Have the Gospels Survived?

By Nathan Busenitz @http://www.sfpulpit.com

Today’s post is Part 10 of our ten-part series on why we can trust the reliability of the New Testament Gospels. Earlier parts of the series can be found here: Parts 1-6; Part 7; Part 8; Part 9.

Tenth, we believe the New Testament Gospels are reliable because they have been faithfully preserved throughout church history.

Up to this point, we have considered various reasons why the New Testament Gospels can be rightly considered to be historically reliable documents. But all of this is predicated on the fact that those Gospels have been adequately preserved throughout history, such that the copies we have today accurately reflect the originals. If the Gospels had been irrevocably corrupted at some point in church history, we would not be able to trust the copies we now possess.

In point of fact, the New Testament documents (including the Gospels) have been preserved remarkably well. This, of course, is not true of all ancient documents. Caesar’s Gallic Wars can boast only ten extant manuscripts, the oldest of which is dated 1,000 years after the original. Only eight surviving manuscripts have been found of Herodotus’ History, the earliest of which is 1,300 years newer than the original. Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War is similarly attested to by only eight extant manuscripts, again dating from about 1300 years after the work was first penned. And these are just a few examples. [1]

In contrast to secular texts, the New Testament documents (including the Gospels) are very well attested, and from only a short period of time after the originals were penned.

Approximately 5,000 Greek manuscripts, containing all or part of the New Testament, exist. There are 8,000 manuscript copies of the Vulgate (a Latin translation of the Bible done by Jerome from 382–405) and more than 350 copies of Syriac (Christian Aramaic) versions of the New Testament (these originated from 150–250; most of the copies are from the 400s). Besides this, virtually the entire New Testament could be reproduced from citations contained in the works of the early church fathers. There are some thirty-two thousand citations in the writings of the Fathers prior to the Council of Nicea (325).[2]

Among the ancient manuscripts are the Chester Beatty Papyri (a group of early Christian manuscripts written on papyrus) most of which are dated in the 200s. Three of these codices (or books) of papyri contain portions of the New Testament. The first (known as “p45”) originally consisted of about 220 leaves and contained all four Gospels and Acts. The second (“p46”) had 104 leaves and included ten of Paul’s epistles. And the third (“p47”) is thought to have had 32 leaves, and contained the Book of Revelation. Today only a portion of those codices remain (around 126 leaves altogether), yet it is enough to serve as a valuable witness to the reliability of our modern Bibles.

Another important papyrus is “p52.” It is one of the oldest copies of any portion of the New Testament yet found, and contains a few verses from the Gospel of John (dated to between 100-150).[3] Its significance lies in the fact that it “proves the existence and use of the Fourth Gospel during the first half of the second century in a provincial town along the Nile, far removed from its traditional place of composition (Ephesus in Asia Minor).”[4] The finding of this fragment shattered liberal theories about a late second-century date for the composition of John’s gospel.

The Bodmer Papyri also warrant mentioning. One of them, “p66” contains a large portion of the Gospel of John (of which John 1:1–6:11 and 6:35b–14:15 are still in tact) and dates from around 200. Another Bodmer papyrus “p77” includes Luke and John (of the original 144 pages, 102 have survived) and dates to between 175 and 225. It is the earliest known copy of the Gospel of Luke. In 1994, one other early papyrus was discovered by a German scholar named Carsten Peter Thiede. Though only fragments remained, it contained the Gospel of Matthew and may date to as early as A.D. 70.

That any manuscripts survived from the few centuries of church history is remarkable, since it was a time of such intense persecution for Christians. From the fourth century on, however, the number of surviving manuscripts becomes much more plentiful. The earliest and most important of these include Codex Sinaiticus (350, which contains almost all of the New Testament), and Codex Vaticanus (325–50), which contains virtually the entire Bible).

Along with these manuscripts and other ancient translations, the records left by the church fathers also confirm that the Gospels have been faithfully preserved. In fact, there are over 19,000 quotations of the New Testament Gospels in the extant writings of the early church fathers.[5] Their testimony bears witness to the fact that the Jesus they worshipped is the same Jesus we worship today.

