church.
Examples:
p. 231 – “The Bible, as we know it today, was collated by the pagan Roman Emperor Constantine the Great.”
p. 233 – “Many scholars claim that the early Church literally stole Jesus from His original followers, hijacking His human message, shrouding it in an impenetrable cloak of divinity.”
p. 234 – “Constantine commissioned and financed a new Bible, which omitted those gospels that spoke of Christ’s human traits and embellished those gospels that made him godlike. The earlier gospels were outlawed, gathered up, and burned.”
p. 248 – When referring to later written Gnostic gospels, “According to these unaltered gospels, it is not Peter to whom Christ gave directions with which to establish the Christian Church. It was Mary Magdalene.”
p. 256 – When referring to never seen documents he believes exists, “In those trunks are reputed to be the Purist Documents – thousands of pages of unaltered, pre-Constantine documents, written by the early followers of Jesus, revering Him as a wholly human teacher and prophet.
Well, we have already seen that his claims have no historical basis at all. We have also shown that his claims that there are earlier, more pure and accurate gospel accounts is without any historical merit. But what about the N.T. we do have? Can we trust it as a reliable witness of the life of Jesus?
Does it even matter? The culture has shifted in the past few decades to suggest that it doesn’t. It doesn’t matter what you believe, as long as you are sincere about it and as long as you are tolerant of the views of others, not suggesting that your belief is somehow exclusively true. In other words, what is most important is the sincerity of your faith.
Read excerpts from article on Oprah Winfrey -
But that is not true. The truth is that sincerity is important but it is not what makes one’s faith valid or true. What makes one’s faith valid or invalid is the object of that faith. For Christians, the object of our faith is Jesus Christ. Our faith is worthless if Christ is not the Son of God who came to earth, died on the cross and rose from the grave. If the object of our faith is not worthy of trust, then our sincere faith in that object is not well placed.
If I place my faith in something untrue, it will not do me any long term good. Take a walk on a Saturday afternoon down Pearl Street Mall in Boulder. You will see people who place their faith in many strange objects. They will testify that their faith has changed their lives. You cannot argue with that, but you can argue whether or not the object of their faith can actually save them – provide eternal life for them. Take a look at the religious section of Barnes and Nobles or Borders. You will see people claim that they find salvation in many places. But is it true?
Two glasses of liquid – one water and one bleach. Choose one to drink. Pinch your nose and take a long drink. Come choose. If you get the wrong one, your sincerity will not be of much help (drink one). It matters critically what the object of your faith is at that moment.
A Christian is not saved because of the amount of his or her faith, but because the object of their faith, because Christ is who He claimed to be. The value or worth of our faith is not in the one believing but in the one in whom we believe.
Ephesians, 2:8 – “God saved you by His special favor when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God.”
We are saved by God’s special favor, His grace in Jesus Christ, not by our faith. We are saved by grace through faith. Faith is a necessary arm that reaches to receive the work that Christ did for us on the cross, but it is Christ who saves, not our faith.
So the question arises, how trustworthy is the object of our faith? How trustworthy is Jesus? Is our faith in Him going to accomplish what we trust it will? Is our faith a reasonable faith or just a blind one? I propose to you that our faith is not a blind one, at least it need not be. God Himself desires that we love Him with all of our heart, soul, MIND and strength. The mind, the intellect is not to be abandoned in blind sincerity (Mark 12:30). You don’t leave your brains at the door when you come here.
1 Peter 3:15 – “If you are asked about your Christian hope, always be ready to explain it.” Can you do that? Can you do more than just say, “You just have to believe?” Can you give a reasonable answer to why Christ is the appropriate object of your faith? It is your responsibility.
Where do you start that pursuit? You start with the source of your information about Jesus – the Bible. Is this book (hold up Bible) an accurate record of what Jesus said and did and claimed?
2 Timothy 3:16-17 – “All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It straightens us out and teaches us to do what is right. It is God’s way of preparing us in every way, fully equipped for every good thing God wants us to do.”
Is it? I believe so. I believe that the Bible is more than just words of men about God and about Jesus. I believe that the Bible is the Word of God. I believe that it is a revelation from God to us through human agents about His will for us, His provision for us, His commands for us. He used human agents to record these things, but they originate from Him. But this morning I want to limit myself to this question. Is the a Bible reliable and trustworthy source or record of the life of Jesus?
