LIBERTY UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF DIVINITY
The Reliability of the New Testament
Submitted to Dr. James Sulfridge
in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the completion of
DSMN 500
Discipleship Ministries
By
Anthony Bean
Definition
The reliability of the New Testament documents hinges on their historicity, genuine
character, accuracy, transmission, and supernatural claims.
Summary
The reliability of the New Testament documents faces several challenges. First, is the
Jesus of the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) a real, historical character, or are
these accounts more of a fictional narrative? Second, does the Gospel according to John
contradict the Jesus of the Synoptic Gospels? Third, is the early church history as recorded in
the Book of Acts historically accurate and coherent? Fourth, are the New Testament Epistles
written by the individuals purported to be their authors? Fifth, do other writings exist that
should be added to the New Testament canon? Sixth, how can we be sure that the original
documents have been faithfully copied and made available to us today? Finally, can we trust
the reliability of books that record supernatural events like the resurrection of Jesus?
Many people today harbor the notion that the distinctively Christian Scriptures collected
together as the New Testament can hardly be trusted in what they teach. Ironically, there has
never been more evidence readily available that actually supports their reliability. Of course,
historical research can never confirm or refute theological claims (e.g., Jesus died for
humanity’s sins), but without historical facts (e.g., Jesus lived and died) the theology has no
foundation.
Historicity of the Synoptic Gospels
The Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke) contain the primary material scholars
use in the “quest of the historical Jesus”. They were probably written within one generation of
Jesus’ death in A.D. 30, while eyewitnesses of his ministry were still alive, and by those who
were either close companions of Jesus or close associates of those companions. Luke 1:1-4
suggests a careful, historical process of composition, and the overall genre of the Synoptics
most closely resembles ancient biographies rather than novels or works of fiction. The oral
cultures of the first-century Jewish and Roman world cultivated sophisticated skills of
memorization, enabling those who wanted to pass on information accurately by word-of-mouth
to do so for long periods of time in ways largely unparalleled in our world today. The
differences among the Synoptics match the flexibility with which oral storytellers often
recounted that information, along with the theological distinctives and emphases that each
writer wanted to highlight. Apparent contradictions among parallel Gospel accounts can usually
be explained by the historical conventions of the day. In a world without quotation marks, or
any felt need for them, communicating another person’s intent in one’s own words was
completely acceptable. Sometimes the gospel writers each excerpt different portions of a larger
whole, sometimes they use different degrees of precision, and they regularly arrange their
material topically as well as chronologically.
At least a dozen extra-biblical references in non-Christian (Jewish, Greek, and Roman)
sources in the earliest centuries of the Christian era (Josephus, Thallus, Suetonius, Tacitus,
Pliny, Mara ben Serapion, Lucian, and several Talmudic tractates) confirm the main contours of
the Synoptics: Jesus’ birth out of wedlock, his intersection with the ministry of John the Baptist,
the existence of his brother James, his gathering of disciples, including five who are named, his
running afoul of the Jewish leaders in interpretations of the law, his working “wondrous feats,”
and his being deemed “a sorcerer who led Israel astray.” We learn that he was crucified under
Pontius Pilate (and thus between A.D. 26-36), that his followers believed he was the Messiah
and believed that he had been resurrected, and that his death did not put an end to those
beliefs. Instead, his followers rather quickly began meeting together and “singing hymns to him
as if he were a god.”
Historicity of John’s Gospel
A sizable majority of John’s Gospel contains different but not contradictory information to
what the Synoptics present. Whereas Matthew and Luke most likely knew, used and
supplemented Mark, there does not appear to be any literary relationship between John and
any of the Synoptics. This fourth Gospel was most likely written a generation later (in the 90s
rather than the 60s), by one of the closest followers of Jesus, in his own idiom, influenced by a
lifetime of preaching about Jesus, selecting information that had not been previously
highlighted in writing. All this was for a community of Christians in and around Ephesus
wrestling with the twin challenges of hostile local synagogues, who were increasingly
excommunicating members who acknowledged they worshiped Jesus, and the inroads of a
syncretistic Greek “Christian” movement known as Gnosticism that denied Jesus’ real physical
nature.
It is only from John, for example, we learn about Jesus’ roughly three-year ministry,
because several of his trips to Jerusalem at festival times are described and can be dated. But
John does this not to help us reconstruct a chronology of Jesus’ life but because of his
theological conviction that Jesus’ teaching on those occasions showed that he was the
fulfillment of the true meaning of the various Jewish festivals. What we learn about the
chronology of Jesus’ life emerges incidentally; such details, then, are not likely invented but
more likely accurate. Geographical and topographical references are also more abundant in
John, and they have been consistently corroborated by archeological finds (e.g., the pools of
Bethesda and Siloam, Jacob’s well, Solomon’s portico, Gabbatha, Bethany, etc.). Even John’s
very different style and contents of Jesus’ teaching does appear on occasion in the Synoptics
(nowhere more dramatically than in Matt. 11:27/Luke 10:22), and conceptual parallels arise on
every page of the Fourth Gospel.
