The Historical Records

Since we don't have the originals of any ancient writings, scholars must examine manuscript copies to determine their integrity, asking two key questions.

1. How early are the first known manuscripts?

The John Rylands fragment of the Gospel of John is dated about A.D. 120, within about 20 years of any living eyewitnesses of Jesus. The Magdalen manuscript (a fragment of Matthew) has been dated by Dr. Carston Thiede about A.D. 55-60, within 25 years of Jesus Himself!

Conclusion: The Gospel records were written within the eyewitness generation of Jesus. The theory that they are legends is without merit.

2. How many manuscripts are there from authorship to the printing press?

The number of hand-copied manuscripts of all other ancient literature ranges from 1-643. But archaeologists have found over 24,000 New Testament manuscripts from many sources and languages! And they are from every century from the first to the fifteenth.

Conclusion: The Gospel records we have today are not substantially changed from what eyewitnesses wrote. The biblical Gospels are the genuine articles-the most reliable writings of antiquity!

Jesus: The Focus and Fulfillment of Prophecy

There are at least 456 Old Testament prophetic references that pertain to a future person that all were fulfilled in the life of Jesus.

The most common objection is that the fulfillment of these prophecies was by chance. Science and mathematics professor Peter Stoner estimated a reasonable probability that one man might have fulfilled just 8 of these 456 prophecies at one chance in 10¹⁷.

1 chance in
100,000,000,000,000,000

Take 10¹⁷ silver dollars and cover the state of Texas two feet deep. Mark one and stir the whole mass thoroughly. Blindfold a man and have him pick up only one silver dollar and have it be the right one. What chance would he have of getting the right one? Just the same chance the prophets would have had of writing these eight prophecies and having them all come true in any one man... (Peter W. Stoner, Science Speaks, Moody Press, p. 107).

And these odds don't account for the other 448 prophecies also fulfilled in the person of Jesus!