ARE THE BIBLICAL SCRIPTURES RELIABLE?
PART ONE
Most Christians believe the Biblical Scriptures are inspired by an infallible God and are therefore inerrant in their original autographs. To be infallible means to be incapable of error and to be inerrant means to be without error. Many Christians tend to believe our present canon of scripture is what has always been and never examine exactly how this particular grouping of writings came to be.
In recent years many books have been written by Christian theologians and church historians who have raised questions as to the reliability of the Biblical Scriptures. The Scriptures have been questioned as to whether they provide us with an accurate and authentic portrait of Jesus and the early development of the Christian Church.
This questioning of Scriptural reliability largely began with what is generally referred to as the “age of enlightenment” which began during the nineteenth century and led to a protocol for examining the Scriptures called “higher textual criticism.” Higher textual criticism is a process whereby the Scriptures are carefully examined as to there origins and whether such origins are trustworthy. While some Christians question the need for such examination, many Christian historians and theologians welcome such inspection of the Biblical Scriptures and believe it to be a necessary step in establishing their validity and reliability.
A second factor that has impacted the way the Bible is looked at are the archaeological finds of the twentieth century. In 1945 over 50 documents were discovered at Nag Hammadi Egypt. These documents revealed a variety of Christian beliefs and practices from the second century onward that in some cases are quite different from beliefs and practices we commonly associate with Christianity today. The Dead Sea Scrolls discovered in 1947 gave additional insights into the diversity of belief and practice extant in the Judaism of Christ’s day.
In recent years many books have been written challenging the traditional way the events recorded in Scripture are to be understood. Some books, such as the Da Vinci Code, are largely fiction and yet have been read by multiple millions of people. Books such as these have had an impact on how some now view Christ and the events associated with Christ in the New Testament (NT). While the Da Vinci Code and books like it have been shown to be lacking in verifiable information, other books, often written by prominent Biblical scholars, have created quite a stir in the Christian community.
In November of 2005, well known church historian Bart Ehrman published a book entitled Misquoting Jesus. This book became a best seller and has been read by millions. Ehrman’s argument is that the copies of the NT Greek text used to translate the NT into English and other languages are copies of copies of copies. Since we have no original texts of the NT, how can it be said that what we do have is inerrant writing? How can we be sure what the original texts actually said? Ehrman claims there are a massive number of differences in the wording of the Greek manuscripts, especially among the oldest documents. To Ehrman this means the texts have not been carefully copied. If the texts have not been carefully copied how can we know what the original texts actually said? He further claims that orthodox scribes over the centuries have altered the text of the NT to reflect the orthodoxy of their day as opposed to remaining true to the meaning contained in the texts they were copying. This, it is believed, makes it even more difficult to ascertain what the original authors of Biblical texts actually wrote.
Now Ehrman is a very credible scholar as opposed to someone like Dan Brown who wrote the Da Vinci Code. Ehrman is considered one of the top textual critics in the field of Biblical studies. So we can’t just brush him off as some oddball writing a bunch of nonsense. So what are we to make of his claims? Are his claims legitimate? Should we be concerned with what he says about the documents that make up what we call the Bible? Many have come to question the veracity of the Scriptures after reading His materials and the works of others like him. Many modern day scholars distinguish between what they see as the historical Jesus versus the Jesus of faith. The implication is that the historical Jesus is identified on the basis of critical historical investigation while the Jesus of faith is a manufactured Jesus, a Jesus the Church invented as the years went by.
Is there a difference between the historical Jesus and the Jesus of Faith? Many scholars seem to think so and they think so for a variety of reasons. Are their reasons legitimate? Is there validity to their claims? Since their claims are having an increasing impact on the Christian community, it is important and necessary we examine their claims.
So let’s use Ehrman’s claims as a springboard for an examination of the reliability of the Biblical Scriptures. Let us treat Bart Ehrman’s claims as a challenge to faith in the reliability of the Biblical Scriptures because that is exactly what his claims are doing. They are creating a challenge to the traditional way in which the Scriptures are viewed within the Christian community.
