Last week, we looked at the importance of studying background information to get a proper understanding of the New Testament.  We continue to lay the foundation of New Testament study this week with a brief look at the reliability of the text. 

Many modern people, including some Christians, have grave misgivings about the integrity of the New Testament text.  In today’s blog, we look at common objections to the New Testament’s accuracy and briefly address each one.  Keep in mind that entire textbooks have been written on this topic, so our efforts will be cursory at best.  Here are the frequent objections and their rebuttals:

Some uninformed objectors argue that the New Testament text was written long after Jesus died, so that enough passed for myths to develop. 

This is simply untrue.  Scholars are able to date all of the New Testament writings (with the possible exception of Hebrews) to the first century.  Matthew and John were disciples of Jesus. Mark was a companion of Peter, a disciple of Jesus.  Luke was a contemporary of Jesus (though, it is unlikely that he knew Him) and a travel companion of Paul.  Myths take hundreds and thousands of years to develop.  Therefore, there was insufficient time for a myth to develop, which leads to the next objection.

Since it is established that writers were first-century eyewitnesses, objectors often fallaciously paint the Gospel writers as generally unreliable.  They were either incredibly naïve, in that they wrongly believed that Jesus was supernatural or incredibly deceptive, in that they purposefully distorted the evidence to fool people.

First, it is not possible that Jesus’ followers were all naive enough to believe that He was the Son of God and was raised from the dead. Because all of the New Testament writers (excluding Luke) were Jewish, they would be the last people on earth to believe that a human could be God. Jews were known throughout antiquity for their fierce monotheism. Therefore, this is the least likely lie for which a Jew could fall.  The experience of Paul underscores this point.  He was a brilliant, fiercely zealous Pharisee trained in the law, but came to believe that Jesus was the Son of God. 

Second, the New Testament writers did not intentionally craft false accounts.  They had no motivation to do so. In fact, they all died martyr’s deaths for what they believed. If it was false, at least one of them would have recanted and admitted that it was all a lie.  Also, if they were all conspiring to write a convincing fiction, they might have left out a few rather embarrassing parts. For example, the Gospels record that the first witnesses to Jesus’ resurrection were women. In that era, women were not considered reliable witnesses, and their testimony would not be received in the Roman courts. So, in a purely made-up account, the writers would have placed reliable men at the tomb first.

Another objection is that there is no way to know that the text we have today is the same text that was originally written.  After all, no original manuscripts of any New Testament text exists.  All we have available are copies of copies.

It is true that we have no autographs (technical term for original manuscripts) available.  We do not have a parchment directly from the hand of Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, or Paul. However, we do have over 5000 manuscripts that contain various New Testaments texts.  In comparison, Homer’s Iliad is only verified by 600 manuscripts.  Yet, no one every questions the integrity of the Iliad.  The New Testament manuscripts are remarkably consistent, and reflect great care by generations of scribes.  Additionally, the church fathers of the first four centuries quoted the New Testament throughout their writings.  Even if we had no manuscripts, we could reconstruct the New Testament from their writings alone.

The final, and perhaps most common, objection to the integrity of the New Testament text is metaphysical.  Since the Enlightenment era, many people believe that miracles cannot happen because they are contrary to nature.  The Bible is full of miracles, thus cannot be accurate.

I have done all the heavy lifting to this point, so now it's your turn. How would you respond to this objection?  What about the other objections?  Do you feel more confident in the New Testament text after reading this blog?  I can’t wait to read your responses.