Of course, there are sometimes discrepancies among the manuscripts that have survived. This is to be expected, given the thousands of copies that were handwritten throughout history. Such discrepancies, then, are due to scribal errors that were made (at various points in church history) as the manuscripts were being manually reproduced.

But Christians need not worry too much about them. For starters, the vast majority of them are very minor (such as a word added here, or a word missing there). Most have been readily explained and corrected, through the science of textual criticism. And none of them pose a serious threat to any major Christian doctrine. The fact that there are so many manuscripts available to examine, some of which are very early, has enabled “textual scholars to accurately reconstruct the original text with more than 99 percent accuracy. [One] noted Greek scholar, A. T. Robertson, said the real concerns of textual criticism is on ‘a thousandth part of the entire text’ (making the New Testament 99.9 percent pure).”[6]

We can have confidence, then, in knowing that the Gospels we read today are faithful representations of the original Gospels, though we are separated by 2,000 years and by translation from Greek to English. Thus, we can trust the historical reliability not only of the original Gospel accounts—but more significantly (to us), of our own English copies. In the words of Frederic Kenyon:

The Christian can take the whole Bible in his hand and say without fear or hesitation that he holds in it the true Word of God, handed down without essential loss from generation to generation throughout the centuries.[7]

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Notes:

[1] Cf. F. F. Bruce, The Books and the Parchments (Old Tappan, N. J.: Fleming H. Revell Col, 1963), 180. Bruce notes, “There is no body of ancient literature in the world which enjoys such a wealth of good textual attestation as the New Testament” (p. 178). See also the chart by Josh McDowell in The New Evidence that Demands a Verdict (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1999), 38.

[2] J. P. Moreland, Scaling the Secular City (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2003), 135–36.

[3] Cf. Carsten Peter Thiede, The Jesus Papyrus (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1996).

[4] Bruce Metzger, The Text of the New Testament (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), 39. Metzger’s work was the primary source consulted for information on these papyri.

[5] Josh McDowell, Evidence, 43.

[6] Ravi Zacharias and Norman L. Geisler, Who Made God? (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2003), 127.

[7] Frederic G. Kenyon, Our Bible and the Ancient Manuscripts (London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1958), 23.

The Gospels and the Men Who Wrote Them

By Nathan Busenitz @ http://www.sfpulpit.com

Today we will consider a second reasons why the NT gospels are reliable accounts of the life and ministry of Jesus.

Not only are they consistent with previous revelation from God (in the Old Testament), but they were also written by those who were closely associated with Jesus and His ministry—men who were either eye-witnesses or had access to first-hand information about Jesus and His life.

A second reason to trust the NT gospels is that they were written by those closely associated with Jesus and His ministry.

Two of the gospels, Matthew and John, were penned by disciples of Jesus and provide eye-witness testimony to the events they discuss (cf. John 1:14; 21:20–25; 1 John 1:1-4). The Gospel of Mark was written by a close friend and associate of the apostle Peter (1 Peter 5:13; cf. Acts 12:12). In fact, the early Christian leader Papias (c. 60-c. 130) reported that “Mark became an interpreter of Peter; as many things as he remembered he wrote down accurately (though certainly not in order) the things said or done by the Lord” (Fragments of Papias 2:15). So Mark’s gospel reflects the memoirs of Peter, which Mark preserved by writing down.

Luke (who wrote both the third gospel and the book of Acts) was the traveling companion of the apostle Paul (cf. Acts 16:10-17; 20:5-15; 21:1-18; 27:1-28:16; Col. 4:14), and was a careful researcher. Luke himself reports that he wrote his gospel, “having investigated everything carefully from the beginning . . . so that you may know the exact truth” (Luke 1:3-4). The biblical gospels, then, are the product of eye-witness testimony (Luke 1:1-4; Acts 1:21-22; Gal. 1; Heb. 2:3; 2 Peter 1:16), either first-hand (in the case of Matthew and John) or second-hand (in the case of Mark and Luke). As those who venerated Jesus, they took special care in giving solemn testimony to His life (Acts 2:40; 8:25; 10:42; 18:5; 20:21; 28:23; 1 John 1:2; 4:14; 2 Pet. 1:16-20; Rev. 1:2).

That Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were the actual authors of the gospels that bear their names is overwhelmingly supported by the testimony of church history, with affirmation coming from early Christian leaders such as Papias (c. 60-c. 130), Justin Martyr (100-165), Polycrates (c. 130-196), Irenaeus (c. 140-c. 202) who cites Polycarp (c. 69-160), Clement of Alexandria (c. 150-c. 215), Tertullian (c.160-c. 220), Origen (c.185-c. 254), Eusebius (c. 263-c. 339), Jerome (c. 345-420) and others. Never is the fourfold gospel seriously questioned. In the words of Irenaeus (c. 140-c. 202):

It is not possible that the Gospels can be either more or fewer in number than they are. For, since there are four zones of the world in which we live, and four principal winds, while the Church is scattered throughout all the world, and the “pillar and ground” of the Church is the Gospel and the spirit of life; it is fitting that she should have four pillars, breathing out immortality on every side, and vivifying men afresh. . . . And therefore the Gospels are in accord with these things, among which Christ Jesus is seated. (Against Heresies, 3.11.8)

Irenaeus continues by listing the four gospels as we know them today: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Of course, nearly a century earlier, Papias had already given testimony to these same four books.[1] According to the church historian Eusebius, Irenaeus also received some of his information from Polycarp, who was taught these things by the apostles (Eusebius, Church History, 4.14.3–8; cf. 2 Tim. 2:2).

Internal evidence, coming from the books themselves, is consistent with the testimony of church history. For example, Matthew’s gospel frequently references the Old Testament, and describes Jesus’ interaction with the Jews in a way that suggests its author was a native Jew.[2] It also puts greater emphasis on numbers and on money than the other gospels, a characteristic that would be consistent with the author’s occupation as a tax collector (Matthew 9:9).[3] In Mark’s gospel, the apostle Peter is cast in a more negative light than in the other gospels (cf. Mark 8:32-33; 14:29-72), suggesting that he was the self-effacing source from which Mark received his information. The author of Luke also wrote Acts (compare Luke 1 with Acts 1) and was a traveling companion of Paul (cf. Acts 16:10-17; 20:5-15; 21:1-18; 27:1–28:16). He is explicit in emphasizing that he researched his information thoroughly (Luke 1:1-4), as is seen in the many historically verifiable details he includes (some of which will be considered in a later post). This is fitting for one who was trained as a physician (Col. 4:14).

The author of John speaks of himself only as “the disciple whom Jesus loved” (John 21:7). This corresponds to John’s emphasis on love in his three epistles (1 John 3:16, 23; 4:9-10, 19; 2 John 1:6). Moreover, the author was a disciple (cf. John 21:2, 20, 24), one of the Twelve (John 13:23-24; cf. Mark 14:17; Luke 22:14), an eye-witness to the events of Christ’s life and death (John 1:14; 19:26,35), and among the inner circle of Christ’s followers, but not Peter (cf. John 20:2-10; Mark 5:37-38; 9:2-3; 14:33). Only John and his brother James fit these criteria. But since James was martyred early in church history (Acts 12:2), the evidence points to John as the author (cf. John 21:22-23). The fact that much of John’s material is unique (intended as a supplement to the other gospels) suggests that someone with authority must have written it, otherwise the early church would have never accepted it as factual.

In all four cases, the internal evidence (meaning details within the book itself such as writing style, biographical data, and historical details) and the external evidence (meaning non-biblical testimony that affirms the authorship of a given book) consistently and repeatedly affirm the authorship of the gospels by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. On the flip side, there is nothing that should cause us to question their authenticity.

