Why Should I Trust The Gospels?

John 20:30-31 etc

Mark Meynell All Souls Langham Place (6 Oct 2013)

Professor Richard Dawkins

devote as much time to serious theology as to serious fairies and serious unicorns

President Thomas Jefferson on the gospels:

by unlettered and ignorant men... the teachings of Jesus... mutilated, misstated and unintelligible

6 key factors in Trusting The Gospels

Why Should I Trust The Gospels? John 20:30-31!

Mark Meynell

THE INTERNAL REASONS TO TRUST 1. The Gospels Claims & Consequences

Signs Identity Trust Life

2. The Gospels Consistency

Perspectives Contradictions? Eyewitnesses

Different Order Different Content Different Teaching

3. The Circulation & Transmission of Texts

I h ave b e e n re a d i n g p o e m s , romances, vision literature, legends and myths all my life. I know what they are like. I know none of them are like this. Of this [gospel] text there are only two possible views: Either this is reportage or else, some unknown ancient writer without known predecessors or successors, suddenly anticipated the whole technique of modern novelistic , realistic narrative

C S Lewis Prof of Medieval & Renaissance Lit. Cambridge (1954-1963)

Ancient Text

Date of writing Pliny the Youngers HISTORY AD 61-113 Caesars GALLIC WARS 100-44 BC Platos DIALOGUES 427-347 BC Catullus POEMS 80-55 BC Aristotle TREATISES 284-322 BC Sophocles plays 496-406 BC Euripides plays 480-406 BC

Earliest complete AD 850 AD 900 AD 900 AD 1300 AD 1100 AD 1000 AD 1100

The Copy No of Gap ancient copies 750 years 7 1000 years 10 1200 years 7 1350 years 3 1400 years 49 1400 years 193 1500 years 9

MARKS GOSPEL

AD 50-60s

AD 130 <80 years

5000

(1st Century AD)

Luke Gospel ch23

Euripides The Bacchae

(5th Century BC)

Stephen Neill Professor at Hamburg, Nairobi and Oxford (1900-1984)

We have a far better and more reliable text of the New Testament than any other ancient work whatever, and the measure of uncertainty is really rather small. Anyone who reads it can feel condent that in almost everything of importance he is close indeed to the text of the NT books as they were originally written.

Why Should I Trust The Gospels? John 20:30-31!

Mark Meynell

THE EXTERNAL REASONS TO TRUST 4. Historical Reasons Outside the Gospels 5. Archaeological Corroboration
Proving Sceptics Wrong Corroborating Eyewitnesses Verifying Locations

6. Possibility of the Miraculous

5. Archaeological evidence Proving sceptics wrong

5. Archaeological evidence Proving sceptics wrong

Corroborating Eyewitnesses

5. Archaeological evidence Proving sceptics wrong

Corroborating Eyewitnesses Verifying locations

The early Christians did not invent the empty tomb and the meetings or sightings of the risen Jesus Nobody was expecting this kind of thing; no kind of conversion experience would have invented it, no matter how N T Wright guilty (or how forgiven) they felt, no Research Prof of NT & Early Christianity matter how many hours they pored St Andrews over the scriptures. To suggest otherwise is to stop doing history and enter into a fantasy world of our own.

6 key factors in Trusting The Gospels

TRUST in GODS KING

Lee Mack Comedian on Desert Island Disks (BBC Radio 4 29 Sept 2013)

But I'd like to get the Bible because I would read the Bible. I think it's quite odd that people like myself, in their 40s, are quite happy to dismiss the Bible but have never read it! I always think if an alien came down and you were the only person they met and they asked: 'What's life about?' and you said: 'Well, there's a book here that purports to tell you everything - some people believe it to be true, some people don't believe it to be true.' 'Wow! What's it like?' And you said: 'Oh, I don't know; I've never read it.' It would be an odd thing, wouldn't it? So, at the very least, we should read it!"