Reliability of the Bible

Video: The Virgin Birth Isn’t Based on a Misunderstanding (Response to Paulogia)

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How did Christians get the doctrine of the virgin birth? Counter-apologist Paulogia says it was a mix of Matthew’s creativity and stupidity. Paul and other critics say that Matthew was too quick to connect Jesus to the Old Testament, even if it caused him to get sloppy and make a fool out of himself. So to bolster Jesus’ Messianic credentials, he invented the virgin birth story. He did this by misreading the Greek version of Isaiah 7:14, which does use the word virgin or parthenos in Greek. But the original Hebrew passage wasn’t referring to a virgin at all, but a young woman. If Isaiah was prophesying a virgin birth, he would have used the … Read more

Video: No, the Resurrection Narratives Are Not Hopelessly Contradictory

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Christians are often duped by the common mistake called the ‘fallacy of the expert witness.’ While there’s nothing wrong with appealing to expert authorities, fancy credentials can’t cover up weak arguments.  Enter Bart Ehrman. Dr. Ehrman is the James A. Gray Distinguished Professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. He’s written several scholarly and popular-level works that cast doubt on the reliability of the New Testament.   As an agnostic, one reason Ehrman says we should reject the resurrection of Jesus is that the Gospel narratives are “hopelessly contradictory.” But are they really? What is his case for this? Erik ManningErik is the creative force behind the YouTube channel Testify, which is … Read more

Video: Undesigned Coincidences in the Passion and Resurrection Narratives

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Skeptics love to tell Christians that the Gospel stories developed over time, adding more mythological elements as they went along. Matthew and Luke copied Mark plus added more fables. And then you get John’s Gospel, which is total theological fan-fiction according to the critics.  But if that’s true, why do the Gospels have interlocking details that seem to be unlikely if they were just copied from each other or some other common source? The Gospels frequently add passing details that answer a question raised by the other in a way that fits together like a jigsaw puzzle. Fictions and forgeries don’t work that way. Some scholars call these undesigned coincidences. So what the heck is an undesigned … Read more

Video: No, the Pastoral Epistles Are Not Forged

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13 letters in the New Testament claim to be written by the Apostle Paul. But some New Testament scholars like Bart Ehrman say that 6 of them are blatant forgeries, notably 1st and 2nd Timothy. This puts the Christians in an awkward spot, as forgery is…well… just another way to lie, which goes against the 9th Commandment. And that’s allegedly what we have in our New Testament: one big fat lie about who wrote the Pastoral epistles. But if the critics’ arguments turn out to be weak sauce, then it’s not the New Testament that loses credibility but its detractors. In his book Forged: Writing In The Name Of God – Why The Bible’s Authors Are … Read more

Video: Names in the Gospels: Unexpected Evidence for Their Reliability

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For a moment, imagine that you had to invent a story about people who lived in Germany 100 years ago. In order for the story to appear genuine, you’d have to give people the right sort of name that fit the time and place in which they lived. You might know Hans, Franz, Adolf, and Günter are older German names. But you’d probably peter out after a little while.  And you’d not only have to know the right names, but you’d need to get them right in the same proportion and frequency without the help of Google. This would be a tough test for your home state, let alone some faraway land. So why do … Read more

Video: The Gospels Were Written Before 70 AD

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Most scholars say that the Gospel of Mark dates from AD 66–70, Matthew and Luke around 85–90, and John 90–100. Skeptics like Bart Ehrman imply that they’re too late to be reliable, as a decades-long time-gap leaves plenty of room for myths and legends to creep in.   When it comes to history, chronological closeness matters. But where exactly are critics coming up with these later dates? In this video, I look at one bad reason that scholars often date the Gospels late. And we’ll discover there are several good reasons to think they were written while Peter and Paul were still alive. Erik ManningErik is the creative force behind the YouTube channel Testify, which is an … Read more

Video: No, Christian Apologists Aren’t Committing the Spider-Man Fallacy

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Ah, the Spider-Man fallacy. It’s a card that skeptics love to play. While I can define it, you’ll recognize it better if I give you an example:  Christian apologist: “Critics of the New Testament have repeatedly been proven wrong by archaeology. Some skeptics have said that Nazareth wasn’t a real city, or that there couldn’t have been a synagogue in 1st-century Capernaum. But archaeologists have proven them wrong.” Internet atheist guy: “Bro, you’re committing the Spider-Man fallacy. 2,000 years from now archaeologists could dig up the ruins of Columbia University or the Empire State Building. Does that prove that Spider-Man exists? LOL.” Or to give another example:  Christian apologist: “Jesus’ crucifixion is historically certain. Even if any of … Read more

Video: The Gospel Authors Knew Local Geography

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Skeptics argue that the Gospels were written far after the events they report, in distant lands like Rome, Egypt, Turkey, or Greece. They’re not a product of eyewitness testimony but a collection of stories passed on for decades. The original story of Jesus got mixed up over time, like a long game of telephone. But is that really what happened? As it turns out, the Gospel writers don’t just know 1st-Century Palestinian geography when compared with other sources, they are actually valuable sources themselves, proving the skeptics wrong. The video is just under 6 minutes long. Erik ManningErik is the creative force behind the YouTube channel Testify, which is an educational channel built to help … Read more

Video: 5 Times Archaeology Debunked Gospel Skeptics

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Skeptical critics love to try to poke holes in the Gospel narratives, claiming they’re full of historical blunders. But in recent times, many of these so-called holes have been filled by the shovel of archaeology. In this video, I run through the top 5 examples of critics looking bad in the light of new archaeological discoveries. Erik ManningErik is the creative force behind the YouTube channel Testify, which is an educational channel built to help inspire people’s confidence in the text of the New Testament and the truth of the Christian faith.

6 Bad Reasons to Reject the Traditional Authorship of John’s Gospel

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Nearly every shred of evidence that we have from the early church fathers tells us that the Apostle John wrote the fourth Gospel. And in a previous video, we saw plenty of internal evidence that points to John being the genuine author. Despite all this, there’s a lot of pushback offered from the critics. You’ll often hear there’s a vast scholarly consensus against the traditional authorship of John.  But when you dig into the arguments from biblical critics, they often turn out to be pretty weak. In this video, I address some of the more common ones.  Erik ManningErik is the creative force behind the YouTube channel Testify, which is an educational channel built to … Read more

Is Jesus Alive?