Christianity: A Truly Verifiable Faith

By: Brian G. Chilton, Ph.D. | November 23, 2025

Recently, while teaching a class on worldview, it dawned on me just how special Christianity is from other worldviews. Granted, popular society does not deem it particularly kind to say, “My view is right, and yours is wrong.” At the risk of sounding crass, Christianity holds a level of veritability that other worldviews do not possess. These issues are not a matter of debating theological and ethical perspectives. Rather, the issues that favor Christianity are a matter of objective facts that transcend personal persuasion and presuppositions.

By saying that Christianity is a verifiable faith, I am saying that certain truth claims can be tested about the Founder of the faith—Jesus of Nazareth—that cannot be found in other faiths. This article will examine three areas that distinctly separate Christianity from other worldviews. As you will see, no other founder of a religious movement holds the credibility that Jesus of Nazareth does.

Christianity is a truly verifiable faith due to the early testimony of its founder.

For most religious founders, information about their lives is found so late that they cannot be considered objectively verifiable. For instance, the primary texts on the life of Siddhartha Gautama—the Buddha—mostly date from 600 to 900 years after his death. Scholars recognize that the historical information on the life of Buddha is so late that there is “‘no objective criterion which would allow us to isolate the original gospel’ of Buddhism.”[1] Buddha lived circa 560 to 480 BC. The biographies of the Buddha in the Lalitavistara, Mahakhandaka, and Mahavastu were composed from around 50 BC to AD 350.

The situation is a little better for the life of Muhammad. Muhammad lived from around 570 to 632 AD. He was born in Mecca and was reportedly visited by Gabriel on his fortieth birthday. Likely, the traditions about the life of Muhammad orally circulated during his time, or shortly thereafter. Nonetheless, the hadiths—documents that report on the life of Muhammad—were not written until the 900s to the 1000s. Thus, the completed hadiths were completed 300-400 years after the prophet’s death.[2]

It should be noted that just because something is documented orally does not imply that the material is false. In fact, when information becomes part of a community’s collective canon, then traditions can be accurately preserved for over 2,000 years without changing any major detail. But even then, the number of independent testimonies impact the transmission’s accuracy.

With the life of Jesus, things improve dramatically. All four canonical Gospels were written within 50-55 years after Jesus’s death and resurrection. As a refresher, Buddha’s biographies were written 600-900 years after his death, and Muhammad’s biographies were completed 300-400 years after his death. Jesus’s biographies were completed and published within 50 years afterward. That is absolutely profound!

But it gets even better for the biography of Jesus. Within the texts of the New Testament epistles, no less than 30 creeds have been detected that point to extremely early testimonies about the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.[3] The evidence is so good that even atheist-leaning-agnostic scholar Bart Ehrman concedes that many of the creeds, particularly 1 Corinthians 15:3-7, date to within 2 years of Jesus’s time.[4] Additionally, the oral traditions undergirding Gospels are earlier still. Many of them date to the time of Jesus Himself.[5] Traditions that date afterward may represent apostolic reflections of the earlier teachings of Jesus.

Christianity is a truly verifiable faith due to the multiple independent testimonies.

Second, Christianity is set apart by the numerous independent testimonies pertaining to the life of its founder. In many cases, like Muhammad’s and Joseph Smith’s, a solo vision occurs for the founder. The founder then tells others, mostly family and friends, about said experience. Then, those family members, who did not encounter the vision themselves, tell of the founder’s experience. In reality, these cases only represent a singular source—the word of the founder. Likewise, Buddha told others of his experience, but no one else could objectively validate that his time of enlightenment occurred under the Bodhi tree.

Christianity is unique in that it holds several strains of independent testimonies to account for the teachings, life, death, and resurrection of its founder—Jesus of Nazareth.

Within the four canonical Gospels, at least five independent sources are found. The stories only found in Matthew represent one source. Those only found in Mark represent another. Luke’s unique stories represent a third. John’s Gospel contains a fourth source. And a fifth source is found in the shared information in both Matthew and Luke, which some scholars call Q. Many other sources could be mentioned, but for the sake of simplicity, let us permit the case to stand where it is. In contrast with most other worldviews that are based on one or two sources at best, Christianity holds multiple strands of independent sources that validate the history, message, and theological understanding of Jesus of Nazareth.

Christianity is a truly verifiable faith due to external testimonies.

Third, and finally, Christianity is verifiable due to its external testimonies. That is, not only do those who are part of the Christian movement document Jesus’s life, but so do also those who were not part of the community. Some examples of individuals who report on the life of Jesus include Roman historian Tacitus (AD 55-120), Jewish historian Josephus (AD 37-39 to AD 97), Roman historian Suetonius (AD 117-138), a Roman historian named Thallus (writing around AD 52), Roman historian Pliny the Younger (c. AD 112), Emperor Trajan, among many others. Quite honestly, if we are to be true to the evidence, no other person of antiquity (certainly no one who has founded a religious movement in antiquity) has the level of historical support held by Jesus of Nazareth.

Conclusion

To be fair, the number of sources and their dates do not necessarily prove the things the sources say about the individual. However, these historical criteria can be used to create an apologetic for the person in question. For those without a good solid foundation, nothing much about the person’s life can be known with great certainty. But the same is not true for a person who holds multiple early sources. Much more about that person’s life can be known and studied. Thus, we have good, credible reasons for believing in the life, miracles, teachings, works, death, and resurrection of Jesus. These sources when added to other apologetic understanding strongly point to the understanding that Jesus is the Messiah and the Son of God.[6]

About the Author

Dr. Brian G. Chilton (PhD, Liberty University) is the founder of Bellator Christi Ministries and the co-host of the Bellator Christi Podcast. He serves as a hospice chaplain and an Adjunct Professor of Apologetics for Carolina College of Biblical Studies, a Dissertation Mentor/Adjunct Professor for Liberty University in the PhD in Applied Apologetics program, and an Adjunct Professor/Dissertation Reader at Carolina University in the DMin program. Dr. Chilton's primary area of research is on early Christianity, oral traditions, NT creeds, the blend of divine sovereignty and human freedom, and near-death experiences (NDEs).

Notes

1. Edward Conze, Buddhist Scriptures (New York: Penguin, 1959), 11; Paul Gwynne, Buddha, Jesus, and Muhammad: A Comparative Study (West Sussex, UK: Wiley-Blackwell, 2014), 6, 18, 127-131, 242-244; Gary Habermas, Evidences, On the Resurrection, volume 1 (Nashville, TN: B&H Academic), 224.
2. Habermas, Evidences, 224.
3. Coeli Fitzpatrick and Adam Hani Walker, Muhammad in History, Thought, and Culture: An Encyclopedia of the Prophet of God (New York: ABC-CLIO, 2014), 231-232; Paul Fieldhouse, Food, Feasts, and Faith: An Encyclopedia of Food Culture in World Religions (New York: ABC-CLIO, 2017), Logos.
4. Bart Ehrman, Did Jesus Exist?: The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth (San Francisco: HarperOne, 2012), 251, 254; Bart Ehrman, How Jesus Became God: The Exaltation of a Jewish Preacher from Galilee (San Francisco: HarperOne, 2015), 138-139.
5. Among these early traditions dating to the time of Jesus include the burial traditions of Jesus, particularly involving Joseph of Arimatheia. See Brown, 2:1229, 1238-1240.
6. Area of research into enemy attestation, the early proclamation of the resurrection of Jesus, and the disciples’ willingness to die for what they knew to be true offer a more concise defense for the Christian faith.