John Stott has said, “Nothing hinders evangelism … more than the widespread loss of confidence in the truth, relevance, and power of the Gospel.”1 Even within the present framework of contemporary Christianity, there has been and continues to be an erosion of conviction as it relates to the exclusive claims of Jesus and, thus, the power of the Gospel.
Unbelief is not strictly a matter of facts. There is a strong moral and spiritual component, by which a lack of courage may draw Christians into the vortex of contemporary opinion, and a spiritual blindness may prevent men and women from ever being ready to listen. Yet the facts are on the Bible-believing Christian’s side, and they should give us confidence. If we neglect them, we neglect a powerful resource that God has provided.
In his first epistle, the apostle Peter writes that we are to be “always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you” (3:15). One very basic line of argument that all Christians should be ready with is the evidence for the veracity of the Gospel accounts. The story about Jesus forms the backbone of Christian faith. It is also a frequent target of skeptics and critics. But contrary to popular assumptions, the evidence on the side of the Gospels is strong.
Eyewitness Accounts
In Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, we do not have a group of potential literary experts aiming to contribute complicated texts to theological journals. The key thing about the Gospel writers, as Donald Guthrie writes, is that “they themselves had experienced a remarkable transformation as a result of the stupendous events they related.”2 They were ordinary men who had encountered the extraordinary power of Jesus and who determined, under the direction of God’s Holy Spirit, to write down the events as they had experienced them (or as they had heard them recounted by those who had) so that others might in turn come to believe in Jesus.
Each of the Gospels is based on eyewitness accounts. The Gospel of Luke is illustrative, because Luke is explicit that his Gospel—as well as the work of other unnamed writers—comes from the accounts of “those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word.” And it is on this basis that he set out to “write an orderly account” (Luke 1:1–3). Luke’s attention to historical details, too, challenges the claim that the Gospels are mythical or legendary works. (See, for example, 3:1–2.)
The Gospel writers were ordinary men who had encountered the extraordinary power of Jesus.
The most basic facts about Jesus are also confirmed by contemporary non-Christian historians. The Jewish historian Josephus describes Jesus as a miracle worker who was killed by Pontius Pilate and whom some witnessed risen from the dead.3 (Although the authenticity of this passage in Josephus is disputed, it may be partly authentic. Josephus also later mentions James as the brother of Jesus, which is in accordance with the biblical witness.)4 The Roman historian Tacitus affirmed that “Christus” had been killed by Pontius Pilate.5 Pliny the Younger wrote to the emperor Trajan about Christians who gathered to worship Christ as one would worship a god.6 Those touchpoints won’t prove to an unbeliever that Jesus is the living Christ, but they refute the prevalent idea that the story of Jesus is pure fiction.
Furthermore, the Gospel records appear within the lifetimes of people who saw and heard Jesus. (That’s not to mention 1 Corinthians 15:3–8, which provides a list of living eyewitnesses a mere twenty years after the resurrection.) The stories found in the Gospels were clearly circulating even before that. Thus, these accounts were falsifiable. As C. E. B. Cranfield writes, “Eyewitnesses, hostile as well as believing, survived through the period of oral tradition and their survival must have set limits to the community’s freedom to invent and embellish.”7
Relevant to this is the fact that the writers of the Gospels and their sources make much of Jesus, but they themselves don’t come across in the best light. Their own ministry and miracles are only barely touched upon (e.g., Luke 10:17), while their failures and blunders—not least of all their abandonment and denial of Jesus in the critical hour—seem to leap off the page. The most reasonable explanation for this presentation of themselves is that it’s simply the truth of what happened, and they all knew it.
The Manuscripts
One objection that is often leveled against the New Testament evidence is that the documents themselves have been altered—that we have copies of copies of copies of the Gospels, fixed up by corrupt churchmen along the way to serve their own interests.
In fact, the manuscript evidence for the Gospels is superlative. With regard to the textual transmission of the New Testament, John A. T. Robinson writes, “The wealth of manuscripts, and above all the narrow interval of time between the writing and the earliest extant copies, make it by far the best attested text of any ancient writing in the world.”8 For example, the earliest manuscript we have from Tacitus was written down in 850 AD in Germany, more than seven centuries after the death of the author. By contrast, the first complete New Testament, contained in the Codex Sinaiticus, is from the 300s AD, only three centuries after the death of Jesus, and closer still to the authors. And manuscripts for many individual New Testament books come from far earlier, including a fragment of the Gospel of John likely to be from the 100s AD.
The manuscript evidence for the Gospels is superlative.
Another objection that critics will often raise is that there are flagrant discrepancies between the many manuscripts of the New Testament texts. Apart from the incredible fact that there even are so many manuscripts, allowing us to catalogue discrepancies in the first place, we may also answer confidently that none of the existing differences between manuscripts is able to call into question the central doctrines of the Christian faith. They may make us question which word is the right one here or whether a passage ought really to be included there—and evangelical scholars do carefully study such questions—but they don’t leave us doubting the central assertion of the New Testament: that Jesus of Nazareth is the Messiah, the Son of God, the Suffering Servant, the risen Christ, the returning King.
The Relevance and the Power
The Bible is nevertheless scrutinized more closely than any other ancient text. That is because of the claim it makes and the power with which it makes it. The Bible makes a claim not just about what happened or what someone wrote down two thousand years ago; it makes a claim on our very selves, calling us to repentance and obedience. And apart from making this claim, it has won the reverence of billions of people.
In other words, the reason you tend to find copies of Newsweek and Time at the grocery store calling the New Testament into question—but not Tacitus—is because the New Testament is profoundly relevant.
The Bible makes a claim not just about what happened or what someone wrote down two thousand years ago; it makes a claim on our very selves.
In the thoroughfares of life, in everyday interchange, if it comes up that you went to church and studied the Gospel of Mark, someone may say, “Well, why would you even waste your time on that?”
Tell them, “In the Gospel I discover that Jesus loves me.”
“Well,” they say, “that’s a lovely thought, in a lovely story. I’m sure that brings you comfort.”
Tell them, “It’s more than a thought! It’s more than a story! This is what I’m basing my whole life on—and I’m counting on the fact that this Bible is a trustworthy, reliable document. And there is evidence to show it.”
We need not feel embarrassed about what we believe. There’s no need for us to trudge along in blind faith. When we look, we will see that the Scriptures can stand up to our questions and give us confidence in the faith we confess. That ought to give us all the more reason to go out and proclaim it to others too!
This article was adapted from the sermon “The Beginning of the Gospel” by Alistair Begg.
John R. W. Stott, “The Biblical Basis of Evangelism,” in Let the Earth Hear His Voice, ed. J. D. Douglas (Minneapolis: World Wide, 1975), 69. ↩︎
Donald Guthrie, New Testament Introduction, 3rd ed. (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1973), 14. ↩︎
Josephus, Jewish Antiquities, 18.3.3 §63. ↩︎
Josephus, 20.9.2 §200. ↩︎
Tacitus, Annals 15.44. ↩︎
Pliny, Letters 10.96. ↩︎
C. E. B. Cranfield, The Gospel According to Saint Mark: An Introduction and Commentary, Cambridge Greek Testament Commentary (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1959), 17. ↩︎
John A. T. Robinson, Can We Trust the New Testament? (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1977), 36. ↩︎
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