If every Bible and every science book were destroyed, the science books would come back but the Bible wouldn’t. But is it because one is factual and the other isn’t? That’s the question.

Science is knowledge, systemized knowledge, or a branch of knowledge based on observation and experimentation. For this reason, the origin of the universe is still in the realm of theory; it is neither observable or repeatable

So if all knowledge were to be erased, the only information that could come back would be those things that we can still observe and experiment with: mathematics, biology, physics, chemistry and sociology. We’d lose almost all of that last one. History is not repeatable and is only observable by those who record it and then it can never be lived/experienced again. So we would lose EVERYTHING we know about the past

But, losing the written historical record doesn’t move sociology or history into the realm of fiction.

The real question is if the Bible is historically accurate!

Three questions must be answered to determine its reliability:

1. Is this what was originally written? Bibliographical Test
2. How accurate is the account written about? Internal Evidence Test
3. Is there any outside evidence to substantiate its content? External Evidence Test

Bibliographical Test

• Plato, 7 matching copies, 1,200 year gap (seat 48)
• Aristotle, 49 matching copies, 1,400 year gap (seat 56)
• Homer, 500 matching copies, 500 year gap (seat 20)
• NT, 24,000 matching copies, 25 year gap (seat 1)

If we can be confident about ANYTHING from history, we can be confident that this book hasn’t changed AT ALL since it was originally written.

Internal Evidence Test – is the written document accurate?

[Aristotle’s Dictum: a document is to be considered truthful unless it is known to be impossible, improbable, corrupting, or contradictory to known facts]

[Acts 4:20]

“We cannot stop telling about everything we have seen and heard.”

[I John 1:1]

“We proclaim to you the one who existed from the beginning, whom we have heard and seen. We saw him with our own eyes and touched him with our own hands. He is the Word of life.”

[Luke 1:1-4]

“Many people have set out to write accounts about the events that have been fulfilled among us. They used the eyewitness reports circulating among us from the early disciples. Having carefully investigated everything from the beginning, I also have decided to write a careful account for you, most honorable Theophilus, so you can be certain of the truth of everything you were taught.”

3 Ways We Can Tell They Told The Truth:

1. They appealed to common knowledge in their defense

• Acts 2:22, “People of Israel, listen! God publicly endorsed Jesus the Nazarene by doing powerful miracles, wonders, and signs through him, as you well know.”
•  Acts 26:24-26, “Suddenly, Festus shouted, “Paul, you are insane. Too much study has made you crazy!” But Paul replied, “I am not insane, Most Excellent Festus. What I am saying is the sober truth. 26 And King Agrippa knows about these things. I speak boldly, for I am sure these events are all familiar to him, for they were not done in a corner!”

2. The disciples could not afford to risk inaccuracies because they would have been exposed as frauds and the message would have died in Jerusalem

• Christianity spread faster during the lifetime of eyewitnesses who could verify the truthfulness, or condemn the lie, than any other time in history
• FFBruce, “Had there been any tendency to depart from the facts in any respect, the presence of eyewitnesses in the audience would have served to correct them.”

3. There is no explanation for the martyrs if it were a hoax

• People would die for a lie they believed but who would die for a lie they made up?!
• There were hundreds and thousands who were tortured to death rather than simply saying they had lied

Chuck Colson: “I know the resurrection is a fact, and Watergate proved it to me. How? Because 12 men testified they had seen Jesus raised from the dead, then they proclaimed that truth for 40 years, never once denying it. Every one was beaten, tortured, stoned and put in prison. They would not have endured that if it weren’t true. Watergate embroiled 12 of the most powerful men in the world-and they couldn’t keep a lie for three weeks. You’re telling me 12 apostles could keep a lie for 40 years? Absolutely impossible.”

External Evidence Test – what sources verify its accuracy and reliability?

• William F. Albright, famous archaeologist, wrote:“All radical schools in New Testament criticism which have existed in the past or which exist today are prearchaeological, and are, therefore, antiquated today.”
• Joseph Free: “Archaeology has confirmed countless passages which have been rejected by critics as unhistorical or contradictory to known facts.”
• A.N.Sherwin-White: “for Acts the confirmation of historicity is overwhelming. Any attempt to reject its basic historicity even in matters of detail must now appear absurd. Roman historians have long taken it for granted.”
• Sir William Ramsay (spent 15yrs trying to discredit Luke) concluded, “Luke is a historian of the first rank…This author should be placed along with the very greatest of historians.”

[Job 26:7]

“God stretches the northern sky over empty space and hangs the earth on nothing.”

[Isaiah 40:22]

“God sits above the circle of the earth.The people below seem like grasshoppers to him!”

Dr. Clark Pinnock: “There exists no document from the ancient world witnessed by so excellent a set of textual and historical testimonies and offering so superb an array of historical data on which an intelligent decision may be made. An honest [person] cannot dismiss a source of this kind. Skepticism regarding the historical credentials of Christianity is based upon an irrational (anti-supernatural) bias.”