NT Reliability: Class 1 Recap

Wow, what a great first meeting! We had about 20 folks in attendance and a lot of good conversation.  We started out with a bit of background on what apologetics is, what Reasonable Faith and our particular chapter is and is all about. Then we had some folks share about why they decided to attend this study. Most of the reasons were right in line with wanting to be able to obey Peter's command to "always be ready to give a reason for the hope you have within you" (1 Peter 3:15)! As we went over chapters 1 and 2 (on "Does it matter?" and "Their date and attestation") we hit some of the highlights. In terms of "Does it matter?" the answer is an emphatic "yes!" because Christianity is bound up in historical event and Jesus is a major historical figure. So it's important to know if Christianity is true and who Jesus was.

In chapter 2 we learned that the New Testament (NT) is a compilation of twenty-seven Greek books. Five are historical in nature (gospels and Acts) and the others are letters and other writings. The the NT writings were complete by AD 100, less than 70 years after the life of Jesus! The evidence for the early existence of the NT is from +5,000 manuscripts (unical and fragmentary), quotes from early Church fathers, and even citations from early heretics. We're now undertaking the work of textual criticism--to find out what the originals said given the evidence we have. We finished class with a case study in which we read comments from a person who takes issue with what we talked about. Then we identified the objections, logical missteps in the argument, and then responded with good reasons!  For next time (Thursday October 1, 7pm in rooms 13, 14, & 15 at Mt. Zion UMC): Read Chapter 3 & half-way-through 4. Study the content from Chapters 1 & 2--there will be a quiz on Thursday!