Abstract: The original Christian revelation was the teaching of Jesus, about the broad outlines of which we can obtain moderately accurate information from the New Testament, treated as an ordinary historical document. Treating it in this way, we also learn that Jesus founded a church, and intended his life and death to be a means of our atonement. In so far as there is good historical evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus, this shows that God has authenticated the teaching of Jesus and the church that he founded. This evidence is far better evidence for the truth of the Christian revelation than is any evidence that Jesus fulfiled Old Testament prophecies, or the supposed ‘self-evidence’ of the Bible.

Keywords: Bible, church, Jesus, New Testament, Resurrection, revelation, self-evidence,