Do We Really Have The Hard Facts?

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What can we actually know about the real Jesus, the guy who walked this earth some 2000 years ago? Have layers of tradition inevitably changed and shaped the picture we now have of him? How reliable are the recorded accounts of the life of Jesus that are presented in the New Testament Gospels of the Bible today? Take a minute to watch this video consider things from the view of a forensic detective...




When reading a modern English translation, we might get the nagging thought that we are so far removed from the original — realty, 2000 years is a long time since Jesus walked he earth!

The printing press is a relatively modern invention, so it is natural to ask if perhaps errors and omissions and editing crept into the hand-written copying process. This is important to dig into. How can there be any claim of truth to the Bible if it has kept changing over time?

Remarkably, we have an astounding amount of carefully preserved ancient manuscript evidence to compare; far more than exists for many other writings which we take for granted as being historical. Fascinating archaeological discoveries like the collection of Dead Sea scrolls keep adding to the confidence we have in the reliability of scripture. A classic book to read on this by F.F. Bruce is called The Books And The Parchments. 

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