The Holy Bible is, indeed, one of the most
influential ancient documents in history. Passed down through the centuries, it
has formed a major role in the formation of the Western world and the human
rights it advocates. However, the Bible is also frequently maligned for what
critical scholars believe is its historical inaccuracy. Specifically, the New
Testament is often targeted for such errors, because of its account of the life
of Jesus Christ. Four common objections against the New Testament’s credibility
are a) Oral tradition (through which much of the Biblical texts/narratives were
passed down/recorded) is unreliable, b) The New Testament (and the Bible, in
general) was written by flawed men, c) The writers were biased, and d) Too much
time had passed between the writing of the original and the writing of its
various copies. Despite allegations seeking to undermine its authority, the
Bible, and especially the New Testament, can be proven to be a historically
reliable document—the infallible Word of God.
The
first objection, which attacks oral tradition, is a culturally and historically
ignorant assumption. A full examination of the use of oral tradition in
ancient/Biblical times shows that oral tradition was held in the highest
regard. Jewish children, especially, were taught to remember oral material
accurately. Seeing that many of the New Testament authors were Jewish, any oral
tradition they used while writing the New Testament would have been extremely
accurate, or at least as close to accurate as possible, because of this
upbringing. Next, oral tradition was handed down collectively to the entire
community; therefore, granting the existence of even minor textual errors, the general
populace would still have agreed on the ideas of the New Testament, such as
Christ’s miracles, as well as the accuracy of more significant historical
events during that era. This kind of public consensus would be much more
troublesome for secular scholars, since it would still affirm the existence of
both New Testament characters and the supernatural abilities of Jesus Christ.
Also, an overall examination of the Bible, through verses such as Exodus 24:4;
Joshua 24:26; 1 Samuel 10:25; Isaiah 8:1; I Corinthians 14:07; and Revelation
1:19, shows that Biblical writers often physically wrote down the Words of God,
right after He shared them. The inclusion of literal writing removes any final
doubts regarding oral tradition.
The
second objection to the New Testament’s reliability is that it was written by
mere men. The first response to such an accusation is that the writers never
claimed to have exclusive Biblical knowledge. They always attribute their work
to God’s inspiration, which, according to Ron Rhodes in the book, Answering the Objections of Atheists,
Agnostics and Skeptics,
“may be defined as God’s superintending of the
human authors to that, using their own individual personalities—and even their
writing styles—they composed and recorded without error His revelation to
humankind in the words of the original autographs” (Rhodes). Scripture shows to
what extent the writers were controlled by the Holy Spirit. II Peter 1:21
states, “Prophecy [or Scripture] never had its origin in the will of man, but
men spoke from god as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.” In I
Corinthians 2:13, Paul says that he spoke “not in words taught us by human
wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in
spiritual words.” God’s influence in the
writing of the Bible, specifically through His inspiration as the Holy Spirit
during the New Testament, fully debunks the claim that man is responsible for
fabricating Scripture.
Thirdly,
critics allege that the New Testament writers were biased. Reality and logic
prove just the opposite. For instance, some of the most reliable reports of the
Nazi Holocaust were written by Jewish people. This more modern example shows
that authors who are closely involved with their subject matter do not always
have to become subjective. Rather, their ardent desire to prevent historical
mistakes from repeating themselves is a sufficient reason for these writers to
create as truthful a narrative as possible. In addition, New Testament writers
have much to say regarding the objectivity of their message. II Peter 1:16
affirms, “We did not follow cleverly invented stories when we told you about
the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his
majesty.” Concurrently, 1 John 1:1 states, “That which was from the beginning,
which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at
and our hands have touched—this we proclaim concerning the Word of life.” It is
also important to remember that Christianity originally began as an unpopular
sect branching off from Judaism. Therefore, by writing the New Testament in the
manner that they did, New Testament authors were risking nearly everything in
their lives, from their credibility to their lives. In fact, the Apostles had
little to gain and almost everything to lose by writing the New Testament. In
fact, such New Testament writers often gave up their lives in defense of what
they saw. Such a strong conviction among these authors of what they had
experienced reveals an extremely selfless and unbiased aspect to what they had
done. In addition to this, the Apostles often included embarrassing details
about themselves in their accounts—things that a biased writer would have
omitted. Events such as the Jewish people’s unfaithfulness to God, Peter’s
thrice denying Christ, Peter being addressed as Satan, the disciples’
scattering at Jesus’s arrest, and Thomas’s doubts at Christ’s Resurrection, are
excellent examples of such embarrassing details. The New Testament authors’
risks, sacrifices, and ultimately altruistic motives for helping to write
Scripture prove that the New Testament is objectively true.
