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[Green Monster]

Why are you convinced that the New Testament is historically accurate?

[jimwalton]

It has been affirmed as historically true at every challenge. Where the text is confirmable, it has been confirmed. There has never been a discovery that has proved any piece of it to be false.

For instance, about 2 years ago I went through Luke, looking for historicity. Here's a summary.

• Luke mentions 25 places. 21 are known, 4 are unknown. Not a single reference shown to be false.
• Luke mentions 19 cultural references. Not a single reference shown to be false.
• Luke mentions 52 people. 17 are known and confirmed, 35 are unknown, 2 are highly debated. Not a single reference shown to be false.
• Luke has 8 historical references. 4 are confirmed, 4 are otherwise unknown, 1 of which is highly debated. Not a single reference shown to be false.
• Luke makes 18 religious references. 17 are confirmed; 1 is otherwise unknown. Not a single reference shown to be false.

And so it goes through the NT. If someone thinks something in the NT is historically inaccurate, the burden of proof is on them to substantiate that.

[Shaking 'n Baking]

Is the one highly debated historical reference the census in the birth narrative?

[jimwalton]

Yes. As far as PEOPLE, Quirinius was governor of Syria, but it has not yet been determined whether he was governor of Syria when Jesus was born. It is highly debated. The other is Annas as high priest. He was high priest, but Luke's chronology has been called into question.

As far as historical events, the census mentioned in Luke 2.1 is the one I was talking about. Caesar did issue decrees for censuses, but this one is unknown. It can possibly be assumed in interpolated, but it's highly debated.

[Anemone]

I’m confused why you would say

• 85% confirmed
• 15% unknown
• not a reference known to be false.

What would be an example of something being false if some records are either unknown or debated? Like how could 32.6% confirmation also be compatible with “no reference known to be false.” If I left 67.4% of a test blank, that would mean they are all incorrect even if not “false.”
Just seeking clarification of terms. Nothing argumentative intended.

[jimwalton]

Thanks for asking. Glad to explain. For example, I said that of the 25 places Luke mentions, 21 are known, 4 are unknown, and nothing is known to be false. Most of the places Luke mentioned have been confirmed as true by archaeology and documentation. There are 4 places, however, without corroboration:

• Bethsaida (has yet to be identified with certainty)
• Sodom (no one knows the location of ancient Sodom; it can't be confirmed)
• Bethphage (site is uncertain; can't be confirmed)
• Emmaus (site unknown)

It doesn't mean these places didn't exist or that Luke was wrong about them, it only means that there is no corroboration of the definite location of the sites. So we can't verify it's true. Nothing Luke wrote has been proved to be untrue, but to be honest and accurate, the jury is still out on these four. That's what I mean.

[Mike Mike Mike]

What about the tomb?

• In Mark, it is Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome.
• In Matthew, it is Mary Magdalene and the other Mary.
• In Luke, it is the women who had come with him out of Galilee, including Mary Magdalene, Joanna, and Mary the mother of James, plus two others.
• In John, Mary Magdalene found the stone removed and ran back to get Peter and another disciple.

And what they saw.

• In Mark, a man in a white robe was sitting in the tomb.
• In Matthew, an angel was standing on the stone that had been removed.
• In Luke, it was two men in dazzling apparel.
• In John, Mary and Peter and the other disciple initially find just an empty tomb. Peter and the other disciple enter the tomb and find only the wrappings. Then Peter and the other disciple leave and Mary looks in the tomb to find two angels in white. After a short conversation with the angels, Mary turns around to find Jesus.

I always thought the census was weird as well. Rome never required people to return to their cities of birth to be counted. The romans were meticulous in their recordings. It also doesn’t even make any sense for them to have this requirement.

Doesn’t that alone seem like an issue?

[jimwalton]

Glad to talk about. Yes, of course, these are issues, but they aren't proofs of falseness. For example, it was well-recognized and commonly practiced in ancient Rome that authors had license with biographies that allowed certain devices different from what our culture allows, such things as attributing words spoken by one person to another, placing something spoken in one context to another context, combining elements of two different events or people as one, and the like. The Gospel writers follow these practices and literary devices. They wrote within the context of their culture. As Mike Licona says, however, "The differences between the Gospels can quite easily and rightly be appreciated and/or resolved in light of the literary conventions of ancient biography and historiography." While certain devices were accepted and common, no historiographer of the day felt free to invent stories.

So let's look at the tomb story. What women were there? 2 Marys, Salome, Joanna, and others who are unnamed. It's not a problem that each author mentions the ones fitting to their story. When I tell my friends about who was at a party, I mention different ones to different friends based on who they know and names they would care about. This is not a problem.

