Bible Contradictions. According to the sceptical and those who reject any claim of the Bible being 'true', they're two a penny! Websites listing hundreds of these supposed discrepancies are given titles like, '1001 Irrefutable Bible Contradictions', 'Undisputable Bible Contradictions', and other similarly dramatic headings. When I've been in debates and discussions, it is claimed liberally and rather 'off the cuff' that everyone knows the NT to be internally contradictory, and off their arguments go, assuming what they said to be 'common knowledge'. When pressed for specifics, I am sometimes faced with the 'fact' that they're 'out there' and I 'just need to look'. 

But this objection is actually only skimming the surface on several issues that need 'unpacking'.

1) Are the contradictions, actually contradictions?

Be careful to be fooled by a claim of 'contradiction'. Remember that the Bible is an amazingly complex text, rich in history, philosophy and theology - the context in which a particular phrase was written in may not be replicated for another phrase. Alternatively, cultural context may need to be called upon for clarity - so, for example, the way in which Jesus behaves with one person and the way He behaves with another may appear to the western, 21st Century eye to be 'contradictory' in whatever way, but once one acknowledges differences in how the ancients operated this discrepancy may be able to be accounted for.

Also beware of what the contradiction is supposed to be - a contradiction between texts is when a particular truth claim is refuted by another. So for example, Gospel 1 says "Person X is White" but then Gospel 2 says "Person X is Blue" - that is clearly a contradiction, the two cannot be true at once. However, often so-called 'contradictions' are not contradictions at all. They would, for example, be the equivalent of Gospel 1 says "PX is White" and Gospel Two says "PX is White and Round". The former does not cancel out the latter. Bringing this to reality, the Gospels record differences in who visited the tomb at the Resurrection, but they are not logical contradictions. Be careful to not confuse the two, and be careful to not let someone get away with doing the same. Mentioning more, or less, features than another tradition is not evidence of one tradition employing irreconcilable differences, but rather could be evidence of one tradition summarising or enriching another. Do not fail to miss the subtle difference.

2) Are the 'contradictions' problematic?

I'd have to say no. This is going to be a bit advanced here, so bear with me, and remember that my e-mail is always open for furthered questioning and discussion. Let's assume for the moment that the Gospels do include contradictions. Without meaning to sound 'big headed', I think that in my 'career' of apologetics and academic theological study I've come across every single charge of contradiction within the NT that anyone has made. Call it exasperating, boring, or all of the above, but I genuinely think that those who call contradiction haven't thought about their case.

Why? Because all of the contradictions are superficial, e.g. they don't strike at what Christianity and the Gospels are actually saying, they just deal with 'surface details'. For example, are any of the apparent contradictions thematic instead of simply concerned with the 'superficial-narrative'? In other words, does Gospel 1 say that Jesus died and the other say that Jesus didn't? Does Gospel 2 say that Jesus rose from the dead and the other says that He didn't? Does Gospel 3 say that Jesus was an intinerant preacher who spoke about the Kingdom, and the other doesn't? Does Gospel 4 say that Jesus was a miracle worker who said key things about God, pointed to Himself as the Messiah and Son of God, but yet the other doesn't?

No, all of the Gospels (and the rest of the NT, cf. 1 Cor 15:3-6) say that Jesus was an intinerant preacher, who spoke about the Kingdom, believed Himself to be the Son of God, the Messiah, who came on a reconciliatary mission, who was crucified, died, was buried, and on the Sunday rose again. All of them - without exception, repeatedly. Now, what do the apparent contradictions deal with? They deal with superficial differences in the narrative (i.e. the plot, the story): how many women, take this or don't take this, do this or don't do this, hanged or fell, bla bla bla. None of this truly affects the doctrines of the NT (i.e. what it says about God and Jesus, who they are, what they are).

So if the contradictions exist, I would say 'so what?' But at this point, the sceptic would chime in with a different objection.

3) Do the Contradictions affect how we should view the Bible?