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Notes:

[1] John Chapman, “St. Papias” in The Catholic Encyclopedia (New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1911).

[2] In this regard, A. Lukyn Williams, in St. Matthew, vol. 1, The Pulpit Commentary, notes: “That the author was a Jew will be granted by all. A Gentile Christian never would or could have described the relation of Jesus to the Jews and to their teaching in the way that the author has described it. The fact of his Jewish standpoint is further indicated by his Old Testament quotations.”

[3] Per Daniel Wallace, “Matthew: Introduction, Argument, Outline”; Online source.

Can You Trust the NT Gospels?

By Nathan Busenitz @http://www.sfpulpit.com

Several weeks ago, we posted a brief overview of reasons we, as Christians, believe the Bible to be the Word of God. Along those lines, we are now beginning a series of articles regarding reasons we can trust the veracity of the New Testament Gospels.

Are the New Testament gospels a reliable witness to the life and ministry of Jesus Christ? The question is a basic one, yet it is absolutely foundational to the Christian faith. If the gospel accounts are reliable, then we have overwhelming reason to embrace Jesus Christ as the Messiah. His ancestry, birth, baptism, ministry, miracles, teaching, death, and resurrection all lead to the same inescapable conclusion.

But if the gospels are not reliable, then we have a massive theological dilemma. If the Jesus of the Bible was not the real Jesus, then our faith in Him is almost surely misplaced.

For centuries, the universal assumption was that the gospels were reliable historical accounts. But since the rise of theological liberalism, many scholars (like those of the Jesus Seminar) have seriously questioned whether or not the New Testament record is historically accurate. The result has been a search for the “historical Jesus,” which is free from the “Christ of faith” presented in the biblical accounts. In the words of one liberal critic, “The narrative Gospels have no claim as historical accounts. The Gospels are imaginative creations.”[1]

So, is the testimony of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John trustworthy (assuming those men actually wrote the books that bear their names)? Or is it interpretative history, which like interpretative dance, is more the product of imagination than reality?

Over the next few days, we will briefly consider ten factors that support the reliability of the New Testament gospel accounts. Much more could, of course, be said about each of these reasons. In fact, whole books have been written on this subject, and rightly so.[2] After all, it is critical that we begin with a trustworthy record of what Jesus said and did. Otherwise, we will never be able to examine His life and ministry with any level of confidence.

First, we can trust the NT gospels because they are consistent with previous revelation given in the Old Testament.

If the New Testament gospels were written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit (John 14:16-17, 26; 15:26-27; 16:12-15), they must harmonize with that which the Holy Spirit previously revealed in the Old Testament (cf. 1 Pet. 1:10-11). We cannot embrace them if they are inconsistent with that which has come before, since God cannot contradict His Word (Luke 16:17; John 10:35; cf. Num. 23:19; 2 Timothy 2:13; Titus 1:2; Heb. 6:18).

If God authored both the Old and New Testaments (2 Tim. 3:16-17; 2 Pet. 1:20-21; 3:15-16), then we should expect their doctrine and message to be consistent. And indeed, this is the case. The New Testament is the perfect complement to the Old, and in fact, the unity of Scripture is underscored by Jesus and the apostles, who saw the New Testament as the perfect complement to the Old (cf. Luke 18:31-33, 24:27, 36-48; John 5:39, 46; Acts 10:43; 1 Peter 1:10-12).

In the gospel accounts, this consistency becomes most clear when we consider what the Old Testament predicted about the Messiah. On this point, a host of Old Testament passages might be cited (such as Gen. 3:14-15; Deut. 18:15-19; Ps. 2:12; 22:1,16,18; 110:1-4; Is. 9:1-7; 42:1-4; 49:6; 53:1-12; 59:16-20; 61:1-3; Jer. 23:5-6; Dan. 7:13-14; 9:20-27; Zech. 3:8-9; 6:12-13; 9:9-10; Mal. 3:1-3; 4:5-6). According to some scholars, there are nearly 300 prophecies in the Old Testament related to the Christ’s first coming.[3] In each case, the picture of the Messiah painted in the Old Testament matches perfectly with the description of Jesus in the four gospels. But this is certainly not true of the “historical Jesus” depicted by liberal scholars.

