Beyond Belief: The Gospels – fact, fraud or fantasy?

The Gospels – fact, fraud or fantasy?

The Gospels – their importance

“The Bible is not history”

“If Jesus was actually resurrected as it says in the Bible, then it’s all true, regardless of what one thinks of Christians and their behaviour.”

“based on the notion that we can take the New Testament stories as accounts of real events”

“And the evidence shows very clearly that the stories of the New Testament were written in the first couple of hundred years after the historical Jesus died. These stories then continued to be edited and revised for political and social needs for most of the first millennium.”

“they created words and legends that fitted present needs and were put into the mouths of historical figures and then read as history.”“When I realized that the accounts of Jesus were just tales, I had to accept that the resurrection could not be argued from these very sources as fact…”

What are the Gospels?

• Accounts of words & actions of Jesus

• Aims of instruction & attraction

Who wrote them?

• Writers’ statements

• External testimony

• Internal references

Are they telling the truth?

•Honesty

• Independence

How could they remember?

•Written records

•Memorisation techniques

Why do we think only these 4 Gospels are to be trusted?

• Value

• Limitations

If there was no Bible, what would we know about Jesus?

• Histories

• Treatises

• Creeds

• Sayings

Archaeology ?

•Buildings

•Objects

• Inscriptions

Recommended reading

• John Robinson Re-dating the New Testament

• Craig Bloomberg The Historical Reliability of the Gospels

• Lee Strobel The Case for Christ and The Case for the Real Jesus