How do you really know that anything in the Bible happened?
If you’re a conservative Christian, your answer is easy.
“God said it, I believe it, and that settles it.” 🙂
But what if you’re not a Christian? Or what if you believe some parts of the Bible happened, but maybe not others?
Are there still parts of the Bible you can be certain of? As it turns out there are. You can sure a lot events and references to people in the Bible are accurate.
For example:
- we know that Pontius Pilate was the governor of Judea
- that John the Baptist lived
- that Paul was a Christian missionary who spread the gospel throughout the Roman empire
We know these things because the Bible is not the only place we read this. For us to be sure something in the Bible really happened (or anything in history, for that matter), the best historical events will have the following:
- independent attestation – If we have a 3rd party record (a source not found in the Bible), that strengthens the case for any person or event mentioned in the Bible
- non-biased attestation – we want records from non Christians, preferably
- multiple attestations – the more records we have and the more various the sources, the better
How do you determine what to believe and what not believe? Christians will tell you this is a slippery slope, similar to Adam and Eve’s first sins, when they decided THEY knew better, that THEY could decide what was right and wrong.
When considering the merits of Christianity there are several points where we must lean on the Bible for our earliest (and sometimes ONLY) attestation for an event. Even in these cases, however, there are certain verses we can take at face value, especially when the information learned would be potentially contradictory or damaging to the Christian narrative.
In other words, if you believe the gospel writers were writing strictly to promote a knowlingly false narrative about the life of Jesus, then they would likely leave out potentially damaging parts of the narrative.
For example:
- Mark tells us that Jesus was a disciple of John the Baptist and was baptized by him. Why would the Son of God disciple under any man?
- Mark 6:5 says Jesus could do few miracles in Nazareth because the people there had little faith.
- Mark 13:32 says he didn’t know the day or hour of his return, which limits his omniscience
- On the cross, Jesus cries out “My God, My God, why have your forsaken me?”
- Mark’s unflattering depiction of Peter and the disciples
10 Things We Know for Sure
- We know Jesus Was Real
- We know Jesus was a disciple of John the Baptist
- We know Jesus was an apocalyptic preacher – Jesus preached and believed, like John the Baptist before him, that the end of the world was coming and a new kingdom would be established (The Kingdom of God)
- We know Jesus Was Arrested and Crucified by Pilate during the reign of Tiberius
- We know (at least some) of Jesus’ followers came to believe he had risen from the dead
- We know (at least some) of Jesus’ followers considered him to be the divine son of God
Non-Biblical Attestations: Cold-Case Christianity Pages 190-200
Josephus: AD 37-100
Josephus described Christians in three separate passages in his “Antiquities of the Jews.” In one, he described the death of John the Baptist. In another, the death of James, the brother of Jesus. In a third, he described Jesus as a “wise man.”
Thallus
Tacitus
Mara Bar-Serapion
Phlegon
Eusebius was an early Christian Historian.
Scholars have long known that the first Christian author from antiquity who listed our books of the New Testament as “the” New Testament (all twenty-seven books, and no others) was the famous bishop of Alexandria, Athanasius, in a letter he wrote to all the churches under his jurisdiction in the year 367.