The New Testament writers understood the importance of the Old Testament record, and they repeatedly emphasized the fact that “Moses and all the prophets” (Luke 24:27) pointed to Jesus (cf. Matthew 2:15, 17, 23, 13:14, 35, 26:54, 56, 27:9; Mark 14:49; Luke 1:1, 18:31, 22:37, 24:44; John 17:12, 18:9, 19:24, 28, 36; and many others).

According to the Old Testament, the coming Messiah would:

Be a descendant of Abraham (compare Gen. 22:18 with Gal. 3:16)
Be a descendant of Jacob (compare Num. 24:17 with Lk. 3:23, 34)
Be from the tribe of Judah (compare Gen. 49:10 with Lk. 3:23, 33)
Be from the family of Jesse (compare Is. 11:1 with Lk. 3:23, 32)
Be from the house of David (compare Jer. 23:5 with Lk. 3:23, 31)
Be born at Bethlehem (compare Micah 5:2 with Matt. 2:1)
Be the pre-existent one (compare Micah 5:2 with Col. 1:17)
Be the Lord (compare Psalm 110:1 with Matt. 22:43-45)
Be God with us (compare Isaiah 7:14 with Matt. 1:23)
Be a prophet (compare Deut. 18:18 with Matt. 21:11)
Be a priest (compare Psalm 110:4 with Heb. 3:1; 5-6)
Be a king (compare Psalm 2:6 with Matt. 27:37)
Be anointed by the Spirit (compare Is. 11:2 with Matt. 3:16, 17)
Be zealous for God (compare Ps. 69:9 with John 2:15, 16)
Have a forerunner (compare Is. 40:3; Mal. 3:1 with Matt. 3:1,2)
Begin His ministry in Galilee (compare Is. 9:1 with Matt. 4:12-17)
Have a ministry of miracles (compare Is. 35:5,6 with Matt. 9:35)
Bring healing and spiritual life (compare Is. 61:1-2 with Lk. 4:18).
Enter Jerusalem on a donkey (compare Zech. 9:9 with Lk. 19:35-37)
Be rejected by the Jews (compare Psalm 118:22 with 1 Pet. 2:7)
Be silent before His accusers (compare Is. 53:7 with Matt. 27:12)
Be wounded and bruised (compare Is. 53:5 with Matt. 27:26)
Be smitten and spit upon (compare Is. 50:6 with Matt. 26:67)
Be crucified with thieves (compare Is. 53:12 with Matt. 27:38)
Have His garments divided (compare Ps. 22:18 with John 19:23,24)
Have his side pierced (compare Zech. 12:10 with John 19:34)
Be buried in a rich man’s tomb (compare Is. 53:9 with Matt. 27:57ff)
Come before Jerusalem and the Temple were destroyed (compare Dan. 9:26 with Matt. 24:2) [4]

If we take messianic prophecy at all seriously, believing that it was historically fulfilled, then we are drawn immediately to the Christ of the New Testament gospels. No other record of Jesus’ life–whether from the Gnostics or the skeptics–is consistent with Old Testament revelation. On the other hand, because the New Testament gospels are in perfect harmony with earlier revelation from God, they can be trusted.

The Old Testament, then, is our first witness to the authenticity of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

(To be continued tomorrow)

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Notes:

[1] Burton Mack, Time Magazine, January 10, 1994, online source.

[2] F. F. Bruce’s The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable? and Craig Blomberg’s The Historical Reliability of the New Testament Gospels are two such works, and are highly recommended for further study on this topic.

[3] See, for example, Josh McDowell, The New Evidence that Demands a Verdict, 164.

[4] Robert T. Boyd outlines 48 such prophecies in his Boyd’s Handbook of Practical Apologetics, 125-127.