William Lane Craig on The argument from scripture

Craig's approach to the argument from scripture is distinctive in that he does not defend biblical inerrancy in the fundamentalist sense. He is a trained historian of the New Testament and argues for the historical reliability of the Gospels using the standard tools of historiography — multiple attestation, embarrassment criteria, early dating, and eyewitness testimony — rather than appeals to divine inspiration.

His focus is overwhelmingly on the resurrection narratives. Craig argues that three facts are accepted by the majority of New Testament scholars regardless of their theological commitments: the tomb of Jesus was found empty, various individuals and groups experienced what they took to be appearances of the risen Jesus, and the earliest disciples came to believe in the resurrection despite having every reason not to. He contends that the best explanation of these three facts is that God raised Jesus from the dead.

Craig is careful to distinguish his position from naive biblicism. He acknowledges that the Bible contains different literary genres — poetry, parable, apocalyptic literature — that should not all be read as literal history. He accepts an old earth, evolutionary biology (with qualifications about the soul), and the results of mainstream textual criticism. His argument is not that the Bible is inerrant in every detail but that its core historical claims — particularly the resurrection — are well-evidenced.

Critics like Bart Ehrman argue that Craig's historical method is selectively applied — that he uses critical scholarship when it supports his conclusions and retreats to faith when it does not. Craig responds that the resurrection hypothesis should be evaluated like any other historical hypothesis, and that a priori exclusion of supernatural explanations is methodological naturalism, not good history.