The Case For Christ

attacked it on the basis that it was full of falsehoods or
distortions, they would have. "But," he emphasized in conclusion,
"that's exactly what we don't see."
"Certainly," I added, "there's plenty of embarrassing material
about the disciples."
"Absolutely," Blomberg said. "Mark's perspective of Peter is
pretty consistently unflattering. And he's the ringleader! The
disciples repeatedly misunderstand Jesus. James and John want the
places at Jesus' right and left hand, and he has to teach them
hard lessons about servant leadership instead. They look like a
bunch of self-serving, self-seeking, dull-witted people a lot of
the time.
"Now, we already know that the gospel writers were selective;
John's gospel ends by saying, somewhat hyperbolically, that the
whole world couldn't contain all the information that could have
been written about Jesus. So had they left some of this out,
that in and of itself wouldn't necessarily have been seen as
falsifying the story. "But here's the point: if they didn't feel
free to leave out stuff when it would have been convenient and
helpful to do so, is it really plausible to believe that they
outright added and fabricated material with no historical basis?"
Blomberg let the question hang for a while before concluding with
confidence, "I'd say not."
A FAITH BUTTRESSED BY FACTS
I'll admit I was impressed by Blomberg. Informed and articulate,
scholarly and convincing, he had constructed a strong case for
the reliability of the gospels. His evidence for their
traditional authorship, his analysis of the extremely early date
of fundamental beliefs about Jesus, his well-reasoned defense of
the accuracy of the oral tradition, his thoughtful examination
of apparent discrepancies-all of his testimony had established a
solid foundation for me to build on. Yet there was still a long
way to go in determining whether Jesus is the unique Son of God.
In fact, after talking with Blomberg, my next assignment became
clear: figure out whether these gospels, shown by Blomberg to be
so trustworthy, have been reliably handed down to us over the
centuries. How can we be sure that the texts we're reading today
bear any resemblance to what was originally written in the first
century? What's more, how do we know that the gospels are telling