Is the New Testament Gods Word?

By J. Luis Dizon
I. Introduction
A. What this debate is not about
1. Personality politics
2. A display of oratory skills
B. What this debate is about
1. What the New Testament claims about itself
2. How it goes about making those claims
3. Whether those claims can be justified
C. Our Guiding Principle
1. ,
2. Translation: But test everything; hold fast what is good. (1
Thessalonians 5:21)1
II. The New Testament Claims About Itself
A. Divine Inspiration
1. 2 Timothy 3:16: All Scripture is breathed out by God []
and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for
training in righteousness.
2. 2 Peter 1:20-21: No prophecy of Scripture comes from someone's
own interpretation. For no prophecy was ever produced by the will
of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the
Holy Spirit.
3. 2 peter 3:15-16 Refers to Pauls writings as scripture
4. 1 Timothy 5:18 Cites Luke 10:7 alongside Deuteronomy, giving
both equal authority
5. 1 Thess. 2:13: And we also thank God constantly for this, that when
you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you
accepted it not as the word of men but as what it really is, the word
of God.
6. 1 Thess. 5:27: I put you under oath before the Lord to have this
letter read to all the brothers.
1 Scripture quotations are taken from the English Standard Version (ESV).
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7. Revelation 1:10-11: I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day, and I

heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet saying, Write what you
see in a book and send it to the seven churches, to Ephesus and to
Smyrna and to Pergamum and to Thyatira and to Sardis and to
Philadelphia and to Laodicea.
8. Revelation 22:18-19: I warn everyone who hears the words of the
prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to them, God will add to him
the plagues described in this book, and if anyone takes away from
the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his share
in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this
book.
B. The Apostolic Message
1. Acts 10:39-43: And we are witnesses of all that he did both in the
country of the Jews and in Jerusalem. They put him to death by
hanging him on a tree, but God raised him on the third day and
made him to appear, not to all the people but to us who had been
chosen by God as witnesses, who ate and drank with him after he
rose from the dead. And he commanded us to preach to the people
and to testify that he is the one appointed by God to be judge of the
living and the dead. To him all the prophets bear witness that
everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through
his name.
2. 1 Corinthians 15:3-8: For I delivered to you as of first importance
what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance
with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the
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third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared

to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five
hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though
some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the
apostles. Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to
me.
3. The Apostles arguments: prophecy fulfillment and eyewitness
III.

testimony
Fulfillment of Old Testament Prophecy
A. The Concept of Messiah
1. Fundamental to all three Abrahamic religions, but in different ways
2. Judaism and Christianity affirm that the Messiah
a) Must fulfill the prophecies of the Hebrew scriptures
b) Will be a kingly figure
c) His rule is over the whole world
d) He will suffer for his peopleJewish scholar Daniel Boyarin
writes: The notion of the humiliated and suffering Messiah was
not at all alien within Judaism before Jesus advent, and it
remained current among Jews well into the future following that
indeed, well into the early modern period. Jews, it seems, had
no difficulty whatever with understanding a Messiah who would
vicariously suffer to redeem the world.2
3. Islam and Christianity affirm that the Messiah
a) Is Jesus (The Quran calls him )
b) Was mistakenly rejected by the Jews
c) Will come again
B. Old Testament Prophecies

2 Daniel Boyarin, The Jewish Gospels: The Story of the Jewish Christ (New York:
The New Press, 2012), 132-133.
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1. Genesis 49:10: The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor the
ruler's staff from between his feet, until tribute comes to him; and
to him shall be the obedience of the peoples.
2. Micah 5:2: But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, who are too little to be
among the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one
who is to be ruler in Israel, whose coming forth is from of old, from
ancient days.
3. Isaiah 9:6: For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the
government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of
Peace.
a) Grammatically, the verbs a

and a

a are perfect tense, but are
meant to be understood as future time. This is called a Prophetic
Perfect and occurs throughout the prophetic books (e.g. Isaiah
5:13, Jeremiah 23:2, Amos 5:2)
b) Hebrew grammarian Friedrich Wilhelm Gesenius writes: ...he
[the prophetic writer] describes the future event as if it had been
already seen or heard by him.3
c) Cross-reference with Isaiah 10:20-21: In that day the remnant of
Israel and the survivors of the house of Jacob will no more lean
on him who struck them, but will lean on the Lord, the Holy One
of Israel, in truth. A remnant will return, the remnant of Jacob, to
the mighty God [
a
] .
4. Isaiah 52:13-53:12 (quoting only 53:4-6): Surely he has borne our
griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken,
3 Friedrich Wilhelm Gesenius, Gesenius' Hebrew Grammar, 2nd edition, translated
by A. E. Crowley (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1956) 312-313.
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smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our

transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the
chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are
healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turnedevery
oneto his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us
all.
a) One of the most quoted Old Testament passages in the New
Testament
b) Daniel Boyarin: Aside from one very importantbut absolutely
uniquenotice in Origens Contra Celsum, there is no evidence at
all that any late ancient Jews read Isaiah 52-53 as referring to
anyone but the Messiah. There are, on the other hand, several
attestations

of

ancient

rabbinic

readings

of

the

song

as

concerning the Messiah and his tribulations.4

C. The Significance of Prophecy
1. Judaisms problem is that it doesnt accept Jesus Messiahship
2. Islams problem is that it does accept Jesus Messiahship, but
doesnt grasp the implications of that Messiahship
3. Only the Christian worldview can account for the prophetic
IV.

continuity between the Old and New Testaments

Eyewitness Testimony
A. New Testament Claims
1. John 21:24: This is the disciple who is bearing witness about these
things, and who has written these things, and we know that his
testimony is true.
2. 1 John 1:1-2: That which was from the beginning, which we have
heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon

4 Boyarin, The Jewish Gospels, 152.

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and have touched with our hands, concerning the word of life the
life was made manifest, and we have seen it, and testify to it and
proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was
made manifest to us.
3. 2 Peter 1:16: For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when
we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus
Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty.
B. Criteria for Authenticating Events
1. Criterion of EmbarrassmentAuthors of religious documents tend
to present their leaders in a positive light, and dont generally
invent stories that would cast them in a negative light
a) Matthew 27:46: And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a
loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani? that is, My God,
my God, why have you forsaken me?
b) The fact that women were the first witnesses at the tomb.
c) The bumbling nature of the disciples
2. Criterion of DissimilaritySayings and events that are dissimilar to
either Jesus first century Jewish background or the practice of the
early church are unlikely to have been invented
a) Interestingly, this criterion verifies those sayings and actions of
Jesus that Muslims would find most contentious , i.e. those that
present a high Christology (e.g. the I Am sayings).
3. Criterion of Multiple AttestationSayings and events recorded in
multiple traditions indicate that they are likely to be historical
(analogous to the Muslim concept of tawatur)
C. Problems for Islam
1. Islam regards Jesus and his disciples to be Muslims (Q 3:52-55,
61:14)
2. But there is no evidence of any Proto-Islam in the Apostolic period
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3. No matter how far you go into the early history of the church, the
theology found therein is unacceptable to Muslims
4. The Islamic worldview cannot account for the development of
Christianity
V. Conclusion
A. Evidences and Presuppositions
1. You heard a lot of evidences, but lets take a step back and look at
the worldviews that we use to explain these evidences.
1. The question is: Which worldview can properly account for all of it?
2. The New Testament worldview states that Jesus is the Messiah of
the Hebrew Scriptures, his death and resurrection are part and
parcel of the mission those scriptures foretold about him, and that
the New Testament testifies to the fulfillment of his mission.
3. This worldview alone that accounts for reality as it is.

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