Ehrman, as is true of some other theologians who have produced material critical of the NT documents, has a rather interesting background. He converted to fundamentalist Christianity as a teenager. He attended the very conservative Moody Bible Institute in Chicago for several years and then went to Wheaton College and Wheaton College Graduate School where he earned degrees in NT. He later completed his Master’s of Divinity and Ph.d degrees at Princeton Theological Seminary under the direction of Bruce Metzger, a well respected NT textual critic and Christian apologist. Ehrman began as a conservative Evangelical Christian but, after years of study and research, has become an agnostic because of what he feels are serious problems with the NT text.
In this series of essays, we will examine the evidence for the reliability of the Biblical Scriptures. We will study the issue of when these Scriptures were written. We will discuss the canonization process to show how the Bible, as we know it, came to be. We will look at what are called extracanonical documents and determine whether they have things to tell us about the Christ event that are not found in the canonical Scriptures. We will explore the methodologies used by the authors of scripture. We will look at the concepts of Biblical inerrancy and address the issue of Divine inspiration.
Fundamentalist Christians will sometimes say that if you can show me one mistake in the Bible I will throw the Bible in the waste basket because it can’t be the word of God. It is this very approach to the Scriptures that has destroyed people’s faith because when they do discover inconsistencies or outright contradictions in Scripture they conclude the Scriptures as a whole can’t be trusted. This is a most unfortunate approach to a study of the Biblical Scriptures or any other documents for that matter. This is not the approach we should take to determining the viability of the Christian message.
The truth of the Christian message is not dependent on whether or not the Bible is inerrant or on whether or not we can harmonize the four Gospels or on whether or not the accounts of events recorded in Scripture are all internally consistent. The truth of the Christian message is not dependent on proof that no mistake can be found in Scriptures. The truth of the Christian message rests on determining whether there is evidence beyond reasonable doubt that the Christ event happened as described in the Scriptures and that the Bible as a whole is generally reliable as to what it reports. So let’s begin our journey.
What is the Bible? The word Bible simply means books. The Bible is a collection of documents consisting of histories, poetry, prophetic and wisdom literature, letters, gospels and other forms of communication. A wide variety of authors and writing styles are represented in the Bible. As Ehrman says, no original manuscripts exist. What we have are copies of copies that have come down to us through the centuries.
The Bible is different from other literature in that many believe it to be the actual word of God. Even though the documents represented in the Bible were written by human authors, it is largely believed that these authors were in some way led by God to write what they wrote. It is therefore believed that God is the real author of Biblical Scripture and its human authors were simply scribes responding to the leading of God’s Spirit. It is because of this belief that many view the Scriptures as inerrant documents written by infallible authors who made no mistakes because God was behind every stroke of their pen.
It is interesting to note that no Biblical author claims infallibility or that what they wrote is inerrant. You will not find such claims anywhere in Scripture. What you will find is some authors of Biblical documents directly quoting God in their writings and if such quotes were written down accurately, we would have inerrant statements since God is infallible. Most Biblical Scriptures do not contain direct quotes from God. Therefore, the question that must be asked and answered is simply this: When writers of Biblical scripture wrote what they wrote, and they were not directly quoting God, was what they wrote still in some manner directed by God to the point that it is inerrant writing?
Most modern day Christian scholars believe the Biblical writings simply reflect the author’s personal response to oral and written information and personally experienced events? It is believed their writings reflect their personal perspectives and were conditioned by their personal, cultural, social, political, and religious beliefs? In fact even where Scriptural authors purport to directly quote God, it is believed such authors are filtering what they say through their own personal, cultural, political and religious perceptions.
For example, when Paul wrote his letters to the Christians at Corinth, he was often writing them about issues pertinent to them at the time and offering various solutions to what he perceived as problems that needed to be addressed. Was God managing Paul’s thoughts to insure that what he wrote the Corinthians was inerrant/infallible truth? Or was Paul simply expressing his own understanding of God’s will but not necessarily expressing a thought for thought reflection of Gods mind and therefore not necessarily making inerrant or infallible statements.
It is believed by some that the Gospels included in our canon of Scripture were written many years after the death of Christ and this resulted in the development of a certain amount of legend about Him, including what some consider the myth of His virgin birth and His resurrection from the dead. There has been a lot of print about this in recent years.
