Is The Bible Historically Accurate?
Once upon a time scholars doubted the existence of Assyrian King Sargon, brought up at Isaiah 20:1. Despite this, in the 1840’s, archaeologists set about uncovering the palace of this king. Today, Sargon is amongst the most famous Assyrian kings.
Then critics questioned the existence of Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor who ordered Jesus’ death. ( Matthew 27:1, 22–24 ) In 1961 a stone displaying Pilate’s name and rank was found in the vicinity of the city of Caesarea in Israel.
Before 1993, there was absolutely no extra-biblical proof to support the historicity of David, the brave young shepherd who afterward grew to become king of Israel. That year, however, archaeologists discovered in northern Israel a basalt stone, dated to the ninth century B.C.E., that researchers point out bear the phrases “House of David” and “King of Israel.”
Until recently, numerous scholars doubted the accuracy and reliability of the Bible’s account of the nation of Edom battling with Israel in the time of David. ( 2 Samuel 8:13, 14 ) Edom, they argued, was a basic pastoral society during the time and did not grow to be adequately structured or possess the might to endanger Israel until considerably later on. Despite this, recent excavations show that “Edom was a complex society century earlier than previously thought, as reflected in the Bible,” reports a research report in the journal Biblical Archaeology Review.
There have been many rulers on the world stage throughout the sixteen centuries that the Bible was being composed. Anytime the Bible references a ruler; it invariably employs the correct title. To illustrate, it correctly describes Herod Antipas as “district ruler” and Gallio as “proconsul.” ( Luke 3:1; Acts 18:12 ) Ezra 5:6 identifies Tattenai, the governor of the Persian province “beyond the River,” the Euphrates River. A coin fashioned in the fourth century B.C.E. includes a comparable description, recognizing the Persian governor Mazaeus as ruler of the province “Beyond the River.”
On the subject of the historical accuracy and reliability of the Bible, the October 25, 1999, issue of U.S. News & World Report said:
“In extraordinary ways, modern archaeology has affirmed the historical core of the Old and New Testaments — corroborating key portions of the stories of Israel’s patriarchs, the Exodus, the Davidic monarchy, and the life and times of Jesus.”
Even more astounding, still, is the fact that there’s far more historical attestation for the life, death, and resurrection of Christ when compared to for Evolution. Truth be told, any rejection of the historicity of Christ’s resurrection is just like doubting the US declared its freedom in 1776 or that Columbus landed in North America in 1492.
In his book “The Historicity of the Resurrection of Jesus”, Michael Licona presents an extensive list of scholars who corroborate to the historicity of Christ’s death and resurrection which include Brodeur, Collins, Conzelman, Fee, Gundry, Harris, Hayes, Hèring, Hurtado, Johnson, Kistemaker, Lockwood, Martin, Segal, Snyder, Thiselton, Witherington, and Wright.
Concordantly, British scholar N. T. Wright states, “As a historian, I cannot explain the rise of early Christianity unless Jesus rose again, leaving an empty tomb behind him .” ( N. T. Wright, “The New Unimproved Jesus,” Christianity Today ( September 13, 1993 ) ), p. 26.
Even Gert L¸demann, the best known German critic of the resurrection, himself admits,
“It may be taken as historically certain that Peter and the disciples had experiences after Jesus’ death in which Jesus appeared to them as the risen Christ.” (Gerd L¸demann, What Really Happened to Jesus? trans. John Bowden (Louisville, Kent. : Westminster John Knox Press, 1995), p. 80.)
There are just a minute sampling of the massive throng of scholars whose investigation attests the historicity of Christ’s resurrection.
Notably, in his book, “Justifying Historical Descriptions,” historian C. B. McCullagh details six tests which historians apply in figuring out precisely what is the best explanation for given historical facts. The conception “God raised Jesus from the dead” passes each one of these tests:
1. It has great explanatory scope: it explains why the tomb was found empty, why the disciples saw post-mortem appearances of Jesus, and why the Christian faith came into being.
2. It has great explanatory power: it explains why the body of Jesus was gone, why people repeatedly saw Jesus alive despite his earlier public execution, and so forth.
3. It is plausible: given the historical context of Jesus’ own unparalleled life and claims, the resurrection serves as divine confirmation of those radical claims.
4. It is not ad hoc or contrived: it requires only one additional hypothesis: that God exists. And even that needn’t be an additional hypothesis if one already believes that God exists.
5. It is in accord with accepted beliefs. The statement: “God raised Jesus from the dead” doesn’t in any way conflict with the accepted belief that people don’t rise naturally from the dead. The Christian accepts that belief as wholeheartedly as he accepts the hypothesis that God raised Jesus from the dead.
6. It far outstrips any of its rival hypotheses in meeting conditions (1)-(5). Down through history various alternative explanations of the facts have been offered, for example, the conspiracy hypothesis, the apparent death hypothesis, the hallucination hypothesis, and so forth. Such hypotheses have been almost universally rejected by contemporary scholarship. None of these naturalistic hypotheses succeeds in meeting the conditions as well as an actual, historical resurrection.
Through the years, skeptics have challenged the Bible’s accuracy relating to the names of individuals, events and areas it mentions. Again and again though and as we have just seen the evidence has proven such distrust unjustified. Although faith in the Bible does not hang on archaeological discoveries, this kind of historical exactness is what one would anticipate of a book inspired by God.
