A former liberal scholar puts modern biblical criticism on trial—detailing how biblical critics often hold to biases rather than fact. First English edition.

"BIBLICAL EXEGESIS: Biblical Criticism on Trial," seeks to firmly establish and defend a conservative approach to biblical exegesis while meticulously exposing and critiquing the fallacies and biases prevalent in modern biblical criticism. The central thesis posits that liberal-moderate biblical criticism, incorporating literary criticism, rhetorical criticism, narrative criticism, form criticism, tradition criticism, redaction criticism, structuralism, poststructuralism, canonical criticism, and historical criticism, are fundamentally flawed and speculative. It highlights that these methods, often presented as objective and scientific, are indeed reflective of broader ideological systems such as secular humanism, the Enlightenment, and German idealism, which have significantly swayed Western academia and thought over the past four centuries. The book argues that these critical methodologies constitute an ongoing assault on the Bible, reinforcing scholar biases and distancing biblical interpretation from truth. The ultimate goal is to equip readers with a clear understanding of conservative exegetical principles and methods, demonstrating how these approaches are grounded in an unswerving commitment to the authority and inerrancy of Scripture, thereby offering an antidote to the subjective and ideologically skewed practices of modern biblical criticism. It is also a warning: Biblical criticism has opened the gates to a flood of pseudo-scholarly works whose influence has been to undermine people’s confidence in the Bible.

In Jesus on Trial, New York Times bestselling author David Limbaugh applies his lifetime of legal experience to a unique new undertaking: making a case for the gospels as hard evidence of the life and work of Jesus Christ. Limbaugh, a practicing attorney and former professor of law, approaches the canonical gospels with the same level of scrutiny he would apply to any legal document and asks all the necessary questions about the story of Jesus told through Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. His analysis of the texts becomes profoundly personal as he reflects on his own spiritual and intellectual odyssey from determined skeptic to devout Christian. Ultimately, Limbaugh concludes that the words Christians have treasured for centuries stand up to his exhaustive enquiry—including his examination of historical and religious evidence beyond the gospels—and thereby affirms Christian faith, spirituality, and tradition.

Biblical criticism, originally known as Higher criticism of the Bible, got started throughout the 18th and 19th centuries. At that time, Protestant scholars attacked the Bible: an intellectual, academic attack. They devised a method of studying the Bible that became known as higher criticism and now biblical criticism. These Bible critics taught that most of the Bible contained legend and myth. Some even claimed that Jesus never existed. For the liberal-moderate Bible scholar then and now, the Word of God, the Bible has become the word of man, and a very chaotic, distorted word at that. The modern-day liberal-moderate Bible scholar says that much of the Bible “is just wrong.” This thinking is the result of biblical criticism. Biblical higher criticism is conjectural and uncertain, doubtful in the extreme. Today, these Bible scholars who make up most of our seminaries explain the Bible accounts of miracles as myths, legends, or folk tales. They do not even entertain the idea that there is the possibility that they actually occurred. This viewpoint is subjective and gives no reliable reason to reject the Bible as inspired, fully inerrant, authentic, and trustworthy. Biblical criticism is highly defective, and its centuries-long assault on the Bible has not proven that the Bible is not the Word of God. Many conservative Christians have been doing their best to defend God’s Word. Herein, THE FUNDAMENTALS OF THE CHRISTIAN FAITH puts Biblical Criticism on trial, judging their claims as subjective (based on or influenced by personal feelings or opinions), not objective (factual, actual, real, empirical, verifiable) in biblical studies.

A former liberal scholar and student of Rudolph Bultmann and Ernst Fuchs tells how modern biblical scholarship has drifted far from the truth, and why its assumptions are nonetheless so influential and thereby dangerous.

When world-class biblical scholar Bart Ehrman first began to study the texts of the Bible in their original languages he was startled to discover the multitude of mistakes and intentional alterations that had been made by earlier translators. In Misquoting Jesus, Ehrman tells the story behind the mistakes and changes that ancient scribes made to the New Testament and shows the great impact they had upon the Bible we use today. He frames his account with personal reflections on how his study of the Greek manuscripts made him abandon his once ultraconservative views of the Bible. Since the advent of the printing press and the accurate reproduction of texts, most people have assumed that when they read the New Testament they are reading an exact copy of Jesus's words or Saint Paul's writings. And yet, for almost fifteen hundred years these manuscripts were hand copied by scribes who were deeply influenced by the cultural, theological, and political disputes of their day. Both mistakes and intentional changes abound in the surviving manuscripts, making the original words difficult to reconstruct. For the first time, Ehrman reveals where and why these changes were made and how scholars go about reconstructing the original words of the New Testament as closely as possible. Ehrman makes the provocative case that many of our cherished biblical stories and widely held beliefs concerning the divinity of Jesus, the Trinity, and the divine origins of the Bible itself stem from both intentional and accidental alterations by scribes -- alterations that dramatically affected all subsequent versions of the Bible.

The book PAUL AND LUKE ON TRIAL deals with their reputations, the authenticity, and the trustworthiness of their New Testament books (Acts and Galatians), which Bible critics have sought to undermine for centuries. Sadly, this attack also comes from “the new generation of evangelical scholars [who are] far more comfortable with ambiguity and uncertainty than previous generations.” (Wallace forward, Page xii) Herein the Bible critics and modern evangelical scholars are the prosecutors in this trial, and Andrews is serving as the Christian apologist in defense of the Apostle Paul and the disciple Luke. Andrews in PAUL AND LUKE ON TRIAL will briefly talk about Higher critics who have dissected the Word of God until it has become the word of man and a very jumbled word at that. Chapter one will look at how we can use legal terms to view Bible evidence objectively. Chapters 2 and 3 will lay more groundwork defining and dealing with Bible difficulties as it relates to the trial of Paul and Luke. A Brief historical overview of 36-49 C.E. in Chapter 4 apply all that we will have learned up unto this point in our defense of Paul and Luke. As a bonus, APPENDIX I is a chapter explaining Bible Difficulties, and APPENDIX II is a defense of the prophet Daniel and the book that bears his name.