Ultimately the charge of contradiction tries to undermine the authority and the reliability of the NT in particular, and the Bible in general. Take a look further down the page for a couple of defences of why I regard these as textually and historically 'good to go'. But when it comes to the NT's authority, we're beginning to concern what is known as the 'doctrine of Inerrancy' and the 'doctrine of Inspiration'. Inerrancy claims that the Bible is without error in the original manuscripts, and is "God breathed". This relates to Inspiration, that in the Bible we have the 'words' of God, not through dictation but through the Holy Spirit working in and through the authors, preventing mistakes and contradictions, and guiding them to articulate the full message of God.

Now, there are many different theories as to how this works. I don't want to impose my own views and declare them as the 'only way forward', but allow me to present them for your own individual consumption. My theology of inspiration is flexible enough to accept such contradictions, believe it or not - to me difficulties in the narrative (if they were shown to exist) provide more substantiation than condemnation, for at least there's some source work going on! I happen to not accept, or at least be suspicious of, those contradictions on the whole because I don't think the case is good enough for them (see below). What is certain is that they don't affect the intricate, detailed message of the NT, not even on a general scale. When we say something is "God breathed" we mean that it contains the message of God - now that may mean that God has prevented all errors in the original manuscripts (not that that means much to us now, with no access to those manuscripts), but if it doesn't then we shouldn't cry about it. It's fine. If we believe that Jesus is God Incarnate, God in human flesh, then we affirm that God used humanity, society, human beings, as fallible as we are, to express and spread His message.

To me, contradiction or no contradiction, there is not a problem. If you disagree, I don't blame you and feel free to tell me why. But these are my colours, and this is my flag.

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Now, I've explained the context of such objections, but still remaining is the reality of there being answers to such 'contradictions'. They exist, in book form and on the net. Books by McDowell, Geisler and other popular evangelical authors have been written - for those interested in a more substantial read, Amazon is your haven. For the clicky among you, provided below are a few URLs to get you going.

And remember, no matter what you come across, Christianity has had a long and intellectually rich history. No part of the Bible has gone unnoticed by scholar and layman alike. Do not assume that just because you cannot answer it, or can't find an answer immediately, that it hasn't been answered. I can promise through my own experience and that of others' that it most certainly has. God is on the throne.

http://www.tektonics.org *** http://www.christian-thinktank.com *** http://www.carm.org/bible_difficulties.htm  *** http://www.apologeticsindex.org/b08.html  *** http://inerrancy.org/ *** http://debate.org.uk/topics/apolog/contrads.htm

Revised- 20th May, 2006.

Important Note- this particular objection has been the subject of several e-mails sent to me by a number of my brothers and sisters in Christ. To clear up the air with this, in this paragraph I am not dismissing any form of Theological Conviction, be it Young Earth or Old Earth. My point in this ‘answer’ is to establish the fact that the Bible doesn't state an age for the universe, which is true. Perhaps once this is understood, then people may come to the Bible with less of a bias then they would if they thought that it did. If you wish to discuss this issue or you want me to elaborate further on my reasons, then feel free to e-mail me at nathanpaylor@hotmail.com.

This is so far from a watertight argument than I thought was actually possible. Anyway, I’ll address the main point apparent here. Basically, NOWHERE in the Bible does it say that the earth is 6000 years old. This idea is based on the 'Young Earth' faction of Creationism. Those within this believe that the days described at the beginning of Genesis are literal and therefore, considering the genealogies given in the Bible, the earth should only be a few thousand years old. 'Old Earth' Creationists believe that the days described are far longer and most of them believe in the Big Bang. This objection is therefore a matter of interpretation; the Bible is not the problem here, as it doesn’t mention any age of the universe and/or of the planet.

