You might think that the Christian faith has to do with simply believing a certain theory or story about God, and it certainly motivates a lot of people to not dig deeper, as many tell them it’s a mystery thing which is most probably not true anyway, so why not just live your life here on earth as pleasantly as you can. And because we already live hasty kind of lives here in the Western world, most people cannot get themselves to investigate what is true about the Bible, or start reading its pages.
But, although there is absolutely a factor of belief (i.e., trusting things to be true) in the Christian faith, there is also a staggering wealth of evidence to corroborate its stories and statements.
Josh McDowell
Josh McDowell is a man who at a young age had become very skeptic about God and all, but then in university when he was mocking some Christians, a girl challenged him to find out for himself if the Bible was indeed false, or that maybe it was true after all.
So, long story short, he took up the challenge, went to European libraries to study ancient manuscripts and related literature and what not, and finally became a Christian after he found out that the evidence for the Christian viewpoint was absolutely overwhelming. Since then he has written many books, and is an enthusiastic speaker at many a conference. You may have heard of one of his famous books, More Than A Carpenter.
Handbook “Evidence That Demands a Verdict”
One of his books is an 800 pages thick handbook called Evidence That Demands a Verdict: Life-Changing Truth for a Skeptical World, available here on Amazon.com.
Note: The handbook gets an update every now and then to incorporate answers to new questions that people have come up with over the years, “because the truth of the Bible doesn’t change, but its critics do.” In this tradition this 2017 handbook is a completely revised and updated version to aid also today’s critics and the questions they have. Earlier versions were called “The New Evidence That Demands a Verdict.”
Just above the book cover on the Amazon.com page you will find a Look Inside link. If you click on that, it will reveal rather a lot of pages from the book, and it gives you the opportunity to check the table of contents to see the great many topics this book covers.
Great information pages, freely available
However, if the book is too costly for you at this moment, or you believe it’s not worth the buy right now, you will most probably find a lot of your questions answered on the page Answering Skeptics, or in these freely downloadable pdf books:
- Reasons Skeptics Should Consider Christianity
- Jesus: A Biblical Defense of His Deity
- He Walked Among Us.
And maybe the page Discover the Evidence can also direct you to some good research information. Note that these are only a few out of a wealth of information pages freely available on josh.org. And then there’s also a great many clarifying blog pages. For example, this one with several articles about the Resurrection of Jesus.
Related video series, including one unexpected piece of evidence
A related video series on YouTube, under a slightly different title.*
*) Earlier versions of the handbook were called “The New Evidence That Demands a Verdict.” Hence the title of the videos. The handbook gets an update every now and then to incorporate answers to new questions that people have come up with over the years, “because the truth of the Bible doesn’t change, but its critics do.” This way the handbook is grown into a body of work that can also be of help to today’s critics and the questions they have.
- The New Evidence That Demands A Verdict (video series)
Parts one, two, three, four, five, and six.
The videos in this series are max 10 minutes each, a 60-minute presentation cut in six pieces. Until 3:24 in the 3rd video he answers the question whether the Bible is the same today as when it was originally written down, and then follows up with answering the question whether what was written down originally is actually true or not. - Unexpected piece of evidence: Who would die for a lie while knowing full well that it was a lie?
This particular piece of evidence can be found in part five, from around 1:20 up to 5:10 (or even better: up to 4:00 in part six). It talks about the early followers of Jesus (the 12 Apostles) being prepared to die for what they believe in. Now, of course, history tells us there are a lot of people, including a fair amount of misled ones, that were also prepared to die for what they believed in, but this time there’s a difference in that these early followers of Jesus had watched Him having fellowship with them for forty days after He had risen from the dead. Even saw Him do miracles again.
Please, hear Josh McDowell unfold this story in the fifth video yourself. He has some interesting extra details to tell you. There’s a big difference in being prepared to die for some faith that has come to you via the (written or spoken) words of others, and being prepared to die because of what you have experienced with your own eyes and hands yourself.
