NT Reliability: Class 6 Recap

Our finale class consisted of the final quiz, the crowning of the quiz-master, and a Skype call with Jim Warner Wallace!    The final quiz was ten questions on the content from the entire book. Everyone did really well but only the people with the top two scores from all the quizzes received the prizes--Chick Fil A gift card!. So, with no further adieu congratulations to:       1st place: Bill Martino (Browns)       2nd place: Terrence Johnson (Saints) After taking and reviewing the quizzes we got set up for our call with Jim Warner Wallace. We had a few technical difficulties to overcome (HDMI cord wasn't long enough to project, the audio wasn't going through the main speakers, Skype wouldn't let us share screens, and Google Hangouts wasn't immediately available...) but in the end we got it all working! Thanks for Jim and everyone else's patience as we got all that sorted out.

Jim spoke to us about his own investigation into the reliability of the NT. He approached the same way he would approach a cold case; and they are very similar! In both the NT and a cold case you're working off old evidence to make a verdict.    What Jim (as an atheist investigating the NT) wanted to know is: were the NT writings reliable "witnesses". There are four questions to ask about the quality of witnesses. Were they present? Can they be verified? Were they honest? Were they biased? Jim spoke to us about his findings related to the witnesses being Present and Verified. In terms of being Present, Jim wanted to know if the NT writings were early enough to have been there. That doesn't mean they're true, but they do need to at least have been present. Why? Well, a lie is easy to tell when you're farther in time and location from the event you're lying about. But if you're lying about something people around you know, it's much harder to propagate the lie.   So were the NT writings early enough? Jim explained how he determined Luke to have been written no later than AD 53 (only 20 years after the resurrection). His reasons are because Luke does not mention the destruction of the temple and Jerusalem in AD 70, nor does he mention Paul, Peter, or James' deaths from as early as AD 60. Then Jim noticed that Paul, writing in AD 53, cites Luke's writings as scripture (1 Cor 11:24)! This means Luke's writings were at least before AD 53

The next question Jim asked is, were the NT writings accurate? Did they really express a true description of the events they record or were they tampered with along the way? He compared this to using a bullet casing as evidence in a cold case. If it's an old bullet casing, how can he check that it wasn't messed with over time?   The answer is that you follow the "chain of custody"--incremental checks over time. For the bullet casing this would be to find out who first got the bullet years ago. Did they take a photo of it? Did they document it? Who got it next? Was it inventoried? Etc. For the NT documents this would be to find out who the first apostles handed their writings/teachings on to, who they then gave it to, and so on. Jim has researched the NT's "chain of custody" in great detail to find multiple strong chains over different regions all passing on the same "evidence" over time. Therefore the NT writings can be verified.

Jim stopped there to allow for some brief Q&A but offered his full lecture on the NT reliability for those who were there. We had time for three questions.

Question 1: Where did you start your investigation into Christianity?

The first question we asked was about where Jim started his investigation into Christianity, as an atheist. His said he actually started by checking out what Jesus said in the NT and then noticed that the gospel accounts looked like witness testimony. To him, that was something he was familiar with and could assess. So he started investigating the Gospels to see if they proved to be reliable witnesses about Jesus. After determining that he still had naturalistic presuppositions--a rejection of miracles because of his atheism--and so he went on to find out if God exists (which is the topic of his second book, God's Crime Scene).

Question 2: What do you do with personal testimony, changed lives, and immaterial "evidence" like the soul?

Secondly we asked what Jim, as an empirical evidence enthusiast, does with personal testimonies, changed lives, and immaterial "evidence" like the soul. He responded by telling us the most common response he gets from Christians for "why are you a Christian?" (1) Because I was raised in a Christian home, (2) because I see God at work around me, and (3) because God changed my life. All three are good responses but they are not sufficient responses. Jim said he has Mormon family members and Mormons give that sort of responses, they are Mormon because of a "burning in the bosom." But where you were raised and experiences do not necessarily lead to Christianity. The main reason for being a Christian should be: because it is true! And to further explain/show that we need to be ready to have an answer for those who ask (1 Peter 3:15). [As for the soul, he explains in God's Crime Scene what evidence leads him to believe in the existence of the soul.]

Question 3: How do you show the existence of objective morality?

Finally, we asked how he goes about showing the existence of objective morality as evidence for God's existence (a section in his God's Crime Scene book). His strategy is to add "for the fun of it" to the end of an action to identify objective morality. Killing, for some justified reason (like defense of self or others) may of okay. But killing for the fun of it, is always and objectively wrong. The same thing can be said about stealing; it may be okay to steal for some greater good (think of Jack Bauer from 24!) but stealing for the fun of it is wrong. The next question is, how can you ground objective morality. The only real answer is God. Additionally, when you think about moral obligations, those can only be from/to persons. We aren't morally obligated to cars and chairs, only to people. So if there are objective moral obligations they must be grounded in a Person!

Jim concluded his chat by encouraging us to study and share apologetic material. He said he recently spoke at the Green Bay Packer's chapel and asked if anyone has heard of William Lane Craig, Sean McDowell, or Lee Strobel. Only one person had heard of Lee Strobel. Jim said that Aaron Rodgers he has over a million twitter followers, how is he using that reach? Jim's point: use the platform you have to share the apologetic material that's out there. It's much easier to make Aaron Rodgers as smart as William Lane Craig than it is to make like William Lane Craig as popular as Aaron Rodgers. And in the same way we should strive to become a smart Christian case-maker in our circles of influence.

Well that concludes this class on NT reliability. Thank you, thank you, thank you for all those who attended and supported this. Keep a look out for the next community event and study coming up in February!