Many try to say today that the bible writers invented history or played fast and loose with the facts. But how does this claim stand when checked out by archaeology?
One book that especially lends itself to archaeological verification is the Acts of the Apostles, believed by most scholars to be authored by Luke, the author of the third Gospel. Sir William Ramsay, who was one of the greatest archaeologists to have ever lived, began a study of the book of Acts as a skeptic, believing it was written in the second century and not historical. As he studied he uncovered evidence that indicated otherwise,...
One of the most powerful reasons we can believe the New Testament is real history, is that most of the original apostles and other disciples died to bring us this history. As many have said, no one dies for what they know is a lie, so if they died for their beliefs, we can be sure they were not inventing history. It is also true that the original eyewitnesses of Jesus died for what they witnessed and knew to be true, not from second hand reports such as martyrs in other religions and cults.
But some critics have tried to cast doubt on whether or not the original apostles or other early disciples...
A common objection heard among skeptics today is that there is little to no evidence for Jesus outside the gospels. Why isn't there more evidence? Let me give a general overview in this article, with more specifics to follow in future articles.
First, the fact is that from the first century we have a very very small sample of ancient Roman and Greek writings that have survived. Further, why would they have written about Jesus anyway? Roman attention tended to be focused on military and insurrectionist threats, not a minor religious group from a small town. They also tended not to pay too much...
The Gospel of John is one of the deepest books of the whole Bible theologically. But does it report accurate history, or is it fiction, as is sometimes charged by skeptics?
The Gospel of John is often portrayed by critics as being very theological with little concern for accurate history. But this view is totally against both the internal evidence of the text as well as the archaeological evidence. John mentions many historical details that would only be known by a personal witness, someone who was "on the spot." For example:
John describes the Pool of Bethesda as having...
The Exodus is perhaps one of the more difficult areas of Biblical archaeology, and some scholars are skeptical about its reality because finding confirming evidence for it has been very difficult. But it is a very important event in the history of Israel. Should we, and do we find evidence for the Exodus?
If we look for Egyptian records we run into the problem that most of them were recorded on very perishable papyrus. As Egyptologist James Hoffmeier pointed out, most papyrus documents did not survive in the Egyptian Delta because it was too wet. * And the inscriptions on statues and temples...
In the Book of Acts, Chapter 27, Luke gives a detailed account of Paul's journey on a Roman ship which wrecked off of the southeast coast of the Island of Malta in the Mediterranean Sea. He reports that they encountered a severe northeaster storm (v. 14) dropped four anchors(v.29) in 15 fathoms of water (v. 28), and eventually headed for a "bay with a beach" (the correct translation of v. 39, some versions erroneously have "a creek with a shore"). They eventually wrecked, running the ship aground, in an unfamiliar place (v. 39) where the "two seas meet" (v. 41), 14 days after they...