Can We Trust the Gospels?
Next Entries »The Process of the Oral Tradition about Jesus
Sunday, July 1st, 2007Today’s post, as well as several posts to come, are excerpts from my new book, Can We Trust the Gospels? Investigating the Reliability of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
The Telephone game assumes that the communication of the key sentence will be done secretly, with players whispering to each other.
Think of what would happen in Telephone […]
The Community of the Oral Tradition about Jesus
Saturday, June 30th, 2007Today’s post, as well as several posts to come, are excerpts from my new book, Can We Trust the Gospels? Investigating the Reliability of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
My favorite high school teacher was Mr. Bottaro. He was my English teacher in tenth grade, and I was blessed to have him in twelfth grade as […]
Luke and His Sources
Friday, June 29th, 2007Today’s post, as well as several posts to come, are excerpts from my new book, Can We Trust the Gospels? Investigating the Reliability of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
Good sources are treasure for historians. Even when writing about an event they experienced personally, careful historians will consult sources beyond their personal knowledge. They’ll interview other […]
Do the Gospel Manuscripts Misquote Jesus?
Thursday, June 28th, 2007Today’s post, as well as several posts to come, are excerpts from my new book, Can We Trust the Gospels? Investigating the Reliability of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
At this point I should say a few words about Bart Ehrman’s currently popular book Misquoting Jesus. Even when this book has fallen from the best-seller lists, […]
The Quantity and Quality of Textual Variants
Wednesday, June 27th, 2007Today’s post, as well as several posts to come, are excerpts from my new book, Can We Trust the Gospels? Investigating the Reliability of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
Skeptics who try to cast doubt upon the reliability of the New Testament manuscripts point to the apparently large number of variants they contain. Bart Ehrman, for […]
How Should We Evaluate the Antiquity of the Gospel Manuscripts?
Tuesday, June 26th, 2007Today’s post, as well as several posts to come, are excerpts from my new book, Can We Trust the Gospels? Investigating the Reliability of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
The smallest time gap, the one between P52 and the autograph of John’s Gospel, is two generations. The more complete manuscripts are about a century later than […]
Standards for Evaluating the Reliability of Gospel Manuscripts
Monday, June 25th, 2007Today’s post, as well as several posts to come, are excerpts from my new book, Can We Trust the Gospels? Investigating the Reliability of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
Before we examine the data, let’s think for a moment about what might allow us to put confidence in the manuscripts of the Gospels.
First, we would look […]
The Relationship between Existing Manuscripts and the Original Compositions
Sunday, June 24th, 2007The documents we know as Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were written sometime in the second half of the first century A.D. (I’ll say more about the dating of the Gospels in chapter 4.) They were written on scrolls of papyrus (a rough, paper-like substance). Papyrus was popular because it was readily available and relatively […]
F.A.Q. Format
Saturday, June 23rd, 2007Today’s post, as well as several posts to come, are excerpts from my new book, Can We Trust the Gospels? Investigating the Reliability of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
Influence of the Internet can also be seen in the basic format of this book. Millions of web sites use a F.A.Q. page—Frequently Asked Questions—to respond to […]
Critical Scholarship and Confidence in the Gospels
Friday, June 22nd, 2007Today’s post, as well as several posts to come, are excerpts from my new book, Can We Trust the Gospels? Investigating the Reliability of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
Beginning with my days at Harvard and continuing throughout the last three decades, I have worked away on the question of the trustworthiness of the Gospels. I […]
Critical New Testament Scholarship: Up Close and Personal
Thursday, June 21st, 2007The following is an excerpt from my new book, Can We Trust the Gospels? Investigating the Reliability of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
Without exception, my grad school teachers echoed Professor MacRae’s conclusions about the historical limitations of the New Testament Gospels. In fact, several faculty members made him look rather conservative. I did learn a […]
Doubting the Gospels
Wednesday, June 20th, 2007Today’s post, as well as several posts to come, are excerpts from my new book, Can We Trust the Gospels? Investigating the Reliability of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
I grew up in a solid evangelical church. The Gospels were assumed to be not only historically accurate but also inspired by God. In my teenage years […]
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