The New Testament What Not’s: Historical Reliability of the New

Testament

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’ve
been enlightened, at my own expense that I had worked on the wrong subject for
my research paper!

Nevertheless, when pessimism quivers at opportunity, out comes optimism

and this paper was due to that quick thinking I managed to pull off; which defies
Oprah’s “A-ha!” moment more than a hair’s width.

There is much to the Christian Bible that many do not understand. It is a

complex book that draws out the awe, the disgust, the speechlessness, the
inspiration 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 propositions
regarding the reliability of the New Testament. It is basically going to bring you
certain facts on why the New Testament historically proves to be a reliable source.

My three points would be argued from bibliographical, internal and external

evidences. 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 a
Christian; that very irritating material that tickles your conscious.

Bibliographical Evidence:

A proper definition for what constitutes bibliographical evidence is ““an

examination of the textual transmission by which documents reach us.”1 It answers
the 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.”2

1
Josh McDowell & Bill Wilson, He Walked Among Us: Evidence for the Historical Jesus (San
Bernardino, CA; Here’s Life Publishers, 1988), 112.
2
Ibid.,
 Now consider this. The first fragment of the New Testament which is a piece
of John 18 was found to be dated as early as 100-150A.D. It was a piece of the
Gospel of John chapter eighteen and was retrieved by C.H. Roberts in 1934.3 Studies
have shown that the gospels would be written around the first two centuries what
actually transpired regarding Jesus and His ministry.4 The first gospel to be written
is by Mark around A.D. 70, followed by Matthew and Luke around A.D. 80-90 and
5
then you would have John around A.D. 90 to the close of the first century. Why
should we consider this again? It is because this would give the documents a lapse
period of only 30 years from the events that took place to the original copy of the
gospels. 30 years is a fairly short amount of time comparing to most ancient
antiquities. And the gap from the original copies to the extant copies date around
100 years in time difference. Which brings us to the conclusion that the smaller the
6
gap 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 manuscripts
and 13,000 of the New Testament in Greek itself. Not forgetting that there are
copies of different languages; Syrian, Coptic and Armenian. You also have
7
references to the New Testament from the early Church Fathers. And the
importance of this simply lies in the fact that the more numerous the amount, the
easier it is to cross-check to really see what the original would look like. More is
definitely 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. Available from http://www.leaderu.com/truth/1truth21.html;
Internet; accessed 4 December 2009, 2.2.1.
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 from http://www.leaderu.com/orgs/probe/docs/bib-docu.html; Internet; accessed 4
December 2009.
 Now the definition for this is simply determine “whether the written record is
credible and to what extent.”8 It understands the text from the “claims for itself.”9

Now there are those that say the New Testament was written way after what
happened. 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 be
objective, simply because the internal evidence test would even verify other
religious books. But nevertheless, it takes all three tests to verify if a particular
book is historically reliable. Not just internal evidences.

Now if you turn to these passages: Luke 1: 2 and John 21:24 you would notice
that there were the existences of eyewitnesses. The author of the gospel of John
claims himself to be an eyewitness. Paul confirms this when he wrote to the
Corinthians (1 Corinthians 15:3-8). Therefore the gospels could not have been
written beyond the lifespan of the apostles. If they were and it was false, there
would be evidences citing it because even those who opposed Jesus Christ would
not tolerate distorted information.10

External Evidence

The final test, are there extra-biblical sources on the New Testament? Sure
there is. Irenaeus, wrote on the chronology of the gospel and gospel writers;
confirming the dates of the copies.11 There is a plaque with the name of Pontius
Pilate in it. This would mean that this would be the first non-written artifact outside
the written works of Jewish and Christian resources.12 There are many others that
are 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 from
http://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.
Conclusion: A Summary

So the worth of any book would be that it should be able to pass with flying
colors using the bibliographical, internal, and external evidences. It is reliable
bibliographically because of the very small time lapse between the original and
extant copies and also the wealth of material available that out beats the rest in
numbers. It is reliable internally because of the records of eyewitness statements;
and so the text speaks for itself. And it is reliable externally thanks to the
discoveries of Archaeology; no more vivid pictures but hard cold artifacts.

So whenever u flip through the pages of a religious book, ask yourself these
questions and try to match them and see if they even pass the test. If they don’t
then consider the New Testament, test them yourself and think it through and see
what you might come up with regarding this interesting piece of literature.

The maverickwriter blogs passionately at http://untitledlah.tumblr.com. He loves to

engage in discussions about religion and is ever willing to receive some
constructive criticism and good differing viewpoints along the way.