Battle!

This week I was in a battle for the Gospel. A friend of mine is now in Israel and, somehow, ended up in a school of Rabbi's. He told me that he had lost his faith in Jesus Christ. I suspect he'd been convinced, by current company, that the Messiah is still to come, rather than still to come ........... BACK. After reading his long diatribe about how he has now found the real truth, I prayed for God to help me defend the Gospels. Following is my response.

Well Michael, my first reaction to your email was that you had made up your mind and just to let it go. I did, however, pray about it and I believe that God wants me to answer you comments about Christ’s death specifically. Rather than letting God reach you by someone else, God gave me Luke 15:4-7 as an answer.

4 "Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Does he not leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, 'Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.' I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.

First let me say that I have no problem spelling out God. The bible tells me that I am a Priest and King through Christ Jesus. It also tells me that I can, Go boldly before the Thrown of God with my petitions, Heb 4:16. If I’m not sure what to say God promised that His Holy Spirit will give me utterance. So you see I don’t have to convince you of anything, God does. I’m not selling anything and there isn’t anything in it for me.

Let me start this off by asking you a very simple question. What if you are wrong? What if John 14:6-7 is true?

6 Jesus saith unto him, I am the way , and the truth, and the life: no one cometh unto the Father, but by me.

7 If ye had known me, ye would have known my Father also: from henceforth ye know Him, and have seen Him.

What if Luke 12:8-10 is true?

8 "I tell you, whoever acknowledges me before men, the Son of Man will also acknowledge him before the angels of God. 9 But he who disowns me before men will be disowned before the angels of God.

Lets start with a question you asked me. Your email was a run on of thought, fractured and hard for me to follow. That said, I was able to dissect one discernable question you had for me. This one got my attention.

Ask yourself this question Brad -

There is no extant record of any witness of Jesus. All extant works are stories written down by people who heard other people talk about Jesus 6 to 8 generations later..... The four gospels are not by any actual witnesses. They are accounts by people who knew other people who had heard Jesus.

Put in simpler terms; are the Gospels true, can we trust Mathew, Mark, Luke and John as historically reliable? Is Jesus a Liar, Lunatic or Lord.
So then lets begin.

You are correct there is no original copy of the New Testament. I don’t see that as being problematic and here is why. I would contend that there really are two questions here. One is the New Testament an accurate account of what the disciples of Jesus said and two is it an accurate account of the truth or a lie?

First why don’t we have the original?

If the original existed and one man had possession of it he could in effect change the word of God. We might see it as a relic and worship it, you know how people are. Finally, maybe we have not found it yet.

Is the New Testament an accurate account of what happened?

There are early, undisputed, manuscripts. One, called John Rylands fragment, is dated from approx. 114AD and contains verses from the book of John. The Magdalene fragment, containing verses from the book of Matthew, dates back to as early as 60AD.

There are as many as 5686 hand written manuscripts from within 25 years of the death of Jesus. Compare that to other historical writings such writings as:

Homer, earliest manuscript 500 years and only 643 have been found.
Herodotus, earliest manuscript 1400 years and only 8 found.
Plato earliest = 1200 years and only 7 manuscripts found.
Caesar = 1000 years and 10 found, and so on.

People don’t have a problem believing the writings of Plato, do they? However, the earliest manuscript of Plato is 1200 years after his death and there are only seven of them. By all accounts we should not believe that Plato ever existed, right? By the way I’m only listing the Greek “hand written” new testaments. If I added in the Latin, Syrac and the Coptic I could come up with more than 20,000.

Even if we didn’t have any of these manuscripts we could reconstruct the entire New Testament, with the exception of 11 verses, mostly from 3rd. John, based on the writings of the early church fathers, because they referred to it so much in their own writings. All of these hand written manuscripts have an accuracy rate of 99.7% or greater. The Monks who transcribed the bible, by hand, were only allowed two mistakes, Period! And while I’m thinking of it, Diocletianus, emperor before Constantine, ordered all new testaments burned. Maybe that’s why we don’t have the original?