Chinese Whispers- you've got to love them! When I was about 6 or 7, I used to play the game quite a bit- as a matter of fact, it's still rather amusing now, and I'm quickly speeding past voting age! However, in spite of all its amusing faculties, could the basic premise of CW's be applicable to the Biblical accounts? For example, could it be that the Bible we have today is infact an embellished version of far more simplistic events, and instead the said accounts have progressively been added to in terms of their literary (and not to mention miraculous) content? Could it be that the original Bible was infact a simplistic version of "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory" ()? Unfortunately, as much as it may disappoint some of us (that was a really good book, darn it !), the answer is an unequivocal 'NO'. To establish such an answer, one must look at the Bible in the light of a CW's characteristics-

1. Any Chinese Whisper must have a beginning that is more simplistic in comparison to its later version: For example, I begin a whisper which states that "Steve tells the odd lie" but it later becomes "Steve is a compulsive liar". The former is simple, but the latter is a bit more complicated!
2. Any Chinese Whisper must have a beginning that is significantly different to its later version: It's not good enough for a Chinese Whisper to only be different in terms of the odd word or two, and the same would apply for the Bible. For example, if I said that "Steve tells the odd lie" and it later becomes "Steve tells a few lies", they are not really that different. As such, one could not be able to successfully identify any major and active form of embellishment (it could be just that one person heard it wrong, as opposed to a conscious alteration). However, if the later version was to say "Steve won the National Lying Competition", then one could quite easily cry foul play!
3. Any Chinese Whisper should be able to have identifiable intermediary forms: For example, if my original Chinese Whisper becomes "Steve has fishy eyes", and I were to ask the middle-men what they had heard, then it should display some form of embellishment, but not to the extent of the final whisper. E.g., 'Joe' is the last person to hear the whisper once it had become about fishy eyes, so I ask 'Victoria' what she heard, and she says that "Steve tells fishy lies".

If the Bible does not fulfil these criteria, then we cannot successfully label it as a Chinese Whisper as there would be no reasonable grounds to do so. Infact, as I hope to point out, the Bible not only fails to fulfil such criteria, but rather it actively works against them, thus negating any concept of embellishment.

The Bible- Does it fulfil the Characteristics of a Chinese Whisper?

Something I’ve been told again and again, and something that I’ve learnt slowly through personal observation, is that people love conspiracy theories. They love to think that despite all odds a well-respected, powerful and significant institution may indeed have misled the general populace, and that an alternative situation is actually the preferred option. Politics, law and culture are and have in the past been susceptible to this, and religion is certainly not exempt. And whilst it may be highly amusing to take an intellectual stab in the dark by conducting a sociological analysis into the appeal of conspiracy theories, that is not the purpose of this article.

Rather, I am here to try and address this issue- has the Bible in its current state been repeatedly added to over the centuries, from a simplistic account of multiple events to its now more complex version? A conspiracy theory this is indeed, believe it or not, for the official Church position and the position that the Bible itself takes is that it is an account (where appropriate) of historical fact, however it is presented to us, be it in a biographical narrative such as the Gospels or an Epistle. That historical fact stands as it appears- not as this question suggests an embellished form of a somewhat more simplistic event. So we have an option- either certain individuals have throughout history altered the Bible deliberately but still told us it is fact, or they didn’t. Which is it?

Of course, this would have to be an issue that I can’t address in too much depth due to my lack of qualification, wouldn’t it? One day, people, one day! However, I can at least summarise scholarly responses to such a question and then refer you to sources that can indeed provide you with a proper and satisfactory answer.

Well, I guess the first thing to say echoes what I said a couple of paragraphs above- people do indeed love conspiracy theories, but what I’m going to argue here is that Bible does not adhere to such an infatuation. Indeed, at this point I would like to note that if one likes to don one’s “I love Dan Brown” T-shirt and shout “Beurocratic deceiver!” at a local law enforcer, then great you do that (it’s arrestyriffic!), but leave the rest of us to our sanity.

Do we have any helpful examples that may allow us to illustrate this how the Bible does not adhere to the rule of the Chinese Whisper? Well, since I am a teenager with my finger on the cultural button (*cough…* ) , perhaps I should give the example of the recent film ‘King Arthur’? Being British myself, I think it would be rather fitting. Now, leaving aside comments about filmic virtues (or lack thereof) and general Blighty grumbles about it ‘massacring a tradition’ for the time being, this film still presents us with a good example. The fact is that in the tradition of King Arthur, we have very shady origins, and no unified tradition. Indeed, in the popular myth, he could have been French, he could have been British. He may have had a Round Table, he may not have. He may have had Merlin as a wizard of whatever sort by his side, he may not have. There is no one tradition that we can call definitive as there are constantly conflicting traditions that tell different stories. As such, the researchers for the modern film have repeatedly told us that they had great difficulty in finding the ‘true Arthur’ and they eventually have come up with someone who is not British, but rather is Russian, who was not a King from the Dark Ages, but rather a military commander from the late 5^th Century, who did not have Merlin, and did not have a round table so to speak. Now, whether or not they hit the nail on the historical head here is not the issue- rather, it is significant to note conflicting traditions that have no identifiable origins in this obvious myth.

