Excerpt from The Case for the Real Jesus, A Journalist Investigates Current Attacks On The Identity of Christ by Lee Strobel

APPENDIX A

A SUMMARY OF EVIDENCE FROM THE CASE FOR CHRIST

Here is a summary of the historical evidence for Jesus Christ from thirteen experts who were interviewed for my book The Case for Christ:

CAN THE BIOGRAPHIES OF JESUS BE TRUSTED?

I once thought that the Gospels were merely religious propaganda, hopelessly tainted by overactive imaginations and evangelistic zeal. But Craig Blomberg of Denver Seminary, one of the country’s foremost authorities on the biographies of Jesus, built a convincing case that they reflect eyewitness testimony and bear the unmistakable earmarks of accuracy. So early are these accounts of Jesus’ life that they cannot be explained away as legendary inventions. “Within the first two years after his death,” Blomberg said, “significant numbers of Jesus’ followers seem to have formulated a doctrine of the atonement, were convinced that he had been raised from the dead in bodily form, associated Jesus with God, and believed they found support for all these convictions in the Old Testament.” A study indicates that there was nowhere enough time for legend to have developed and wiped out a solid core of historical truth.

DO JESUS’ BIOGRAPHIES STAND UP TO SCRUTINY?

Blomberg argued persuasively that the gospel writers intended to preserve reliable history, were able to do so, were honest and willing to include difficult-to-explain material, and didn’t allow bias to unduly color their reporting. The harmony among the Gospels on essential facts, coupled with divergence on some incidental details, lends historical credibility to the accounts. What’s more, the early church could not have taken root and flourished right there in Jerusalem if it had been teaching facts about Jesus that his own contemporaries could have exposed as exaggerated or false. In short, the Gospels were able to pass all eight evidential tests, demonstrating their basic trustworthiness as  historical records.

WERE JESUS’ BIOGRAPHIES RELIABLY PRESERVED FOR US?

World-class scholar Bruce Metzger, professor emeritus at Princeton Theological Seminary, said that compared to other ancient documents, there is an unprecedented number of New Testament manuscripts and that they can be dated extremely close to the original writings. The modern New Testament is about 99 percent free of meaningful textual discrepancies, with no major Christian doctrine in doubt. The criteria used by the early church to determine which books should be considered authoritative have ensured that we possess the best records about Jesus.

The Case for the Real Jesus, A Journalist Investigates Current Attacks On The Identity of Christ by Lee Strobel p 271-272

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