Suppose you find an ancient manuscript that purports to be, not a scatalogical poem or potboiler novel or polished piece of classical literature, but a serious biography of at least 11,000 words. The man who is the subject of the manuscript is revealed to be divine, the Son of God, who tells people what God wants them to do, and that God rewards those who follow Him with eternal life and punishes those who don’t with eternal damnation.
What do you do with that manuscript?
Note that, if what the manuscript says is true, it matters dramatically to you. This is different from finding an ancient manuscript that discusses, say, some ancient battle. It doesn’t really matter to you if that manuscript is true or not, unless you are a history professor specializing in that era.
I also don’t think it will do to say, “I don’t believe this manuscript because I don’t believe in God.” That’s assuming the conclusion; it’s saying I won’t consider the evidence for X because I don’t believe in X.
So I don’t think you can just ignore the manuscript. You have to think about it at least enough to say, for example, “Well, this is probably just written by some random ancient crank and so there’s no need to think about it any further.” Fair enough, but what if there was evidence that it wasn’t that simple. Suppose there was a lot in the manuscript — it contains many facts that fit in with what we know about that ancient time, seems rather measured in tone, contains much narrative that says nothing about the supernatural, and so forth — that suggested the author was not a crank. And suppose that there were other manuscripts around that time that were very similar and written by other people, and that a lot of apparently rational people back then believed the account to be true.
At that point, then, you need to have a theory other than simply the manuscript was written by an isolated ancient crank. What might that theory be? Well ….
And you see, as you think about it, this is the point: There really aren’t any good alternative theories for how this ancient manuscript came to exist if it is not factual. The author is (a) either deliberately lying or (b) inadvertently inaccurate. But what is a plausible motive for a deliberate lie, for writing in straightforward prose a long and detailed fake biography? (Bear in mind that, if the author or his sources are Jewish, blasphemy was a dangerous sin and indeed a capital crime within that community.) And how would such an 11,000-word inadvertent inaccuracy come to be written? (Here bear in mind that the best evidence is that the Gospels were written quite soon after the events they describe — not centuries later — and based on eyewitness accounts.)
So you would conclude that the manuscript was true, and believe and live your life accordingly.
One last thing: Wouldn’t you hope that the ancient manuscript you found was indeed true? That is, wouldn’t you be hoping that we live in a universe with an all powerful and loving God who will give us an eternal and joyful existence — rather than in a godless universe with neither good nor evil and in which there is no purpose to your life?