Question: I was taught in seminary and have read the same charge in a
number of scholarly books that the New Testament is not reliable because
it was written centuries after the time of Christ by men who weren’t
even alive in Christ’s day. The “Jesus Seminar,” a group of scholars
with impressive credentials, makes this claim today. Is there any
evidence to the contrary?
Response:
That accusation is disproved not only by the manuscripts themselves
but by the quotations that we have of the entire New Testament in other
writings from the late first to early second century. There is proof
even from the writings of Christianity’s enemies. For example, Celsus, a
bitter opponent of Christianity who was born early in the second
century, referred to the four gospels as part of the sacred books of
Christians and already well-known in his day. Just that one piece of
evidence disproves the claim that the New Testament wasn’t written until
centuries later! In addition, there is more than sufficient proof from
within the New Testament itself that it was, as its writers claim,
written by contemporaries of Jesus.
The authors
of the epistles of Peter and John testify to having known Christ
personally and to having been eyewitnesses of all He said and did during
His ministry. Peter writes: “For we have not followed cunningly devised
fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord
Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of his majesty” (2 Peter:1:16).
Speaking for himself and the other apostles, John testifies to an
intimate relationship with Christ: “That which . . . we have heard,
which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our
hands have handled . . .” (1 John:1:1).
If the New
Testament, which includes such sworn testimonies, was not written by the
apostles themselves but was concocted centuries (or even only decades)
later by other parties, the whole thing is a fraud! Whoever wrote such
tales was lying and was doing so with the deliberate intent of deceiving
untold multitudes throughout the coming centuries. And tragically, if
this is the case, the deceit has been swallowed by hundreds of millions
ever since. That very scenario, however, contains numerous
insurmountable problems.
Irrefutable Internal Evidence
First of
all, there is an internal consistency within the Bible’s 66 books, even
though they were written over a period of about 1,500 years by more than
40 persons, most of whom had never met one another. Living in different
historical eras and widely differing regions and cultures, the only
thing these writers of Scripture had in common was the claim that what
they wrote was inspired by the one true God. The intricate pattern of
truth woven without contradiction throughout the Bible from Genesis to
Revelation bears powerful witness to the validity of that claim, which
can be explained in no other manner. As for seeming contradictions, we
will deal with them.
This
continuity and agreement throughout the Bible is one of the most
powerful arguments that it is the Word of God. To show how remarkable
this argument is, Josh McDowell tells this true story:
A representative of the Great Books of the Western World
came to my house recruiting salesmen for their series. . . . I
challenged him to take just 10 of the authors, all from one walk of
life, one generation, one place, one time, one mood, one continent, one
language and just one controversial subject (the Bible speaks on
hundreds with harmony and agreement).
Then I asked him: “Would they (the authors) agree?”
He paused and then replied, “No.”
Obviously,
any fraudulent writer (for example, of the life and works of Christ)
would have to know the entire Bible intimately and be able to maintain
its supernatural internal consistency. It is highly unlikely that any
deliberate liar would have either the motivation or the ability to do
so.
There is a
further problem. Careful study of the New Testament reveals a sincerity
and truthfulness that would be virtually impossible to fake. Moreover,
the Bible has demonstrated a supernatural power to rescue human beings
from sin and degradation and to bring liberty, joy, love, and a
transformation of life to all who believe its message. That a deliberate
fraud could effect so much good is preposterous. It would require more
faith to believe that scenario than to accept the Bible’s claim to divine inspiration!
Contemporary Corroboration
Additional
proof abounds of a different nature. We know from archaeological
discoveries of quotations in other writings that the New Testament in
its entirety was in circulation at least by the end of the first
century. Many people were still alive at that time who had known the
apostles and to whom their writings rang true to fact. There would have
been an enraged outcry had the epistles not told the truth—yet we have
no such evidence. The Jewish rabbis unquestionably would have jumped on
the slightest lie or exaggeration and used it to discredit this “new
religion,” as they considered it, which was undermining their leadership
and resulting in conversions by the thousands from Judaism. There is no
record of any attack on those grounds from that quarter.
Furthermore, there is abundant and indisputable evidence within the New
Testament itself that it was written by eyewitnesses. Luke, for example,
referred to the other gospel writers as having been eyewitnesses “from
the beginning” and affirmed that what they had recorded was “most surely
believed among us.” He was not some gullible idiot who was willing to
believe any tale that came along but claimed himself to have had
“perfect understanding of all things from the very first” (Luke:1:1–3).
He declared that he had undertaken to write down the story of Jesus for
his friend Theophilus so that he could “know the certainty of those
things” (Luke:1:4).
Modern
archaeological discoveries have confirmed the veracity of Luke’s
testimony and the fact that he was indeed a contemporary of the apostles
and thus in a position to know and report the facts. In chapter 2, Luke
refers to “a decree from Caesar Augustus, that all the world should be
taxed” and asserts that this occurred “when Cyrenius was governor of
Syria” (verses 1–2). Some critics continue to dogmatically state that
Cyrenius (known also as Quirinius) didn’t become governor over Syria
until AD 6, too late a date for the birth of Christ. They ignore more
recent findings that show that Quirinius was governor over Syria twice, the first time from perhaps as early as 7 BC to about AD 1. Luke was obviously referring to his first governorship, not the second.
Watertight Historical Verification
In chapter
3, Luke provides a whole list of detailed information of names, places,
offices, and dates that surely would not have been known by someone
writing even decades (much less centuries) later:
In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberias Caesar, Pontius Pilate
being governor of Judea, and Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, and his
brother Philip tetrarch of Iturea and of the region of Trachonitis, and
Lysanias the tetrarch of Abilene, Annas and Caiaphas being the high
priests. . . . (Luke:3:1–2)
Note that Luke’s reference is not to just any Caesar but to Tiberias.
Even the time of the decree is given: in the “fifteenth year” of his
reign. These facts have been verified by modern historians and could not
have been known by someone writing centuries later, as the skeptics
claim was the case. The technical titles of the offices held by the
other parties named—governor, tetrarch, high priest—are given, together
with the locations of each. Each fact presented has been verified in
recent years after laborious digging and research. It would have been
impossible to have made such precise statements even 50 years after the
fact. We therefore have every reason to believe that Luke, as he claims,
was present when these reported events occurred.
Yes, but
what about Pilate, whom Luke says was governor of Judea at this time?
The skeptics denied his very existence for many years because no trace
of him could be found. Josephus mentioned Pilate in his Antiquities of the Jews,
but that was suspected to be a later addition by someone tampering
with the text. And then one day proof positive was uncovered in an
archaeological dig: a large quarried stone about five inches thick in
the jumbled ruins of an ancient Roman theater in Caesarea.
It turned
out that Caesar, having been offended by Pilate, decreed that all
evidence of his existence be obliterated. This particular stone,
however, because of its precise size, had been saved and used as a seat
in a theater. Of course, the side containing the inscription regarding
Pilate had been turned downward so it couldn’t be seen—until its
discovery in the ruins. The stone stands today in Caesarea in modern
Israel as one more testimony (among many others) to the reliability of
the biblical record.
Today the
accumulated evidence authenticating the Bible in every respect is
overwhelming. Any critic who continues to parrot the specious charges
formerly leveled against the Bible is doing so in spite of and not because of
the facts. Even Bishop Robinson of “God Is Dead” fame, a foremost
proponent a few years ago of a centuries-later date for the biblical
writings, [later acknowledged] the historicity of the New Testament
documents and that they were written early in the first century by
eyewitnesses.
— An excerpt from In Defense of the Faith (pp. 66-71) by Dave Hunt
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