By modern standards of precision, the New Testament (NT) is messy in places.
For example, the geneologies of Jesus’ ancestry as recorded in Matthew 1 and Luke 3 are difficult to reconcile.
The names of the apostles listed in the four Gospels don’t line up exactly.
The accounts of the empty tomb differ in the details.
I could go on.
According to modern expectations, these deviations nullify the claims of “inerrancy” in the Scriptures, and therefore the credibility of Christianity.
But in fact the early church knew its own texts backward and forward . . . and still chose these four Gospel accounts, and the rest of the NT, to represent its faith.
Trustworthy?
It seems to me that the NT is trustworthy if taken on its own terms.
But if we try to jam it into a set of expectations foreign to its historical and literary context, it may be found wanting.
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In my travels to college campuses around the country, I often ask students this question:
The early church knew about the supposed problem passages in the NT, and ultimately had no problem with them. Why do we?
