Good reasons? The inerrancy of Scripture is either true or not; believed or not. The football score analogy is a little silly but let's work with it. If you found an error in a stat line of one game, wouldn't that naturally cast doubt on the rest of what is being reported? The issue would not be that everything else is 100% wrong but rather that you now would have a reason to dismiss any score or stat you don't like. Turek again misses the point. It is not that people believe in either inerrancy or complete falseness. That is a red herring argument at best. The scheme of the devil is to cast doubt. To make the truth malleable. To turn what is black and white into shades of grey. If the Bible is only mostly true then each individual can decide for themselves what they will accept and what they will reject. This salad bar theology is prevalent throughout the liberal denominations of Christianity. Our faith does not hinge upon any historical event but rather upon our belief in Christ. This is what Andy Stanley did not understand. If you try to teach Christ to your kids then it is no wonder they had no faith to begin with. They went off to school and someone taught them something else and they switched what they saw as true. If you preach Christ to your youth however then the Bible says that the Gospel can save them. That saving faith is supernatural. It cannot be quantified in a history book. More importantly with the indwelt Holy Spirit confirming what they believe there is nothing academia can throw at them that can shake their faith.
"They assume that because they are confusing the fact of the resurrection with the reports of the resurrection. Conflicting reports of a historical event are evidence that the event actually occurred, not the reverse. In other words, to return to our sports analogy, the only reason there is error in the stat line to begin with is because the game was actually played and someone tried to report on that game. Neither the stat line nor the error would exist unless the game had actually been played. After all, who reports on a game that didn't actually take place? The same is true with the documents comprising the New Testament and the resurrection. Even if one were to find an error or disagreement between the multiple accounts of the resurrection story, the very fact that there are several eyewitness accounts shows that something dramatic actually happened in history--especially since the folks who wrote it down had everything to lose by proclaiming Jesus rose from the dead. That is, all of the New Testament reporters (except Luke), were observant Jews who would pay dearly for proclaiming the resurrection. Why would Jewish believers in Yahweh--people who thought they were God's "chosen people" for two thousand years--invent a resurrection story that would get them excommunicated from the "chosen people" club, and then beaten, tortured and murdered? Answer: they wouldn't. They saw something dramatic that they weren't expecting. Then they proclaimed it, altered their lives because of it, and later wrote about it, despite the fact that doing any of that would get them killed." -- Dr. Frank Turek
That doesn't even make sense logically. Yes the fact that one stat report shows 400 passing yards and another says 300 does not mean you have proven anything other than the game was played. The fact that people disagree with the resurrection account does not mean it is proven that Christ was resurrected. Once again we see the true disconnect of faith. Turek is arguing that established facts and eyewitness accounts establish faith but that is untrue. Faith is in the belief without evidence. Beloved you must understand why this is so dangerous. Frank Turek is making very persuasive and convincing arguments but they are all carnal. Maybe by making all of these arguments he can factually convince someone that Jesus Christ rose from the dead -- but he cannot save them eternally this way. The other side of this folly is that if you were to somehow base your faith upon be convinced factually than someone else can easily unconvince you with different facts. That is why faith is often called unwavering.
"So Christianity isn't true just because the Bible says it's true. Christianity is true because an event occurred. True, we wouldn't know much about Christianity if the reports of the resurrection had never been written, but the resurrection preceded the reports of it. As my friend Andy Stanley asks, "Do you realize that there were thousands of Christians before a line of the New Testament was ever written?" Paul was a Christian before he wrote a word of the New Testament. So was Matthew, John, James, Peter and so on. Why? Because they had witnessed the resurrected Jesus. Contrary to what some skeptic may think, the New Testament writers didn't create the resurrection--the resurrection created the New Testament writers. In other words, the New Testament documents didn't give us the resurrection. The resurrection gave us the New Testament documents! There would be no New Testament unless the resurrection had occurred. Observant Jews would never have invented that. -- Dr. Frank Turek
