The conference brings together experts to:
Whose testimony can we trust? A widely held idea is that Christian beliefs arose over a long period of time through a mixture of gullibility and conspiracy. Early Christian records are held to be legend, myth or fabrication.
Who has the true message of Jesus? Probably the most popular idea in relation to the Bible is that books have been missed out or put in due to political pressure and various media have been full of talk about ‘other gospels’.
The four gospels and the other gospels compared. Another popular idea is that the Bible has been corrupted, either by deliberate falsification or simply lost through passage of time. Such ideas are promoted in the British media.
Society is being bombarded with misinformation about the Bible. It’s alleged that it has been corrupted by power-hungry Christians. They are charged with having omitted books they did not like. They changed the original message of Jesus.
Evidence of Eyewitnesses
10:30 - 11:35 AM
Evidence of Manuscripts
12:00 – 1:05 PM
Evidence of History
2:15 – 3:20 PM
Your Turn!
3:45 – 4:45 PM
Waged: £5
Unwaged: £2.50
Dr Dirk Jongkind is a Dutch biblical scholar who finished his PhD at Cambridge University on Codex Sinaiticus, the oldest complete copy of the New Testament.
| Evidence of History. Dr Simon J. Gathercole |
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Probably the most popular idea in relation to the Bible is that books have been missed out or put in due to political pressure and various media have been full of talk about ‘other gospels’. Here some of the most famous ‘other gospels’ are considered: the gospels of Thomas, Judas and Mary. But first it is important to establish two facts about the very earliest Christians and their beliefs:
They are less reliable than the canonical gospels both in their picture of history and in their picture of Jesus’ message. For real pictures of Jesus, based on eyewitness testimony, you need to read the New Testament. |
Who has the true message of Jesus?
It is found that while Matthew, Mark, Luke and John agree with these two Christian beliefs, the apocryphal gospels generally do not. They do not fit the pattern of earliest Christian belief precisely because they were written later.