I’m writing this post in response to something a fellow blogger has written about why the Bible is trustworthy (though I’ve lost the link to the post). He and I come down on different sides of this issue, and I thought the best way to tackle this would be to respond to each of his points in order.
1) We should treat the Bible like any other historical document.
Yes, we should, but this means different things to different people. When we read ancient historical texts, what do we think about the supernatural events that they relate? Many ancient historians talk about miracles, or attribute certain events to various gods — do we accept those claims? Of course not. We accept the events, like wars, famines, political upheavals, but we chalk up the supernatural claims to superstition.
However, when Christians ask that we treat the Bible the way we would treat other historical sources, they don’t mean it in the way I just described. They’ll say, “if you believe the histories about George Washington, why do you reject the stories of the Bible?” But this isn’t a true comparison. If we had an historical account that claimed George Washington could fly, we would dismiss it, even if everything else it recounted was factual.
There’s another difference as well. What we believe about George Washington has no real impact on the rest of our lives. However, most versions of Christianity say that if we don’t believe Jesus was the actual son of God, we’ll face eternal consequences. What could be more important than making sure we hold the correct view? So if God loves us and wants us all to believe, doesn’t it make sense that the “extraordinary claims” of the Bible would have “extraordinary evidence”? That’s the standard we would expect from any other historical document, and it’s the same thing we should expect from the Bible.
2) Witnesses for the Bible.
It’s often mentioned that the Bible was written over a period of 1500 years by 40+ authors. That timeline is not accepted by all scholars, but even if it were, this has nothing to do with whether or not it is accurate or inspired. In order for later authors to write things that fit with what came before, they only need to be familiar with those earlier writings. In other words, the Bible is much like fan fiction.
Paul says that Jesus appeared to 500 people after his resurrection, so some Christians point to that as evidence too. But who were these 500 people? Where did they see the risen Jesus? Was it all at once, was it 500 separate appearances, or was it something in between? This claim is so vague, there’s no way it could be contested. Even if a critic could have rounded up a multitude of people who all claimed to not have seen Jesus post-resurrection, Paul would only have to say, “It was 500 other people.” No, Paul’s 500 witnesses are completely useless. Instead of actually being 500 separate witnesses for the risen Jesus, this is just one claim — Paul’s. Plus, let’s not forget that Paul is telling this to fellow Christians, not skeptics. No one in his audience would be inclined to call foul anyway.
Sometimes it’s pointed out that the earliest critics of Christianity did not question Jesus’ existence or his miracles, but just claimed that he was one of many people who claimed similar things. But I don’t think we should really expect ancient critics to focus on his existence or miracles anyway. How do you prove that someone didn’t exist? And aside from Christian writings, we have no sources about Jesus anyway, so how could they disprove either his existence or his miracles? And these critics lived in a time in which the existence of miracles were almost universally accepted. So arguing from this point doesn’t seem very convincing to me.
When it comes to historical sources for Jesus, it’s true that Josephus probably mentions him. And there are a couple of other references by other historians within the first 100 years or so after his death. But these references tell us nothing about Jesus other than that he might have existed, and that there were people at that time who were Christians. These points are virtually uncontested — and they say nothing about who Jesus really was. It’s hard to count them as any kind of evidence in Jesus’ favor.
3) Archaeology
Christians will often cite the Bible’s agreement with archaeology as one reason to believe it may be divinely inspired. For instance, most historians used to believe that the Hittites never existed, since the only record of them came from the Old Testament. However, in the 19th and 20th centuries, evidence finally came to light that overturned that opinion, exonerating the Bible.
But does this agreement with archaeology really indicate that the Bible was divinely inspired? Many books have been written that seem to record accurate history — does this mean we should assume those authors were inspired by God? Of course not. While agreement with archaeology is a good sign, it’s not necessarily a reason to leap to the conclusion that God had anything to do with writing the Bible.
The story doesn’t end here, though. As it turns out, archaeology does not always agree with the Bible. The Israelites’ exodus from Egypt, for instance, has no archaeological evidence. While that is an example of missing evidence, we also have examples of contradictory evidence: archaeology indicates that Joshua’s conquest of Canaan did not actually happen, the kingdoms of David and Solomon appear to be far smaller than the Bible depicts, and the Book of Daniel contains several anachronisms, including its incorrect labeling of Belshazzar as Nebuchadnezzar’s son.
Examples like these show that the Bible’s agreement with archaeology is not nearly as strong as some would claim, making it very shaky grounds for staking the claim of inspiration.
In the next post, we’ll talk about other reasons that people give: prophecy and internal consistency.
Finding Truth 
“Nope thats not all that has been claimed. You have as much stated that Paul was trying to make it “sound like” the claim was confirmed as opposed to him legitimately holding that it was by the 500 and the name and identified apostles. Nate himself has indicated an intent that Paul would have to deceive and you all have argued not merely that it is not enough for us to day but that even at the time of writing it would have been necessarily vague”
still not sure what youre trying to say. are you really saying that paul was informing, for mere sake of histrical record, that 500 people saw jesus? That doesnt hold water, not when reading the passage.
