Is the New Testament Historically Reliable?

I was not always a believer in Christianity.  Until I was sixteen I was a nominal Catholic, then I became an agnostic and remained one for 8 years.  When I finally concluded that atheism was illogical, I became a theist, but didn’t know what the right path to God was, or if a right path even existed.  Thus for the next five years I critically examined the scriptures & teachings of numerous faiths to try and determine where the truth was.  When I first examined the New Testament, I didn’t focus on theological teachings, mainly because I didn’t know much about Christian theology at the time.  However, I did have a decent background in history and I initially decided to focus on whether or not the New Testament was historically reliable.  For me, if a document contains historical flaws, then its reliability needs to be called into serious question.  Therefore, I first focused on whether or not the New Testament was historically trustworthy.  Suffice to say, I was amazed by my findings. 

I first learned that the society and geographic locations described in the New Testament were accurate.  The cities and towns cited to have existed in the region have been confirmed by archaeological study.  The divisions of Jewish society (Pharisees, Sadducees, Zealots) is accurately described in the New Testament and is also written of by other 1^st century writers such as Flavius Josephus.  Historical figures mentioned in the New Testament such as King Herod and the Roman Prefect of Judea, Pontius Pilate, is also confirmed to have existed by both 1^st century Roman and Jewish sources.  I determined that if nothing else, the New Testament at the very least accurately described the society of 1^st century Judea.  Nevertheless, I was still not convinced.  After all, there have been many tall tales written over the centuries, the legend of Beowulf being a prime example.  Was Jesus just another example of Beowulf, an ancient legend born out of imagination?  Or did he truly exist?   

The Codex Vaticanus

One criticism that I learned what that the New Testament had been written many years after the supposed existence of Jesus.  The earliest complete New Testaments copies that we have are the Codex Vaticanus & the Codex Sinaiticus, both are dated in the early 300’s, nearly 300 years after the death of Christ.  However, what many fail to realize is that we have over 24,000 New Testament Manuscripts from the second and third centuries.  Over 5,000 are in Greek, nearly 10,000 in Latin, & close to 10,000 in Syriac/Coptic.  The earliest manuscripts are from the Gospel of John in the early second century, only a few decades after the original Gospel was written.  This doesn’t even take into account 36,000 manuscripts we have from 1^st & early 2^nd century Church Fathers (Clement of Rome: AD 95, Ignatius of Antioch: AD 108 and Polycarp: AD 110), that all quote repeatedly from the New Testament.  When we compare the manuscripts and examine their reliability based on textual criticism, it has been discovered that all these manuscripts match up with 97-99% accuracy.  The only discrepancies are in regards to language translation, and these discrepancies are insignificant, they do not change the overall meaning of the text.  The truth is, the New Testament is the best-preserved document we have from the Ancient World.  

To understand just how significant this manuscript evidence is, allow me to cite some examples.  Today there are over 24,000 Bible manuscripts still in existence with them being only 50-225 years removed from the original.  On the other hand, the writings of Thucydides: History of the Peloponnesian War, Livy: History of Rome, Julius Caesar: Gallic Wars, & Pliny the Elder: Natural History only have between 7-19 manuscripts, and they are dated 750-1000 years after they were originally written.   Aristotle is yet another example.  Believed to have been one of the most influential philosophers of Ancient Greece, the earliest manuscript we have of his works is dated nearly a thousand years after his death.  Even The Iliad, which was considered the most important document of ancient Greece, only has 643 manuscripts, with the earliest dated over 400 years after the original was written.  In truth, no Ancient Document in the world is as well-recorded as the New Testament.  

