Is the Bible Historically Reliable - The New Testament

The New Testament

When we say that the Bible is inspired and inerrant, we are always referring to the original autographs. No biblical scholar or theologian that I know of has ever made the assertion that the translations we hold in our hands today are inspired and inerrant. This then raises the question of how accurate and faithful our current translations are to the original autographs. . How reliable are the copies we have today? Well, let’s consider the evidence.

1.       Manuscript Evidence

a.       Quantity of Manuscript (MSS) Evidence^[1]

·         Greek MSS

Uncial                                        307

Minuscules                              2860

Lectionaries                             2410

Papyri                                        109

Subtotal                                  5686

·         MSS in Other Languages

Latin Vulgate                      10,000+

Ethiopic                                 2,000+

Slavic                                      4,101

Armenian                                2587

Syriac Pashetta                       350+

Bohairic                                   100

Arabic                                        75

Old Latin                                    50

Anglo Saxon                                7

Gothic                                          6

Sogdian                                        3

Old Syriac                                    2

Persian                                         2

Frankish                                       1

Subtotal                            19,284+

Total All MSS                 24,970+

Why is it so critical to be informed as to the quantity of manuscript evidence that we have? Because, the more extant manuscript evidence we have, the more we can reconstruct the original manuscripts and determine the accuracy of the copies we have today. As noted above, the New Testament has about 25,000+ existing manuscripts; by comparison, no other writings of antiquity come even remotely close to this kind of evidence, as I will note next.

b.       Manuscript Evidence: The New Testament vs. Other Ancient Writings^[2]

Author	Book	Date Written	Earliest Copies	Time Gap	No. of Copies
Homer	Iliad	800 B.C.	c. 400 B.C.	c. 400 yrs.	643
Herodotus	History	480-425 B.C.	c. A.D. 900	c. 1,350 yrs.	8
Thucydites	History	460-400 B.C.	c. A.D. 900	c. 1,300 yrs.	8
Plato		400 B.C.	c. A.D. 900	c. 1,300 yrs.	7
Demosthenes		300 B.C.	c. A.D. 1100	c. 1,400 yrs.	200
Caesar	Gallic Wars	100-44 B.C.	c. A.D. 900	c. 1,000 yrs.	10
Livy	History of Rome	59 B.C.- A.D. 17	4th cent. (partial) mostly 10th cent.	c. 400 yrs. c. 1,000 yrs.	1 partial 19
Tacitus	Annals	A.D. 100	c. A.D. 1100	c. 1,000 yrs.	20
Pliny Secundus	Natural History	A.D. 61-113	c. A.D. 850	c. 750 yrs.	7
New Testament		A.D. 50-100	c. 114 (frag) c. 200 (bks) c. 250 mNT c. 325 cNT	+ 50 yrs. 100 yrs. 150 yrs. 225 yrs.	5366

Ravi Zacharias states, “In real terms, the New Testament is easily the best attested ancient writings in terms of sheer number of documents, the time span between the events and the document, and the variety of documents available to sustain or contradict it. There is nothing in ancient manuscript evidence to match such textual availability and integrity.”^[3]

In explaining why this information is so significant, Dan Story writes, “…not enough time elapsed between when Jesus spoke and when His words were recorded to allow for misinterpretation or the development of legendary material about Him. Nor has enough time elapsed between the autographs and existing translations to allow significant transmission errors or tampering.”^[4]

c.        Support from the Early Church Fathers

Early Patristic Quotations of the New Testament^[5]

Writer	Gospels	Acts	Pauline Epistles	General Epistles	Revelation	Totals
Justin Martyr	268	10	43	6	3 (266 allus.)	330
Irenaeus	1,038	194	499	23	65	1,819
Clement (Alex.)	1,107	44	1,127	207	11	2,406
Origen	9,231	349	7,778	399	165	17,992
Tertullian	3,822	502	2,609	120	205	7,258
Hippolytus	734	42	387	27	188	1,378
Eusebius	3,258	211	1,592	88	27	5,176
Grand Totals	19,368	1,352	14,035	870	664	36,289