Is there reason to believe the stated authors of the Gospels were the actual authors and not just names used by later writers to make the information appear creditable? If it can be shown that the Gospels and letters that comprise the NT narrative were indeed written by the designated authors, is there reason to believe what they wrote is truthful? Is there reliable information outside the Biblical record that can substantiate the Christ event?
DATING THE NEW TESTAMENT DOCUMENTS:
Most Scriptural historians and theologians believe the four Gospels were written somewhere between 70 and 100 A.D. It is believed Matthew was written between 80 and 100 A.D., Luke between 70 and 90 A.D., John between 90 and 100 and Mark around 70 A.D. Therefore, Mark is considered to be the first Gospel written and it is believed Matthew and Luke bowered from Mark and from a source called Q. The letters of Paul are believed to have been written in the 50’s A.D. and therefore are the earliest written documents in the NT cannon of Scripture.
The word canon simply means a group of writings determined by some individual or group of individuals to be authentic, definitive and authoritative. In the case of the Old Testament (OT), this was not completely accomplished until early in the second century BC. In the case of the NT, the canon, as we see it today, wasn’t established until the fourth century A.D. We will discuss the canonization process later.
In additional to the documents presently included in our NT canon, Church history reveals there were a number of so-called apocryphal or extra-canonical documents written in the latter part of the first century and well into the second and third centuries. Apocrypha is an “umbrella” term used to describe a multitude of non-canonical writings that purport to provide information pertaining to the Christ event. Non-canonical or extra-canonical writings are writings that did not become part of the set of documents that were ultimately determined to be worthy of inclusion in what we today call the Bible.
These extra- canonical writings were given names of well-known, exemplary persons who had been in close association with Christ. The names of Peter, Thomas, James, Phillip and Mary are among the pseudo names used to give authority to the apocryphal writings. You may have heard of the Gospel of Thomas. This is considered by most scholars as an apocryphal gospel although some scholars believe it is from the middle of the first century and was actually written by Apostle Thomas and does not bear a pseudo name. We will take a look at the Gospel of Thomas later in this series. There recently was much to do about a document called the gospel of Judas.
A pseudo name is a name given to a document which is different than the actual name of the person who wrote the document. Some pseudo names are simply substitute names assigned to a document be the person who actually wrote the document. Sometimes authors of books don’t want to reveal who they are so they will use a pseudo name. For example the English novelist Mary Ann Evans use the pseudo name George Elliot. Mark Twain, who wrote Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, was really Samuel Clemens. Mark Twain was his pen name.
Another way pseudo names are used is when an author uses the name of a famous person in place of their own name in an effort to give credibility to what they wrote. The document is then passed off as being actually written by the well known person when in actuality such person had nothing to do with the document. This way of using a pseudo name is called pseudepigrapha, a term used to ascribe authorship of a document to a well known person as though that person actually wrote the document.
It appears that most, if not all, extra-canonical documents such as the gospel of Peter, the gospel of Mary, and other such documents, where written in this manner. These documents are all purported to have been written by individuals associated with Christ and yet they are documents that have been shown to have been written many years after the death of these associates of Christ. Because pseudepigrapha writings were produced many years after the Christ event by writers willing to use names of prominent people in an attempt to give creditability to what they wrote, the integrity of what they wrote is suspect.
On the other hand, it is argued that Mark, who was a disciple of Peter, and Luke, who was a disciple of Paul, are the actual authors of the Gospels named after them. This conclusion is based on the fact these men were not apostles or close associates of Jesus. Therefore, their names would not have had the level of authority or creditability requisite for being used as pseudo names applied to later documents. Therefore, it can be reasonably argued these men are the actual authors of the narratives that bear their names and their authorship can be traced to the first century as they were known to be associates of Peter and Paul. It is also argued that if they were indeed the authors, their material would have been written close to the events associated with Christ. Therefore, their narrative could be considered a reflection of eyewitness accounts of the Christ events as gathered from oral sources or other written material. If indeed their material was written at an early first century date, it is felt that there would not have been enough time for legend to develop regarding Jesus.
