We can be very confident. We have enormous historical evidence for Jesus. There is no other text of antiquity that can come close to the New Testament in terms of its attestation. It terms of numbers of copies, we have over 5,500 copies of the New Testament that have survived and some of those individual manuscripts are within 50 years of the time of the original that was written at the time of the Apostles.”

Bible scholar, professor, and Dead Sea Scrolls expert Dr. Michael Wise shares why we can have confidence in Scripture.

“We have incredible evidence for the true documents. Then it becomes a question for do we believe the documents.”

The Gospels are more than folklore. More than other documents of antiquity, we know who wrote the Gospels and why they have authority to do so.

“We can be absolutely confident that we have what was said at the time by the witnesses to the events. The Gospels are eyewitness testimony.”

“It’s very important that we don’t think we’re looking at anonymous tradition, as modern scholarship often argues that.”

The Gospels are eyewitness testimony to the events that actually took place.

“The testimony of the New Testament itself is that these are the words of the eye witnesses. You can demonstrate scientifically and in a scholarly way that that’s a very believable claim.”

Where does this leave us? Dr. Wise says we can have confidence that Jesus came to earth, taught, died on a cross, and rose again.

We can be very, very confident. We have enormous historical evidence for Jesus.

In addition to studying the Bible and believing the historical evidence, Dr. Wise says the cross should always be at the center of our devotional thinking.

“As Christians who are interested in following Jesus.  The cross should always be at the center of our devotional thinking.”

“We could do more contemplating and meditating upon the significance of the cross. Serious thinking about what happened there, what Jesus did for us, and who He is and what it meant that He came and did those things.”

Highlight: The historicity of Jesus

Holy Week history