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“Thats just nonsense. the 500 would have been part of the church.”
where does the text validate this claim? which church, at which location? itserces as nothing. even if the corintheans knew exactly what paul was talking about, the majority of the people who ever lived do not. it’s proof fo rnothing.
again, paul is free to say it, it just serves as no evidence for the vast majority of people, if not every single person who ever lived.
why are we even discussing it? it’s a bad point to use when validating the bible – that’s it. it doesnt serve to discredit it, so what’s up?
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“Finally Ruth raised the issue that no names were mentioned which is just totally false and has been debunked. So its you that have not been following the discussion.”
you toss out a couple of possible names and suddenly you’ve debunked 500 witnesses? sorry, mate, you’re not making sense.
I think we’re falling back into having different definitions for the words we use. for arguments sake, can we agree to default to dictionary.com? it’s available to everyone here.
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Even among gentile communities there were some Jews (and gentiles) that would travel back to jersualem and visit the church there. 500 is merely away of indicating how many people were still alive in the Jerusalem church who were witnesses…
Is there some reference other than the quoted passage in 1 Corinthians that says that all of these 500 were part of the church in Jerusalem? It says “brethren” but where are you getting that all these were in the church in Jerusalem? Paul doesn’t identify where these people can be found.
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The gospel writers – especially the ones called Matthew and Luke – were out to create a legend, dipping back into distant Jewish past and attempting to connect old prophecies to the Jesus story.
As you likely already know, the four Gospels were written anonymously and the names arbitrarily assigned. According to Linda Woodhead (shut up, Ark), Professor in the sociology of religion in the Department of Politics, Philosophy & Religion at Lancaster University, “the gospels’ birth and resurrection narratives can be explained as attempts to fit Jesus’ life into the logic of Jewish expectation”.
Pseudo-Mark was likely the most sincere, in his efforts, while pseudo-Matthew copied, in many instances word for word, from Mark, adding embellishments as he went, and pseudo-Luke copied from both, with his own set of embellishments.
Even Jesus’ name wasn’t Jesus, it was Yeshua – Jesus was only the Greek translation of the Hebrew name, “Jesus”, just as “Matthew” is the Greek translation of “Levi,” whom one could assume was Levi, the tax collector, collected by Yeshua to join his Boy’s Club, except had that actually been the case, Levi would have had his own story to tell, from his own perspective, and had no need to copy pseudo-Mark.
Writing in a time in which, even though the country (and most others) were under Roman occupation, Greek, remnant of Alexander’s conquest 300-400 years earlier, was the lingua Franca d’jour, and it is highly unlikely that pseudo-Matthew and pseudo-Luke could even read Hebrew, and thus had never read the Torah or the Tanakh. This is evidenced by the fact that both anonymous authors insist on informing us that Yeshua was born of a virgin – which the Greek Septuagint confirms is true. However the translator of the Tanakh into Greek made a mistake. Drawing from Isiah 7:14, pseudo-Matthew came up with – and pseudo-Luke followed suit, with embellishments – “Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel.”
In the original Hebrew, the passage actually reads: “Hinneh ha-almah harah ve-yeldeth ben ve-karath shem-o immanuel” (emphasis, mine), The Hebrew words ha-almah mean simply the young woman; and harah is the Hebrew past or perfect tense, “conceived,” which in Hebrew, as in English, represents past and completed action. Honestly translated, the verse reads: “Behold, the young woman has conceived-[is with child)-and beareth a son and calleth his name Immanuel.” Almah means simply a young woman, of marriageable age, married or not, independent of whether or not her hymen is intact. Neither pseudo-Mark, pseudo-John, nor Paul or Peter, ever mention a virgin birth, and It’s hard to believe any would omit a miracle such as that, if they knew it to be true.
Pseudo-Mark wrote his tale about 45 years after the death of Yeshua, pseudo-Matthew five or so after that, pseudo-Luke anywhere from 10 to 30 years later still (as he also wrote “The Acts,” and it has been determined that “The Acts” was written well into the first century), and pseudo-John well after that, as no copies of his writing ever showed up anywhere until after 150 CE. Thus was created the greatest story ever sold.
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I seriously don’t know why this seems to be such a huge point of contention, the 500 witnesses are referred to by Paul 🙂 can’t we all just agree on this?
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“Its all hearsay based on Nate.” Mike Anthony
You mean unlike the hearsay based on Paul and the four pseudonymous gospels? Because the gospels make it crystal clear that none of these so-called witnesses actually witnessed the actual resurrection itself. So unless you yourself were physically present to witness that event you’re entire body of evidence consists of little more than a hierarchy of uncorroborated claims found within pages of some ancient parchments.
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(in referring to the past discussion that William and Mike were having)
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“Even if your assessment of Arch is correct…”
How could you even THINK it?!!! I’m crushed to the quick!
