GOD EXAMINEDBible← Back to The ProofEvery claim in the summary, traced to its primary source — with the verbatim quote and surrounding context, a full MLA citation, and a link to the original. Grouped to match the numbered summary; each entry is anchored so the summary can link straight to it.
“Christus, the founder of the name, had undergone the death penalty in the reign of Tiberius, by sentence of the procurator Pontius Pilatus, and the pernicious superstition was checked for a moment, only to break out once more, not merely in Judaea, the home of the disease, but in the capital itself, where all things horrible or shameful in the world collect and find a vogue.”
“Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man; for he was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews and many of the Gentiles. He was [the] Christ. And when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him; for he appeared to them alive again the third day; as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him. And the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day.”
“the brother of Jesus who was called Christ, whose name was James: and some others; [or, some of his companions.] And when he had formed an accusation against them as breakers of the law, he delivered them to be stoned.”
“they were accustomed to meet on a fixed day before dawn and sing responsively a hymn to Christ as to a god, and to bind themselves by oath, not to some crime, but not to commit fraud, theft, or adultery ... to depart and to assemble again to partake of food—but ordinary and innocent food.”
“Since the Jews constantly made disturbances at the instigation of Chrestus, he expelled them from Rome.”
“On Passover Eve they hung the corpse of Jesus the Nazarene after they killed him by way of stoning. And a crier went out before him for forty days, publicly proclaiming: Jesus the Nazarene is going out to be stoned because he practiced sorcery, incited people to idol worship, and led the Jewish people astray. Anyone who knows of a reason to acquit him should come forward and teach it on his behalf. And the court did not find a reason to acquit him, and so they stoned him and hung his corpse on Passover eve.”
“they revered him as a god, made use of him as a lawgiver, and set him down as a protector, next after that other, to be sure, whom they still worship, the man who was crucified in Palestine because he introduced this new cult into the world.”
“The front (recto) contains parts of seven lines from the Gospel of John 18:31-33, in Greek, and the back (verso) contains parts of seven lines from verses 37-38. ... Pasquale Orsini and Willy Clarysse propose 125 to 175 CE as the range of dates for [P52].”
“Now, we have more than 5,800 Greek New Testament manuscripts, the oldest going back to the 2nd century.”
“The evidence for our New Testament writings is ever so much greater than the evidence for many writings of classical authors, the authenticity of which no one dreams of questioning.”
“For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that He was buried, that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that He appeared to Cephas and then to the Twelve. After that, He appeared to more than five hundred brothers at once, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. Then He appeared to James, then to all the apostles. And last of all He appeared to me also, as to one of untimely birth.”
“We used forty-eight prophecies... and, though we have not been able to do the same by science, the probability of forty-eight prophecies being fulfilled in one person is 1 in 10^157.”
“Of the whole Bible, then, 8,352 verses contain predictive material, or 27 percent... The Old Testament contains 1,239 separate prophecies.”
“Seventy weeks are decreed on your people and on your holy city, to finish disobedience, to make an end of sins, to make reconciliation for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most holy.”
“Know therefore and discern that from the going out of the commandment to restore and build Jerusalem to the Anointed One, the prince, will be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks. It will be built again, with street and moat, even in troubled times. After the sixty-two weeks the Anointed One will be cut off, and will have nothing.”
“In the month Nisan, in the twentieth year of Artaxerxes the king, when wine was before him, I picked up the wine, and gave it to the king. ... I said to the king, 'If it pleases the king, and if your servant has found favor in your sight, I ask that you would send me to Judah, to the city of my fathers' tombs, that I may build it.'”
“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from helping me, and from the words of my groaning?”
“For dogs have surrounded me. A company of evildoers have enclosed me. They have pierced my hands and feet. I can count all of my bones. They look and stare at me.”
“I will pour on David's house and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem the spirit of grace and of supplication. They will look to me whom they have pierced; and they shall mourn for him as one mourns for his only son, and will grieve bitterly for him as one grieves for his firstborn.”
“They divide my garments among them. They cast lots for my clothing.”
“But he was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. The punishment that brought our peace was on him; and by his wounds we are healed.”
“They made his grave with the wicked, and with a rich man in his death, although he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth.”
“Therefore I will give him a portion with the great. He will divide the plunder with the strong, because he poured out his soul to death and was counted with the transgressors; yet he bore the sins of many and made intercession for the transgressors.”
