Question 3: Since the New Testament was written so long after Christ's death, how can anyone trust the Gospel accounts of His life?

A: The fact of the matter is that eyewitnesses or people who recorded firsthand testimony wrote the gospels. The writers were all living at the same time these events transpired, and they had personal contact either with the events or with people who witnessed the events.

There is strong internal testimony that the Gospels were written at an early date. The Book of Acts records the missionary activity of the early church and was written as a sequel by the same person who wrote the Gospel according to Luke. The Book of Acts ends with the apostle Paul alive in Rome. This would lead us to believe that it was written before he died, since the other major events in his life have been recorded. We have some evidence that Paul was put to death in the Neronian persecution of A.D. 64, which means the Book of Acts was composed before this time.

The Gospel of Luke then had to have been composed sometime before that, probably in the late 50's ore early 60's of the first century. The death of Christ took place around A.D. 30, which would make the composition of Luke at the latest within 30 years of the events.

The early church generally taught that the first Gospel composed was that of Matthew, which would place us still closer to the time of Christ. This evidence leads us to believe that the first three Gospels were all composed within 30 years of the time these events occurred, a time when unfriendly eyewitnesses were still living who could contradict their testimony if it was not accurate.

This type of evidence recently led one liberal scholar, John A.T. Robinson, to redate the New Testament documents much earlier than most modern liberal scholars would have us believe. Robinson argued in redating the New Testament that the entire New Testament could have been completed before A.D. 70, which is still well into the eyewitness period.

The evidence points out that the documents were not written long after the events, but within close proximity to them, and people wrote them during the period when many eyewitnesses or people acquainted with the facts were still living. The inescapable conclusion is that the New Testament picture of Christ can be trusted.