It is more difficult, however, to apply this same methodology to Matthew and John who where close associates of Christ. Some feel that because Matthew was a tax collector, and therefore held in low esteem, his name would not be used as pseudepigrapha even though he was a disciple of Jesus. Therefore, it is believed he is the actual author of the Gospel of Matthew and not that Matthew was written much later by someone else who used the name Matthew to give creditability to this document. There is, however, an apocryphal writing from the forth century called The Gospel of the Birth of Mary, which is purported to have been written by Matthew. Here somebody wrote a document several hundred years after the Christ event and used Matthew’s name as a pseudo name. So the idea that Matthew’s name would not be used as pseudepigrapha because he was a tax collector is somewhat problematical.
The Gospel of John is named after someone who was probably the closest disciple of Jesus. Some scholars believe this Gospel was written after John died and his name was attached to the document to give it credibility. This matter is especially important in view of the fact that John includes a lot more material about Jesus being the Son of God than the other Gospels. It is this very kind of material that some scholars feel is part of the mytholization of Christ which took place years into the development of Christian practice.
The oldest testimony to the authorship of the Gospels comes from a man named Papies who wrote around 125A.D. Papies recorded that Mark had carefully and accurately recorded Peter’s eyewitness observations. Papies also records that Matthew had preserved the teachings of Jesus as well. The testimony of Papies gives reasonable credence to a first century authorship.
The church historian Irenaeus, who wrote about 180 A.D., makes this statement: “Matthew published his own Gospel among the Hebrews in their own tongue, when Peter and Paul were preaching the Gospel in Rome and founding the church there. After their departure, Mark, the disciple and interpreter of Peter, himself, handed down to us in writing the substance of Peter’s preaching. Luke, the follower of Paul, set down in a book the Gospel preached by his teacher. Then John, the disciple of the Lord, who also leaned on His breast, himself, produced his Gospel while he was living in Ephesus in Asia.”
Papies wrote less than a hundred years after the death of Christ and only about thirty years after the death of John if John died sometime in the 90's A.D. as is believed. Irenaeus wrote about a hundred years after the death of John. Both Papies and Irenaeus give witness to the Gospels being written by the named authors and being written at an early date as Mark is seen as an associate of Peter and Luke is seen as an associate of Paul. The fact that Irenaeus could write in 180 A.D. that Mark, Matthew and John were the authors of their respective Gospels is a reasonable indicator of these men being the actual authors and therefore their work being accomplished in the first century before their deaths.
I earlier mentioned a document called Q. Biblical scholars are in general agreement that Mark was the first one to write his Gospel and that because of similarities of language and content, Matthew and Luke drew upon Marks narrative for their Gospels. In addition, some scholars believe that Matthew and Luke incorporated material from a third source called Q for the German word Quelle which means source. Q is primarily a list of sayings of Christ that appear to be similar in Matthew and Luke and therefore are thought to originate from a singular source. Since no such document as Q has ever been found, Q remains strictly a hypothesis. The existence or non-existence of Q does not affect the relative dating of the Gospels unless it could be demonstrated that the language and style of writing that hypothetically relates to Q is from a much later time than the middle of the first century. This has not been demonstrated.
So what can we conclude to this point? Most scholars believe that the letters of Paul where some of the earliest Christian documents written and that they preceded the writing of the Gospels. We have the testimony of Papies and Irenaeus, which would indicate an early authorship of the Gospels. An early authorship would place the Gospel accounts in good position as being free of fabrication, legend and falsification. How early might the Gospels have been written?
Luke wrote the book of Acts. The book ends with Paul under house arrest in Rome. We are not told what happens to Paul. Paul appears to have still been alive when Luke finished Acts. This would indicate Acts was written before Paul died which is thought to have occurred in the early sixties A.D. Since the first chapter of Acts indicates Acts is a follow-up book to the Gospel of Luke, the Gospel of Luke would have been written even earlier. If, as believed, Luke borrowed from Mark, this would place Mark earlier yet. We are therefore looking at the Gospels as having been written as early as the fifties A.D. which would be only 20 to 30 years removed from the Christ event.
There are letters written by early second century church leaders which give additional attestation to an early writing of the NT documents. Polycarp, an early second century bishop of Smyrna, wrote a letter to the church at Philippi in which he quotes a number of writings from what later became NT documents. There is extant a document written in the mid second century by Christian apologist Justin Martyr who writes as follows.
