Bill Pratt | March 2, 2009
In this series of posts, we have shown that the NT writers claimed to be eyewitnesses or associates of eyewitnesses; we have shown that we have multiple witnesses, and we have shown that the eyewitnesses were trustworthy. How? They included embarrassing details about themselves and difficult details about their subject of worship, Jesus; their accounts [...]
Bill Pratt | February 27, 2009
Continuing from part 6, we will examine more evidence for the trustworthiness of the NT writers. A fourth question about the NT writers’ integrity: are any of the historical facts they mention corroborated by other sources? Here the NT writers really shine. During the first and second centuries, there were many historians who were writing books [...]
Bill Pratt | February 26, 2009
From part 5, we are still examining whether the eyewitnesses who wrote the books of the NT are trustworthy. Previously we noted that the eyewitnesses recorded embarrassing details about Jesus’ disciples. We concluded that embarrassing details would not be included in a fictional work meant to emphasize the greatness of the first followers of Jesus. But [...]
Bill Pratt | February 21, 2009
Based on the previous post, we know that the NT documents were written soon enough after the events of Jesus’ life to prevent anyone claiming that they are largely tainted by myth or legend. This fact was very important to establish, but we are still left with a nagging question. Just because it was written soon [...]
Bill Pratt | February 18, 2009
In the previous post, we started arguing for early dates for several NT books, but we didn’t finish the discussion. So this post picks up where we left off! It is generally agreed upon by scholars that the gospel of Luke was written before the book of Acts. Dr. Luke wrote both of them and [...]
Bill Pratt | February 15, 2009
Continuing from the previous post, let’s examine the evidence for dating the books of the NT, especially the books of the NT which contain substantial historical facts about Jesus and his followers. First we should note that three leaders of the early church – Clement of Rome, Ignatius, and Polycarp – quoted passages from 25 [...]
Bill Pratt | February 14, 2009
In two previous posts, Darrell argued that the Greek New Testament (NT) that we have today is almost identical to the twenty-seven books that were originally written. These two posts can be found here and here. In this post and following posts, I want to establish an answer to the obvious next question. If the NT we [...]
