How does one approach defending the Bible when many people around you do not regard it as an inspired book? Defending the Bible’s reliability in part assumes someone is interested in that question. What happens if they have no regard at all for the biblical text? Apologetics today needs to give more thought to where people are coming from as we engage them about faith. This seminar will not only explore the question of showing the credibility of much of what the Bible claims but also discuss how to bring someone who does not even have a category for inspiration to a place of considering its contents. There will also be a short aside on how to discuss the role of miracles in the Bible.
Part 1, New Testament Reliability: An Overview
There are a host of issues that get raised when one speaks of the reliability of the New Testament and how it is sometimes challenged. We work through the list of some of the most central topics that come up for discussion and briefly touch on each topic to show the array of challenges people discuss when it comes to the New Testament.
Part 2, A Key Supposition for Reliability: On Miracles
Obviously if one questions miracles, one will question the reliability of the New Testament. So we take a look at the topic of miracles and how to talk about them to someone who doubts they can exist. The points made draw directly from C. S. Lewis’s treatment in his book on miracles, a work that is still one of the best treatments of the topic. Craig Keener’s two volumes on Miracles also is a good source about miracles from around the world.
Part 3, On the Emergence of the Gospels: Orality, the Gospel Tradition before the Writing to the Gospels, and Gospel Differences
Here we focus on their oral culture that was the first century and explain how the period between the event and the writing of the gospels worked as the accounts of Jesus were collected and passed on orally. Was it loose as some claim or was their care given to the development of the tradition orally? What kind of oral oversight took place? We also consider an array of differences in how the Gospels themselves present material on the principle of variation yet gist.
Part 4, On the Key NT Event: Resurrection
We take a close look at the central event of the New Testament, the resurrection. We look at what kind of expectation there was of physical resurrection (it was not a common belief). Then we look at the reasons why resurrection is the best explanation for the record of the event we possess.
