Wednesday April 15, 2015

Read Luke 1:1-4

 The second part of the Bible, the New Testament was written by people who were eyewitnesses to the resurrection of Jesus Christ or people very close to them. There was no major time lag between the resurrection of Jesus and the writing of the first parts of the New Testament.

Luke says in his opening paragraph ‘Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us, just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word. Therefore, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, it seemed good also to me to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught.’ Even a brief glance shows that this writer was very close to Jesus and that he went to great lengths to ensure that what he wrote was truthful not fancy or lies or myths and legends. Matthew and John were written by Jesus’ own disciples and Mark was a disciple of Peter who was a disciple of Jesus.

Currently there are more copies of  the New Testament documents (25,000) from early history than there are of any other historical document, even if we combine  these in  groups of ten.  Of these copies, no major doctrine within the New Testament is contradicted and 99% of the variations can easily be explained. This proves that they were not made up and that the copies were meticulously done. Again, like the Old Testament, no errors were tolerated.

Archaeology also has backed up the historical accuracy of the New Testament. For example, Luke’s details of the census at the time of Jesus’ birth have been shown to be true, contrary to popular earlier belief that Luke’s account was falsifiable because of the wrong information regarding this census.