Are the Gospels Hopelessly Contradictory? with J. Warner Wallace

I Don't Have Enough FAITH to Be an ATHEIST

Dr. Frank Turek

Religion & Spirituality, Education, Christianity

4.8 • 5K Ratings

🗓️ 1 April 2025

⏱️ 45 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Are there contradictions between the gospel accounts? If so, how can we trust the central tenet of Christianity--the Resurrection of Jesus? J. Warner Wallace returns to share how he used his skill set as a detective to investigate the claims of the New Testament gospels and compares his findings to those of atheist/agnostic New Testament scholar, Bart Ehrman.Together, Frank and Jim answer questions like:* What's necessary to prove an event occurred in the past?* Why weren't first-century historians bothered by textual differences found in the Gospels?* Why is it better to have four different gospel accounts vs. one harmonization?* Why would God allow these textual differences?* What surprised Jim the most the first time he read the Gospels as an atheist?* Why do detectives separate eyewitnesses?* When doing detective work, why does Jim prefer it when the stories are "messy"?* Does the evidence always determine the verdict? In other words, why do Jim and Bart come to different conclusions when it comes to the Resurrection of Jesus?* Why is bias against the supernatural a double-standard for materialist atheists?* What's the best way to test an eyewitness?* If the Gospels are contradictory and can’t be trusted, why do critics like Erhman conclude that much of the New Testament is true and that the disciples really believed they saw the resurrected Jesus?* How are atheists disagreeing with themselves and agreeing with Christians when it comes to alternative explanations for the resurrection?And so much more! If you normally listen to podcasts on 2x speed you may need to slow it down for this one and take some notes!Resources mentioned during the episode:Jim's website - https://coldcasechristianity.com/Cold Case Christianity - https://a.co/d/dABS4uA (https://a.co/d/dABS4uA)Case Files: Murder & Meaning - https://casefilesgraphicnovel.com/ (https://casefilesgraphicnovel.com/)

Transcript

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0:00.0	Ladies and gentlemen, atheists slash agnostic New Testament scholar Dr. Bart Ehrman at UNC Chapel Hill,
0:11.4	who wrote several books that are skeptical of Christianity. One of them, of course, is called
0:17.0	misquoting Jesus, but he's written several others. He said this in a debate. He said,
0:24.8	did Jesus die on the day before the Passover meal was eaten as John explicitly says? Or did he die
0:32.6	after it was eaten as Mark explicitly says? Did he die at noon as in John or at 9 a.m. as in Mark? Did Jesus carry
0:42.2	his cross the entire way himself or did Simon of Cyrene carry his cross? It depends on which
0:49.3	gospel you read. Did the curtain in the temple rip in half before Jesus died or after he died? It depends on
0:57.2	which gospel you read. Who went to the tomb on the third day? Was it Mary alone or was it
1:03.5	marry with other women? If it was married with other women, how many other women were there?
1:09.6	Which ones were they? And what were their names?
1:12.6	Was the stone rolled away before they got there or not? What did they see in the tomb? Did they
1:19.3	see a man? Did they see two men or did they see an angel? It depends on which account you read, unquote.
1:29.1	In other words, do we have reason to distrust the New Testament documents, particularly
1:35.7	the Gospels on the very central fact of Christianity, and that is the resurrection?
1:42.1	It depends on which gospel you read. Are they hopelessly
1:45.5	contradictory? Can we trust these accounts? Well, my guest today is an expert in eyewitness testimony.
1:52.2	He's taken it for years and brought people to trial over eyewitness testimony. His name, of course,
1:58.2	is the great. Jay Warner Wallace. He's with us again. He was on last week in the
2:04.4	podcast we air on the American Family Radio Network because we were discussing his brand new
2:10.6	graphic novel that he's written with his son called Case Files, Murder and Meaning. If you
2:16.8	hadn't listened to the podcast last week, you need to.
2:19.6	But today we're shifting gears and we're talking a little bit about eyewitness testimony.
	...

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