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For what it’s worth, I’ve come to be much less bothered by the fact that all of this is so hard to “prove”. I still have a knee jerk reaction to want to respond and retort. However, I know that things are never quite as “clear” to another person as they “are” to me – anyone else’s life history and world perspective that they bring to the discussion is going to color their assessment, just as mine colors my assessment. And, from the standpoint of the Christian scriptures, God has nearly always chosen to operate via less-than-obvious means. If God exists, and if God is the God revealed in Jesus and the NT scriptures, then God clearly isn’t interested in dominating people with proof beyond doubt. If He was, then we probably wouldn’t be bothered with all the stories of how people reacted badly to Jesus teaching, or the fact that he was a poor carpenter’s son from an obscure town, or that he hung around with people who would never be allowed in church. It just doesn’t seem important to this God to interact this way. So, if this is the God in which you claim to believe, I don’t see how you can expect that He would operate differently with people now (so obvious no one could doubt) than he did when He came to earth in the form of a human (which, by the way, is probably the least obvious way the God of Israel, the One God with NO equal, could possibly have revealed Himself to His people).
Now I’m rambling. Done. Thanks, Nate.
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“I guess it must be a better class of banana you lot throw.”
I’m not sure that brown handful was a banana —
(I liked stacking better!)
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@Ruth
“You only made my point stronger by pointing out that he was addressing the Church at Corinth. He was writing this letter to convince people who were already believers. Preaching to the choir.”
Yes, and no, Ruth – the people in Corinth were a cantankerous bunch, and Pablo had to go back and kick their butts a time or two, even though he didn’t consider himself much of a public speaker.
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@Ruth
“em>’He appeared to Peter alone, then to Peter with the twelve.’
Sorry, that should say the other eleven.</em"
Ten? Judas go bye-bye —
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Well, sure. Doesn’t that happen even today?
Millions go to church on Sunday and a preacher tells them they’re dogs who have fleas and they thank him for letting them know.
No, they didn’t have it all “together”, but they did believe. Their “old habits” just died a hard, slow death.
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He’s really kind of obnoxious, isn’t he?
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Ah, yes, but the text says..”then the twelve”. So had they replaced Judas? How quickly did they cast those lots to replace him with Stephen?
I didn’t think it was as soon as Jesus appearing to them in the “upper room”, but I could be wrong. They were pretty disorganized at that point, weren’t they?
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“Ah, yes, but the text says..”then the twelve”. So had they replaced Judas? How quickly did they cast those lots to replace him with Stephen?”
for what little it’s worth, when i was a believer this didnt bother me. someone had told me that “the 12” was basically the title of their group, and I could see that. I still can, at least to the extent that there are much bigger fish to be fried in the way of biblical issues.
of course, to me now, it’s just one more issue on the mound of issues…
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For a guy who claims not to have a lot of time to reply, he sure seems to have a lot of time to reply.
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arch, you talking to me?
I dont have time to bring out the good book and type out quotations to support my points just yet – but i always have time to shoot from the hip.
that okay?
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“Thanks for not bothering.” i.e., “Thanks for not serving me dry pancakes, then bring a half-cup of syrup to drink after I’ve finished.” – you’re welcome! I know you’d do it for me —
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“Is it an argument for authenticity based on the fact that anyone that went to Jerusalem from Corinth could confirm or deny the fact given that a large segment of the church there would have had eye witnesses? yes.”
Corinth was a city-state, located on the Isthmus of Corinth in Greece (sorry, WP doesn’t allow me to upload a map) – anyone wonder how many of the church members there regularly commuted to Jerusalem? No doubt Mike has an answer, though how credible it may be is anyone’s guess.
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“anyway really must go now . have fun”
Whew! I thought he’d NEVER leave!
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“They were pretty disorganized at that point, weren’t they?”
Apparently – it seems that Pete gave up fishing for men and went back to fishing for fish. “Fishers of Men” – sounds like a good name for a gay bar, at least it doesn’t pull any punches..
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And before anyone jumps all over me for not being politically correct, there’s a known Gay a cappella choir group in a city near me that has an album out – one of the titles on it is about how “the Mounties always get their man” —
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for what little it’s worth, when i was a believer this didn’t bother me. someone had told me that “the 12″ was basically the title of their group, and I could see that. I still can, at least to the extent that there are much bigger fish to be fried in the way of biblical issues.
I can totally see this being the explanation and even concede it as a point. Like you, I think that is a relatively small issue and easily explained.
The much bigger issue (that Mike seems to think he’s debunked) that no names were given. That Jesus allegedly appeared to the eleven isn’t news, though as has already been pointed out, the authors of the gospels are anonymous and were written after this letter to the Corinthians. Apparently none of the supposed eyewitness, except possibly John (and Paul if you count his vision), wrote about it.
Because I don’t just jump on the bandwagon of this supposed debunking I’m being dishonest. No, I’ve conceded that the passage mentions the disciples/apostles. This isn’t new. The mention of more than 500 witnesses besides themis new. Why anyone would think that mentioning 500 random people without [at least some] names or locations would be convincing to anyone except a believer is puzzling.
I don’t mean to keep arguing the point, and I likely won’t. I think I can see this from a believer’s viewpoint. If a believer means to convince any unbelievers, especially former believers, they might want to consider their audience and try to see it from a skeptic’s viewpoint even if they don’t agree. But maybe Mike only likes the argument and doesn’t care about “winning lost souls” and more about belittling anyone who dares to question it? *shrug*
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