The
fourth objection to the New Testament’s validity is that too much time had
passed between the writing of the original and its early copies. In reality,
the time between the writing of the original New Testament and the copying of
the oldest extant manuscript is extremely short. This is important because the
shorter the time is between two such events, the more reliable a text is
considered. There is ample archaeological evidence for this. For instance,
there are over 24,000 partial or complete copies and manuscripts of the New
Testament. They vary in age from fifty to 500 years of the original. Most
scholars consider any copy of a document within 700 years to be good and
reliable. Even though there are some variants throughout the copies, these
differences are minimal. Even controversial/missing sections of the New
Testament, such as Mark 16:9-20 and John 7:53-8:11, pose no doctrinal or moral
contradiction to the rest of Scripture. In fact, most of these “discrepancies”
are extremely trivial; for instance, one copyist may say “Jesus Christ” instead
of “Christ Jesus,” as in other copies, and one copyist may misspell “world” as “worl”
or “wrld.” In addition, ancient classics have an average gap of over 1,000
years—about three hundred years more than the ideal 700-year gap. There are
several other manuscripts that confirm the New Testament’s reliable “time gap.”
John Ryland’s manuscript, the oldest copy of the New Testament, contains
fragments from John (John 18:31-33, 37-38) and dates to approximately A.D.
117-138. The Bodmer Papyri contains most of the Gospels of Luke and John, and
dates to approximately A.D. 200—less than one hundred years after John Ryland’s
manuscript. The Chester Beatty Papyri contain almost all of the New Testament
(including large portions of the Gospels) and dates to approximately A.D. 250.
The Codex Sinaiticus at the British Museum contains the entire New Testament,
and even parts of the Old Testament; dating to approximately A.D. 340, it is
less than a century younger than the Codex Sinaiticus. The Codex Vaticanus, at
the Vatican Library, contains most of the Bible. It dates to approximately A.D.
325-350. The Codex Alexandrinus at the British Museum also contains most of the
Bible, and dates to approximately A.D. 450. The Codex Bezae at the Cambridge University
Library contains parts of the New Testament and most of the Gospels, written in
Greek and Latin. It dates to approximately A.D. 450-550. When compared with
other authors and their works, the magnitude of the New Testament’s reliability
is seen even more strongly. For instance, Caesar’s writings (in the First
Century B.C.) only have ten known copies, the earliest of which was found
during A.D. 900. The copies’ accuracy cannot even be fully ascertained, as with
the writings of Tacitus, Thucydides, and Herodotus. Tacitus’s writings (in A.D.
100) have twenty copies, the earliest of which were discovered in A.D. 1100.
Thucydides’s Fifth Century B.C. writings have eight copies, the earliest of
which, like Caesar’s copies, were discovered in A.D. 900. Herodotus’s writings
share Thucydides’s discouraging statistics. Countless other authors, such as
Livy, Plato, Pliny the Younger, Suetonius, Sophocles, Catullus, Euripedes,
Demosthenes, Aristotle, and Aristophanes, are similar; none of these authors
has a known time span closer than 750 years, and no more than 200 known copies.
Homer’s writings, from the Ninth Century B.C., have 643 copies (the date of the
earliest copy is unknown) and a 95% accuracy rate. The New Testament, with its
original writing in the First Century A.D., has its earliest copy a mere one
century later, with over 5,000 copies and an accuracy rate of over 99%. The New
Testament’s “time tables” have a far more promising (and accurate) record than
any other early writers. As such, both history and logic will lead even an
amateur historian to acknowledge the New Testament as historically accurate and
trustworthy.
