The reliability of the New Testament (3)

In two previous articles,(first article, second article) I came, with ample logical arguments, to the following conclusions:

1. The apostles and a few disciples (Luke and Mark) wrote the books of the New Testament, perhaps with one exception: the epistle to the Hebrews.
2. The early Christians copied the epistles; the next generations of missionaries distributed them throughout the Roman world.
3. There is convincing evidence that the text we have now have before us in the New Testament, is the same text the first generations of Christians read.

The next question is: are the apostles themselves reliable enough to be trusted? The twelve disciples (later called apostles) walked with Jesus for about three years through the Holy Land and were eyewitnesses of what he taught and of the miracles he performed.
They witnessed the betrayal by Judas Iscariot (one of them), the arrest, prosecution, conviction, and crucifixion of Jesus. After three days, Jesus rose from the dead. He appeared alive and well before his disciples. On several instants, he ate and spoke with them.

Eventually, he ascended to heaven. His disciples and a multitude of followers witnessed this phenomenon. The Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles and the Epistles refer to these events.

Did the apostles themselves believe these stories?

After Jesus' ascension to heaven, the apostles began to spread the gospel and started to organize the church. They met with severe opposition from the authorities. The spiritual leadership of the people even incited the people to stone one of the apostles to death. Despite the persecution, the church grew spectacularly. The new believers were all contemporaries of Jesus. They were acquainted with the events referred to by the apostles. The apostles and their converts had nothing to gain materially from the gospel. On the contrary, they had everything to lose.

Paul's shipwreck at Malta

Why should they put their lives and property in jeopardy for something they did not believe? It was not too difficult for the converts to believe the testimony of the apostles, because they witnessed the events themselves.

How did the church develop outside Jerusalem?

The persecution became worse and worse. Many believers fled from Jerusalem to the countryside. Instead of keeping their heads down, they began to spread the gospel there. One does not expect this kind of behavior from downtrodden refugees. After losing their homes and livelihoods, they still kept their faith because they knew it to be true.
The new converts in these regions must have seen the works of Jesus or certainly must have heard of them.

The apostles spread the gospel in the rest of the Roman world.

Some of the apostles went abroad to bring the message of Jesus Christ to Jews living there and to non-Jews. They established churches in many parts of the Roman empire, including Rome itself. Traveling from place to place, they sent letters to the already established churches.

Lydia, the first European convert

These letters reveal the high moral character of their authors. It is clear that they firmly believed what they wrote. Their voyages were arduous, and their preaching often met with violent opposition. Their only reward was spiritual. They gained nothing material from their work.
Why should they go through so much trouble if they knew they were lying?

What is the significance of the miracles Jesus and the apostles performed?

The miracles performed by Jesus and the apostles, recorded in the New Testament, are for unbelievers a reason to dismiss these testimonies as fairy tales. Many contemporaries of Jesus and the apostles witnessed the miracles or heard of them. These miracles convinced many of the spectators and hearers of the mission of Jesus and the apostles. The miracles were a sign of Devine's authorization. When the apostles left the Holy Land to spread the Word in the other parts of the Roman Empire, they performed miracles for the same reason as Jesus did. With these signs, they showed their hearers that they were men of God.
The apostles wrote letters to the churches they had established. They also wrote the Gospels and The Acts of the Apostles. The congregations read these scriptures and those of the Old Testament during their meetings and meditated upon them. When the apostles were no longer there, missionaries continued their work. The evidence for the veracity of their message was the written Word. There was no longer a need for miracles to convince their audience.
The credibility of the New Testament depends on the miracles. If we had only the story of Jesus as told by the apostles without the miracles, nobody in his right mind would doubt the veracity of the history.

Can you solve this paradox?

Now we arrive at this crucial paradox: the early Christians who witnessed the miracles believed the gospel, because of the convincing power of the Word and miracles. Modern readers tend to reject the gospel as fairy tales because of miracles.
One cannot dismiss the New Testament out of hand because it lacks historical evidence; it has a firm historical base.
The question is: do you believe the message it contains? It is up to you.

The reliability of the New Testament. (2)

This is the sequel to an earlier article on the same topic.

In my previous article I stated, supported by ample evidence,  that the books of the New Testament were all written during the lifetime of the Apostles. A number of their contemporaries mentioned the books of the New Testament by name and often cited pieces of text.

How can we be certain of the integrity of the text of the New Testament?

What I mean by this question is this: how can we be sure that the New Testament contains the same text as the authors (the Apostles) have written? The problem is that there is no surviving copy (from the time of the Apostles) of even one of the books of the New Testament.

After the Apostles died, the following generations of Christians had to rely more and more on the written word the Apostles produced. During the 2nd century AD controversies arose about the interpretation of these texts. Except for Marcion (85-160 AD), who rejected the God of the Old Testament and began to purge the New Testament of Hebrew influence, all debaters based their arguments on the texts of the books of the New Testament. Even Celsus, a 2nd-century Greek philosopher who attacked Christianity, based his arguments on the works of the Apostles and never questioned their authorship. Christians began to write commentaries on the Scriptures (the Old Testament and the New Testament) and to answer critics of the Christian faith. These writings often contained extensive quotes from the books of the New Testament. Furthermore copies were made of the original epistles of the Apostles. These copies were also copied and so on. The same happened to the writings of the early Church Fathers.