Is The Bible Is A Reliable Witness Of History (focus on the N.T.)
This can be confirmed by common tests that books of history are subjected to for reliability.
A. Bibliographical Test
Ask this question: Since we do not have the original writing of the document in question, how accurate are the copies we do have? How many ancient manuscripts or copies are available to us? Also, how much time is there between the earliest copies and the time of the original writing? How much variation is there between the copies we have? Is the Bible we have today the same as the originally penned books written thousands of years ago? Dan Brown in The Da Vinci Code says no. The Jesus Seminar says no. What do the facts say?
Joke: In an ancient monastery, a new monk arrived to dedicate his life to join others in copying ancient records. The first thing he noticed was that they were copying by hand, books that had already been copied by hand. He had to speak up. “Forgive me, Father Justinian, but copying other copies by hand allows many chances for error. How do we know we aren’t copying someone else’s mistakes? Are they ever checked against the originals?” Father Justinian was startled. No one had ever suggested this before. “Well, it’s a good point my son. I will take one of these latest copies down to the vault where no one else can enter.” There he studied for hours. Later in the evening, the other monks were beginning to worry about Father Justinian. Finally, the new monk made his way down to the area of the vault and could hear sobbing from within. “Father Justinian?” he called. The sobbing was louder as he came near. He finally found the old priest sitting at a table with both the new copy and the ancient original. It was obvious that he had been crying for a long time. “Oh my,” sobbed Father Justinian, “the word is celebrate, not celibate!”
Ok, but has that kind of thing been happening with the Bible throughout the centuries? Intentionally or unintentionally?
Let’s put it in a contemporary setting. Let’s say that another plane would be successfully hijacked by terrorists, and that its target was the Smithsonian Institute. That attack then destroyed the original manuscript of the Constitution of our United States. Would our country fall apart? We wouldn’t know what to do, how to operate because our Constitution is now gone? Of course not. We do not need the original to continue. We have its content in many thousands of copies all around the world. If any doubt arose over their accuracy, we would simply gather them and compare and contrast their content for any variations. Any copies with variations would be considered for their age and for the number of copies that contained the same variation. Through careful study, we would arrive at a clear consensus of what the original wording of the Constitution was. Now, if we could only insure that our federal judges would interpret the constitution still preserved for us today rather than having them appeal to international law or their own opinions!
The same process holds for the Bible. This process is called textual criticism. It is a highly refined science, and has been applied to the Bible for centuries. And in this process, we find that over 98.5 percent of the Bible is textually pure. In other words, in all the many thousands of existing ancient manuscripts available, they agree on over 98.5 percent of the text. The most ancient ones agree with less ancient ones. Manuscripts in the Syrian language agree with those in the Coptic language. This includes ancient manuscripts that come after Constantine and the Council of Nicea and manuscripts that come well before the time of Constantine. The parts where there are variations are not in doctrinal matters but instead minor grammatical differences. This is amazing in the science of textual criticism. Why, because you don’t have that kind of accuracy in hand-written documents for any other work of antiquity. You either have the absence of multiple manuscripts to compare (like the Gnostic gospels held in such high standing by Dan Brown) or you have major variations in the texts of manuscripts for other works – even the works of Shakespeare!
In fact, no other work of antiquity, including the works of Aristotle, Socrates, Homer, even begin to compare to the textual accuracy in manuscript comparison of the New Testament. If we were to doubt the accuracy of the N.T. text in relation to its original documents, we would have to discard all of the works of antiquity in total.
B. Internal Evidence Test
Says that in the event of an apparent inaccuracy, the benefit of the doubt is to be given to the document (innocent until proven guilty).
But more importantly, the nearness of the witness, both geographically and chronologically to the events recorded greatly effects the writer’s credibility.
In other words, when the writers of the New Testament record the events of Jesus’ life and His death and resurrection, are they simply saying, “I heard from a friend who heard from a friend that this is what happened?” Or are they saying, “these are the things I saw with my own eyes.”
