Excerpted and slightly modified from our Ready With An Answer (Eugene, OR: Harvest House Publishers, 1997)
(continued from Part 1, where we listed ten facts that help us determine the credibility of the conservative view of the New Testament’s reliability)
To begin, the historical accuracy of the New Testament can be proven by subjecting it to three generally accepted tests for determining historical reliability. Such tests are utilized in literary criticism and the study of historical documents in general. (These are discussed by military historian Chauncey Sanders in his An Introduction to Research in English Literary History[1].) These include the 1) bibliographical, 2) internal and 3) external tests of historical evidence.
Fact One: The Bibliographical Test (corroboration from textual transmission)
The bibliographical test seeks to determine if we can reconstruct the original New Testament writings from the extant copies at hand. We have 5,300 Greek manuscripts and manuscript portions, 10,000 Latin Vulgate, and 9,300 other versions, plus 36,000 early (100-300 AD) patristic quotations of the New Testament—so that all but a few verses of the entire text could apparently be reconstructed from these alone.[2]
Few scholars question the general reliability of ancient classical literature on the basis of the manuscripts we possess. Yet this manuscript evidence is vastly inferior to that of the New Testament. For example, of 16 well-known classical authors (Plutarch, Tacitus, Suetonius, Polybius, Thucydides, Xenophon, etc.), the total number of extant copies is typically less than ten, and the earliest copies date from 750 to 1600 years after the original manuscript was first penned.[3] We need only compare such slim evidence to the mass of biblical documentation involving over 24,000 manuscript portions, manuscripts, and version, the earliest fragment and complete copies dating between 50 and 300 years after originally written.
Given the fact that the early Greek manuscripts (the Papyri and early Uncials) date much closer to the originals than any other ancient literature, with the overwhelming additional abundance of manuscript attestation, any doubt as to the integrity or authenticity of the New Testament text has been removed. Indeed, this kind of evidence is the dream of the historian. No other ancient literature has ever come close to supplying historians and textual critics with such an abundance of data.
Dr. F.F. Bruce, former Ryland’s Professor of Biblical Criticism and Exegesis at the University of Manchester, asserts of the New Testament: “There is no body of ancient literature in the world which enjoys such a wealth of good textual attestation as the New Testament.”[4] Professor Bruce further comments, “The evidence for our New Testament writings is ever so much greater than the evidence for many writings of classical writers, the authenticity of which no one dreams of questioning. And if the New Testament were a collection of secular writings, their authenticity would generally be regarded as beyond all doubt.”[5]
Further, Dr. Rene Pache remarks of the great Princeton scholar B.B. Warfield that he “goes on to say that the great bulk of the New Testament has been transmitted to us without, or almost without, any variations. It can be asserted with confidence that the sacred text is exact and valid and that no article of faith and no moral precept in it has been distorted or lost.”[6]
It is this wealth of material that has enabled scholars such as Westcott and Hort, Ezra Abbott, Philip Schaff, A.T. Robertson, Norman Geisler, and William Nix to place the restoration of the original text at better than 99 percent.[7] No other document of the ancient period is as accurately preserved as the New Testament.
Hort’s estimate of “substantial variation” for the New Testament is one-tenth of one percent, Abbot’s estimate is one-fourth of one percent, and even Hort’s figure including trivial variation is less than two percent. Sir Frederic Kenyon well summarizes the situation:
“The number of manuscripts of the New Testament... is so large that it is practically certain that the true reading of every doubtful passage is preserved in some one or another of these ancient authorities. This can be said of no other ancient book in the world.
“Scholars are satisfied that they possess substantially the true text of the principal Greek and Roman writers whose works have come down to us, of Sophocles, of Thucydides, of Cicero, of Virgil; yet our knowledge depends on a mere handful of manuscripts, whereas the manuscripts of the New Testament are counted by hundreds and even thousands.”[8]
In other words, those who question the reliability of the New Testament must also question the reliability of virtually every ancient writing the world possesses! How can the Bible be rejected when its documentation is one hundred times that of other ancient literature? Because it is impossible to question the world’s ancient classics, it is far more impossible to question the reliability of the New Testament.
In addition, none of the established New Testament canon is lost or missing, not even a verse, as indicated by variant readings. By comparison, the books of many ancient authors are filled with omissions: 107 of Livy’s 142 books of history are lost, and one-half of Tacitus’ 30 books of Annals and Histories. For Polybius, only five complete books remain from the original forty. Finally, the Gospels are extremely close to the events which they record. The first three can be dated within twenty years of the events cited, and this may even be true for the fourth gospel. This means that all four Gospels were written during the lives of eyewitnesses, and that abundant opportunity existed for those with contrary evidence to examine the witnesses and refute them.
The Gospels, then, pass the bibliographical test and must, by far, be graded with the highest mark of any ancient literature we possess.
Fact Two: The Internal Evidence Test (corroboration from content accuracy)
This test asserts that one is to assume the truthful reporting of the ancient document (and not assume either fraud, incompetence or error) unless the author of the document has disqualified himself by its presence. For example, do the New Testament writers contradict themselves? Is there anything in their writing which causes one to objectively suspect their trustworthiness? Are there statements or assertions in the text which are demonstrably false according to known archeological, historic, scientific, or other data?
The answer is no. There is lack of proven fraud or error on the part of any New Testament writer. But there is evidence of careful eyewitness reporting throughout. The caution exercised by the writers, their personal conviction that what they wrote was true and the lack of demonstrable error or contradiction indicate that the Gospel authors and, indeed, all the New Testament authors pass the second test as well (Luke 1:1-4; John 19:35; 21:24; Acts 1:1-3; 2:22; 26:24-26; 2 Peter 1:16; 1 John 1:1-3).
For example, the kinds of details the Gospel writers include in their narratives offer strong evidence for their integrity. They record their own sins and failures, even serious ones (Matthew 26:56, 72-75; Mark 10:35-45). They do not hesitate from recording accurately even the most difficult and consequential statements of Jesus (John 6:41-71). They forthrightly supply the embarrassing and even capital charges of Jesus’ own enemies. Thus, even though Jesus was their very Messiah and Lord, they not only record the charges that Jesus broke the Sabbath, but that He was born in fornication, a blasphemer and a liar, insane, and demonized (see Matthew 1:19, 26:65; John 7:20, 48; 8:41, 48, 52; 10:20, 33, etc.)! To encounter such honesty in reporting incidents of this nature gives one assurance that the Gospel writers placed a very high premium on truthfulness.
In Part 3 we will pick up the discussion with the third fact.
Endnotes