Evidence That Demands a Verdict By Josh McDowell

1. Chapter 1 Evidence That Demands a Verdict By Josh McDowell

2. The Bible is Unique . . . Unique in its Continuity Written over a 1500 year period By 40 authors In different places In different times In different moods In different languages In different literary styles Covered controversial subjects but remains harmonious Has one central theme: Redemption, and One central focus: Jesus Christ.

3. The Bible is Unique . . . Unique in its Circulation: Billions circulated, given away, and sold. Unique in its Translation: 2200 languages Unique in its Teaching: ~Predictive Prophesy: The life, death and resurrection of the savior, cities, nations, and governments have predictions about them fulfilled decades and centuries later. ~History: No other book provides ancient history of its people with detailed accuracy as the Bible does. ~Character: People are portrayed honestly, sin is dealt with openly. Unique in its Influence on Literature Unique in its Influence on Civilization

4. The Bible is Unique . . . Unique in its Survival ~Through Time: 10 x more manuscripts than any other ancient text no serious textual critics question the validity of the extant copies ~Through Persecution: A.D. 303 Diocletian ordered churches razed to the ground, burning of all Bibles, and imprisonment for Christians. Twenty five years later, Constantine ordered fifty copies of the Scriptures at the government’s expense and converted the entire empire to Christianity C1770 Voltaire stated that within 100 years, Christianity would be swept from history. Within fifty years, the Geneva Bible Society had purchased his house and was using his printing presses to print Bibles. ~Through Criticism: Documentary Hypothesis (every different name used in the OT was a separate writer and Moses could not have written the Pentateuch because there was no written form at that time) DH: There never were Hittites, then archeologists uncovered 1200 years of Hittite Civilization

5. We will look at two major kinds of arguments: How do we Validate the Text How do we know the Bible is historically reliable? What are the Arguments and Answers What are the arguments against Christianity and do any of them hold water?

6. Validating the Text, Ch. 2-13 How we got the Bible Is the NT historically Reliable? Is the OT historically Reliable? Jesus, a man of history Is Jesus God? The Significance of his deity Support of his deity Support of the Resurrection What would you expect of God became man? Is the Bible from God? The presuppositions of anti-supernaturalism Archeology and Biblical Criticism

7. Arguments and Answers 14-26 The Documentary Hypothesis 27 New Testament Higher Criticism 28-30 Form Criticism, Historical Skepticism 31 Modern Theology and Biblical Criticism 32-33 The Nature of Truth 34 Answering Post Modernism 35 Answering Skepticism 36 Answering Agnosticism 37 Answering Mysticism 38 Certainty vs. Certitude 39 Defending Miracles 40 Is History Knowable?

8. There was a time. . . When few people questioned the validity of the Bible, and so, The church did not develop a good apologetic, so, Philosophers invented ways of working around God (none worked, none will), and then, When Darwinian evolution sprang up and “science” had a way to explain the earth without a God, they did so, and Christianity was slow to respond.

9. But that day is not this day There are now very strong evidences supporting the Bible as a reliable book yielding true histories of past events There are very strong arguments against atheism, agnosticism, skepticism, scientism, naturalism, and all forms of knowledge that seek to stand against the Lord God Almighty Conversely, all theorems, worldviews, and philosophies that reject God, have significant failings.

10. Theories of Higher Criticism: All social development are the result of the evolution of humanity, there is no God, ergo, there can be no divine revelation, ergo, the Bible cannot be divine. Academic Source Analysis is preferred over Bible references of archeological evidence. Kant: There are no a priori (before looking at the facts) assumptions in philosophy, therefore there is no need to assume there is a God in history. Hegel: there is no thesis/antithesis/right/wrong, instead there is thesis/antithesis/synthesis, so almost anything might be true. Forget facts in religion. Find the “meaning” of history, not the facts, to discover the “reason” things are the way they are. Kierkegaard: Religion requires an irrational leap of faith for authentication of self. Any leap will do, the content is irrelevant. This splits faith into irrational thought, and leaves science as rational, so, anything can be “religiously” true, science deals in facts. Meaning, however, comes from the irrational leap of faith.

11. Higher Criticism Assumptions Literature can be dated by the evolutionary stages of the religion in light of other religions at the time, the religions develop together and are interdependent on each other for ideas/stages. Monotheism didn’t develop until the time of Amos, ergo, Moses could not have been a monotheist. Jewish religious tenants were borrowed by Israel from other pagan religions, not delivered through revelation. The laws, moral tone, and social level ascribed to Moses are too lofty to be found in early Israel, Moses could not have thought at that level. Moses is not the author of the Pentateuch, there were 4-6 writers much later who wrote those books. The gospels are a collection of stories passed down through the church about a person named Jesus, most are myth, there may have been no actual person, certainly there is no history in the Bible, just religious ideas.

12. Why Do You Need Evidence? I Cor. 15:12-17 Now if Christ be preached that he rose from the dead, how say some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there be no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen: And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain. Yea, and we are found false witnesses of God; because we have testified of God that he raised up Christ: whom he raised not up, if so be that the dead rise not. For if the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised: And if Christ be not raised, (then) your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins. 1 Peter 3:15 But Sanctify the Lord God in your hearts, and always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear.

13. When the Text is Questioned: You have no choice but to go outside the book and study evidences of its validity. Not until the text is proven to be historically valid can the contents be discussed. Philology is the study of ancient texts and languages. Philology thus comprises the study of the grammar, rhetoric, history, interpretation of authors, and critical traditions associated to a given language. Textual criticism, or Lower Criticism, examines the work to produce a text as close to the autographs as possible. Higher criticism investigates the origins of the text, the authors, dates and place it was composed.