How does this affect the New Testament accounts? The events of Jesus’ life were recorded by those who were either first hand eyewitnesses or related the accounts of eyewitnesses. For instance:
Luke 1:1-3 – “Many people have written accounts about the events that took place among us. They used as their source material the reports circulating among us from the early disciples and other eyewitnesses of what God has done in fulfillment of His promises. Having carefully investigated all of these accounts from the beginning, I have decided to write a careful summary for you, to reassure you of the truth of all you were taught.”
So Luke does not claim to be an eyewitness himself but says he got his information first hand from many eyewitnesses.
2 Peter 1:16 – “For we were not making up clever stories when we told you about the power of our Lord Jesus Christ and His coming again. We have seen His majestic splendor with our own eyes. . . we ourselves heard . . . we were with Him.”
1 John 1:3 – “We are telling you about what we ourselves have actually seen and heard, so that you may have fellowship with us.”
Interestingly, when the apostles were preaching and teaching, even to the enemies of their faith, they often appealed to the first-hand knowledge of those people. These were people who could have instantly discredited the message if they had heard any lies. But they couldn’t and didn’t because the apostle’s were relaying well known facts. Especially on the Day of Pentecost, as Peter recounted the events of the past weeks – Jesus’ death, the empty tomb, and as he demonstrated that they were fulfillments of the O.T. prophecies, no one stopped him and said, “these things are not true. That is not how it happened at all.” No, instead, the crowd knew all these things to be common knowledge and it helped to convict them of the truth of Peter’s message. The disciples could not afford to risk inaccuracies or exaggerations with such hostile audiences. They would have been exposed by those who would have been only too glad to do so. In fact, one of the strong points of the preaching of the apostles is their confident appeal to knowledge of the hearers. They not only said, “we are witnesses of these things,” but also said, “as you yourselves know.”
Acts 25:23 through chapter 26 – Paul has an opportunity to make a defense of his faith before a large gathering of officials. But the most important there are Governor Festus and King Herod Agrippa. As he made his defense of his faith in Christ, Festus interrupted and called him insane. But Paul replied to him (Acts 26:25) “I am not insane, Most Excellent Festus. I am speaking the sober truth. And King Agrippa knows about these things. I speak frankly, for I am sure these events are all familiar to him, for they were not done in a corner!”
C. External Evidence Test
Asks this: Do other historical documents attest to the claims of the writing in question?
Eusibius – Early 4th century. He preserved the writing of Papius, who was taught by John the apostle directly. In these writings, he records how John told that Mark wrote his Gospel account by following Peter in his journeys.
Irenaeus – 2nd century, who quotes his teacher Polycarp, who was martyred in 156 A.D. Polycarp was also taught directly by John the apostle. He wrote this, “So firm is the ground upon which these Gospels rest that the very heretics themselves bear witness to them, and starting from these, each one of them endeavors to establish his own particular doctrine.”
Even the heretics did not dare to question the accuracy of the Gospel accounts because they knew they were too well established as factual.
Josephus – a Jew who became an official historian of Rome – born in A.D. 37 and wrote most of his works by 100 A.D. He writes the history of the Jews, and says in one passage:
“About this time there lived Jesus, a wise man, if indeed one ought to call him a man. For he was one who wrought surprising feats and was a teacher of such people as accept the truth gladly. He won over many Jews and many of the Greeks. He was the Christ. When Pilate, upon hearing him accused by men of the highest standing among us, had condemned him to be crucified, those who had in the first place come to love him did not give up their affection for him. On the third day he appeared to them restored to life, for the prophets of God had prophesied these and countless other marvelous things about him. And the tribe of Christians, so called after him, has still to this day not disappeared.”
Tacitus – a Roman historian who writes in 115 A.D. tells how Christians became the scapegoat for the fire in Rome actually started by Nero.
“Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilate, and a mot mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judaea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome . . . Accordingly, an arrest was first made of all who pleaded guilty: then, upon their information, an immense multitude was convicted, not so much of the crime of firing the city, as of hated against mankind.”
Pliny the Younger – another Roman historian who referred to Christians in his correspondence with the Emperor Trajan.
D. Confirmed by Archaeology.
If you like CSI, then you will enjoy diving into the findings of modern archaeology. And you will be especially pleased with the findings.
