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Testimonies to the Truth: Why You Can Trust the Gospels
Christians should be prepared to defend and share their faith, even while wrestling with doubts and questions that arise from within and without. With thousands of books out there-not to mention content on social media-where do we start? Testimonies to the Truth, Lydia McGrew's fourth book on New Testament reliability, provides a great starting point. With a heart for evangelism, equipping believers, and scholarship, McGrew brings together new arguments and old ones in a form that is readily accessible to laymen while being careful and rigorous. With these arguments in hand, you will never be stumped when someone asks, "Why should I believe what the Bible says about the life and teachings of Jesus?" Above all, McGrew points to Jesus himself, true God and true man, the One who teaches, loves, and suffers for us, described by the Gospels in vivid and credible detail. Including suggested study and discussion questions and references for further reading and research, Testimonies to the Truth provides an excellent resource for personal study, Sunday School, high school and college classes, and small groups.
279 pages, Kindle Edition
Published February 26, 2024
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
September 4, 2023
I couldn't hardly put this down until I was done with it. I wouldn't say it is a comprehensive case for "why you can trust the gospels" but will leave you much more confident that the accounts in the gospels are reliable, eye-witness accounts. I recommend reading this book and then immediately reading the gospel of John. You will be able to recognize so many little things that you passed by before that subtly scream of reliability. I also just think Lydia McGrew is awesome and so needed as a counter balance against many biblical scholars today, while remaining rigorous in her approach.
April 22, 2024
Things I never thought of before that are interesting and make the Gospels come to live even more.
November 3, 2023
Testimonies to the Truth: A Definitive Refutation of People Who Say the Gospels are Unreliable
I have been a Christian my whole life, but have always wondered why I should trust Jesus Christ and what the Bible says. This book seems to give many of those answers by clarifying how we know that the Gospels are reliable through internal and external evidence.
The first chapter talks about the Gospel authors’ knowledge of certain obscure government officials and locations. This demonstrates their meticulous recording of history which resembles truthfulness and real memories of these obscure historical people and places within the lifetime of Jesus.
The second chapter extends from the first in that this is external evidence, but this time McGrew talks about certain Jewish customs and also how the commonality of names in ancient Palestine corresponds with certain percentages of people’s names within the Gospels, further signifying real people and events.
Chapter three is on undesigned coincidences, which McGrew wrote another book about. These coincidences are statements between two of the Gospels that complement each other in a subtle way, which corresponds to how real people report things. In, for example, a crime, McGrew gives the example of two people’s witness statements in a robbery. One noticed that the robber’s shoes were untied, and the other one noticed that the robber tripped and fell. Neither of them mentioned the other event and therefore confirmed each other’s testimonies. Dozens of these, as McGrew shows, are found in the Gospels.
The fourth chapter talks about unnecessary details, which are details in which the Gospel writers insert that are totally irrelevant and break up the flow of the story, and because of this, she argues that these documents are memoirs because these are also displayed within reliable eyewitness accounts in the modern age.
The fifth chapter talks about unexplained allusions, which are very similar to the unnecessary details, but in some cases, the Gospel writer inserts obscure information that none of the audience of the work would not understand, but he never goes out of his way to explain it. This also further confirms the eyewitness nature of the writers, because in fiction, the author would make sure that all of the loose ends were tied, as opposed to a non-fiction writer, whose purpose was to just remember what occurred in his own life.
Chapter six details a topic that would not usually be used as evidence for the Gospels, which are their apparent contradictions. McGrew argues that they do not contradict each other, but shows that the Gospels form a coherent, eyewitness narrative, while still indicating independence from each other.
Chapter seven talks about the coherent and consistent personalities displayed between the Gospels in different characters. With being subtly consistent in character traits, many of the instances of characters indicate a real person who was involved in a real event.
The final chapter, chapter eight, talks about the unified personality of the main character, who is obviously Jesus Christ. His character is complex throughout all of the Gospel accounts, yet stays consistent, which indicates that Jesus was a real person who had specific characteristics in his personality.
I also have a few other thoughts about the book. McGrew is a very talented writer with a captivating style. She even includes some humor where necessary; in chapter 2 she compares how the Galileans were treated like how Polish people were treated in Chicago when she was a kid; she then includes a “Polack joke,” which was a joke poking fun at Polish people, and I must admit that I laughed aloud at it. I also admire McGrew’s boldness in speaking out against scholarly consensus, which when blindly followed, can prevent people from seeing the truth about something historical.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book, and my faith has strengthened through the obvious consistency and meticulous recollection of events that are displayed in the Gospels and strengthened by Lydia McGrew’s clever argumentation to go along with it. Shown that these Gospels are true, one of McGrew’s final statements in the book becomes extremely powerful: “If Jesus is to be the center of our lives, we we must encounter him as a fully historical figure, a real man who walked and talked, cried, laughed, and loved, and who also was God, which is why he can never ultimately let us down” (McGrew 216).
