Answer key

The worksheets don't print their answers. Here they all are, and on the slide before the credits.

Presenting

Each part opens with a ▶ Watch slide that plays a clip of the 6-minute video “Are the Gospels Reliable? Evidence in Jerusalem, Archaeology, and the Manuscripts” right on the slide: read the two questions, then click (or press →, or use a clicker) to play the clip. The slides wait while it plays and stops by itself; click twice to stop it early. Then click to show the answers. The clips need an internet connection.

Click the slide, or press → or Space (a clicker works too), to show the next thing; ← goes back, even while a clip plays. F presents full screen (Esc leaves it). P opens the presenter view, a second window with your notes, the next slide, and a timer, that moves with the slides: put it on your laptop and the slides on the projector. N shows the notes under the slides.

Your script

1. A real man

   Say: Last time we heard that nearly every historian, Christian or not, agrees Jesus lived. Today is Part 2: did the Gospel writers get the details right?

   Say: We'll check their work the way an archaeologist would: with a spade.

2. How do you spot a made-up story?

   Ask: If you made up a story about something at school, would you name the real principal and the real room? (No. Someone could check.)

   Say: The Gospel writers named real rulers and real places, people anyone could look up. That's something you can test.

   Clicks: 1. the line “The Gospels do the opposite. They name the governor, the high priest, even a pool. So let's check!”

   Sources: Luke 3:1 · John 9:7

3. Remember our verse?

   Do: Say it together once with the motions from last time. Then click to show each missing word as kids call it out.

   Answers: Word, flesh, us (the same words as the grades 1–2 sheet).

   Clicks: 1. the missing word “Word” · 2. the missing word “flesh” · 3. the missing word “us”

4. Names in stone · Watch: Check Luke's work

   Say: Luke was a doctor who traveled with Paul. He wrote a Gospel and the book of Acts, and he says he “carefully investigated everything.” Let's check his work.

   Do: Read the two questions out loud, then click to play the clip. It's about 2½ minutes.

   Ask after: Whose name was in the stone? What did Ramsay decide? Click once for each answer.

   Prepare: Before class, watch the video lesson this clip comes from, with every source written out: “Are the Gospels historically reliable?”

   Clicks: 1. play the clip (it stops by itself) · 2. the answer to 1: Pontius Pilate, “Prefect of Judea,” the governor who condemned Jesus. · 3. the answer to 2: He ranked Luke “along with the very greatest of historians.”

   Sources: Luke 1:1–4 · The Pilate Stone · Mykytiuk, “New Testament Political Figures: The Evidence” · Ramsay, St. Paul the Traveller and the Roman Citizen (1895), ch. 1

5. Written, then found

   Say: Luke dates John the Baptist's preaching to the time “when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea.” In 1961, diggers at Caesarea turned over this stone, carved with Pilate's name and his title while he was alive.

   Say: John names the high priest: “Caiaphas, who was high priest that year.” In 1990, workers in Jerusalem found a bone box carved “Joseph son of Caiaphas.” Josephus gives the high priest's full name: “Joseph, who was also called Caiaphas.” Many scholars think the box is his.

   Say: A letter from Emperor Claudius, carved in stone at Delphi, names Gallio as proconsul, just as Acts does.

   Say (grades 3–5): Critics said Luke got Lysanias wrong, because the only Lysanias they knew had died about sixty years before. Then this stone turned up at Abila, naming “Lysanias the tetrarch.” It points to a second, later Lysanias, just as Luke has it.

   Say: Sir William Ramsay, who started out sure Acts was too late to trust, wrote: “I began with a mind unfavourable to it.” After years of checking, he ranked Luke with the greatest historians.

   Worksheet: Grades 1–2 match each name to what diggers found. Grades 3–4 look up the four verses in their Bibles.

   Worksheet answers: Grades 1–2, Match it!: 1-B · 2-C · 3-A

   Worksheet answers: Grades 3–4, Look it up!: 1. Pontius Pilate · 2. Caiaphas · 3. Gallio · 4. Bethsaida

   Clicks: 1. the card “Pilate” · 2. the card “Caiaphas” · 3. the card “Gallio” · 4. the card “Lysanias” · 5. the line at the bottom

   Sources: The Pilate Stone · Luke 3:1 · The Caiaphas ossuary · John 11:49 · Josephus, Antiquities 18.95 (Whiston) · The Gallio inscription · The Abila inscription (Lysanias) · Ramsay, St. Paul the Traveller and the Roman Citizen (1895), ch. 1

6. Places · Watch: The places check out

   Say: People who make things up get places wrong. Watch what turned up under Jerusalem.

   Do: Read the two questions out loud, then click to play the clip. It's about 1 minute.

   Ask after: What did the workers find? Why ask Philip? Click once for each answer.

   Prepare: Before class, watch the video lesson this clip comes from, with every source written out: “Are the Gospels historically reliable?”

   Clicks: 1. play the clip (it stops by itself) · 2. the answer to 1: The steps of the Pool of Siloam, where Jesus sent a blind man to wash. · 3. the answer to 2: Philip was from Bethsaida, nearby. Jesus asked the local.

   Sources: The Pool of Siloam · The Pool of Bethesda · John 6:5–6 · Luke 9:10

7. Why did Jesus ask Philip?

   Ask: If you needed a bakery in a town you didn't know, who would you ask? (Someone who lives there.)

   Do: Click for clue one. Back in chapter 1, John mentions in passing that Philip “was from the town of Bethsaida.”

