IS THE BIBLE DEPENDABLE? PT 2 LITERARY PROOFS

First off, we need to understand what we are referring to as the New Testament. It is the 27 books from Matthew - Revelation in the Bible. However, many seem to think it was written congruently as one whole, when in fact there are five individuals writing from different perspectives and some of them with different goals in mind. For instance, the Gospel according to Matthew is a primer introducing Jesus to the Jews. But much of Paul's writings are to the already established church, giving it direction and guidance. Some of these epistles and letters were written to rebuke. Like the first letter to the Corinthians, while others were written merely to inform like Luke and Acts. Not all of these were written by Jews, rather two of them by a gentile who did not know much about the Jewish religion.

One of the best ways to determine the creditability of an ancient piece of literature is by textual criticism. Textual Criticism is defined as a method used to determine what the original manuscript of an ancient writing says, in our case the Bible, more specifically the New Testament. We must acknowledge that there are no original copies of the New Testament. What we do have is copies or parts of manuscripts of portions of the New Testament. These are only fragments until about the second century. Then we have the whole NT in manuscript form. Now a manuscript is kind of what it sounds like. It is a handwritten copy of a letter or gospel by someone, not necessarily a professional copyist either.

The factual claim that there is no original existing document of any of the NT writings is troublesome. But not as much as some would have us believe. In AD 66 the Jews began a revolt against the Romans that the Romans did not take too kindly. The Roman Emperor sent a general to squash the rebellion. One of the Jewish generals after many days of battle surrendered was taken to Rome and there became a noted historian. His name is Flavius Josephus. Josephus' works are some of the best historical accounts that can be had today. In his writings he mentions Jesus Christ often; Now mind you this man was not a Christian; he was a Jew and followed the law of Moses his entire life….

                             " At this time there was a wise man who was called Jesus. His conduct was good and he was known to be virtuous. Many people from among the Jews and the other nations became his disciples. Pilate condemned him to be crucified and to die. But those who had become his disciples did not abandon discipleship. They reported that he had appeared to them three days after his crucifixion, and that he was alive; accordingly, he was perhaps the Messiah, concerning who the prophets have recounted wonders."

There is another quote from Josephus that is worthy of mentioning.

                             "Festus was now dead, and Albinus was but upon the road; so he (Ananus              the high priest) assembled the Sanhedrin of the judges, and brought before them the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James, and some others, and when he had formed an accusation against them as breakers of the law, he delivered them to be stoned." 

Here is what happened, Festus, the same Festus you read about in Acts died rather unexpectedly and Rome sent this Albinus to take his place. It took Albinus three months to travel to Jerusalem and Ananias the high priest used this lapse of Roman Government to stage a coup against the church.  So not only do we have documented evidence of Jesus, but we also have documented evidence of James his fleshly brother being stoned to death because he was a leader in the church.

Ok, Here is how this is important. Including Josephus there are 10 non-Christian writers who mention Jesus within a span of 150 years of his life. How do you think that stacks up against other leaders in the ancient world? Tiberius Caesar the Roman emperor during Jesus’ lifetime is mentioned by 9 writers. So, discounting the Christian writers Jesus is mentioned one more time than the emperor. If you add the Christian writers, you have a mention of Jesus 43 times and  Tiberius 10x. Some of these non-Christian writers were in fact anti-Christian such as Celsus, Tacitus, and the Jewish Talmud. There is not to my knowledge any disputing that Tiberius was Emperor at that time. But contrary to logic there is plenty disputes about Jesus. These non-Christian, sometime anti-Christian writers teach us at least twelve things about Jesus and the NT.

1. Jesus lived during the time of Tiberius Caesar

2. He lived a virtuous life.

3. He was a wonder(miracle)-worker

4. He had a brother named James.

5. He was acclaimed to be the Messiah.

6. He was crucified under Pontius Pilate

7. He was crucified on the eve of the Jewish Passover.

8. Darkness and an earthquake occurred when he died.

9. His disciples believed he rose from the dead.

10. His disciples were willing to die for their belief.

11. Christianity spread rapidly as far as Rome.

12. His disciples denied the Roman gods and worshiped Jesus as God.

So how could these non-Christian, sometime anti-Christian writers write so convincingly the same facts revealed in the NT, if Jesus never existed. More than that these sources affirm the NT facts. And while these ten known sources did not convert, they affirm that the Apostles and many other people did.

Ok, So that is great and all. But how many accurate copies of the NT do we now have? NONE! That's right, not even one! We only have manuscripts. But that doesn't prevent us from knowing what the original said. In fact, there are zero originals of all ancient literature. So how do we know what Homer said in the Iliad, Plato in his philosophical writings, Tacitus in his histories. The original has been constructed from the manuscripts that survive. The larger the number of manuscripts the better certainty of accuracy of the original. And the closer the manuscript to the actual writing the better the certainty. The NT fares far better than any other ancient piece of literature in the entire world. That's right, there are far more copies, either complete or fragments, than any other writing and it is by far the closest to the original happenings when compared.

There are now more than 5700 handwritten copies of the Greek New Testament known. This is beside more than 9000 copies in other languages. That makes almost 15000 copies of the NT the majority of which are complete, a smaller portion of that 15k is books, and a still smaller portion is just a few pages or verses. Compared to other ancient writings there are only 643 copies of Homer's Iliad. Yet no one is questioning whether Homer wrote that. (data from circa 2015)

Not only does the NT hold the lead in sheer number of manuscripts but it also leads the pack in nearness of time of copying. In 1920 a scrap of the gospel of John was bought in Egypt, but sat unnoticed until 1934 when a librarian and curator at Oxford England discovered it and recognized what it was, this fragment dates to about 125 AD. Still further, many of the fragments that are still being worked over have been dated from about 50AD. These fragments that have yet to be absolutely certified belong to Mark, Acts, Romans, 1 Timothy 2 Peter, and James. THESE ARE COPIES!!! This certifies that these books were written less than 50 years after Christ. The next shortest time gap is again the Iliad by Homer, almost 500 years, many other authenticated ancient works are over 1000 years. IF these numerous and early manuscripts where all scholars had they could reconstruct the original NT with great accuracy!!

In February 303 the Roman emperor Diocletian ordered three edicts of persecution against Christianity. These edicts called for the destruction of churches, manuscripts, books and Christians themselves. Consequently 100's of 1000's of documents and manuscripts were destroyed. But even if this evil emperor had been successful at purging his empire of every copy or fragment of the NT, he couldn't have stopped the advance of the Word. The early church fathers the leaders of the 1st and 2nd century after the apostles quoted the NT so extensively that all but 11 verses can be found from their writings.