You are probably going to ask for my “Proof” of how I can say we have hand written manuscripts from as early as 60AD. I have to qualify my answer by giving you some insight into how I think. I listen to what people do, rather than what they say.
No I didn’t type that wrong. What people “do” tells me more then what they say. Lets start with one we both know. Is O.J. Simpson guilty? Not was he found guilty, is he guilty?

If we take into account what he said; “I didn’t do it”, then no he’s not. But were his actions right after his wife was murdered, the “Normal Actions” of an innocent man?
I suggest that hiding in the back of a white Ford Bronco, threatening to commit suicide while being chased by the police down an L.A. freeway, is the natural reaction of a guilty man, not an innocent one. I would also suggest that if my wife had just been murdered and the police wanted to talk to me about it I would be telling them they better find who ever did it before I did or I would save them a costly trial by dispensing justice myself. I don’t think I would be threatening to kill myself ………….. that is unless I was guilty. The same logic can be applied to the disciples to see if they are being truthful or are lying.

Now that you have a foundation of how I think let me continue.

How do we know that we have an accurate account of actual events in the New Testament, rather than a myth? First in any public library there are early (90’sAD) commentaries on the New Testament. How can you have a commentary on something that has not been written yet? As you know the Jewish culture back then and even today is, and was, a very oral culture. Maybe when they were getting to the end of their lives they figured they better write these important events down.

Secondly, theologians agree that 1st. Corinthians was written by the mid 50’s AD. Why is that important? 1 Corinthians has eyewitness testimony of Jesus’ resurrection. Read 1 Corinthians 1:8 and you will see that Paul is an Eye Witness to Jesus’ resurrection. You say that the N.T. is just a story, a lie, passed from one person to the next. Well there is an eyewitness for you.

Colin Hemmer, a highly respected classic scholar and researcher did a line-by-line study of the book of Acts. He determined that the accounts of Paul in the book of Acts could be independently verified by other writings to a level of 99.9+ %. Also, that Acts was written in 62AD. Doesn’t get much better than that, does it?

Thirdly, if I were one of the disciples and I were writing down the events of my life, including my time with Jesus, I would include things like when the Romans sacked Jerusalem in 70AD. Why is there no account of that anywhere in the Gospels? Could it be that it hadn’t happened yet? Let me give an example. Lets say that you were reading a book about the history of Manhattan. When you get to the end you hadn’t read one word about the terrorist attack on 9/11 or twin towers falling. Wouldn’t you contend that the book had been written prior to those tragic events? Wouldn’t a logical man make that assessment?

I just proofread my answer so far and it seems to have a “Defensive Tone” to it. Well I am commanded by my faith to Defend my faith. So rather than go back and change the tone, I’ll offer that as an explanation. I offer no apology for defending my faith.

Fourthly, why would you intentionally write a book that made you look stupid or uncaring? There are many accounts where the disciples admit they didn’t know what Jesus was talking about, wouldn’t you correct that before you wrote it for the entire world to see?

And while I’m on it why would you say that the women found Jesus gone from His tomb. Back in those times anything a woman said held no weight what so ever. Just to make things easier, since they were just making this all up anyway, wouldn’t you say that You found the tomb empty? That way people would put more stock in the story you were trying to sell.

Finally, the disciples were cowards even up to the night of Jesus’ arrest. Big tuff Peter, who claimed he would go to the death with Jesus, wimped out not once, but three times. This begs the question. How did the remaining disciples die? They were martyred for their faith. Why, what changed? If this was some elaborate conspiracy I have to ask what did they get out of the deal? Why hold to this lie for the remainder of their lives. Did they want to be in some exclusive club? A club that kept you broke, persecuted and in the end killed, for what?

No, I offer that something happened between the time Jesus was crucified on the cross and when they started the church. Something earth shaking happened in all of their lives to make them “Change” like they did. Something that shook them to the very core of who they were. Something that happened, not to a few of them, but ALL of them. Something like seeing Jesus resurrected.