For the most part only fragments survived. This seems to be a fatal blow to the integrity of the text of the New Testament. But it is not. There are thousands of fragments found at different places and at different times. From these fragments one has been able to compile three almost identical volumes of the New Testament. The fact that these fragments were found at different places and times is a strong argument against the accusation made by Islam that Christians corrupted the original text of the New Testament. How can that be? There were no central editors who would have altered the text before distribution. The original books of the New Testament were first distributed by the authors (the Apostles) themselves. Copies were later made by the recipient churches in places far remote from each other. These copies were again copied. The thousands surviving fragments of these copies can be compiled to multiple, almost identical, New Testaments. The differences between these copies of the New Testament are minor and not very significant. What seemed to be a weakness for the reliability of the text, the absence of a complete early copy of the New Testament and the need to rely on surviving fragments, is in fact an asset. The accusation that Christians have corrupted the text of the New Testament is absurd.

The books of the New Testament are written by men. The Gospels are as it were, eyewitness reports of the ministry of Christ. Like all eyewitness reports concerning a particular event, they sometimes differ. In this case there are differences but they do not contradict each other. They agree on the main narrative.

My conclusion is that the New Testament that lays in front of me on my desk, shows faithfully what the Apostles wrote.

A very illuminating article "Text and Manuscripts of the New Testament" by Charles Fremont Sitterly can be found here.

- To be continued -

The reliability of the New Testament. (1)

Introduction.

In a discussion with Mr. Ali H.A. Altawati Alqurashi (one of my Arabic speaking tweeps, @Alitawati) we debated about some differences between the Koran and the New Testament. A major point was the crucifixion and the resurrection of Christ. The Koran denies these facts. Contradicting statements cannot both be true. Either the Koran speaks the truth or the New Testament does. My approach is not to attack the Koran but to faithfully defend the New Testament.

For this article I referred to "Evidences of Christianity" by William Paley (1743 - 1805), it is an excellent work which I highly recommend to anyone interested in the history of the establishment of Christianity. Another source is "The history of the Church" by Eusebius (260-340 AD).

When was the New Testament written?

An opinion one often encounters is that the New Testament was written hundreds of years after the life of Christ. For a number of reasons that is highly improbable:

1. According to the evangelists Matthew (24:1), Mark (13:2) and Luke (21:6) Christ predicted that the Temple in Jerusalem would be destroyed. The destruction of the Temple by the Romans occurred in the year 70 AD. This event has never been mentioned by the authors of the New Testament. This strongly suggests that the apostles wrote the Gospels, Acts, Epistels and Revelations (which form the New Testament) before the year 70 AD. Would they have been aware of the destruction of the Temple, would they not had it almost triumphantly reported this as a proof of the fulfilment of the prophecy of Christ?
2. The apostle Paul was executed in Rome sometime between 64 AD and 67 AD. The book "The Acts of the Apostles" (part of the New Testament) describes in great detail the events in which the apostles were involved. The adventurous travels of the apostle Paul are a real treat to read. Yet his death hasn't been reported, which suggests that the Acts were written before 64 AD.

   

   The travels of the apostle Paul as described in The Acts of the Apostles.

3.  The apostle Peter (2 Peter 3:15) refers to the letters of the apostle Paul. This indicates that the epistles of Paul must have been known by the readers of the letters of Peter.
4. Many early Church Fathers mentioned parts of the New Testament explicitly and/or quoted from them in words we now clearly recognize as words used by the Apostles. Some examples are:
1. Clement, a companion of the apostle Paul, was the first bishop of Rome. He held office from 88 AD to 99 AD, when he died at the age of 101. He wrote an epistle in which he quoted words of Christ as we find them in the Gospels. He also evidently quoted from the Epistle to the Romans (by the apostle Paul), the Epistle to the Hebrews and the apostle Paul's First Epistle to the Corinthians. Of the latter Clement wrote: "Take into your hands the epistle of the blessed apostle Paul."
2. At the end of the Epistle to the Romans the apostle Paul salutes a number of people, among them a certain Hermas who wrote a book called: The Shepherd. This book contains quotations from the Gospels of the apostles Matthew, Luke and John and a probable allusion the Acts.
3. Ignatius became bishop of Antioch about 70 AD. The apostle Paul started his travels from Antioch. Probably Ignatius would have known Paul and the other Apostles. Polycarp, a contemporary of Ignatius, referred to epistles of the latter. These epistles contain quotes from the Gospels of the apostles Matthew and John. Ignatius mentions the apostle Paul with great respect and refers to the apostle's Epistle to the Ephesians by name and quotes parts of it.
4. Polycarp (69-155 AD) was a pupil of the apostle John. There is one known epistle of Polycarp which includes almost 40 references to the books of the New Testament. He also confirms the use of the Lord's Prayer by the early Christians.
5.  Papias (60-130 AD), also a disciple of the apostle John. Eusebius, the famous early Church historian, quotes from a work of Papias. This particular work has since been lost but thanks to Eusebius we know the contents. Papias writes specifically about the Gospels of the apostles Matthew and Mark.

The men mentioned above were, with the exception of Eusebius, all contemporaries of the apostles. They cited from the Gospels, the Acts and the Epistles. That proves that these books were in existence at that time.

During the first years of early Christianity a lot of churches were established by the apostles in many parts of the Roman Empire. The first Christians were instructed by the apostles by word of mouth and by letters and copies of the Gospels. There are indications that these documents circulated among the early churches. As the early Christians knew the apostles in person they had no difficulty in recognizing the letters and other documents sent to them or handed over to them personally. There was no need for a canon or catalogue of the books of the New Testament at that time.

-To be continued-