Can the same be said of the Bible, and, in particular, the Gospels? Hmm. Well, to put it bluntly, not at all. No genuine scholar I have seen has ever stepped out and stated that the ‘traditions’ we have of Jesus (and by that I mean that He was seen as the Messiah, the Son of the Living God, a healer, a teacher etc) were developed after conflicting traditions arose, but rather well before. In the Gospels, Acts and the Epistles, we have confirmations of such titles in relation to Yeshua, and this is where we have difference number (1)- there is an obvious origin that is identifiable very early to the lifetime of Jesus. Difference number (2) requires a bit of explaining- conflicting images of Christ did not arise until the mid to late 2^nd Century AD, around 100 years after the original unified traditions arose. These came in the form of Gnosticism and the now infamous ‘Gospel of Thomas’ and Arianism, a foundational form of the Jehovah’s Witnesses that emphasised Christ’s humanity to the detriment of His divinity. All of which were considered heretical and therefore false by the early Church. To cut a long story short, unlike in the King Arthur myths, conflicting traditions about Christ began to conflict with one another long after the original, orthodox traditions had been established, thus giving us a boost of confidence in the latter.

But, it’s one thing acknowledging that the earliest tradition was one of Orthodoxy, but we still have the tricky subject of discussing whether or not the Biblical records have actually changed in any way throughout the centuries. Because, let’s face it, for it all to be one big, unified Chinese Whisper requires a rather long process of addition and embellishment. It can’t happen within 50 or 100 years of the actual event as it would have been corrected by those who still remain faithful to the original message, thus any embellishment must have occurred subsequent to that 100 years mark. And if that's the case, it means that it most likely would have been noticeable in one form or another. So, is it? Is there any beef in such an accusation?

Again, I’ll be blunt- no there is not. Here is where things get tricky, however, because the Bible is obviously not just one document, it is rather a large library of documents that took several thousand years to collect together. We must also try to differentiate between Old and New Testament, which only confuses the issue somewhat more! So, what’s the deal?

As for the Old Testament, it is clear that the process of copying via scribes is taken very seriously indeed, and any embellishment is not even thought of. There is one unified, early tradition, and it has been kept to, strictly, for millennia. In the late 1940’s, the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered in pots by a Shepherd boy if I am not mistaken. These contain writings by the early Essenes, a Jewish sect, and this included some of the Old Testament. This was incredibly significant to Biblical Scholars as the earliest OT manuscripts they had were dated to 1000 years after the DSS. So, in this time, had there been an altering of the message? No, not at all- but, to add onto the astonishment of many, the spelling mistakes and other minor errors were incredibly sparse only proving further the Jewish scribe’s dedication to their Holy Books. To illustrate this dedication for you, I’m going to quote something from Leslie Badham’s “Verdict on Jesus” that shows just how seriously this was all taken.

Badham cites Davidson’s “The Old Testament” when he says, “No word, letter, or even accent was to be set down without checking from the codex. Should a king address a scribe while he was writing the divine name, the scribe must ignore him.” Badham himself then proceeds to talk about the DSS- “Old Testament texts discovered among the Dead Sea Scrolls witness to the care with which such rules were obeyed, for here we have copies of Old Testament writings that are a thousand years older than any previously known, and they correspond with remarkable fidelity to the later manuscripts, establishing how faithful was the transmission of the Holy Word when checked for variations over a thousand years”.

