cal author’s claims and reality. The test first asks, “Does God
(and the human author) intend through this statement to
make a claim about reality? If so, what is the claim?” Then
it asks, “How does this intended communication match
reality?” and “How does this truth claim cohere with other
truth claims of Scripture?” Those who believe the Bible
is God-breathed should never question whether actual
truth claims match reality. If the Bible is God-breathed,
every claim about reality in the original text of Scripture
is true, and none of them will ever be shown to be false
when properly interpreted. The evidence points us in the
direction of that truth. Though not every detail has been
confirmed, we can confirm the general historicity of the
Bible through history and archaeology, and we can show
that apparent discrepancies have possible logical solutions.
When an apparent discrepancy is difficult to solve, we don’t
force a harmonization but give the benefit of the doubt to
the Bible writers and assume that every actual truth claim
is consistent with reality in some way or another, even if we
don’t understand how.
For example, when the Gospel of John refers to two angels
sitting in the tomb of Jesus after the resurrection (Jn 20:12)
and the Gospel of Mark speaks of one angel sitting in the
tomb (Mk 16:5), we should assume that John is right and
that Mark is also right, even if we can’t understand how
they can be reconciled. In this case, it’s easy since Mark
doesn’t say there was only one. There were actually two
angels, but Mark was only concerned about pointing out
one. How some apparently conflicting accounts are both
(or all) right, we may never know, but it is safe to say that
since all accounts are inspired by God and thus wholly true,
attempting to harmonize the texts will normally get us
closer to an accurate understanding of what happened than
not attempting to harmonize the text. This is similar to the
fact that a detective will likely come closer to figuring out
what happened at a crime scene if he examines reports from
a variety of reliable witnesses and tries to piece the incident
together.
Both the internal and external evidence of the gospels
point to an authorial concern for careful accuracy (our
deductive proof for inerrancy is supported by inductive
proof). The author Luke told Theophilus that he (Luke)
had a “perfect understanding” of what he was writing
about, and he wanted Theophilus to know “the certainty” of
what happened (Lk 1:1-4). He mentioned eyewitnesses as
his sources. Looking at the rest of the gospel, we can see
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that Luke dated events by known historical figures, such as
Caesar Augustus and Cyrenius. These things are confirmed
by historians and archaeologists. The famous archaeologist
Sir William Ramsay said, “Luke’s history is unsurpassed in
respect to its trustworthiness.”
External evidence for the historicity of the details of
the gospels also includes Papias (contemporary of apostle
John) saying, “The Elder used to say this also: ‘Mark, having
been the interpreter of Peter, wrote down accurately all that
he mentioned, whether sayings or doings of Christ; not,
however, in order ... Thus Mark committed no error in thus
writing down some things as he remembered them. For he
took heed to one thing: not to omit any of the things he had
heard, or to set down anything falsely therein.” So here is
evidence attesting to the full accuracy of Mark’s gospel, with
an acknowledgment that it wasn’t necessarily presented in
chronological order.
Beyond these examples of internal and external evidence,
we must return to the fact that these gospels are God-
breathed. How could the “God of truth,” whose “Word is
pure,” contaminate His Word with claims about reality that
are not in some sense true (corresponding to reality)?
Science and the Bible
I think one of the biggest problems we face in biblical schol-
arship today is the pressure to conform to the consensus
opinion of the mainstream scientific community. Many
biblical scholars interpret Genesis 6-9 as teaching a local
or regional flood because the scientific establishment has
“proven” the fossil record demonstrates millions of years of
evolution instead of evidence of a worldwide flood. Many
of these same scholars impose a theory of long ages on the
days of Genesis 1 because the scientific establishment has
convinced them that the earth is billions of years old. Some,
like Peter Enns, say that the apostle Paul erroneously believed
that Adam was a historical person. 7 Enns thinks Paul was
wrong because the scientific establishment persuaded him
that man is the product of a long process of evolution. The
mistake Enns makes is putting his faith in the majority of
the scientific community rather than interpreting the Old
Testament as Jesus and the apostles interpreted it.
Jesus never challenged the history of the Bible. Jesus
accepted all the people and events of the Old Testament
as actually historical. He mentions them in His teaching,
and sometimes the point of His reference to them rested
on the historical validity of the accounts: Matthew 12:41,