I have been a Christian my whole life, but have always wondered why I should trust Jesus Christ and what the Bible says. This book seems to give many of those answers by clarifying how we know that the Gospels are reliable through internal and external evidence.
The first chapter talks about the Gospel authors’ knowledge of certain obscure government officials and locations. This demonstrates their meticulous recording of history which resembles truthfulness and real memories of these obscure historical people and places within the lifetime of Jesus.
The second chapter extends from the first in that this is external evidence, but this time McGrew talks about certain Jewish customs and also how the commonality of names in ancient Palestine corresponds with certain percentages of people’s names within the Gospels, further signifying real people and events.
Chapter three is on undesigned coincidences, which McGrew wrote another book about. These coincidences are statements between two of the Gospels that complement each other in a subtle way, which corresponds to how real people report things. In, for example, a crime, McGrew gives the example of two people’s witness statements in a robbery. One noticed that the robber’s shoes were untied, and the other one noticed that the robber tripped and fell. Neither of them mentioned the other event and therefore confirmed each other’s testimonies. Dozens of these, as McGrew shows, are found in the Gospels.
The fourth chapter talks about unnecessary details, which are details in which the Gospel writers insert that are totally irrelevant and break up the flow of the story, and because of this, she argues that these documents are memoirs because these are also displayed within reliable eyewitness accounts in the modern age.
The fifth chapter talks about unexplained allusions, which are very similar to the unnecessary details, but in some cases, the Gospel writer inserts obscure information that none of the audience of the work would not understand, but he never goes out of his way to explain it. This also further confirms the eyewitness nature of the writers, because in fiction, the author would make sure that all of the loose ends were tied, as opposed to a non-fiction writer, whose purpose was to just remember what occurred in his own life.
Chapter six details a topic that would not usually be used as evidence for the Gospels, which are their apparent contradictions. McGrew argues that they do not contradict each other, but shows that the Gospels form a coherent, eyewitness narrative, while still indicating independence from each other.
Chapter seven talks about the coherent and consistent personalities displayed between the Gospels in different characters. With being subtly consistent in character traits, many of the instances of characters indicate a real person who was involved in a real event.
The final chapter, chapter eight, talks about the unified personality of the main character, who is obviously Jesus Christ. His character is complex throughout all of the Gospel accounts, yet stays consistent, which indicates that Jesus was a real person who had specific characteristics in his personality.
I also have a few other thoughts about the book. McGrew is a very talented writer with a captivating style. She even includes some humor where necessary; in chapter 2 she compares how the Galileans were treated like how Polish people were treated in Chicago when she was a kid; she then includes a “Polack joke,” which was a joke poking fun at Polish people, and I must admit that I laughed aloud at it. I also admire McGrew’s boldness in speaking out against scholarly consensus, which when blindly followed, can prevent people from seeing the truth about something historical.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book, and my faith has strengthened through the obvious consistency and meticulous recollection of events that are displayed in the Gospels and strengthened by Lydia McGrew’s clever argumentation to go along with it. Shown that these Gospels are true, one of McGrew’s final statements in the book becomes extremely powerful: “If Jesus is to be the center of our lives, we we must encounter him as a fully historical figure, a real man who walked and talked, cried, laughed, and loved, and who also was God, which is why he can never ultimately let us down” (McGrew 216).
November 3, 2023
Why you can Trust in the Gospels
The Gospel has been seen as a hoax by some worldwide, but some believe it. The book Testimonies to the Truth: Why You Can Trust the Gospels by Lydia McGrew is a spirituality/religious non-fiction book. This book is for if you question why you cannot trust the gospel or if you want to strengthen your knowledge and faith as a Christian.
Testimonies to the Truth go through real gospel stories, and sections are about Location, Culture, Undesigned Coincidences, Details, Unexplained Allusions, Unexpected Harmonies, Unified Personalities, and Unmistakable Jesus. In each area of these chapters, the book gives intriguing discussion topics and summaries for discussion to think deeper about the gospel. The author uses real gospel stories to help prove her point that it would be impossible to fake these stories. There are many good points given throughout the text with evidence that would make the gospels undeniably true.