So we can see that the Old Testament texts have been shown to be safe from embellishment, but what about the New, and in particular the Gospels?  Well, it is a common claim that the Gospels are 99% textually accurate, i.e. compared to the New Testament we have now the oldest manuscripts are textually identical in all but 1% or even according to some sources 0.5% of places, thus negating any form of embellishment of any sort. However, I have seen the question asked on many a sceptical website (quite rightly, albeit overly frequent) “Ok, that’s great, but of the 100,000 manuscripts we have, not one of them agrees, is that not correct?” Shock horror to some, but that is true. Is that a problem? NO. Why? Because of what those differences are, and how frequently they occur in each manuscript.

Now to illustrate my point I’m going to have to use a book that not every sceptic likes to hear. It’s a book that I’ve used before on this site, but I’m becoming more and more aware of how sceptics don’t appreciate it (no, not the Bible…). It is infact Lee Strobel’s “The Case for Christ”. Now now, fellers don’t foam at the mouth. I’ve not even used it yet… erm, you’re…dribbling…*cough*. Now that you’re erm, ‘done’, I hasten to add that the person I am going to quote is a respected Biblical Scholar, Bruce Metzger PH.D., and the things he talks of have been repeated by a substantial number of other Biblical scholars. You can all calm down now.

On the high number of variants often listed by sceptical sources, he says, “The number [in this case, one of Strobel’s examples, two hundred thousand] sounds big, but it’s a bit misleading because of the way variants are counted... [Note- now Strobel is talking] He [Metzger] explained that if a single word is misspelled in two thousand manuscripts, that’s counted as two thousand variants”. So that may explain the high number of variants, but what of the variants themselves? On this, we can say that they are most often spelling or grammatical errors, and Metzger adds, “The more significant variations do not overthrow any doctrine of the Church”.

Can we draw any conclusions from this short summary of a somewhat vast topic? Well, several-

a)       In both the Old and New Testaments, there is a distinguishable and unified tradition that is not conflicted with, not until at least a century after the original message’s conception.

b)       The transmission of both Testaments has been remarkable in the face of scrutiny, and can thoroughly be trusted.

c)       No embellishment or change in content can be identified, and where variations are present it is actually a case of insignificant errors that do not hold any weight for Church doctrine.

d)       As a result of all this, we can safely say that there are no identifiable intermediary forms available to us.

Some of the Christians reading this may be all too familiar with the Chinese Whisper claim. It’s something I’ve come across regularly, and I get rather tired of explaining why the theory just doesn’t work. But, be this as it may, we as Christians can still be pleased that, for now at least, the Chinese Whisper theory just does not and cannot fit the jigsaw.

This is undoubtedly good news for a follower of the Word of God. However, as I said before, I am not qualified in this area. This is only a short summary of the themes, and a few themes (such as dates, authorship and the so-called ‘Q’ Gospel) I have deliberately left out for this reason. To see an introduction or indeed a discussion of said themes, I suggest you look at the following links-

• http://www.tektonics.org/tekton_05_02_02.html
• http://www.tektonics.org/tekton_02_02_01.html
• http://www.christian-thinktank.com/rome.html
• http://theologicallycorrect.com/studycenter/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=34
• http://www.tektonics.org/tekton_02_02_02.html
• http://www.christian-thinktank.com/mq1.html
• http://www.christian-thinktank.com/stil09.html 
• http://www.tektonics.org/tekton_02_02_04.html (Note- this is about the 'Q' Gospel theory).

Nathan Paylor

Revised- 11th September, 2004.

This is, as the title infers, an 'advanced' entry into Teen Apologetics. It is also my first entry on this site for a while now - it is sourced from a forum debate I did not too long ago, and edited so that it makes sense! I hope that you benefit from it- stick with it, if you find it hard to read or don't understand it, feel free to e-mail me at nathanpaylor@hotmail.com.

