Six Reasons Why I Believe In the Biblical Biographies of Jesus: Part One
1. The Eyewitness Evidence
Can the Biographies of Jesus be Trusted?
"Eyewitness testimony is powerful. In a court of law, one of the most dramatic moments is when the witness describes in detail the crime he or she saw and then points confidently to the defendant as being the perpetrator... When a witness has had ample opportunity to observe a crime, when there's no bias or ulterior motives, when the witness is truthful and fair, the climactic act of pointing out a defendant in a courtroom can be enough to doom a person to prison or worse. Eyewitness testimony is just as crucial in investigating historical matters - even the issue of whether Jesus Christ is the Son of God."
~Lee Strobel
"The uniform testimony of the early church was that Matthew, also known as Levi, the tax collector and one of the twelve disciples, was the author of the first gospel; that John Mark, a companion of Peter, was the author of the gospel we call Mark; and that Luke, known as Paul's 'beloved physician,' wrote both the gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles.
"Mark and Luke weren't even among the twelve disciples. Matthew was, but as a former hated tax collector, he would have been the most infamous character next to Judas Iscariot, who betrayed Jesus!... So there would non have been any reason to attribute authorship to these three less respected people if it weren't true.
"[The gospel of John] is the one exception. Interestingly, John is the only gospel about which there is some question about authorship... The name of the author isn't in doubt - it's certainly John. The question is whether it was John the apostle or a different John. You see, the testimony of a Christian writer named Papias, dated about A.D. 125, refers to John the apostle and John the elder, and it's not clear from the context whether he's talking about one person from two perspectives or two different people. But granted that exception, the rest of the early testimony is unanimous that it was John the apostle - the son of Zebedee - who wrote the gospel... In any event, [this] gospel is obviously based on eyewitness material, as are the other three gospels."
~Dr. Craig Blomberg, Ph.D
B.A., Summa Cum Laude, religion, mathematics education, and Spanish, Augustana College
M.A., New Testament, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School
Ph.D, New Testament, specializing in the parables and writings of Luke and Acts, Aberdeen University, Scotland
Author, The Historical Reliability of the Gospels
Can the Biographies of Jesus be Trusted?
"Eyewitness testimony is powerful. In a court of law, one of the most dramatic moments is when the witness describes in detail the crime he or she saw and then points confidently to the defendant as being the perpetrator... When a witness has had ample opportunity to observe a crime, when there's no bias or ulterior motives, when the witness is truthful and fair, the climactic act of pointing out a defendant in a courtroom can be enough to doom a person to prison or worse. Eyewitness testimony is just as crucial in investigating historical matters - even the issue of whether Jesus Christ is the Son of God."
~Lee Strobel
"The uniform testimony of the early church was that Matthew, also known as Levi, the tax collector and one of the twelve disciples, was the author of the first gospel; that John Mark, a companion of Peter, was the author of the gospel we call Mark; and that Luke, known as Paul's 'beloved physician,' wrote both the gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles.
"Mark and Luke weren't even among the twelve disciples. Matthew was, but as a former hated tax collector, he would have been the most infamous character next to Judas Iscariot, who betrayed Jesus!... So there would non have been any reason to attribute authorship to these three less respected people if it weren't true.
"[The gospel of John] is the one exception. Interestingly, John is the only gospel about which there is some question about authorship... The name of the author isn't in doubt - it's certainly John. The question is whether it was John the apostle or a different John. You see, the testimony of a Christian writer named Papias, dated about A.D. 125, refers to John the apostle and John the elder, and it's not clear from the context whether he's talking about one person from two perspectives or two different people. But granted that exception, the rest of the early testimony is unanimous that it was John the apostle - the son of Zebedee - who wrote the gospel... In any event, [this] gospel is obviously based on eyewitness material, as are the other three gospels."
~Dr. Craig Blomberg, Ph.D
B.A., Summa Cum Laude, religion, mathematics education, and Spanish, Augustana College
M.A., New Testament, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School
Ph.D, New Testament, specializing in the parables and writings of Luke and Acts, Aberdeen University, Scotland
Author, The Historical Reliability of the Gospels
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