   Do: Click for clue two. Luke tells the same miracle. He never mentions Philip, but he says Jesus took his disciples to “a town called Bethsaida.”

   Say: Neither writer connects the dots. The pieces only fit when you lay the two side by side, the way two true reports of the same day fit together.

   Clicks: 1. John 1:44: Philip “was from the town of Bethsaida.” · 2. Luke 9:10: They went to “a town called Bethsaida.” · 3. the line at the bottom

   Sources: John 6:5–6 · John 1:44 · Luke 9:10–17

8. Copies · Watch: Were the words kept?

   Say: Nobody has the original of any ancient book, only copies. So were the words kept?

   Do: Read the two questions out loud, then click to play the clip. It's about 1½ minutes.

   Ask after: How many Greek copies do we have? How do we catch a copying slip? Click once for each answer.

   Prepare: Before class, watch the video lesson this clip comes from, with every source written out: “Are the Gospels historically reliable?”

   Clicks: 1. play the clip (it stops by itself) · 2. the answer to 1: More than 5,800. · 3. the answer to 2: Line them up. The two that agree outvote the slip.

   Sources: Textual criticism of the New Testament · Papyrus 52 · Mark 16:6

9. Copied with care

   Say: Our oldest copy of Tacitus's report on Christus was made more than 900 years after he wrote it. This scrap of John's Gospel, Papyrus 52, is usually dated within about a century of John.

   Say: More copies don't prove the events happened. They do show we know what the writers wrote. What Mark wrote is what you can read today: “He has risen! He is not here.”

   Ask: Why does it help to have lots of copies? (A slip in one copy stands out against all the others.)

   Clicks: 1. the line “Our oldest copy of Tacitus on Jesus is from 900 years after he wrote. This scrap of John is from about a century after.”

   Sources: Tacitus on Jesus · Papyrus 52 · Textual criticism of the New Testament

10. Be the scholar

    Say: The agnostic scholar Bart Ehrman counts hundreds of thousands of differences among the manuscripts. Most are spelling and word order. Scribes rarely slipped in the same place, so with more than 5,800 Greek copies, a slip in one stands out against the rest.

    Say: Ehrman trained under Bruce Metzger, a committed Christian. How far apart would they be on the original text? Ehrman: “very few points of disagreement, maybe one or two dozen places out of many thousands.”

    Worksheet: Grade 5+ lines up the three copies of Mark 16:6 now, circles each slip, and writes what Mark first wrote.

    Worksheet answers: Grade 5+, Be the scholar: You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. (3 slips)

    Clicks: 1. the line “Where they disagree, go with the two that agree. Every slip is outvoted.”

    Sources: Textual criticism of the New Testament · Mark 16:6 · Ehrman, Misquoting Jesus (paperback), p. 252

11. True or false?

    Do: Read each one and have kids stand up for true and sit down for false. Click to stamp each answer.

    Answers: 1. True. 2. False, workers found its steps in 2004. 3. True. 4. False, more than 5,800 in Greek.

    Clicks: 1. the answer to 1: True. · 2. the answer to 2: False. Workers found its steps in 2004. · 3. the answer to 3: True. · 4. the answer to 4: False. We have more than 5,800 in Greek.

12. Good news · Watch: Where anyone could check

    Say: So the writers got the details right. What about the biggest thing they wrote?

    Do: Read the two questions out loud, then click to play the clip. It's half a minute.

    Ask after: Do the finds prove a miracle? What did Paul say about the five hundred? Click once for each answer.

    Prepare: Before class, watch the video lesson this clip comes from, with every source written out: “Are the Gospels historically reliable?”

    Clicks: 1. play the clip (it stops by itself) · 2. the answer to 1: No. They show the writers told their story where anyone could check it. · 3. the answer to 2: Most were still living, so people could ask them.

    Sources: 1 Corinthians 15:6

13. So you can be sure

    Say: The writers who got the stones and pools right told the biggest news the same careful way: Jesus died for our sins, and God raised him. Paul even named witnesses while they could still be asked.

    Say: Luke wrote so you could be sure. His Gospel takes an evening to read. Open it this week and check it yourself. And you can talk to Jesus: if you really rose, show me, and I'll follow you.

    Ask: What would help you be sure about Jesus?

    Clicks: 1. the line “The biggest thing he was sure of: Jesus died for our sins and rose again, and people saw him alive.”

    Sources: Luke 1:1–4 · 1 Corinthians 15:3–6 · Luke 24:13–35

14. Say it again

    Do: Say the verse together, then try it with eyes closed.

    Worksheet: Everyone fills in the missing words of their own memory verse and colors a star each time they say it.

    Worksheet answers: Grades 1–2, John 1:14: Word, flesh, us

    Worksheet answers: Grades 3–4, John 20:31: written, believe, Messiah

    Worksheet answers: Grade 5+, Mark 8:29: asked, say, Messiah

15. Talk and pray

    Do: Talk about one or two of the questions, then pray together. Kids can repeat the prayer one line at a time.

    Say: Next time, Part 3: would anyone make this up? The details the Gospel writers should have left out.

    Do: Send the worksheets home, with this part's one-minute Short for families. The link is in your guide, under “Send it home.”

    Clicks: 1. the prayer

16. Answer key

    Do: Show this when kids check their work, or keep it on your laptop in the presenter view. The worksheets don't print their answers, so this is the key.

17. Pictures and Scripture

    Every picture on these slides, with its credit, license, and a link to its source.