1) The texts have historical integrity: Integrity deals with the texts themselves, their faithfulness of transmission, their number etc. It is a standard test of historical reliability especially when dealing with ancient records. Let us first begin with a contrast [2]. For Caesar's "Gallic War", composed between 58 and 50 BC, we have several extant MSS (manuscripts) of which only a few are of a decent quality. Even then, the oldest we have are dated some 900 years after the text's original composition. Moving to Tacitus, this historian who you (rightly) regard as reputable, writing in C. 100 AD, of his fourteen "Histories", only four and a half survive. Of the sixteen books in his "Annals" ten survive in full and two partially. Of the major works we depend entirely on two MSS, one dated to the 9th and one to the 11th, and of his minor works we depend on a codex from the 10th. Similarly, for the history of Thucydides (5th Cent BC) we depend entirely on several papyrus scraps from the beginning of the Christian era but mainly on texts from the 10th Cent AD, and the same is true for the works of Herodotus.

For the New Testament, however, we have since 1976 had at our disposal a total of 5,700 Greek manuscripts [3]. Remembering that the Gospels were written between 50AD to 90AD, it makes the contrast remarkable. Of the 5,700 MSS, 88 are known fragments (the earliest of which date to approximately 125 AD, the John Rylands Fragment). Included in this is the Chester Beatty Papyri which contains much of our NT and dates to around 200 AD. Next we have MSS written in uncial, a formal Gk script - these number 274 MSS and date between the 4th to the 10th Cents, and they include the Codex Vatanicus (approx 350AD) which contains most of the Bible. Less formal are the miniscule texts, which number 2,795 and date to the 9th to 15th Cents. And then we have Greek lectionaries, Church service books, and these date from the 9th Cent and number 2209. To add onto this we have 8000 copies of the Latin Vulgate translation, dating to the 4th to early 5th Cent [4].

What am I saying here in terms of NT integrity? (1) We happily accept the textual attestation and textual reliability of texts from other parts of Ancient History, and from other Ancient Historians. We do so rightly. There is no reason to throw the baby out with the bathwater. But we have seen that from a textual point of view, the NT fares much better than these ancient histories. And if we are to be fair in principle and practice, the discipline of textual criticism should not suddenly give the NT 'special treatment', be it negative or positive [5] And (2) The sheer number of NT MSS allows us to establish with great clarity and closehood the message of the original MSS. As Neill and Wright conclude,

"Anyone who reads the NT in any one of a half a dozen recent Greek editions, or in any modern translation, can feel confident that, although there may be uncertainties in detail, in almost everything of importance he is close indeed to the text of the NT books as they were originally written" [6]

And again,

The student of the history of Jesus is, from the point of view of textual criticism, on vastly safer ground than the student of the life of Julius Caesar or indeed of any other figure of ancient history. [7]

2) The texts have veracity: In other words, not only are the NT documents remarkable in terms of the time gap between the dating of the original MSS and the extant MSS, but also they are remarkable in terms of the time gap between the dating of the events in hand and the original MSS. Here is where we get into two matters of concern.

-- (A) The Gospels - Now, this is where the split between the liberal and conservative camps becomes most evident. Nevertheless, it is clear that the Gospels were written before 100AD, and we know this from citing Post-Apostolic Church Fathers who quoted the Gospels in their works [8]. Since we know when these figures were writing, we can begin to bracket off the dating of the Gospels. So, for example, Polycarp, Ignatius and Clement mention (cumulatively, but mostly individually) the canonical four. Clement is the earliest, 96 AD. So then, the Gospels must have been in circulation before this point. As for the reasons for dating them earlier, one must look at how the texts do not mention the destruction of Jerusalem in 70AD. This lack of mention is incredibly 'odd' if not damning for later dating, for the NT directly deals with eschatological issues, such as the parousia, and the destroying of God's temple would have undoubtedly been interpreted as eschatologically significant and would have been included. But it is not included. We then look at the order of each text, which was written first etc.

If we are sensible and uphold early tradition, affirming the apostolic authorship, then the Gospel of Luke must have been written before Acts as in Acts 1 Luke refers to his 'former' book recording the doings of Christ. Again, Acts must be dated before 70AD for its lack of mention of the destruction of Jerusalem, so therefore Luke must be dated before this. Matthew must be dated before or around the same time as Luke. And if modern theory is correct, and Mark has priority, then Mark must be written before that. Now it's important to remember the Q hypothesis (which we'll come to later). If indeed the Synoptics did use Q, and individually Matthew used M and Luke used L, then we must date the contents of the texts, the traditions, even earlier. Once this has been achieved, we can safely say that the texts and the traditions therein can be dated earlier to the events they record than most other ancient texts, and are suitably early enough for us to affirm their veracity.