The book was reasonable. Many parts demonstrated that they really could not be fake. This book intrigued me to learn more about the gospel and defend it because it must be true, and I have to stand with my Christian faith. My favorite chapter was the Unified personalities because she did a great job explaining how she noticed all this about the disciples/etc, of how it would be near impossible to fake these personalities this well. The author has an entire chapter on allusions, and it states “after the wedding at Cana, Jesus went with his mother, brothers, and disciples down to Capernaum”(McGrew 120). I found it pleasing how it talked about these allusions because it encourages you to think deeply with the author about what it means. If the gospels were not truthful, then one would expect to either not see obscure allusions or at least expect them to be explained by the author. Since this is not the case, this further confirms the historicity of the gospels.
Overall, I recommend this book to those who want to understand the gospels or struggle to believe the gospels. This book is decently challenging, so I recommend it if you can understand more medium to high-level reading. So, if reading about the gospels intrigues you, this is the right book for you.
The Gospel has been seen as a hoax by some worldwide, but some believe it. The book Testimonies to the Truth: Why You Can Trust the Gospels by Lydia McGrew is a spirituality/religious non-fiction book. This book is for if you question why you cannot trust the gospel or if you want to strengthen your knowledge and faith as a Christian.
Testimonies to the Truth go through real gospel stories, and sections are about Location, Culture, Undesigned Coincidences, Details, Unexplained Allusions, Unexpected Harmonies, Unified Personalities, and Unmistakable Jesus. In each area of these chapters, the book gives intriguing discussion topics and summaries for discussion to think deeper about the gospel. The author uses real gospel stories to help prove her point that it would be impossible to fake these stories. There are many good points given throughout the text with evidence that would make the gospels undeniably true.
The book was reasonable. Many parts demonstrated that they really could not be fake. This book intrigued me to learn more about the gospel and defend it because it must be true, and I have to stand with my Christian faith. My favorite chapter was the Unified personalities because she did a great job explaining how she noticed all this about the disciples/etc, of how it would be near impossible to fake these personalities this well. The author has an entire chapter on allusions, and it states “after the wedding at Cana, Jesus went with his mother, brothers, and disciples down to Capernaum”(McGrew 120). I found it pleasing how it talked about these allusions because it encourages you to think deeply with the author about what it means. If the gospels were not truthful, then one would expect to either not see obscure allusions or at least expect them to be explained by the author. Since this is not the case, this further confirms the historicity of the gospels.
Overall, I recommend this book to those who want to understand the gospels or struggle to believe the gospels. This book is decently challenging, so I recommend it if you can understand more medium to high-level reading. So, if reading about the gospels intrigues you, this is the right book for you.
May 11, 2026
This is a very good overview of the arguments for the reliability of the gospels. The book is written accessibly without being oversimplified or relying too much on hand-waving. The author provides enough examples to substantiate each point, but not enough to be tedious. (For those who are interested, she provides references to additional examples.) Furthermore, the study and discussion questions at the end of each chapter are thoughtful and useful.
I have two minor criticisms of the book. One is the way that some arguments, each corresponding to a chapter, are introduced. For a couple of them, it's not clear why they would strongly support the gospels' reliability even if they were true. Also, a few of the arguments are hard to distinguish from one-another. Although Lydia attempts to clarify both of these points, I found myself rereading pages, flipping back and forth between chapters, or relying on my familiarity with her other work more often than I would have liked.
My second criticism is that I wish the book addressed more skeptics' claims, especially those that gospel authors misunderstanding regional culture, history, and geography. For example: in the healing of the paralytic, Luke appears to misunderstand regional architecture (and contradict the other gospels) by stating that the roof consisted of tiles instead of straw. Of course, it would be impractical for Lydia to address all of skeptics' claims, but I wish that she presented a framework for weighing the evidence on each side.
Regardless of these shortcomings, the breadth of books' arguments, and the satisfactory detail with which most of them are covered, makes the "Testimonies to the Truth" worth reading for a wide audience. Whether you're persuaded by the thesis or not, you'll still learn something from it.
I have two minor criticisms of the book. One is the way that some arguments, each corresponding to a chapter, are introduced. For a couple of them, it's not clear why they would strongly support the gospels' reliability even if they were true. Also, a few of the arguments are hard to distinguish from one-another. Although Lydia attempts to clarify both of these points, I found myself rereading pages, flipping back and forth between chapters, or relying on my familiarity with her other work more often than I would have liked.
My second criticism is that I wish the book addressed more skeptics' claims, especially those that gospel authors misunderstanding regional culture, history, and geography. For example: in the healing of the paralytic, Luke appears to misunderstand regional architecture (and contradict the other gospels) by stating that the roof consisted of tiles instead of straw. Of course, it would be impractical for Lydia to address all of skeptics' claims, but I wish that she presented a framework for weighing the evidence on each side.
