The argument from scripture in Christianity

The argument from scripture, in its Christian form, runs roughly as follows: the Bible makes specific claims (prophecies, historical events, moral teachings) that are unlikely on purely naturalistic assumptions, and the most economical explanation is that its contents are genuinely revealed. The strongest version of the argument leans on the resurrection: if Jesus rose from the dead as the Gospels report, the rest of the edifice follows. Apologists from Justin Martyr to William Lane Craig have built careers on different variants of this structure.

The critical literature is old and deep. Nineteenth-century Tübingen School scholarship pioneered source criticism; the twentieth century gave us form criticism (Bultmann) and redaction criticism (Conzelmann). Bart Ehrman's popularizations have put in front of general readers what seminaries already taught: the Gospels were written decades after the events they describe, by non-eyewitnesses, in Greek, in communities with distinct theological agendas. The four canonical accounts contradict each other on details large (resurrection appearances) and small (the day of the crucifixion). None of this is news to critical scholarship; much of it is now accepted within moderate Christian biblical studies.

What remains contested is the interpretive verdict. Conservative evangelical scholarship, typified by N.T. Wright, argues that the historical case for the resurrection survives critical scrutiny and that textual variation does not undermine the essential message. Skeptics like Hector Avalos, Robert Price, and Richard Carrier argue that the same methods applied consistently to the New Testament would deny supernatural claims from any religion, and that the Christian exception is special pleading. The argument from scripture thus increasingly turns on a prior question: whether miracles are admissible as historical explanations at all.