Dr. Mike Licona is an expert in the area of the historicity of the New Testament and Jesus. In this two part video offering, Mike talks specifically about whether the New Testament documents contain eyewitness testimony as a way of answering New Testament scholar Bart Ehrman’s challenge that the documents are not reliable.
Does the New Testament contain eyewitness testimony? (Part 1) (9:13)
Does the New Testament contain eyewitness testimony? (Part 2) (9:50)
Dr. Phil Fernandes provides teaching on New Testament Reliability. This first video covers the “Early Manuscripts.” Just remember that having early manuscripts is not enough on its own though. The quantity of those early manuscripts is also important in order to help sift out copyist errors in the text.
The second video tackles the early church fathers and their involvement in preserving the New Testament writings. This is a significant point and should not be missed. In the third and fourth video, Dr. Fernandes turns inward to the books of Luke, Acts, and Hebrews.
New Testament Reliability: Part 1 of 4 - “Early Manuscripts” (5:34)
New Testament Reliability: Part 2 of 4 - “Church Fathers” (3:43)
New Testament Reliability: Part 3 of 4 - “Luke and Acts” (5:36)
New Testament Reliability: Part 4 of 4 - “Hebrews” (3:53)
Lee Strobel is interviewed about the historical reliability of the Bible in the following video. Given the manuscript evdience, both in quantity and in quality, there is no doubt that the New Testament manuscripts are far superior than any other historical manuscripts that we possess from antiquity.
Is the Bible Reliable as a Historical Document? (7:29)
When discussing the truth of the resurrection, invariably the historical accuracy of the New Testament come into play. After all, it is those documents that contain the majority of the information about the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. From an historical perspective, there are at least seven lines of evidence that are pointed to in order to validate and sustain the reliability and accuracy of the New Testament documents. These seven lines of evidence, or arguments, are known as the seven E’s and they are: 1. Eyewitness Testimony – eyewitnesses are those individuals that saw and experienced the events that they either wrote about or told someone else about. 2. Early Testimony – this speaks to how early the written documents are in relation to when their recorded events actually happened. 3. Embarrassing Testimony – this is the authors revealing embarrassing and unflattering information about either themselves or the central figure of their story. 4. Excruciating Testimony – this has to do with the imprisonment, torture, persecution, and death that many individuals suffered because of their belief. 5. Expected Testimony – expected testimony is the fulfilled Old Testament prophecies of Jesus as written the Gospels. 6. Extra-Biblical Testimony – this is written accounts of Jesus and his followers by non-New Testament authors. 7. Enemy Testimony – this is written accounts written by those who were opposed to Jesus and his followers.
Over the coming days and weeks I will be expanding on each of these seven E’s and how they help us prove that Jesus was a real historical figure and that the New Testament documents are accurate and reliable.