The great proof is that most of the 12 disciples died a horrible death (some even worse than what can be found in any military annals), which they wouldn’t have allowed to happen when they KNEW that Jesus didn’t actually arise, and didn’t actually walk with them for 40 days after His resurrection. They only had to deny the resurrection of Jesus in order to escape the death penalty, but they didn’t, because they just couldn’t.
Note: See this explained in detail in the freely available pdf book He Walked Among Us (mentioned earlier), starting at page 118, in section “Who Would Die For A Lie?”. A more elaborate title for that section would be, “Who Would Die For A Lie While Knowing Full Well That It Was A Lie?”
The many prophecies that were fulfilled in the person of Jesus
Find here a good article about the many prophecies that have been fulfilled in the person of Jesus Christ. And here a funny but truthful animation covering the same topic.
*) A prophecy is a prediction of what will happen in the future.
From the article
“Just a handful of prophecy that Jesus fulfilled: He was born in Bethlehem, preceded by a messenger (John the Baptist), entered Jerusalem on a donkey, was betrayed by a friend who received thirty pieces of silver, was silent before His accusers, and died in the manner Romans used for criminals (crucifixion), during which they pierced His hands and feet.
Peter Stoner, in his classic book Science Speaks, calculated the chance of any man fulfilling these prophecies, even down to the present time, to be 1 in 100,000,000,000,000,000 (10 to the 17th power).”“Stoner then upped the ante significantly: he found that the odds of any man fulfilling even 48 of the 300+ Old Testament prophecy jumped to 10 to the 157th power!”
“Only one person can claim to fulfill ALL Old Testament prophecy about the coming Messiah. Jesus!”
Note: Find the wonderful and astonishing explanation directly from Stoner’s book, here in chapter 3, which is freely available online.
Many more fulfilled prophecies
Find here an introductory article about the many prophecies in the Old Testament that have been fulfilled in much later years. It is the 4th of a series of seven articles with compelling evidences.
The article also refers to a leaflet with a number of fulfilled Messianic prophecies, i.e., prophecies that were fulfilled in the person of Jesus Christ.
Is Jesus a Liar, a Lunatic, or Lord? — C.S. Lewis trilemma
Find out for yourself in this article.
Find this trilemma being explained and illustrated around 11:40 in this video.*
Find it being explained by the C.S. Lewis Institute here.
Find some more info in this and this freely downloadable pdf books.
Or is it just a Legend?
Some skeptics say that there could be a fourth option, namely, that it’s nothing more than a legend. You can find this reiterated in the Wikipedia page on the C.S. Lewis trilemma, in the Criticisms section. If you think along those lines as well, it might be good to read this article, under the heading ‘Legend.’
Note: This is the 4th article from a series of 10. To see all ten articles you can start with this introductory article, and then click on Next Article at the bottom of each page to get to the other ones. For your convenience, I give you the links here: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. See the titles by moving over the links.
Or was Jesus no more than a Guru of some kind, a good teacher?
See What is the quintilemma concerning Jesus Christ? Among other things, this article explains why Jesus couldn’t have been a guru, yogi, lama, or religious sage; in other words, a good teacher.
There’s no doubt about the Resurrection of Jesus
There’s no doubt about the Resurrection of Jesus, clarifies Tim Chaffey of Answers in Genesis. Find his article here. And find here another one of his articles that refutes three alternate explanations for the Resurrection, namely Mistaken Identity, Legend, and Copycat. And find an overview page here with several subjects related to the person of Jesus, where one of the subjects (Jesus’ Resurrection) refers to the article Christ’s Resurrection—Four Accounts, One Reality.
» Here’s one of Tim’s videos about Christ’s Resurrection.
A logical breakdown of why God is the most plausible explanation for the creation of the universe and all
See the article Is there a conclusive argument for the existence of God? from GotQuestions.org.
A few solid Apologetics Press articles
» The Essentiality of Evidence in Christianity
» “You People Are Crazy” to believe in miracles
» 7 Reasons to Believe in God
» 3 Good Reasons to Believe the Bible is from God
Errors in the Bible?
See the video Errors in the Bible?, where Frank Turek from Cross Examined answers a student’s question.
From the video:
“The essential Christian beliefs are not affected by textual variants in the manuscript tradition of the New Testament.”
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