Regardless of these shortcomings, the breadth of books' arguments, and the satisfactory detail with which most of them are covered, makes the "Testimonies to the Truth" worth reading for a wide audience. Whether you're persuaded by the thesis or not, you'll still learn something from it.
November 3, 2023
Lydia McGrew’s Nonfiction book Testimonies to the Truth is about exploring in depth about specific aspects of the gospels and how they cannot be faked. This book is undoubtedly interesting because the author comes up with so many examples that it becomes ridiculous. Lydia McGrew successfully defends her points made to prove the gospels legitimacy in Testimonies to the Truth.
Testimonies to the Truth is about how the gospels cannot be faked. The book has a habit of being disconnected from other pieces of the text, as in each chapter there are subchapters that are the main aspect of the book’s proofs about how the gospels cannot be faked.
My personal review of Testimonies to the Truth was positive because there are such ridiculously in depth examples. For example, an entire chapter is dedicated to Jesus's personality. One of the more interesting parts of the chapter is ‘Sarcastic Jesus’ where the author is talking about how sometimes Jesus can be sarcastic, which is interesting because jesus is not known to be sarcastic: “Generally, we don't associate sarcasm with Jesus at all, and this is because we ourselves find it difficult to be sarcastic without having sinful attitudes of cruelty or pettiness”. One of the other good things about the book is that after each chapter there is a chapter summary where if you didn't understand some aspects of the text, you can try to read the summary to get a better understanding of the content.
As an author, Lydia McGrew wrote Testimonies to the Truth almost more as a research paper/collection of facts rather than a normal nonfiction book or a novel that I am used to reading. I find this fascinating because this is the first time I have ever read a book in this format.
Testimonies to the Truth is about how the gospels cannot be faked. The book has a habit of being disconnected from other pieces of the text, as in each chapter there are subchapters that are the main aspect of the book’s proofs about how the gospels cannot be faked.
My personal review of Testimonies to the Truth was positive because there are such ridiculously in depth examples. For example, an entire chapter is dedicated to Jesus's personality. One of the more interesting parts of the chapter is ‘Sarcastic Jesus’ where the author is talking about how sometimes Jesus can be sarcastic, which is interesting because jesus is not known to be sarcastic: “Generally, we don't associate sarcasm with Jesus at all, and this is because we ourselves find it difficult to be sarcastic without having sinful attitudes of cruelty or pettiness”. One of the other good things about the book is that after each chapter there is a chapter summary where if you didn't understand some aspects of the text, you can try to read the summary to get a better understanding of the content.
As an author, Lydia McGrew wrote Testimonies to the Truth almost more as a research paper/collection of facts rather than a normal nonfiction book or a novel that I am used to reading. I find this fascinating because this is the first time I have ever read a book in this format.
December 26, 2025
This book is a helpful summary of McGrew's larger body of work about Gospel reliability. Each of the 8 chapters includes a Chapter Summary, Study Questions (with an answer key in the back of the book), a "For Discussion" section, and Recommended Reading. I found her arguments to be mostly compelling, and I walked away from the book with a renewed respect for the historical reliability of the Gospels.
March 14, 2026
This is an invaluable resource. I have not read something as accessible, that also covered so much of the evidence of the reliability of the Gospels. It is clear and well written. Concise and yet needing no further explanation. I've already recommended it to several people skeptics and new believers. I recommended you do the same.
March 12, 2023
Excellent popular-level treatment of Gospel reliability. I especially appreciated McGrew's focus on applying real-life imagination to see how various aspects of the Gospels fit into a reportage model.
May 29, 2024
This book can serve as an excellent starter for anyone wondering why we can trust the Gospels. This book would also be great for small groups because it contains questions at the end of every chapter and discussion questions... with answers at the back of the book! Highly recommend!
April 24, 2025
This is a shorter version of McGrew's previous books, intended for class use. I recommend it for anyone interested in the topic but looking for more of an overview than the detailed versions in the longer books.
April 12, 2026
My son turned me on to this book. It is an easy read. It is well worth a second read. The first time I read it for contents only. I now want to go back and actually slow down and read the scripture passages listed in the sections and complete all the chapter questions.
April 20, 2023
Definitely a great Apologetic read for every day people. I would recommend it, if you like that kind of thing.
March 18, 2024
Read the amateur exegete’s review instead.
May 17, 2025
Very accessible. Wonderful book and worth addition to any christian's library.
August 12, 2025
Great book. Would encourage to any believer or inquirer to learn more about the reliability of the Gospels
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews