2.  Read the first chapter of Genesis and reflect back on the days of creation. Why do you think God created everything in the order that He did?

3.  One observation used to support common ancestry in animals is homology—a similarity in the bone structure of limbs like a wing, a flipper, and a hand. What response would you give to this objection?

4.  As we discussed in class, the Cambrian Explosion shows a huge variety of life appearing at the same time in the fossil record, challenging the notion that life today developed over very long periods of time. How, then, do you think this happened?

5. The Reliability of the Gospels

6.  We’ve mostly looked at reasoning ◦ Logic, arguments ◦ Scientific theories/laws  Not much scripture ◦ Belief in God precedes belief in the Bible ◦ Extra-Biblical evidence for God  Time to look at the Bible! ◦ Gospels, for time’s sake

7.  Variety of material ◦ Theology (parables, doctrine) ◦ History—real people in real places!  Different writers = different perspectives ◦ Matthew  the Son of David (Matt 1:1) ◦ Mark  the suffering servant (Mark 1:1) ◦ Luke  the compassionate teacher (Luke 1:1-3) ◦ John  the Word incarnate (John 20:30,31)

8.  How do we know they are trustworthy? ◦ Written a long time ago ◦ Dozens of “Gospels” available ◦ External influences?  Three examples of reliability ◦ Time between events and writing ◦ Number of copies ◦ First century culture

9.  Dates of the Gospels ◦ Matthew, Mark, Luke ~ 60s AD ◦ John ~ 90s AD ◦ Some NT texts can be traced back earlier (Paul)  Earliest manuscripts ◦ Parts of Gospels ~ 100-200 AD ◦ Most of NT ~ 200 AD

10.  Longer time = less reliable ◦ Written within one generation of Jesus’s life ◦ Myths/legends grow over time ◦ Less witnesses available to dispute  For comparison ◦ The Iliad – 900 BC, first copy 400 BC (500 yrs) ◦ Aristotle – 300s BC, first copy 1100 AD (1400 yrs) ◦ Plato – 300s-400s BC, first copy 900 AD (1100 yrs)

11.  Historical accuracy based on # of documents ◦ More manuscripts = more reliable ◦ Cross-examination of sources ◦ Important in translations  Biblical manuscripts ◦ Multiple locations (even Egypt!) ◦ Some in pieces, some more complete ◦ Impressive consistency

12.  In total… ◦ Over 5600 Greek NT manuscripts ◦ Also numerous citations ◦ More than any other ancient work  For comparison… ◦ The Iliad – 643 manuscripts ◦ Aristotle – 49 manuscripts ◦ Plato – 7 manuscripts

13.  Oral Tradition ◦ Most were illiterate ◦ Information passed down verbally ◦ Songs, chants, rhymes ◦ “Community history”—Rabbis with whole OT!  Evidence in first-century Christianity ◦ “Apostolic creeds” – 1 Corinthians 15:3-8 ◦ Mnemonic devices, patterns in speech

14.  Internal fact-checking ◦ Members of a community corrected each other ◦ Paul—keep the “traditions” ◦ Presence of eye witnesses ◦ Hugely important  Some things to remember ◦ Accuracy on the whole, not word for word ◦ Allowance for different perspectives

15.  The earliest Greek account of Alexander the Great is dated to sometime before 30 BC. Look up when Alexander the Great lived, and compare the time period between his life and his history with the time period between Jesus’s life and the Gospel accounts.

16.  We saw in class that there are over 5600 Greek manuscripts of the Gospels and other New Testament writings; however, there are also more copies in other languages. Look up how many total copies we have of the New Testament documents (the other languages are Syriac, Coptic, Latin, and Aramaic).

17.  Read 1 Corinthians 15:3-8 (the “creed” we mentioned in class). Can you spot any patterns in Paul’s writing?