So far, our quest to know why God is good has led us to biblical stories of God himself. But why should we accept biblical accounts as evidence for God’s goodness if we aren’t even sure the Bible is true?
Josh Barnes, pastor and host of the popular YouTube channel The Bible Explained, talks us through three categories historians use to judge a historical text’s reliability: authenticity, accuracy, and transmission.
Hear the case for the Bible’s authenticity, accuracy, and reliable transmission in this 30-minute interview—and hear why Josh thinks evidence-based faith is better than blind faith.
Historical tests affirm that the New Testament we read today accurately reflects the original documents—but were the authors of the New Testament telling the truth? Did Jesus really do the impossible—come back to life? In Part 2 of our interview with Robby Lashua, an apologist with Stand to Reason, we walk through the historical evidence for Jesus’ resurrection, including what non-Christian historians have to say about the event.
Is Evidence Possible?
Jesus’ original followers claimed he died and rose from the dead three days later. In fact, Jesus’ followers today still claim that. Can there be evidence for something miraculous? Robby’s answer is yes, and he says there is “a ton of evidence for the resurrection.”
“If Christians study any apologetics, they should study the resurrection.”
Robby Lashua
One indicator of the strength of the evidence of the resurrection is what non-Christian believers believe about the disciples’ claim. “When historians, non-Christian historians, study this, they admit to four or five historical facts that happened surrounding the life of Jesus,” Robby told Know Why. Those facts include that Jesus died from Roman crucifixion (a fact established through secular sources as well as Christian sources), and that his disciples were being sincere; they truly believed that Jesus rose from the dead and appeared to them after his crucifixion.
Why Did the Disciples Believe?
So even non-Christian historians believe that the disciples believed in the resurrection. “So the questions for us becomes, what led the disciples to believe that it happened?” Robby said.
Robby explains multiple pieces of evidence in the New Testament and other historical sources to answer “alternative theories”—for instance, the theory that those who claimed to see Jesus after his death hallucinated, or the theory that Jesus never actually died at all.
“These twelve guys turned the world upside down based on the belief that Jesus rose again.”
Robby Lashua
Many people find early Christians’ lives compelling—the fact that disciples faced torture and martyrdom for the belief that Jesus rose again, and the fact that fierce opponents of Jesus, like Paul, converted to Christianity after his death. What Robby finds especially compelling is that Jesus’ own siblings eventually believed that Jesus was God, even though they didn’t at first. Listen to the episode to learn why this particular point matters.