Here's a possible (only possibly) harmony:

On Sunday morning just before dawn or at the break of dawn, some women had woken early to walk to the tomb to finish dressing the body for its burial. It was important to them to reach the body before the fourth day, for Jewish tradition held that decomposition set in after three days. The sun rises while these three women are walking, and it has just creased the horizon as they arrive. On the way they remember that there is a large stone over the entrance and ponder how they are going to gain entrance to the burial chamber to finish the work that had been begun late Friday afternoon. (They are probably unaware of the sealing, or of the posted guard.)

Not only to their surprise, but also to their utter shock, they arrive at Joseph’s family tomb to find that the stone is no longer over the entrance, but displaced and to the side of the opening. Mary Magdalene stops in her tracks, changes directions and runs to tell the disciples, leaving the other women behind. This small group of women continues to the gravesite, where they see angels who declare to them that Jesus has risen from the dead. An angel instructs these women to go and tell the disciples to meet him in Galilee, but the women are scared. Jesus appears to them, and they worshipped him. He tells them to tell the others. They leave the scene, but don’t tell a soul, despite what they have seen and what Jesus has said.

Mary Magdalene, meanwhile, has found John and Peter, both of whom run to the tomb in fear, confusion, and surprise. John reaches the tomb first and glances in the tomb. Peter arrives shortly behind him, crashes past him and bursts into the burial chamber. John then follows him in, notices the position of the graveclothes and the head cloth, and then both he and Peter leave the scene to head back to find the other disciples.

Mary Magdalene, who has walked back to the site, now arrives. She is the only one there now, and is still noticeably upset. She thinks someone has stolen the body, and is beside herself with grief and confusion. She looks in the tomb and sees two angels, but, still confused, retires a short distance away, where Jesus himself appears to her. At first she thinks he is a gardener, but Jesus reveals himself to her, and she worships him.

Is it possible that none of the Gospels writers are telling untruths, but instead being selective?

And was there one angel or two? To me the question is: Does each author have to tell every single detail, or are they free to edit? Very possibly it was a dynamic situation, and it's possible different people saw different angels in different positions. I have no problem with that and don't necessarily consider it an inaccuracy.

> The census

A number of papyri from Egypt indicate enrollment (census) was on the basis of household (http://www.kchanson.com/ANCDOCS/greek/census.html) and returning to the cities of their birth. This particular event was 100 years after Jesus, but it leads us to the possibility that the same thing could have been true at the time of Jesus.

By AD 6 we know that wide-scale registrations were taken every 14 years. The Deeds of the Divine Augustus (paragraph 8, lines 2-4) reveals that Emperor Caesar Augustus himself ordered a census in 8 BC —a census that from the record sounds empire-wide in scope (with 4 million citizens in an empire in which most people were not citizens).

"When I was consul the fifth time (29 BC), I increased the number of patricians by order of the people and senate. I read the roll of the senate three times, and in my sixth consulate (28 BC) I made a census of the people with Marcus Agrippa as my colleague. I conducted a lustrum, after a forty-one-year gap, in which lustrum were counted 4,063,000 heads of Roman citizens. Then again, with consular imperium I conducted a lustrum alone when Gaius Censorinus and Gaius Asinius were consuls (8 BC), in which lustrum were counted 4,233,000 heads of Roman citizens. And the third time, with consular imperium, I conducted a lustrum with my son Tiberius Caesar as colleague, when Sextus Pompeius and Sextus Appuleius were consuls (AD 14), in which lustrum were counted 4,937,000 of the heads of Roman citizens. By new laws passed with my sponsorship, I restored many traditions of the ancestors, which were falling into disuse in our age, and myself I handed on precedents of many things to be imitated in later generations."

In a world where travel was slower and there were only limited means of slow communication, it is plausible to assume that such a registration could take years to announce and execute. If the registration were proclaimed in 8 BC, we can visualize Joseph and Mary traveling the next year to fulfill the requirements, and Jesus being born in October of 7 BC. Then when the magi come, approximately a year or more later (sometime at the beginning of AD 5), Jesus is now in a house and the family flees to Egypt. When Jesus is 2½, Herod dies (in 4 BC) and the family sometime after that makes their way back to Nazareth.

> Doesn’t that alone seem like an issue?

Not yet.

[Goo Goo Dolls]

If a book mentions real places, real cultural references, real historical references, and real religious references... Does that mean everything in the book is true?

[jimwalton]

Of course not. Someone would have to be more than stupid to subscribe to such a view.

We do, however, have to consider principles of reason in connection with this line of thinking. If an author has given us true and accurate information about places, cultural references, historical references, and religious references, and if his purpose in writing is to give us a carefully investigated account of what actually happened (Lk. 1.1-4), on what basis would someone claim "He was dead on accurate about all these things but lying through his teeth about x, y, and z." If Luke is found to be above reproach in his historical method, by what line of reasoning do we claim he's a crackpot about others of his alleged facts?