All people have questions about God and about faith.
For committed Christians, the answers to those questions can prove a bulwark to their faith, while for others, the same answers may incline them toward a closer and more patient study of the claims of Christianity.
It can be helpful to structure one's queries as a series of "investigations," each of which examines one of the essential issues that underpin Christianity. We have assembled here such a series of inquiries, each of which can be examined in isolation, or as part of a progressive series that leads to important summary statements about the claims of the Christian faith.
These eighteen investigations are arranged as a sequence. They begin with questions about historical evidence and testimony, then move through the Gospels, archaeology, manuscripts, and the earliest Christian witnesses.
The final investigations concentrate on the Resurrection of Jesus and ask what explanation best accounts for the evidence that has been considered.
You may begin with Investigation 1 and proceed in order, or enter the series at any question that interests you.
The Gospels contain numerous references to particular people, locations, customs, routes, political figures, and seemingly incidental details. We consider whether these features support the claim that the accounts preserve genuine historical memory.
The four Gospels are not identical accounts. We examine their differences openly and ask whether variation should be understood as contradiction, normal selection and emphasis, or evidence that the writers were not merely copying a standardized story.
The Gospel writers describe a real historical world. We examine whether other ancient sources, inscriptions, archaeology, geography, names, customs, and political history confirm details found within their accounts.
Archaeology cannot prove every event recorded in Scripture, but it can test whether biblical writers accurately describe their historical environment. We examine discoveries that illuminate the world in which Jesus and the earliest Christians lived.
Christian writers were not the only ancient authors to mention Jesus and His followers. Roman, Jewish, and other non-Christian sources provide an outside perspective on Jesus' existence, execution, the spread of Christianity, and what early Christians believed.
No original handwritten copy of a New Testament book survives. Yet thousands of manuscripts and ancient witnesses allow scholars to compare copies and identify variations. We examine whether the original wording of the New Testament can be recovered reliably.
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"For God so loved the world, that he
gave his only begotten Son,
that whosoever believeth in him should
not perish, but have everlasting life."
