As described previously, there’s widespread agreement that Jesus was a real person who walked the earth in first century Palestine. The 27 “books” that make up the New Testament, written during this time period, record the words spoken by Jesus and by his early followers and detractors.
Although some critics who adhere to naturalism question the supernatural events recorded in the New Testament, the words spoken by Jesus meet all standards for reliability used to assess historical documents. We’re not evaluating miracles right now (we’ll cover that shortly), only Jesus’ recorded words, so that we can determine what he said about himself.