Reliability of the New Testament

Reliability of the New Reliability of the New TestamentTestament

Why Does It Matter?Why Does It Matter?

F F Bruce

Reliable as what?

• As God’s self-revelation in Christ?

• As a record of historical fact?

New Testament reliability based on…

• The assumption that history can be known• That the documents are reliable• That the writers were reliable

In which case, we may have a problem…

Objective History cannot be known because…

1. Past events are no longer verifiable2. Original facts are lost – only fragments speak3. Historians only have records, not actual events4. Documents only cover a small fraction of what

happened5. Historians select which fragments they will

study, so they cannot present the full story

6. Historians must recreate accounts of history, adding their own subjective interpretation to it

7. Historians present not just facts, but look to reveal meaning behind the facts

8. Imagination fills in the ‘gaps’9. History is thus interpreted through

different worldviews10. Thus, objective truth cannot be known

No one way to interpret history

So if there is more than one view on how to interpret

an historical event, or document, many believe objective truth is lost to us

The Truth may be out there, but we can’t know it

If ‘Objective’ means absolute knowledge, then no human historian can be objective...

If ‘objective’ means “a fair but revisable presentation that reasonable men and women

should accept”then we have the possibility of being objective.

- Geisler

Ancient ManuscriptsCaesar’s Gallic War has survived

with 9 or 10 good copies.

These copies have been dated around 900 hundred years

after the events.

Livy’s Roman History

has survived in 20 copies

from the 4th century.

Tactitus’ Annals of Roman History

2 copies have survived –

dating from the ninth and

eleventh centuries

Josephus – The Jewish War

• Nine Greek manuscripts survived,

copies written in tenth, eleventh and twelfth centuries

• Latin translation from fourth century

Homer

The Iliad

643 manuscripts –500 years after original

What about the New Testament?

How many New Testamentmanuscripts have survived?

Over fourteen thousand full or partial

NT manuscripts have survived

• 5,686 complete or partial Greek manuscripts

• 9,000 copies in Syriac, Coptic, Arabic, Latin and other languages

• NT has come down to us with more manuscripts than any other ancient text

All but eleven verses

• 36,289 NT quotations in writings by the Early Church Fathers from 2nd to 4th century

• These quotes alone capture the entire NT but for eleven verses

New Testament

both shortest in

time and longest

in manuscript

s

Geisler and Turek, 2004: page 226

Earliest New Testament Books?

• Complete NT books were found from 200 AD

• All the Gospels survive from 250 AD

• No other ancient literature has such a short time span

Earliest Manuscripts

P 52 John Rylands

papyri discovered in

1934

Found in Egypt

P 52 predates P 45 by 100 to 150 years

P 45 Dated from

early 3rd century

200-250 Fragments of

Mark, Matthew, Luke,

John, Acts

John Rylands papyri - P 52

• Fragment of John 18: 31-33

• John thought to be written 75- 100

• Papyri dated 117- 138

• Fragment can be dated within a generation of John’s original composition

Filled with Errors?

• Errors do exist, but no doctrine is damaged

• Variants – different spelling or grammar• NT documents regarded as 99.5% pure• No doubt we have the Scriptures

substantially as they were written – Frederick Kenyon

More manuscripts lead to greater accuracy

Correcting the Variants

• You h#ve w*n a million d&llars• Y@u have won a m#llion doll&rs• You have won a million dollars

Time between NT copies

• Radical scholars place earliest gospel manuscripts at 70 to 100 AD (Jesus Seminar)

• Later dates risk being too far removed from original events to have historical credibility

• Allows time for legends to develop

Survey of New Testament Scholarship

• Matthew 65-85 AD• Mark 60-75 AD• Luke 65-95 AD• John 75-100 AD• Gospels written around 30-70 years after

crucifixion– Mark Roberts Can We Trust the Gospels?

Trustworthiness of Witnesses

• 1 Corinthians written 55 or 56 AD • Paul speaks of over 500 witnesses – 1 Cor

15:6• Witnesses could remember what really

happened• Too soon for legends about Jesus Christ to

develop

New Testament WitnessesLegal-historical method

• Can’t verify through scientific method• New Testament pattern – Eyewitnesses• Still used by courts in discerning facts• Peter – We did not follow cleverly devised

tales “but were eyewitnesses of his majesty” – 2

Peter 1:16

Were NT writers reliable witnesses?

• We are all witnesses of the fact – Acts 2:32

• We have seen it and testify to it – 1 John 1: 1-2

• We can’t help but speak of what we have seen and heard – Acts 3:15

• Paul’s 500 witnesses – 1 Corinthians 15:6

Historical Reliability?

• John’s gospel - 59 details confirmed historically or as historically probable –

Craig Blomberg, The Historical Reliability of John’s Gospel

• Luke’s gospel – 84 accounts of historical details

Classical scholar and historian, Colin Hemer

Non Christian sources within 150 years of Jesus

• 30 NT figures have been confirmed as historical by archaeological findings or non Christian sources

• Tacitus, Suetonius, Josephus, Thallus, Pliny the Younger, Emperor Trajan, Emperor Hadrian

• All affirm the existence of Jesus in sources outside the Bible

Theology and History?

“The evangelists wrote reliable history because they cared about what happened in the past…

their theology was anchored in past events … theology leads one to care about history…believe that Jesus was really God in the flesh and you will pay close attention to what he actually did and said”

- Mark Roberts

To conclude:

• The good news of the New Testament is bound up in both revelation and history.

• “God entered in history, the eternal came into time, the kingdom of heaven invaded the realm of earth” – F F Bruce

• “To reject the historicity of the New Testament is to reject all history” – Norman Geisler