Looking at the Bible Historically

Recently there have been many questions about the historical accuracy of the bible as a whole as well as in singular books. So let's look at some of the books historically, to date them and to critically assess the authors and witnesses.

Luke and Acts
We can see from the style and vocabulary that these were written by the same author, Luke, who was a physician. He was writing for a king or ruler named Theophilus who had heard about Jesus and had told Luke to make a report about Him. The book of Acts does not mention the crucial historical event of the fall of Jerusalem in 70AD, this suggests that it was written before that time. The prominence of the Sadducees suggest a time before 66AD when Roman and Jewish relations broke down. A less accurate indication would be the ommission of the cruxifiction of James at the hands of the Sanhedrin in 62AD. Nevertheless, historical evidence suggests a time before 70AD at least. Luke would have been written before Acts as can be seen in Acts 1. Therefore, Luke would have been written about 30 years after Jesus' cruxifiction which by historical standards is very close to the events. It can also be seen in Luke 1:1-4 that Luke wrote His book in a historical way, by looking at sources available to him at the time as well as interviewing witnesses. This also means that records of Jesus before Luke was written, further adding weight to the historical evidence for the gospels. As we have established that historically Luke is sound and the picture it paints of Jesus are in line with the other gospels, it would not be unreasonable to assume they are sound as well.

Are the Words Accurate?
There are some arguments such as discrepencies between the gospels for example how many women were at the empty tomb. However, addressing this argument, none of the gospels mention how many women were present, but all agree that it is plural. It would also be historical malpractice to discredit historical documents on the basis of secondary matters. In fact, the slight differences actually enforce the validity of them. If witnesses were to make up a story in court, they would sit together and make sure that they get every single fact exactly right. Here, this is not the case because the authors just wrote the truth. This can be seen but the fact that they did not change their story from the beginning, if they did, there were many Jewish leaders ready to pounce.

Perhaps there is a question on whether the witnesses would have exaggerated or lied about Jesus, after all, they were close friends. However, if the context is examined, they preached about Jesus in a very hostile environment, under persecution from both the Jews and the Romans. It would be in their self interest not to exaggerate what Jesus did, but to not say anything at all. But yet they spread the word? why? the only reason would be if it was the truth, a truth so great they were willing to risk their lives for it.

Constantine and The Council of Nicea
There is a school of thought that Constantine and the Council of Nicea put together the biblical canon and that many documents were burned and also they decided the Jesus was divine. In fact, the bible as we know it was not put together until 60 years after Constantine died. The reason was that there was no need for a bible as such, the teachers knew which documents were correct and accurate. However, there were some books which some accepted but others didn't such as Hebrews, Jude and James. The gospels not included in the bible are called the gnostic gospels, an example is the gospel of Judas which was recently discovered and dated to 300-400AD by the National Geographic. At the time these gospels were known to be inaccurate, it would be like buying The Sun for good political analysis.

What WAS discussed at The Council of Nicea was to tackle the view of Arianism which was a school who thought that Jesus had been created. At the council, this was strongly opposed and unlike a certain Mr. Dan Brown claims, the doctrine of a divine Jesus already existed before Constantine.