Fear and Trembling

Richard Bauckham, the author of the landmark book Jesus and the Eyewitnesses , now has his own website . Bauckham is an expert on Jesus and the Gospels. He argues forcefully that the Four Gospels were written by eyewitnesses to the life of Christ. The website features information about Bauckham and some examples of his work. The best section may be his unpublished lectures . [Thanks to In Light of the Gospel for the link.]

Thanks to In Light of the Gospel for posting a video introduction for Jesus and the Eyewitnesses by Richard Bauckham. This book is an excellent exploration of the historical evidence for the reliability of the New Testament Gospels. It contains up-to-date scholarly references and Bauckham’s own fresh approach. See an additional review of the book by Ben Witherington here . Witherington applies Backham’s research to various current historical issues here . Another review can be found here . Some endorsements and a less critical review can be found here . Background on Bauckham can be found here .

Written accounts, such as The Gospel of Truth, the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Mary, The Gospel of Judas and the Infancy Gospel of Thomas, do not give us accurate information not contained in the Gospels we have in our Bibles. We know this, in part, because unreliable authors wrote these gospels long after Christ’s life, long after the lifetimes of eyewitnesses to that life. It is interesting that several of the alternative gospels put forth as historical show dependence on Matthew, Mark, Luke and / or John. “…the Gnostic Gospel of Truth (A. D. 140-150, doubtlessly known at Rome when Maricon taught there) cites a body of authoritative books that is [nearly identical with the four gospels.]” This means a body of written Scripture had to have existed before any secret Gnostic Gospels appeared since one of the earliest of these “secret gospels” had to recognize the orthodox Canon in its very attempt to redefine the Christian faith. [1] One of the gospels, dated in the early 100s, is ...

The New Testament gospels accurately reflect the original writings. We have several reasons to say this. First, even with the passage of almost 2,000 years, the words were preserved through history by multiple manuscripts. “Manuscripts” refer to hand-written copies of the gospels. That was the only way to do it in a world without the printing press or the computer. Many New Testament manuscripts were written on papyrus, a crude, fragile form of paper made from reeds that grew along lakeshores and riverbanks. [1] Of course, hand copying was difficult work, and the scribes sometimes made mistakes. But this hand copying was a reliable process in the ancient world, and we have many reasons to trust this reliability. The original text can be reconstructed by comparing the individual manuscripts with each other. [2] Thankfully, for the New Testament we have a wealth of manuscripts. In fact, we have over 5,600 manuscript copies of the New Testament available for comparison. We have fragments ...

Dan Brown’s book, The Da Vinci Code has confused many people about the life of Christ and the reliability of the books of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Many other writings, internet posts, films and documentaries have added to the confusion. Sadly, these things have even confused some Christians. However, much of what is communicated about the Gospels contained in our Bibles is simply not true. Ditto the other ‘gospels’ offered as alternatives. This is the beginning of a series of posts that will give evidence for the Bible’s trustworthiness. We will find that the facts of Christ’s life and teachings can be know and relied upon. The set of books that we have in our Bible is called the “canon.” This word comes “from the Greek, and it originally meant “a measuring rod” or, as we might say, “a ruler.”” It was the standard to see if something was straight. [1] Books were admitted into The New Testament canon based on: Apostolic authority—their association with Christ’s Apostles or those c...