The New Way

 

I don't know.  We can ask when we get to Heaven!  But until then, no one knows.  If it were important for us to know all the details, God would have made it clearer.

 

Josh McDowell wrote the book Evidence That Demands a Verdict.  His belief is that these differences in testimony actually prove or support the authenticity of the message.  If they were identical – he would conclude that there was collusion.  Collusion means that the various parties had met together and decided what really happened – which means that everyone would have had to compromise their real beliefs.   Instead we have authentic testimony that varies from person to person.  

 

Do people lie?  No.  (Well, yes, they do – but in the case of giving testimony, it's not usually intentional!)   They genuinely believe that this was the sequence of events.  Ask any policeman or judge and they will tell you that if 6 people saw a crime or accident – there will be 6 different versions!     Why?   Because our brains record events at different speeds.   Everyone's brain will record certain aspects of the event at different speeds, therefore, they will genuinely believe, for instance, that the light was green before the 2^nd car moved – because that's the way their brain received the information.   That's just a fact with humans.    So, when it comes to sequences of events – humans are unreliable witnesses.    Can we train our brains to become more accurate?  Certainly, but most people don't.   The writers were recording here what they, or the people they were interviewing, saw with their own eyes, heard with their own ears, personally experienced.  They were not trained or coached in their testimonies.

 

The other thing that experts tell us affects our memories and sequence of events is trauma or grief.  Everyone in that room went through great trauma and grief almost immediately after this event.  That could have messed with their remembering what-happened-when. 

 

Now, why do I trust that the things that are important are recorded accurately in the New Testament?

 

#1  We have over 5000 manuscripts from that time – more than any other historical document.

 

#2  Much of the New Testament was written while the eyewitnesses were still alive.  Therefore, if there were errors, they would have been detected and corrected quickly.

 

But my primary reason for trusting the reliability of the Bible is found in these two passages.

 

Read 2 Timothy 3:16-17

 

Paraphrase this passage in your own words.