What all this manuscript evidence has done for Christianity and its critics is prove that textual corruption of the New Testament is practically non-existent. It is estimated that only half of one percent of the entire New Testament is in doubt, far less than the corruption that has taken place among other writings of antiquity. And that half of one percent doesn’t affect in any way the accuracy of any doctrinal or historical truth. In essence, what textual critics have been able to conclude, is that the New Testament we hold in our hands today is virtually accurate and faithful to the original manuscripts.  Kenyon, who is recognized as then greatest textual critic of the twentieth century, stated, “The interval then between the dates of original composition and the earliest extant evidence becomes so small as to be in fact negligible, and the last foundation for any doubt that the Scriptures have come down to us substantially as they were written has now been removed.”^[6]

2.       External Evidence

External evidence has to do with evidence provided from areas other than the manuscript evidence or the New Testament authors themselves. Four external sources will be considered here.

a.       Christian Writers

Here we are referring to early writers, early church fathers who lived close to the time the New Testament was written, some of which knew New Testament writers personally. Their writings go a long way in providing additional corroborating evidence for the reliability of the New Testament. Some of those writers include Papias, Clement of Rome, Polycarp, and Irenaeus.

b.       Non-Christian Writers

These writers were also individuals who lived very close to the time of Christ. Even though they are not writing from a Christian point of view and therefore are not as explicit as Christian writers were, their writings help establish the reliability of the New Testament because they help validate the historicity of the New Testament. Some of these writers include Josephus (a Jewish historian), Tacitus (a first-century Roman historian), and Pliny the Younger (Roman author and administrator).

c.        Archaeology

Archaeological discoveries have been a death blow to all those Bible critics who for years argued that the many of the biblical narratives were nothing more than fiction rather than historical facts and events. Archaeology has taught us all this, just because something hasn’t been discovered yet doesn’t mean that the biblical narratives are not true. In fact, we can now safely assume that all other biblical narratives that have not yet been validated by archaeology are true, since many of those that had been dismissed as fiction have now been validated.

Burrows states, “On the whole, however, archaeological work has unquestionably strengthened confidence in the reliability of the scriptural record. More than one archaeologist has found his respect for the Bible increased by the experience of excavation in Palestine. Archaeology has in many cases refuted the views of modern critics. It has shown, in a number of instances, that these views rest on false assumptions and unreal, artificial schemes of historical development. This is a real contribution and not to be minimized.”^[7]

d.       Prophecy

“Other books claim divine inspiration, such as the Koran, the Book of Mormon, and parts of the (Hindu) Veda. But none of those books contains predictive prophecy.”^[8] The question is why? Because predictive prophecy that fails to come true in all its details will expose those writings as false and non-inspired. The Bible on the other hand, is loaded with predictive prophecy, much of which (the exception being that which is yet to be fulfilled) has been fulfilled literally down to the minutest details, showing once again that the Bible is inspired and that everything it says is true and accurate.

---

[1] Josh McDowell, The New Evidence That Demands A Verdict (Nashville: Nelson, 1999), p. 34.

[2] Ibid., p. 38.

[3] Ravi Zacharias, Can Man Live Without God? (Dallas: Word, 1994), p. 162.

[4] Dan Story, Defending Your Faith (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 1997), pp. 40,-41.

[5] McDowell, p. 43.

[6] Frederick G. Kenyon, The Bible and Archeology (New York: Harper and Row, 1940), p. 288.

[7] Millar Burrows, “What Mean These Stones?” in An Introduction to Bible Archeology, ed. Howard F. Vos (Chicago: Moody, n.d.), pp. 91-92.

[8]  Norman Geisler and William Nix, A General Introduction to the Bible (Chicago: Moody, 1986), p. 28.