Welcome to the Elisa Childers podcast where we equip Christians to identify the core beliefs of historic Christianity,

discern its counterfeits and proclaim the gospel with clarity, kindness and truth and we are going to continue to do that even while I'm on sabbatical and not

recording full-length episodes until after the new year. But as we were going

through some old content we realized that there were some posts that only went out to a select group of

listeners and many of you, if you've been following the podcast for the past two or three years,

have not heard these posts and these are short answers to tough theological and apologetics

questions so we're going to be bringing a new one to you every day during sabbatical

here's today's. The Gospel accounts found in the New Testament are embarrassing.

Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John included some pretty uncomfortable details in their writings,

but if you're a Christian, that's actually a really good thing. We humans have a tendency to paint ourselves in a good light to leave out the bad

stuff and exaggerate or embellish the good. If you need proof of this click over to

Facebook and check your news feed.

You will be bombarded by photos of your friends vacationing at the beach, having ice cream

with their children, drinking artisan coffee, and eating mouthwatering delicacies at the new local bistro, you will read a wife's

birthday tribute to her husband that would convince the most skeptical rationalist that

she is married to Superman himself. In short, Facebook is a highlight reel. That's not necessarily a bad

thing. No one wants to scroll through Facebook and see everyone's dirty laundry,

but Facebook isn't exactly an accurate portrayal of history.

When assessing historical documents, there are certain attributes of authenticity

that historians are looking for.

One of those attributes is called the Criterion of Emb of embarrassment. If an author includes

details that might be embarrassing to himself or his cause, there is a much

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