In digging for the truth, one thing detectives look for is confirmation of minor details in a bigger story. If a man were telling you that he took a trip to Kansas City from Denver and said that he stopped overnight in Salina, Kansas and stayed at the Motel 6 and watched the movie Titanic in his room and ate ribs at a restaurant across the street, an investigator could check all those things out. He could verify there was a Motel 6 in Salina; that Titanic was showing on the local cable tv that night and that ribs were served at the restaurant across the street. The more details that are shared, the more ways there are to verify the person is telling the truth and was actually there. The same is true for the New Testament, and archaeology is the way an investigator can check up on the truthfulness of the writers.
- Luke
Luke’s accuracy as a historian in Acts and the Gospel of Luke has been time and time again confirmed by archaeological finds. Prominent archaeologist Sir William Ramsey, once doubted the reliability of Luke and even wrote that he believed Luke did not write the Gospel of Luke. However, after many years of his own research and site excavation, he did an about face. He even said, “Luke is an historian of the first rank. Not merely are his statements of fact trustworthy, but this author should be placed along with the very greatest of historians. Luke’s history is unsurpassed in respect of its trustworthiness.”
Luke 2 - events surrounding the birth of Christ. Skeptics contended, “There was no census taken at the time of Christ’s birth? Quirinius was never even the Governor of Syria. Not everyone had to return to his ancestral home.” Modern finds have shown all these facts to be true, concurring with the biblical accounts.
Acts 17:6 – reference to a political office of politarchs – translated as “city officials.” For a long time, people thought Luke had it wrong, because no evidence had ever been found referring to politarchs at that time in Roman history. But then an inscription was found on a first-century arch that said “In the time of the politarchs . . .” In fact over thirty five of these inscriptions have been found from the first century now. Luke again was proven right. When you use a lot of detail, you put your neck out. But you also show that you were there when you claimed to be there and you become a much more reliable witness. If Luke was so painstakingly accurate in these details, it gives us more confidence that he was careful on much more important matters concerning the life of Jesus and the history of the early church.
One prominent archaeologist carefully examined Luke’s references to thirty-two countries, fifty-four cities, and nine islands, finding not a single mistake.
Even the little, seemingly insignificant historical facts contained in the Bible are accurate. And we would expect no less, really, from a book that calls us to trust its claims about how one can be saved from sin and secure eternal life.
John –
John has also been proven to be very accurate. For example, John 5:1-15 records how Jesus healed a lame man by the Pool of Bethesda. John even provides the detail that there were five porticoes. For a long time, people cited this as proof that John was not the author of this gospel, because this pool had never been found. But then the Pool of Bethesda was found in an excavation of Jerusalem, forty feet below ground – and yes, there were exactly five porticoes just as John described. The Pool of Siloam from John 9:7; Jacobs Well from John 4:12 and other places have been found just as John described them, lending support that John was not only the author, but was perfectly accurate in his accounts.
We don’t have time this morning, but the same could be said of Mark, Matthew, Paul, Peter and the other N.T. writers.
Archaeology is a very good friend to the Bible. Time and time again, its accuracy is bolstered by what is found in the ancient ruins of the Biblical world.
With a fair and comprehensive look at the reliability of the Bible, you can draw the conclusion that it is trustworthy witness of history. If a person discredits the reliability of the Bible, they must in honesty discredit the validity of virtually all historical works of antiquity.
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I am embarrassed to admit it. But I am kind of a Rocky junkie. Whenever I am channel browsing and come upon the movie Rocky, I know it’s going to be a long night. (explain) The Rocky Effect – early high school experience - fired up by fiction or by fact? God has given us so much evidence to place our faith in Jesus and the reliability of the Bible is one of those lines of evidence. No other religious book can claim truthfully this kind of reliability to its claims.
Fired up to believe. Fired up to share our faith. The power of my faith is not in it’s sincerity but in the object . . . Jesus.
We have an objective and accurate (true) record of the life of Jesus that we can use to base our faith in Him upon. That should break through our pride and doubt and lead us to brokenness and faith in Jesus.
Recommended Reading –
Case For Christ – by Lee Strobel
Evidence That Demands A Verdict – by Josh McDowell
