Nat Crawford - Executive Coach, Speaker, Leader

Two weeks ago I began dealing with the validity and authenticity of the Scriptures. We discovered it is by far the most reliable ancient texts! This week we will look at it light of historical reliability. There are references in the New Testament to supposed historical people, such as Pontius Pilate, Caesar Augustus, Gallio, and so on. There's also references to places, such as the Sea of Galilee, Jericho, etc. There are also references to moments in time, such as the Roman census, droughts, the crucifixion of Jesus, etc. Take Luke 1:5, "In the time of Herod king of Judea" or Luke 3:1, "In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar- when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, Herod tetrarch of Galilee, his brother Philip tetrarch of Iturea and Traconitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene-." He gives us checks to back up his Gospel. Proof in Archaeology The People Pontius Pilate - In the last century archaeology has given us many items th...

Can you trust the Bible? That's a legitimate question. Is the Bible true? Isn't it just a bunch of stories? These are common questions Even I have asked these questions. I will tackle this topic over the next 2 weeks. This week I will look at the integrity of the New Testament. Next week I will look at the historical reliability of it. So, how do we test the integrity of the New Testament. 3 main questions are used when looking at ancient texts: 1) How many manuscripts have been discovered? 2) What are the dates of the manuscripts? 3) How accurate are the copies? How many manuscripts have been found? Obviously, the more copies the better. This allows comparison to restore the original text. We have many English versions of ancient writings: Homer's Iliad, the writings of Sophoclies , Aristotle, Caesar, and Plato. There are 643 ancient manuscripts of Homer's Iliad ! That's pretty good, I thought. 193 of Sophoclies, 49 of Aristotle, 10 of Caesar's, and only 7...