You could offer that people die for the wrong reasons all the time. However, there is a difference from the schahid (suicide bombers) of the Muslim faith and these disciples. A young man in the Muslim faith will die for a lie if he believes it to be the truth, but Nobody will die for something they know is a lie! The disciples would have been in a position to know the truth of what they were claiming. Don’t you think that if this were a lie when it came down to the end one of them, just ONE would have admitted they had made it all up? I know some really strong people and I can tell you that even the best conspiracy will not hold water the more people you have involved. Someone is going to give in. Someone always breaks. Heck even in SEAR school you’re taught that you will eventually break down. It’s a fact that nobody holds out forever. How much more so when it’s a lie? Am I to believe that all eleven never broke? What would that pay off have been? Did their families get something out of it? All the disciples got was dead, in the world’s eyes.




Well, I can tell you what they got. They received the promise of eternal life with Jesus Christ. They knew it ahead of time. That is why Paul says in Romans 8:18-19

18 For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed to us-ward.

19 For the earnest expectation of the creation waiteth for the revealing of the sons of God.

How did Paul know this? Not to a reasonable certainty, but with every fiber in his being? He knew it because God showed him and he believed in His Son Jesus.

Isn’t it strange that this lie from these eleven phonies has lasted for over 2,000 years? That seems amazing to me, almost like a divine force of some sort is protecting it. More than one Jew has set out to disprove the New Testament and ended up becoming a believer. Why is that? Many of these guys are brilliant, how could they be fooled by a 2,000-year-old conspiracy from a bunch of cowards?

I could go on with evidence, but I suspect it won’t make any difference. You either believe, or you don’t. That takes us full circle to my initial question. What if you are wrong? Yes God commands us to seek Him and I commend you for doing so. I am as well, but I have not turned my back on His Son. Turning your back on your faith in Jesus Christ is a fatal mistake.

Michael, I understand that you have had a lot of things happen in your life and not all of them good. I also get it that, woven into the fabric of who you are, you need to believe in something and that something has to have a pursuit to it. You tend to dive in with your entire being, making it part of who you are.

You know the truth, you even know the mathematical odds of anyone other than Jesus being the Messiah are impossible to reconcile. You quote from the Old Testament. I ask you, who does that point to? Who else in history do all of the prophecies surrounding the Messiah point to? You know the answer to that as well as I do.

You are right when you say that God’s ways of thinking are as high as the heavens are above the earth compared to our thinking. That is why He had to make it simple for us. God’s plan of salvation was made easy for all of us to comprehend. I know when I teach a class on tactics I have to gear it to the least trained person in the class. That is what God has done. He’s made it so easy the simplest among us can understand it. I think for you it’s too simple. You need a quest, a problem to solve. I know because I’m much the same way. I’m seeking God, we all are. However, when I find a new truth I don’t throw away what I have already known.

In closing I’ll tell you a story of something that happened to me recently. I hired a guy to do some wiring in my shop. We got to talking about religion and I gave him the book Case for Christ.
A week later I asked him if he had read it and if so what he thought. He said he had read it and thought it all, and I quote, “bunch of crap”. Shocked I asked what part? He said all of it. I asked him to explain. He said; “Take for example the Jesus coming back from the dead thing. Well it’s obvious how he did it”. Curious, I said, well you’re going to have to let me in on it. He went on to explain that Jesus had a twin brother who was hidden all those years and appeared on the scene (for a month or so) just to get this religion started.

Stunned I asked for what possible reason would Jesus and (his twin brother) do this? Again, what was in it for them? He said; “Attention, everyone wants attention”.

This guy found it easier to believe this impossible story that wouldn’t make sense to a fool, than to believe that God may have brought His Son back to life.
I guess it’s true that God remains a mystery to some while others gain a level of understanding through faith.

Just remember.

John 3:16-18

16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but have eternal life.

17 For God sent not the Son into the world to judge the world; but that the world should be saved through him.

18 He that believeth on him is not judged: he that believeth not hath been judged already, because he hath not believed on the name of the only begotten Son of God.

I’ll pray for you.

Brad