Historicity of Acts
The New Testament contains only one book with the genre or contents of the Acts of the
Apostles. This is a theologically rich and artistically refined work of history. The number of
characters and places in this selective account of key events in the first generation of church
history that have been confirmed is staggering. From non-Christian works alone, we know of
Annas, Claudius, Gamaliel, Caiaphas, James, Gallio, Agrippa I and II, Sergius Paulus, Felix,
Drusilla, Festus, Bernice, and others. Every city and location which has been excavated has been
shown to be as Acts describes them, complete with specific synagogues, theaters, stoa, ports,
roads, rivers, and more.
Particularly significant is how Luke gets right the names of the rulers in the various
locations, especially since in some instances they varied quite a bit in a given region or from one
time period to the next. These include the Sanhedrin, the Italian Regiment, tetrarchs,
proconsuls, magistrates, politarchs, the Areopagus, city clerk and the “chief man” (on the island
of Malta). The very fact that one can mesh Acts with the more fragmentary and sometimes
incidental allusions to Paul’s life in his letters sets Acts off from historical novels, modern and
ancient. That one can generate a plausible, detailed chronology of the events depicted in Acts,
again especially in comparison with Paul’s letters, and chart his missionary journeys as coherent
and sensible travels, further suggests Acts is historical.
Authorship of New Testament Epistles
A significant question with the New Testament epistles is if they were really penned by
the individuals to whom they are attributed. Almost all scholars agree that Romans, 1 and 2
Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, 1 Thessalonians and Philemon are genuinely Pauline. Some
doubt surrounds Colossians and 2 Thessalonians; more doubt, with Ephesians; and the greatest
skepticism, with the Pastoral Epistles (1 and 2 Timothy, Titus). But in fact good cases can still be
made for Paul having written each of these letters. It is interesting that the complaints about 2
Thessalonians and Ephesians often center on their being too similar to 1 Thessalonians and
Colossians, respectively, while the style of the Pastorals is said to be too different from the
undisputed Paulines. Paul’s use of scribes (Rom. 16:22) and/or possible co-authors (note the
people in addition to Paul mentioned in the first verses of 1 and 2 Corinthians, Colossians, and 1
and 2 Thessalonians) must also be factored in, especially when scribes were sometimes given
the freedom to write up in their own styles the thoughts of those employing them.
An interesting dimension of a number of Paul’s letters, penned in the 50s, especially
Romans, 1 Corinthians and 1 Thessalonians are the quotations of and allusions to Jesus’
teachings that Paul could not have gotten simply by consulting a Gospel, since none had yet
been written. These references thus show that a reliable oral tradition of Jesus’ teachings was
circulating. Topics ranged from divorce and remarriage (1Cor. 7:10; cf. Matt. 19:9), to receiving
money for ministry (1Cor. 9:14; cf. Luke 10:7), to the “words of institution at the Last Supper”
(1Cor. 11:23-25; cf. Luke 22:19-20), to the return of Christ (1Thess. 5:2-4; cf. Matt. 24:42-44) to
non-retaliation and enemy love (Rom. 12:17-20; cf. Luke 6:27b-28a), for starters. In other cases,
parallels between Paul and Jesus are conceptual rather than verbal, but still close enough to
give the lie to the notion that Paul was the true founder of Christianity, substantially distorting
the message of Jesus. Examples include Paul’s emphasis on justification by faith (Rom. 3:21-25,
Gal. 2:15-21) compared with Jesus’ parable of the Pharisee and tax collector (Luke 18:9-14),
love as the fulfillment of the Law (Gal. 5:14, Matt. 22:37-40), and countercultural affirmation of
women in various roles typically reserved for men (Luke 10:38-42, Rom. 16:1, 7).
Hebrews through Revelation does not present as many issues, though the question of
pseudonymous authorship does recur. Nevertheless, again a good case can be made that James
and Jude were indeed written by half-brothers of Jesus, perhaps as early as the late 40s and
certainly by the 60s. This letter is filled with allusions to Jesus’ teachings, especially from the
Sermon on the Mount/Plain, again most likely before James could have consulted written
accounts. Hebrews is anonymous in all of its early manuscripts, and the early church debated
whether to attribute it to Paul or to one of his associates. But the apparent allusions to the
expulsion of Jews from Rome in 49 (Heb. 10:34) and the fact that none of the Roman Christians
had yet been martyred (12:4), no longer the case after 64, suggest it should be dated between
these specific years.
First and Second Peter are dramatically different in style and contents from each other,
suggesting to many that the second of these letters comes from someone other than Peter in a
different context at a much later date. But a scribe may be responsible for the polished Greek of
1 Peter, while 2 Peter seems to be deliberately put in a flowery, Asiatic style for the rhetorical
emphasis it would generate. Alternately, 2 Peter 1:15 may suggest that this letter was
completed posthumously by one of Peter’s disciples. First John is entirely anonymous, while 2
and 3 John are attributed simply to “the elder,” but their styles and contents are very similar.
