Internal Evidence Pt 3

In my previous note on internal evidence I gave some examples of how gospel accounts compliment each other, which show their consistency and authenticity.  My reason for writing these notes is to demonstrate how the average person can test the Bible for accuracy.  You don't have to know Greek and Hebrew, or go on archaeological expeditions.  Just own a Bible and have a basic knowledge of the facts surrounding it (manuscripts, history, etc).  Open it up and check this stuff out for yourself.

Jesus gave us some prophecies.  Here is another way to test the veracity of the text.  Because of manuscript evidence, we know that these prophecies were written in the first century.  Now consider the fulfillment of these:

And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it.  -Jesus in Matthew 16:18

Jesus did build His church upon Peter, the rock.  Peter preached the sermon at Pentecost, which was the birth of the church.  This is nothing as a supernatural sign, because Matthew could have written that part knowing that Peter began the church.  But the rest of it is.  Jesus built His Church, and the gates of Hades have not overcome it.  Of course the gates of Hades have tried many times.  Satan tried to destroy the Church in the first couple centuries through persecution, but Christianity survived Roman persecution.  Then Christianity was adopted as the official religion of the Roman Empire.  Some like to say that the Church was wedded to the Empire.  If they were wedded, the Church was widowed.  The Roman Empire died, but Christianity did not die with it.  And all of this was way beyond the natural foresight of Matthew, or anyone that could have written the book of Matthew (no matter how liberal of a scholar you are). 

And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.  -Jesus in Matthew 24:14

We could debate whether or not the gospel has actually been preached throughout the whole world.  Regardless of whether it has, it certainly will be before long.  Just consider what an incredible thing it was: this man proclaiming that some good news of God's kingdom would one day reach the ends of the earth, and He is saying this in first century Judea.  They did not even know how big the whole world was (Jesus did of course, but a mere man could not have known).  So what a bold statement.  And guess what, it has - or will - come true. 

The days will come upon you [Jerusalem] when your enemies will build an embankment against you and encircle you and hem you in on every side.  They will dash you to the ground, you and the children within your walls.  They will not leave one stone on another, because you did not recognize the time of God's coming to you.  -Jesus in Luke 19:43-44

The Romans besieged Jerusalem, and the city was captured in 70AD.  Josephus writes a detailed account of this in his Wars of the Jews.  Some people might argue that the gospels were written after 70AD so that its nothing special.  The gospels were likely written before 70AD, and most Bible scholars believe this, but it is true that there is no proof of it.  Acts ends with Paul in Rome, which would be the early 60s, and Luke's gospel is a prequel to Acts, so Luke's gospel was probably written around 60AD.  And there's other reasons scholars believe the gospels were written before the destruction of Jerusalem, but I will concede that there is no proof.  Nonetheless, this prophecy forces nonbelievers to date all three of the synoptics (they each have this prophecy in them) after 70AD.  And as we discover more evidence relating to the gospels, the latest date of their composition becomes earlier and earlier.  So I will concede that this prophecy alone does not prove anything, but it does put nonbelievers in an increasingly tough spot.  Added to the other prophecies in this note, and its another of the many reasons to believe the Bible.

Believe me, woman, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem.  -Jesus in John 4:21

The mountain is Mount Gerizim.  The Samaritans believed it to be sacred and worshiped God there.  As for Jerusalem, we already know that it was captured and ruined in 70AD.  Jews continued to live there until they were banned from Jerusalem in 132AD (because of the Bar Kokhba rebellion).  We can take this to be the time that Jews no longer worshiped God in Jerusalem.  As for Mount Gerizim, Samaritans were banned from worshiping there when Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire (325AD).  And Christians were driven out of the area when Islam conquered it (7th century).  This prophecy from Jesus was fulfilled, but no earlier than 132AD.  The thing that nonbelievers have to grapple with is the fact that a fragment from John's gospel is dated to about 125AD.  This means that John's gospel was written before the earliest possible fulfillment of Jesus' prophecy.

These are just a few more examples of internal evidence.  Add them to the examples already mentioned in previous notes, and you can begin to see that there is a mountain of evidence supporting the Bible.