by Robert W. McDonald

Created on: February 16, 2010

In their zeal to “prove” that the Bible is in fact a trustworthy historical document, many otherwise well-meaning Christians have advanced arguments that are either inconsistent with historical fact or are, for lack of a more “polite” term, blatantly false. In this essay I will quote from other essays published under the heading of “Can I believe my Bible?” to demonstrate my contentions.

(1) “There are now more than 24000 Greek, Latin and Aramaic manuscripts containing part of or all the new testament (sic), all dated to within 300 years of the events that they describe.”

The mere presence of thousands of copies of any work is not proof of that work's authenticity or reliability. If this argument is accepted, then the fact that there are “multiple copies” of “The Communist Manifesto,” “Mein Kampf,” and the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion” must, by definition, also be taken as “proof” of their veracity as well. Since most of us are not willing to acknowledge Dr. Seuss as being authoritative based on the number of copies that were printed, the above argument must be discarded.

(2) “The New Testament was originally written within a time period of under 100 years after the events happened… any lies or exaggerations would have been exposed by other first hand witnesses…”

This is a valid argument, but not necessarily a believable one. In fact, this argument exposes itself to several criticisms.

First, the execution of Jesus was simply not a major event at the time it occurred. In fact, it is very unlikely that anyone outside a 30-mile radius centered on Jerusalem would have known who Jesus of Nazareth was, much less have paid any attention to just this one of literally thousands of executions. There would therefore have been a very small number of those who could have given a reliable eyewitness account. Since the vast majority of even this relative handful of witnesses would have been dead when the gospel accounts were written, the quoted statement above loses much of its authority.

Next, consider that the earliest gospel account of Jesus of Nazareth, attributed to Mark, was not written until some 30 years after the crucifixion. If proximity to the events is to be considered as lending authenticity to Mark's account, then the author must also admit that the earliest known copies of Mark end without mentioning the resurrection. Since

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