-- (B) Oral Culture - But that's not all we need to talk about. Lest anyone whine about the dates as they stand, I would hasten to add that 1st Century ANE was a thoroughly oral environment. It was Plato who called writing "the third hand from the mouth". Ambrose, the mentor of St. Augustine, remarked at his mentor's ability to read whilst barely moving his lips! This is a culture of oral saturation, of oral memory that greatly excels our own, of oral tradition that we can, do and should rely on. In this culture then, we have the NT and the traditions therein - the importance of their leader's teachings bothered this group of (relatively economically deprived) individuals so much that they wrote them down within years, a few decades at most. This is remarkable given the social-scientific context, and only adds to the NT's veracity and yes, historical integrity. In the words of Professor D. Nineham, "Our basic picture of Christ is carried back to a point only a quarter of a century or so after His death; and when we bear in mind the wonderfully retentive memory of the Oriental it will not seem surprising that we can be virtually sure that what the tradition is offering us are the authentic deeds, and especially the authentic words of the historic Jesus" [9].

-- (C) The Traditions of the Epistles - Paul more than likely wrote earlier than the Gospels, but in his works we find a Jesus not different to that of the Gospels' but one who is completely the same. Jesus' life was miraculous, He issued the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, He taught, He died, was buried and rose again. If indeed the veracity of the Gospel's was in doubt, and the time between the events and their writing was too long and led to legendary development, we would expect this 'chronological go-between' that is Paul to differ in tradition. To the contrary, he upholds exactly what the Gospels say of Christ, and even alludes to earlier tradition (1 Cor 15), dating these Gospel sound traditions back even further.

What am I saying then of the NT's veracity? I'm saying that the time between the events taking place and the writing of the NT was miniscule given (a) how early we can date the texts, (b) the oral culture of the time and how it would have prevented any major literary embarkment such as the NT, and (c) we can see from the earliest 'go-between' that are the Pauline epistles that the traditions found in the NT about Christ are not legendary developments but rather completely in touch with earlier sources. As far as the veracity of the NT is concerned, then, it appears to pass this historical test of reliability as well.

To conclude these two major tests of historical reliability, I quote Sir Frederick Kenyon:

"The interval then between the dates of the original composition and the earliest extant evidence becomes so small as to be in fact negligible, and the last foundation for any doubt that the Scriptures have come down to us substantially as they were written has now been removed. Both the authenticity and general integrity of the books of the NT may be regarded as finally established." [10]

3) External Support and Cultural-Religious Consistency: This covers various topics, such as Archaeology and Social-Scientific studies. I'll be brief here, for the subject is out of my speciality, but hopefully the few references cite and the few examples I give will be enough to 'set the scene'. Various elements are included here. So, for example, discoveries of inscriptions mentioning figures alluded to in Acts, in the Gospels and so on (such as the finding of an inscription of Erastus [cf. Rom 16:23]), or the discovery of places or geographical pecularities (such as Tarsus, or the pool of Bethesda), would count as external, archaeological support mechanisms for the NT's historicity [11] [12] [13]. Moreover, as I said elswhere on the thread, the NT is consistent and familiar both with the religious traditions and practices of Jesus' very particular invasion into history, but also with His environment's very particular honour-shame, dyadic culture [14].

What, then, am I saying of the NT's consistency with its surroundings? I'm saying that not only does the NT write using terms, concepts, practices and traditions found at Jesus' very particular moment in history, but it also writes as one familiar with them all. This is not a text written long after the event. This is not a text written by a stranger. In other words, the NT passes the historical text of being non-anachronistic in terms of culture, contemporary religion and social values. It fits perfectly in place.