“I said to them, 'If you think it best, give me my wages; and if not, keep them.' So they weighed for my wages thirty pieces of silver. Yahweh said to me, 'Throw it to the potter—the handsome price that I was valued at by them!' I took the thirty pieces of silver and threw them to the potter in Yahweh's house.”
“Then that which was spoken through Jeremiah the prophet was fulfilled, saying, 'They took the thirty pieces of silver, the price of him upon whom a price had been set, whom some of the children of Israel priced, and they gave them for the potter's field, as the Lord commanded me.'”
“But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law.”
“40 percent per decade (or 3.42 percent per year) seems the most plausible estimate of the rate at which Christianity actually grew during the first several centuries.”
“a vast, interconnected network spanning as many as 200,000 miles at its maximum”
“There is nothing in the world that travels faster than these Persian couriers. (Histories 8.98.1)”
“Although simple life is probably abundant in the universe, complex life -- animals and higher plants -- is likely to be far more rare than is commonly assumed.”
“The same narrow circumstances that allow us to exist also provide us with the best overall setting for making scientific discoveries.”
“Is this tuning just a brute fact, a coincidence? Or is it the providence of a benign Creator? I take the view that it is neither. ... These six numbers constitute a 'recipe' for a universe. Moreover, the outcome is sensitive to their values: if any one of them were to be 'untuned,' there would be no stars and no life.”
“[No verifiable verbatim scientific source states the exact '~20 windows, expected planets < 1 out of 10^22 stars' figure; this is a compiled probability estimate.]”
“בְּרֵאשִׁית בָּרָא אֱלֹהִים אֵת הַשָּׁמַיִם וְאֵת הָאָרֶץ (transliteration: Bereshit bara Elohim et ha-shamayim ve-et ha-aretz) -- 'In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.' The word אֵת (et) is the definite direct-object marker (nota accusativi), composed of the first and last letters of the Hebrew alphabet, aleph (א) and tav (ת); it is grammatically required but has no English equivalent and is left untranslated.”
“Adam ('Man'), Seth ('Appointed'), Enosh ('Mortal'), Kenan/Cainan ('Sorrow' / 'dwelling place'), Mahalalel ('The Blessed God'), Jared ('Shall come down'), Enoch ('Teaching' / 'to discipline'), Methuselah ('His death shall bring'), Lamech ('The despairing'), Noah ('Comfort / Rest'). Read in sequence: 'Man [is] appointed mortal sorrow, [but] the Blessed God shall come down teaching, [and] His death shall bring the despairing comfort and rest.'”
“And since that which is moved and moves is intermediate, there is something which moves without being moved, being eternal, substance, and actuality. And the object of desire and the object of thought move in this way; they move without being moved... The first mover, then, exists of necessity; and in so far as it exists by necessity, its mode of being is good, and it is in this sense a first principle.”
“Hence, even the fool is convinced that something exists in the understanding, at least, than which nothing greater can be conceived... And assuredly that, than which nothing greater can be conceived, cannot exist in the understanding alone. For, suppose it exists in the understanding alone: then it can be conceived to exist in reality; which is greater. Therefore, if that, than which nothing greater can be conceived, exists in the understanding alone, the very being, than which nothing greater can be conceived, is one, than which a greater can be conceived. But obviously this is impossible.”
“The existence of God can be proved in five ways. The first and more manifest way is the argument from motion. It is certain, and evident to our senses, that in the world some things are in motion. Now whatever is in motion is put in motion by another... If that by which it is put in motion be itself put in motion, then this also must needs be put in motion by another, and that by another again. But this cannot go on to infinity, because then there would be no first mover, and, consequently, no other mover... Therefore it is necessary to arrive at a first mover, put in motion by no other; and this everyone understands to be God.”
“So far we have spoken as mere physicists; now we must rise to metaphysics, making use of the great principle... that nothing takes place without sufficient reason; that is to say, that nothing happens without its being possible for one who should sufficiently understand things, to give a reason sufficient to determine why it is so and not otherwise. This principle laid down, the first question which we are entitled to ask will be, Why is there something rather than nothing? ... And this sufficient reason of the existence of the universe cannot be found in the series of contingent things... The sufficient reason therefore, which needs no other reason, must be outside this series of contingent things, and must be found in a substance which is the cause of this series, or which is a necessary being, bearing the reason of its existence within itself... And this final reason of things is called God.”
