Christian Student Survival Conference

Session 7: "Jesus and the Historical Reliability of the Bible"

Dr. Michael Covington

Dr. Michael A. Covington is associate director of the University of Georgia. Artificial Intelligence Center and a faculty member in the Linguistics Program. He has degrees in linguistics from Georgia, Cambridge, and Yale and is an active member of Beech Haven Baptist Church, Athens, Georgia, where he teaches a college Bible study class and frequent special-interest classes. He reads the Bible in the original Greek and Hebrew. Dr. Covington's wife, Melody, runs a typesetting and graphic arts business. He has two daughters, Cathy, age 15, and Sharon, age 11. His family's web page is: http://www.CovingtonInnovations.com.

Session 7 Notes

1. What is the Bible?

a. Overall structure of the Bible; languages
b. What the Bible claims for itself: A divinely inspired book, not a magical book or an object of worship
c. Shows the signs of how it reached us -- and that’s a good thing.
d. It’s OK to ask questions. Truth is neither "liberal" nor "conservative" -- it’s just truth.

2. How the New Testament got to us

a. Textual criticism vs. higher criticism
b. Authorship
c. Manuscript copying
d. Translations: Vulgate (Latin), c 400; KJV, 1611; RSV, 1950s
e. Newer translations; manuscript scholarship

3. Some widespread misconceptions and sources of misconceptions

a. "Jesus never really existed"
b. "The NT story evolved for a long time before being written down"
c. "People in ancient times were foolish and gullible"
d. "Science has proved miracles are impossible"
e. Scholars who make up their minds in advance (Metzger’s critique of Jesus Seminar)
f. Hypotheses and conjectures get mistaken for proven facts
g. Sensationalism: odd claims get disproportionate publicity

4. Did the Resurrection happen?

a. Miracles are not random acts of magic; they are messages from God.
b. If you assume a priori that it couldn’t happen, you won’t know if it did.
c. This cannot be settled by scientific experiment. Instead, we must weigh the evidence.
d. Undeniable facts: Rise of early church; Gospels got written; Christians died for their faith; (crucially) dead body of Jesus was never found, even though many had motives for wanting to find and exhibit it.
e. If not the resurrection, then what? (Alternatives one by one.)

5. How to approach Jesus

a. Are the Gospels a reasonably good record of what Jesus did and taught?
b. What do you think of the character of Jesus?
c. What does He demand of you?
d. (Last of all) What is His attitude toward the Scriptures?

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