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This is a (brief!) summary of why I trust the NT as reliable. It is not menat to be the 'be all and end all'. Note also that I do not propose these as individually sufficient in establishing historical reliability. Rather, I propose that we take all of these into account at once. Then, I ask you to gather all the objectivity you can muster, and ask yourself, if this was not a religious text would you be flying from the historical rooftops saying that these documents are at least credible, if not historically reliable to the best knowledge we have?

That, I propose, is the most appropriate conclusion given all the data above.

On an aside, I would like to add something that I feel will be relevant for many readers who are Christian and yet would class themselves as 'Young' (you're as old as you feel, of course!) Let's, for now, assume that I've got it right in what I said above, the NT as a historical document is actually pretty credible, reliable, however you want to phrase it.

When someone tells you, then, that the NT is so biased that we can't trust it, what should be our response? We should say that if they mean 'biased' in terms of having underlying values, a message and a will to promote them, then yes it does. That is not a problem, however - all texts of history, all texts full stop, have a 'bias' in this sense. In fact, we all have a bias in whatever we do. The more useful question, then, is to ask "Is the NT reliable as a text?" From what I said above, I conclude yes.

Perhaps when someone insists that the Bible is on its own, with very little historical 'evidence', you should say that whilst that is not quite true (archaeology, ancient historians such as Josephus and Tacitus and the very historical existence of Christianity whatsoever, point towards something in history happening that isn't just defined by falsehoods and myths - call it the 'Christian Bang'), it wouldn't be a problem even if it was. The NT isn't one big document, it's 27 individual documents. Indeed, only by forcing them to be 'a-historical' (i.e. placing them in a historical vacuum, where they didn't interact with history at all) can you suggest that they can't be in some way accepted as documentation for what they describe. So then, you have four Gospels, you have the multiple letters of Paul, and you have the several epistles (and of course the apocalyptic stuff, e.g. Revelation), all testifying to the historical phenomenon that was Jesus. Unless you force these texts to be something they're not (e.g. maliciously misleading texts of dubious historical origin - something, as we've seen, that is not true) you cannot say "the Bible is all there is". Quite simply, it wouldn't matter if it was, for the NT documents (plural) are good enough as historical texts.

And that, is that. I hope it helps. Remember to e-mail or add me on MSN if you are confused about any particular issue, word, concept and so on.

God bless!

Nathan P.

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References

[1] - I will be using some of the criteria provided by Groothuis, D. (1996). "Jesus in an Age of Controversy", Kingsway Publications, UK, pp. 38-63.

[2] - Bruce, F.F. (1981). "The New Testament Documents: Are they Reliable?", Eerdmans UK, p. 11.

[3] - For a detailed and scholarly overview of the MSS, their history and usage, I suggest the following. Ehrman, B.D. + Metzger, B.M. (2005). "The Text of the New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption and Restoration", Oxford University Press UK, pp. 52-134.

[4] - Same as [1], pp. 38-39.

[5] - Holding, J.P. (Date Unknown). "Textual Reliability of the New Testament", retrieved from the World Wide Web on 12th August 2006.

[6] - Neill, S. + Wright, N.T. (1988). "The Interpretation of the New Testament 1891-1986", Oxford University Press, UK, p. 88. As cited in [1], p. 41.

[7] - France, R.T. (1986). "The Evidence for Jesus", IVP, USA, p. 137.

[8] - Same as [1], p. 42.

[9] - Nineham, D. As quoted in Badham, L. (1995). "Verdict on Jesus: A New Statement of Evidence", Ikon Publishers UK, p. 85.

[10] - Kenyon, F. (1940). "The Bible and Archaeology", as cited in [2], p. 15.

[11] - Same as [2], pp. 94-101.

[12] - Same as [1], pp. 50-52.

[13] - For more on the subject generally, I suggest the Biblical Archaeological Society Website.

[14] - For more on this, I suggest works by Richard Rohrbaugh, John Pilch, Philip Esler, David deSilva, and Bruce Malina - them and others are known as the 'Context Group'. A good starting place would be Malina & Pilch's "Handbook of Biblical Social Values" and Malina's "The New Testament World: Insights from Cultural Anthropology". I believe Fortress Press, USA, publish both texts.