“Definition 1 (God-like): x is God-like if and only if x has as essential properties those and only those properties which are positive [G(x) ⇔ ∀φ(P(φ) ⇒ φ(x))]. Axiom 5: Necessary existence is a positive property [P(E)]. Theorem 3: Necessarily, a God-like object exists [□∃x G(x)] — 'It is necessarily true (true in all possible worlds) that a God-like object exists.'”
“The integrated information theory (IIT) of consciousness claims that, at the fundamental level, consciousness is integrated information (Tononi 2008, p. 217). IIT claims that consciousness is not an all-or-none property, but is graded: specifically, it increases in proportion to a system's repertoire of discriminable states (p. 236) — indeed, on this view even a binary photodiode 'is not completely unconscious, but rather enjoys exactly 1 bit of consciousness' (p. 236).”
“The modern materialist approach to life has conspicuously failed to explain such central mind-related features of our world as consciousness, intentionality, meaning, and value... In spite of the great achievements of the physical sciences, reductive materialism is a world view ripe for displacement.”
“On Passover Eve they hanged Yeshu [of Nazareth]... And a crier went out before him for forty days, saying: [Yeshu of Nazareth] is going out to be stoned because he practiced sorcery, incited [people to idol worship], and led the Jewish people astray. Anyone who knows of a reason to acquit him should come forward and teach it on his behalf. But the court did not find a reason to acquit him, and so they stoned him and hanged his corpse on Passover Eve.”
“Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man; for he was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews and many of the Gentiles. He was [the] Christ. And when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him... And the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day.”
“Attending religious services more than once per week was associated with 33% lower all-cause mortality compared with women who never attended religious services (hazard ratio, 0.67; 95% CI, 0.62-0.71). ... Frequent religious service attendance was associated with significantly lower risk of all-cause, cardiovascular and cancer mortality.”
“Those who never attend exhibit 1.87 times the risk of death in the follow-up period compared with those who attend more than once a week. This translates into a seven-year difference in life expectancy at age 20 between those who never attend (75.3 years) and those who attend more than once a week (82.9 years).”
“In the U.S., for instance, 36% of the actively religious describe themselves as 'very happy,' compared with 25% of the inactively religious and 25% of the unaffiliated. ... Actively religious people are more likely than their less-religious peers to describe themselves as 'very happy' in about half of the countries surveyed.”
“During follow up, among 66,444 initially married nurses who were mainly Christians, frequent service attendance was associated with 50% lower risk of divorce (95% CI: 32%, 63%), and 52% lower risk of either divorce or separation (95%CI: 37%, 63%).”
“According to studies, the divorce rate among couples who pray together is 1 in 1,152 (less than 1%). [Widely repeated in Christian marriage literature; no primary methodology or dataset has been published.]”
“Religiousness predicted a significant but modest decrease in depression over time (mean effect size d = -0.18). ... In 49% of the studies examined, religiosity predicted a decrease in depression over time; the effect of religion on depression was 50% stronger among people experiencing high levels of stress.”
“Analyses ... confirmed increases in gray matter concentration within the left hippocampus. Whole brain analyses identified increases in the posterior cingulate cortex, the temporo-parietal junction, and the cerebellum in the [Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction] group compared with the controls. The results suggest that participation in MBSR is associated with changes in gray matter concentration in brain regions involved in learning and memory processes, emotion regulation, self-referential processing, and perspective taking.”
“Reductions in perceived stress correlated positively with decreases in right basolateral amygdala gray matter density.”
“Brain regions associated with attention, interoception and sensory processing were thicker in meditation participants than matched controls, including the prefrontal cortex and right anterior insula. ... These data provide the first structural evidence for experience-dependent cortical plasticity associated with meditation practice.”
“A review of Nobel Prizes awarded between 1901 and 2000 reveals that (65.4%) of Nobel Prize Laureates identified Christianity in its various forms as their religious preference. ... Overall, Christians have won a total of 78.3% of all the Nobel Prizes in Peace, 72.5% in Chemistry, 65.3% in Physics ... and 62% in Medicine.”
“The scientific method was one of a set of Western 'meta-inventions,' which arose contemporaneously with the ratification of Thomism -- with its dual emphasis on faith and reason -- by the Roman Catholic Church. ... Christianity was an important variable in explaining why Europe became the seedbed of extraordinary accomplishment.”
“Medieval Christianity was responsible for the rise of universities, the scientific enterprise, European capitalism, and human rights -- all before either the Reformation or the Renaissance. ... While the world's other great faiths emphasized mystery and intuition, Christianity alone embraced reason and logic as the primary guide to religious truth.”