Revelation is attributed to a prophet named John (Rev. 1:1, 4, 9; 22:8), and despite differences,
mostly related to contents and genre, is still more similar in style to the other writings the early
church attributed to John than to any other documents we know about. That this was John, the
son of Zebedee and disciple of Jesus by that name, is still very plausible.
Books Outside the New Testament Canon
Other issues affect the entire New Testament, rather than just one individual book or
section. Why distinguish the twenty-seven canonical books from the Gnostic literature or from
the so-called New Testament apocrypha? Early Christian discussions suggest that the main
criteria included “apostolicity” (books coming from apostles or their close associates, in other
words first-century works), “orthodoxy” (books carrying on the story line of the Israelite
Scriptures, internally consistent and in keeping with the earliest known apostolic teaching),
“catholicity” (widely accepted as authoritative and relevant, not just limited to one location or
sect within emerging Christianity), and “inspired” (having the ring of truth and used by the Spirit
for distinctively edifying and maturing purposes).
The last of these was doubtless the most subjective, but the first three mark the canon off
from other competing works reasonably clearly. Much of the Gnostic literature involves Jesus
supposedly offering select followers secret, esoteric teachings after his resurrection, often
involving the cosmology of the universe with little similarity to the topics discussed in the
canonical texts and without the connected narrative form that characterizes the New
Testament Gospels. Much of the apocrypha fills in perceived gaps in the canonical accounts of
Jesus’ life and the apostles’ ministry, often with clearly legendary information.
Transmission of the New Testament Manuscripts
What about the transmission of the text of the New Testament, especially when scholars
point out that there may be as many as 400,000 textual variants in the 25,000 fragmentary,
partial or complete copies of these texts in Greek and other ancient languages spanning more
than thirteen centuries before the invention of the printing press? Of course this means, on
average, only sixteen unique variants per manuscripts, and the vast majority of these involved
variations in the spelling of words; the use or non-use of an article, conjunction or particle; or
slight variations in syntax.
The vast majority also came from the most recent centuries during the period of copying
texts by hand. Only about 1500 merit inclusion in the textual footnotes of the United Bible
Societies’ Greek New Testament, while typical English translations often include about 300-400
of the most interesting in their footnotes. Readers can see for themselves that very few affect
significant issues of meaning. The only two that involve more than one or two verses are Mark
16:9-20 and John 7:53-8:11, and it seems clear that these were not original to the Gospels that
now contain them. Most importantly, no doctrine or ethical teaching of Christianity depends
solely on one or more disputed texts.
The Question of Miracles
But can we believe in documents as filled with miracles as the New Testament is? If one a
priori postulates an anti-supernatural world view, then no, but then one is no longer engaging
in historical investigation. The claim that natural explanations are always more probable, even if
one does not rule out supernatural explanations up front, is itself a belief that cannot be
demonstrated empirically and that unduly denigrates the role of trustworthy testimony as the
bedrock of historiography. It also flies in the face of thousands of modern-day experiences of
ordinary people all around the globe who have witnessed instantaneous healings (and similar
events) after public, concerted Christian prayer.
Claims about miracles should neither be written off a priori nor uncritically accepted; they
should be tested like any other historical affirmations. What sets the New Testament miracles
off from accounts in many other kinds of literature is their consistent link to the arrival or
inauguration of God’s reign in the person of Jesus and the movement he began (Matt. 12:28;
Luke 11:20). Claims about similarities with other ancient miracle stories break down on careful
inspection; the closest parallels are all post-Christian, too late to have influenced the New
Testament writers. Partially similar pre-Christian parallels usually cluster around gods or
goddesses or heroes from some dim, mythical past and are not attached to recent people
known to have lived real human lives. This is especially the case when one examines the
resurrection of Jesus, the most spectacular and significant of the foundational Christian
miracles.
All in all, the support for the reliability of the New Testament is substantial enough to
sustain Christian faith, even if it is not so overwhelming as to compel one to believe.
Notes
Blomberg, Craig L. The Historical Reliability of the New Testament. Nashville: B & H,
2016.
Bauckham, Richard. Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony,
2nd Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2017.
Keener, Craig S. Acts: An Exegetical Commentary, 4 vols. Grand Rapids: Baker, 2012-15.
Keener, Craig S. Miracles: The Credibility of the New Testament Accounts, 2 vols. Grand
Rapids: Baker, 2012.
Kruger, Michael J. Canon Revisited: Establishing the Origins and Authority of the New
Testament Books. Wheaton: Crossway, 2012.
Köstenberger, Andreas J., L. Scott Kellum and Charles L. Quarles. The Cradle, The Cross,
and the Crown: An Introduction to the New Testament, 2nd ed. Nashville: B&H, 2016.
