With so much to cover and so many topics I'd like to talk about, I put Theology Thursday to a vote. The outcome of the vote determined what would be covered in the coming months. The first subject to be tackled is How to Study the Bible.
Last week, we learned how the Bible came together. This week, we're going to dig in to the question of the Bible's reliability. Is the Bible, as we know it, a historically accurate and reliable document?
The argument here is whether or not the actual words contained in the Bibles we have are 1) what the original authors wrote and 2) were written in an accurate way so as to transmit the historical truths they claim to tell. Basically, is the Bible true or a simple mythology?
The stance that opponents to the validity of the Bible take is one of questioning how the text was recorded over time. Many would hold that the accounts of the life of Jesus were not written down prior to the second century, well over 100 years after He had lived. They go on to claim that, in accordance with the oral tradition of the time, the accounts of Jesus grew in mythology over that time span and were eventually written down in such a way as to make Jesus more a legend than an actual historical figure. Think Babe Ruth and the famed 'called shot'. Did it happen? Or was that just a tall tale weaved in the media?
In order to counter their arguments, we must take a look at how historical documents are proved and accepted as accurate in general and then apply the same tests to the New Testament (I focus on the New Testament because, just like last week, the Old Testament is generally left alone in these debates. However, the same process could easily be applied to the Old Testament, and I am sure it would check out.). Based on everything I have read on this topic, there are three tests to guide us in our understanding of the validity, reliability, and historicity of the Bible: the bibliographic test, the internal evidence test, and the external evidence test.
Bibliographic Test
As defined by Josh McDowell, this test "is an examination of the textual transmission by which documents reach us. In other words, not having the original documents, how reliable are the copies we have in regard to the number of manuscripts (MSS) and the time interval between the original and extant copy?"
For those who don't know this, we do not have in existence today an original copy (called an autograph) of any book or letter included in the New Testament. Therefore, we have to know that what was copied down was done so faithfully and within an acceptable period of time to be considered reliable.
To do this, let's do a comparison between the New Testament and a few other documents. These other documents are plainly accepted as accurate and acceptable historical documents, worthy to be taught in high schools and colleges alike as true to what the original author wrote and intended. We will consider when the original is said to have been written, when the first copy we now have in possession was written, how many such MSS exist today, and what level of accuracy the copies share (these statistics are pulled from several sources, listed at the end of this post).
Author Date Written Earliest Copy Time Span # of MSS Accuracy
Homer ca. 900 BC ca. 400 BC ~500 years 643 95%
Caesar ca. 50-58 BC ca. AD 900 ~950 years 10 Too few MSS
Tacitus ca. AD 100 ca. AD 1100 ~1,000 years 20 Too few MSS
Plato ca. 427-347 BC ca. AD 900 ~1,200+ years 7 Too few MSS
Aristotle ca. 384-322 BC ca. AD 1100 ~1,400 years 5 Too few MSS
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New Testament ca. AD 60-90 ca. AD 130 ~100 years 20,000+ 99.5%
What this means is that, based on the number of copies we have of the pieces of the New Testament, the time between when it was first written and from when we have a copy, and the accuracy of the copies to each other, we can certainly say that the text we have is the text that was originally written (and for those disconcerted with the 99.5% accuracy, the discrepancies are over grammar, spellings, style, and/or accidental omissions/duplicates - nothing in question has any weight to bear on doctrine or teaching).
Internal Evidence Test
The bibliographic test tells us that the text we have today is faithful to what was originally written. We must now turn to the words themselves and test whether or not those words are credible. This is the internal test.
There are several considerations to make when testing the internal credibility of a document. At the outset, it must be understood that a document is 'innocent until proven guilty' - in other words, a document claiming to present facts must be assumed to do exactly that unless it blatantly records falsehoods or is inconsistent in its own claims. In this, we have seen over and over again how archaeology and historical criticism support what was written in the New Testament.
Next, we must look at who wrote the New Testament. The authors consistently claim to either be direct eyewitnesses or to have recorded what an eyewitness has testified to be true. This is seen in Luke 1:1-3, 2 Peter 1:16, 1 John 1:3, and John 19:35. Therefore, the people who wrote the books and letters in the New Testament were not simply recording hearsay; they were recording the facts as they, or someone close the them, saw them.
Still, it would only be fair to allow for criticism from contemporaries. After all, if one eyewitness reports one account and another reports something to the contrary, we are faced with a he-said-she-said scenario, and the truth becomes very difficult to prove. The fact is that there were people alive who also witnessed the events of Jesus's life, death, and resurrection, and some of those people were not sympathetic to the apostles' cause - they were, in fact, opposed to it. Thus, if what was being written and propagated was in any way inaccurate, those opposed could simply have risen up and written a refutation to the apostles' claims. The apostles even opened themselves to this kind of criticism, as seen in Acts 2:22 and Acts 26: 24-48. None such came.
Last, the relationship of Old Testament prophecy to the life of Jesus as recorded in the Gospels indicates a God-ordained consistency simply unparalleled in any other major religious text. Without going into all the details, there were literally hundreds of prophecies fulfilled by Jesus Christ, including those found in Isaiah 7:14 (cf. Matthew 1:18-23), Micah 5:2 (cf. Luke 2:1-7), Hosea 11:1 (cf. Matthew 2:13-15), Malachi 3:1 (cf. Luke 2:25-27), Psalm 22:16 and 22:18 (cf. Luke 23:33 and John 19:23-24, respectively), and Isaiah 53:10-12 (cf. Acts 2:25-32).
External Evidence Test
Again, Josh McDowell defines this test by stating that "[the] issue here is whether other historical material confirms or denies the internal testimony of the documents themselves."
Within the Christian world, Papias (Bishop of Hierapolis, friend of the Apostle John, as preserved by Eusebius) and Iranaeus (Bishop of Lyons, disciple of Polycarp who was a disciple of the Apostle John) together testify to the authorship of the Gospels. They state that John wrote his gospel, as did Matthew, and that Mark wrote his based off of the testimony of Peter and Luke his based off of the teachings of Paul (and other eyewitnesses - cp. Luke 1:1-3).
Outside of the Christian world, we have already mentioned how archaeology and historical criticism have verified the facts of the Bible as they are laid out. People, places, leaders, and events, as they are described in the New Testament, have been verified over time by the historical record and the physical evidence (as it is uncovered).
Further, ancient, secular historians wrote of Jesus and verified not only His life but also some of His deeds. Here are a few quotes (pulled straight out of the Mark Driscoll resource listed below):
Flavius Josephus, from Jewish Antiquities:
Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man; for he was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure...And when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men among us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him; for he appeared to them alive again the third day, as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him. And the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day
Pliny the Younger, from The Letters of Pliny the Younger (this one addressed to the emperor Trajan):
They (Christians) also declared that the sum total of their guilt or error amounted to no more than this: they had met regularly before dawn on a fixed day to chant verses alternately amongst themselves in honour of Christ as if to a god...
These as well as many other Jewish and Roman historians document and give credence to the truths as presented by the authors of the New Testament.
Here's the big idea:
The Bible we have, and specifically the New Testament, is a historically valid and reliable document, and the text therein constitutes a true testimony to the events surrounding the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth, called the Christ.
Sources:
Easy read: Mark Driscoll, On the New Testament; Josh McDowell, More Than a Carpenter
Medium read: Josh McDowell, The New Evidence that Demands a Verdict; Lee Strobel, The Case for Christ; Dan Story, Defending Your Faith
Next week: Why Study the Bible?
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