On the day called Sunday, all who live in the cities or in the country gather together to one place and the memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the prophets are read as long as time permit; then, when the reader has ceased, the president verbally instructs, and exhorts to the imitation of these good things.
Justin Martyr writes that at there Sunday gatherings, the memoirs of the Apostles are read. This indicates there were writings extant at that time that were written by the Apostles or associates of the Apostles which were circulation in the church. Also writing in the mid second century was a philosopher/theologian named Marcion who, while later declared a heretic, is credited with producing the first canon of the NT Scripture. This canon was small and only included portions of the Gospel of Luke and ten of Paul’s letters. Marcion apparently saw the Gospel of Luke as Paul’s Gospel as it was written by Paul’s companion Luke. This gives further attestation to an early writing of NT documents as such documents as used by Marcion to form his canon would have had to been around for a while to have gained the acceptance necessary for inclusion in a canon.
THE ROMAN WAR:
One first century event very few scholars consider when trying to date the NT documents is the Roman war against the Jews. The temple, along with the city of Jerusalem and much of the land of Israel, was destroyed by the Romans between 66 and 73 A.D. In reading the works of the Jewish historian Josephus (37A.D. to 100> A.D.), this was a most traumatic time for the nation of Israel with over one million being killed and 100,000 Jews taken into captivity. Yet this disaster is not mentioned in the Gospels, the book of Acts or anywhere else in the New Testament. What you instead see is a great deal of reference by NT writers to the anticipated occurrence of this event. The eschatological teachings of Christ in the Olivet Discourse, as recorded in Matthew 24, Mark 13 and Luke 21 clearly predict the destruction of the temple and the fleeing of Christians. These events were fulfilled between 66 and 73 A.D. Many statements found in the Gospels and the letters point to a soon to occur judgement upon Israel.
Throughout the NT narrative, we see the temple and Jewish worship system in existence. This was all destroyed with the Roman invasion. So what does this tell us as to when the NT documents were written? We could conclude that the NT was written many years after the war when the focus no longer would be on the war and the disruption it caused. There are non-canonical writings from the second and third centuries that don’t mention the war. However, if you are going to conclude the NT documents were written decades after the war, then they weren’t written by the designated authors of these documents as they would all be dead by that time.
All evidence, however, points to these documents being written within the first century by the authors of record and the lack of any mention of the war points to a pre-war authorship for the entire NT. The war led to a massive disruption of Jewish culture and society and would have had great impact on the developing church, especially the Jerusalem church. One would think that if the NT documents were written even within 20 to 30 years after the war, you would see reference to that event and its affect on the church. The total silence in the NT relative to the Roman invasion is evidence for these narratives having been written a number of years before the destruction of Jerusalem. It should also be noted that if you disallow the claims of the scholarly community about a post war authorship for the Gospels, it is instructive that there are virtually no Christian documents extant for the approximate period of A.D. 70 to the first part of the second century. Such silence would indicate a significant disruption in the Christian community as a result of the war.
While the NT is silent about the actual Roman invasion and subsequent destruction of the temple and Jerusalem, the Scriptures are not silent regarding the anticipation of this event. I have already referenced the Olivet prophecy given by Christ. The prophecy given to John as recorded in the Revelation provides a great deal of symbolism relative to a coming catastrophic event. While many Christians see the Revelation as predictive of events future to us, a growing number of theologians have come to see the Revelation as predictive of the Roman war of 66 to 73 A.D. If the Revelation is dealing with the Roman/Jewish war, this would provide additional evidence for a pre 66 A.D. writing of the NT narrative.
The overall evidence would indicate a pre- 66 A.D. dating of the NT narrative with the Gospels and Acts written within 30 to 40 years after the Christ event and the letters of Paul written even earlier. Such early dating of the NT documents provides us with assurances that the time between the events and the reporting of events was very short and therefore what we read reflects a high level of accuracy. Such early dating also gives us every reason to believe the named authors of the NT documents are the actual authors and not pseudepigrapha.
Having said all this, there are other documents that are not considered pseudepigrapha which were accepted as authoritative Scripture and appeared in older canons of Scripture but have been excluded from our present canon. We will discuss these documents in part two of this series.