“A census of the top performers in five major sports — the 32 NFL starting quarterbacks, every starting WR1 and RB1, and the Top 100 players of the NFL, MLB, NHL, NBA, and world soccer (plus the NBA Top 25) — 596 elite athletes, each researched one by one for their publicly stated religion. [...] across 596 elite athletes in five sports, of the 328 who state a religion, 304 are Christian and 24 are not — and outside global soccer it is near-unanimous.”
“Jesus is love! At the end of the day, we are all looking for someone to comfort us, somebody to be there for us at all times. [...] Jesus has always been there. He'll never leave you, never forsake you.”
“I need Jesus every day of my life. Without Him, I can't do anything. The ability I have to play football (soccer) and all that has resulted from it are gifts from God.”
“I wouldn't be who I am if it wasn't for my faith or my relationship with Jesus. It's the biggest thing in my life. I know the peace that it's given me, especially in this crazy job that we have.”
“I've just matured and realized that God is everything, and He's worthy of praise. You have to put Him at the center of everything that you do.”
“First and foremost, I just want to give all glory to my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.”
“It's my first World Cup. I can start worrying about different things and different outcomes, but instead, I just choose to put my faith in God. [...] God's plan is perfect so I can go on the pitch and know that God has my back.”
“I have a lot of faith in God. Without him, I wouldn't be anything.”
“[I killed Jeho]ram son of [Ahab] king of Israel, and [I] killed [Ahaz]iahu son of [Jehoram kin]g of the House of David. And I set [their towns into ruins and turned] their land into [desolation].”
“The words 'House of David' (bytdwd) appear in the ninth line of the inscription... the Tel Dan inscription is the earliest extra-biblical reference to the dynasty founded by King David.”
“As for Hezekiah the Jew, who did not submit to my yoke: forty-six of his strong walled cities... I besieged and took... Himself, like a caged bird I shut up in Jerusalem, his royal city. Earthworks I threw up against him, and the one coming out of his city-gate I turned back to his misery.”
“Clay hexagonal prism... a foundation record listing the campaigns of Sennacherib down to the start of his final war against Babylon, and including a description of the tribute received from Hezekiah, King of Judah in 701 BC.”
“Israel is laid waste, his seed is not; Hurru is become a widow for Egypt!”
“For Acts the confirmation of historicity is overwhelming. Any attempt to reject its basic historicity even in matters of detail must now appear absurd. Roman historians have long taken it for granted.”
“Luke names thirty-two countries, fifty-four cities and nine islands without error.”
“Even though the two copies of Isaiah discovered in Qumran Cave 1 near the Dead Sea in 1947 were a thousand years earlier than the oldest dated manuscript previously known (A.D. 980), they proved to be word for word identical with our standard Hebrew Bible in more than 95 percent of the text. The five percent of variation consisted chiefly of obvious slips of the pen and variations in spelling.”
“The version of the text is generally in agreement with the Masoretic or traditional version codified in medieval codices... dating from ca. 125 BCE, it is one of the oldest of the Dead Sea Scrolls, some one thousand years older than the oldest Masoretic manuscripts.”
“Twenty speaker registers, 542,315 real words, scored on eight indices computed word-by-word from the corpus text: Teaching, Purity, Thoughtfulness, Compassion, Authority, Quotability, and a six-axis Christ-likeness of speech, with Jesus's red-letter words as the benchmark.”
“Most certainly I tell you, unless one is born anew, he can’t see God’s Kingdom. … You have heard that it was said… but I tell you…”
“All that we are is the result of what we have thought: it is founded on our thoughts, it is made up of our thoughts.”
“Is it not pleasant to learn with a constant perseverance and application? Is it not delightful to have friends coming from distant quarters?”
“The Tao that can be trodden is not the enduring and unchanging Tao. The name that can be named is not the enduring and unchanging name.”
“Thou grievest for those that should not be grieved for, yet speakest words of wisdom.”
“[The recorded sayings of the Prophet Muhammad, collected in Riyad as-Salihin; isnad chains, reference numbers and Arabic removed for analysis.]”
“Let me start today by asking the question, what is political philosophy? Custom dictates that I say something about the subject matter of this course at its outset.”
“So you don’t need to go borrow equipment from anybody… we’re not gonna do the feet today, I’m gonna wait till, like, early in the morning…”
“Teaching density — Jesus #1 by a wide margin: ~68 per 1k structural markers vs Paul ~51, Buddha ~39, with 95% confidence intervals that do not overlap.”