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The New Testament What Not’s: Historical Reliability of the NewTestament
I don’t think I did this one on purpose. Imagine plowing through the night,praying dearly that it wouldn’t go wrong; but it did. Just before the clock struck, I’vebeen enlightened, at my own expense that I had worked on the wrong subject formy research paper!Nevertheless, when pessimism quivers at opportunity, out comes optimismand this paper was due to that quick thinking I managed to pull off; which defiesOprah’s “A-ha!” moment more than a hair’s width. There is much to the Christian Bible that many do not understand. It is acomplex book that draws out the awe, the disgust, the speechlessness, theinspiration from way deep down our faculties; we can’t help but be so clueless.Here’s my proposal for this paper. I would like to suggest three propositionsregarding the reliability of the New Testament. It is basically going to bring youcertain facts on why the New Testament historically proves to be a reliable source.My three points would be argued from bibliographical, internal and externalevidences. I would say this would be sufficient enough for me to lay some proof of how trustworthy is that piece of material Christians read and if you are not aChristian; that very irritating material that tickles your conscious.
Bibliographical Evidence:
A proper definition for what constitutes bibliographical evidence is ““anexamination of the textual transmission by which documents reach us.”
It answersthe question: how on earth did we get this? And its locus is ““the number of manuscripts and the time interval between the original and extant copy.”
1
Josh McDowell & Bill Wilson,
He Walked Among Us: Evidence for the Historical Jesus
(SanBernardino, CA; Here’s Life Publishers, 1988), 112.
2
Ibid.,
Now consider this. The first fragment of the New Testament which is a pieceof John 18 was found to be dated as early as 100-150A.D. It was a piece of theGospel of John chapter eighteen and was retrieved by C.H. Roberts in 1934.
Studieshave shown that the gospels would be written around the first two centuries whatactually transpired regarding Jesus and His ministry.
The first gospel to be writtenis by Mark around A.D. 70, followed by Matthew and Luke around A.D. 80-90 andthen you would have John around A.D. 90 to the close of the first century.
Whyshould we consider this again? It is because this would give the documents a lapseperiod of only 30 years from the events that took place to the original copy of thegospels. 30 years is a fairly short amount of time comparing to most ancientantiquities. And the gap from the original copies to the extant copies date around100 years in time difference. Which brings us to the conclusion that the smaller thegap the higher the accuracy.
The second idea which should be considered bibliographically is the wealth of material the New Testament has. To date, there are over 4000 Greek manuscriptsand 13,000 of the New Testament in Greek itself. Not forgetting that there arecopies of different languages; Syrian, Coptic and Armenian. You also havereferences to the New Testament from the early Church Fathers.
And theimportance of this simply lies in the fact that the more numerous the amount, theeasier it is to cross-check to really see what the original would look like. More isdefinitely better.
Internal Evidence
3
Lee Strobel,
The Case for Christ: A Journalist’s Personal Investigation of the Evidence for Jesus
(Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1998), 79-80.
4
R.T. France, “The Gospels as Historical Sources for Jesus, the Founder of Christianity,”
Leadership University Online.
5
Ibid.,
6
Norman Geisler,
Christian Apologetics
(Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2006)
,
308.
7
Jimmy Williams, “Are the Biblical Documents Reliable?”
Leadership University
Online.
Available fromhttp://www.leaderu.com/orgs/probe/docs/bib-docu.html; Internet; accessed 4December 2009.
Now the definition for this is simply determine “whether the written record iscredible and to what extent.”
It understands the text from the “claims for itself.”
Now there are those that say the New Testament was written way after whathappened. So there are facts in there that are exaggerated. Well, this is not new.But if we were to argue using the initial evidence, we would now have to beobjective, simply because the internal evidence test would even verify otherreligious books. But nevertheless, it takes all three tests to verify if a particularbook is historically reliable. Not just internal evidences.Now if you turn to these passages: Luke 1: 2 and John 21:24 you would noticethat there were the existences of eyewitnesses. The author of the gospel of Johnclaims himself to be an eyewitness. Paul confirms this when he wrote to theCorinthians (1 Corinthians 15:3-8). Therefore the gospels could not have beenwritten beyond the lifespan of the apostles. If they were and it was false, therewould be evidences citing it because even those who opposed Jesus Christ wouldnot tolerate distorted information.
External Evidence
The final test, are there extra-biblical sources on the New Testament? Surethere is. Irenaeus, wrote on the chronology of the gospel and gospel writers;confirming the dates of the copies.
There is a plaque with the name of PontiusPilate in it. This would mean that this would be the first non-written artifact outsidethe written works of Jewish and Christian resources.
There are many others thatare available through a click of the mouse and
google
.
8
Josh McDowell & Bill Wilson,
He Walked Among Us, 113.
9
Josh McDowell & Bill Wilson,
He Walked Among Us, 113.
10
F.F. Bruce,
The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable?
(Grand Rapids, MI:Eerdmans, 1985), 45.
11
Irenaeus,
Against Heresies
, Vol. III,
CCEL Online
. Available fromhttp://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf01.ix.iv.ii.html; Internet; accessed 4 December 2009, 3:1.CCEL is a website that provides an archive of Christian classics for download and reading.Membership is free and they have been an authority in providing Christian materials online.
12
R.T. France,
The Evidence for
Jesus (London, UK: Hodder and Stoughton, 1986), 147.
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