So now that we’ve covered the manuscript issue, let us consider the issue of time.  Scholars agree that the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are considered to be biographies of Jesus.  They also agree that the first three Gospels were written in the early 60’s A.D., with some putting the Gospel of Mark as early as 55 A.D. and John written around 90 A.D. Now Jesus, had he existed, would have met his death at the hands of Pontius Pilate around 30 A.D., which means that Jesus would have been dead for nearly 30 years before the First Gospel was written.  Is this too late to be considered a reliable source?  Absolutely not!  The earliest biography of Alexander the Great that is still preserved was not authored until over 400 years after his death, yet nobody questions whether or not he existed.  The teachings of Buddha were not written down until nearly 600 years after Buddha’s death.  The fact that all the Gospels were written within a few decades of the death of Christ in the community of eyewitnesses is remarkable.  In fact, some of the Letters of the New Testament, such as Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians, actually predate the Gospels themselves.  Most scholars agree that the Apostle Paul wrote this letter a mere 20 years after the death of Jesus. 

The authors of the New Testament, The Disciple Matthew (Gospel of Matthew), John Mark (Gospel of Mark, mentioned by name in the Book of Acts & companion of the Disciple Peter), Luke (Gospel of Luke & Acts of the Apostles, companion of the Apostle Paul), the Disciple John (Gospel of John), along with the numerous Letters written by Paul, Peter, etc. all lived in the First Century at the same time as Jesus himself.  These authors either knew Jesus personally or were close to others who knew him.  Most importantly, these writings were well preserved.  The early Church Fathers who we mentioned earlier were students of the Apostles themselves and they too had pupils to whom they passed on the Gospels to in order to ensure their preservation.  Cold case homicide detective J. Warner Wallace studied this and became convinced that the chain of preservation was so strong that he accepted that the Gospels were reliable accounts, and ultimately became a Christian after being an atheist for most of his life. 

The final note that must be considered is that there are 1^st & 2^nd century sources from outside the Bible that help confirm the New Testament.  The Roman Historian Tacitus, who lived from 56 A.D.-117 A.D. wrote about the Emperor Nero’s persecution of Christians and confirmed in his writings that their leader, Jesus had been crucified by Pontius Pilate.  The 1^st century Jewish scholar Josephus not only mentions Jesus in his writings, but also gave a detailed account of the execution of the Apostle James (the Martyrdom of James is also described in the Books of Acts & matches the account given by Josephus.).  2^nd century Roman scholar Pliny the Younger confirmed that the Christians applied divinity to Jesus, and 2^nd century writer Joseph Africanus quoted the writings of a 1^st Century Greek Historian Thallus who confirmed that there was darkness in the land of Judea around the time that Jesus was believed to have been crucified.  Late 1^st Century Greek writer Mara bar Serapion referred to Jesus as a “Wise King of the Jews,” and 2^nd century Greek rhetorician Lucian of Samosata mocked the Christians for applying divinity to a crucified man.  These are all non-Christian writers, many of whom were hostile to Christianity, but they never denied the existence of Jesus.  All of whom confirmed his existence and agreed with each other that Jesus was Jewish, he was considered an influential leader of the Jewish community of the 1^st century, and he was crucified and executed on a Roman Cross. 

Today, historical Jesus scholars from a variety of faiths debate on who he really was, but none dispute that he existed.  Quite the contrary.  Even the most hardened atheists agree that the crucifixion and execution of Jesus at the hands of Pontius Pilate is an indisputable fact of history.  Thus after considering the factors of manuscript evidence, outside corroboration, archaeological findings, and the fact that was written by eyewitnesses, I came to the conclusion that if nothing else, we can be certain that the New Testament is a trustworthy historical document.

Sources:

Brooks, Rice.  Man, Myth, Messiah.  Nashville: W. Publishing Group, 2016.

Limbaugh, David.  Jesus on Trial: A Lawyer Affirms the Truth of the Gospel.  Washington D.C.: Regnery Publishing, 2014.

McDowell, Josh.  More Than a Carpenter.  Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., 1973.

McDowell, Josh & Jim Walker.  Understanding Islam & Christianity: Beliefs that Separate Us & How to Talk About Them.  Eugene, OR: Harvest House Publishers, 2013.

Strobel, Lee.  The Case for Christ.  Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1998.  

Wallace, J. Warner.  Cold Case Christianity: A Homicide Detective Investigates the Claims of the Gospels.  Colorado Springs, CO: David C. Cook, 2013.

White, James R.  What Every Christian Needs to Know about the Qur'an.  Minneapolis: Bethany House Publishers, 2013.