The Bible:
A Relic or Reliable Revelation?
(This is the text to a talk I give from time to time. It does not contain numbered endnotes but you can find a list of references used at the end. I've also broken it up into smaller sections which can be found through the links on the Bible Section page. For online reading I recommend reading the shorter sections successively. If you want a hard copy of the whole talk click on the "Click to Print" button above.)
Introduction: The Need for the Bible
General Revelation
Elsewhere, I have talked about God being the ultimate source of absolute truth and the absolute standard of morality. But how does He communicate what those truths and morals are? How do we even find out what God, Himself, is like and how to relate to Him? Fortunately, it is not all that difficult because God has taken the initiative to communicate with us. One way is through a category of communication theologians call General Revelation. God has revealed some truths in a general way so that everyone can see them. We can learn quite a bit about what God is like by just looking at nature and thinking logically.
For example, we look at nature and reason that there must be a Creator who is self-existent, eternal, transcendent (meaning not part of His creation), all powerful, and infinite. Paul sums it up in Romans 1:20 when he writes,
For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.
God's personal attributes can also be discovered by studying nature and thinking carefully about the implications. For example, it is obvious to us that our Creator has to be intelligent. The amazing amount of intelligent design in nature can only be explained as coming from an Intelligent Designer. Intelligence is a personal attribute. Only a personal being who is intelligent can design something. An impersonal force can not. A personal being also has emotions and values. We all have an innate knowledge that there has to be an ultimate source of personal attributes like perfect love, goodness, mercy, grace and justice that exist outside of ourselves and our cultures. Again, all of this is known as General Revelation.
Special Revelation
Nature and our powers of reasoning are limited, however, in their abilities to teach us about God, His truths and moral standards. So God revealed more precise and personal information about Himself and His plans. This second body of revelation is known as Special Revelation. It is information that God communicated in special ways through special circumstances and special people. God revealed Himself and what He is like to real people through real events and relationships. In the process, He revealed a lot about His true answers to the ultimate questions of life, as well as His standards for moral and ethical behavior. All this occurred over a span of 40 generations covering 1500 years, which was from the time of Moses, around 1440 BC to the elder years of the apostle John, around 90 AD. Those people preserved the records of God's revelations through the spoken word as well as the written word in three different languages: Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek. Approximately 40 different authors came from all walks of life including kings, peasants, philosophers, fisherman, poets, statesmen and scholars. They carefully recorded this body of literature on three different continents. They wrote in a variety of literary genres including history, poetry, law, biography, prophecy and personal correspondence.
This collection that we call the Bible is a truly unique phenomenon. One of the qualities that makes it unique is that it carries one theme and one message consistently from the beginning to the end on a variety of subjects. Now, what if we compiled the works of 40 authors from North Carolina concerning just one subject? They would come from different literary genres, time periods and walks of life. They would be written by explorers, slaves, aristocratic plantation owners, fishermen, Indians, college students and so on. They would be written in the various languages and dialects of those people in different geographical and economic contexts over the past 300 years. What do you think are the chances that they would all agree on much of anything? By contrast, the biblical authors agree on everything. They wrote with consistency of theology and without real contradictions. When we look into the alleged contradictions in the Bible we discover that most of them are easily reconciled and relatively few important ones are left open to debate. And there are good theories to reconcile those few as well. I'll go into more detail about this in a few minutes. The uniqueness of the Bible alone speaks loudly for its authenticity as God's Special Revelation of truth to mankind.
The Nature of Inspiration
Now, that revelation had to be communicated by God in some way to those who received it. We say the authors were "inspired" as they wrote it down. The word inspiration literally means "to breathe into." The Bible claims for itself a special kind of inspiration. Timothy used this word to describe the divine inspiration of Scripture when he wrote, "All Scripture is God-breathed." (2 Tim 3:16) I'm going to give you a concise definition of the biblical doctrine of inspiration I learned in seminary:
- God superintended human authors so that
- using their own individual personalities
- they composed and recorded without error His revelation to man
- in the words of the orinigal autographs.
Let's unpack this so we know what it means and what it doesn't mean.
First, God didn't take the author's hand and make it write like a puppet or robotic hand. God didn't move the pen directly. Neither were the human authors secretaries who listened to God's voice and dictated every word. Very few times did God tell someone to take dictation.
Second, the human author was given truth by God, and he wrote it in his own words using his own writing style, language, educational background, vocabulary, figures of speech, customs and cultural understandings.
Even thought the whole project was very much a human process this process was supernaturally superintended by God to make sure that the human author communicated what God wanted. Liberal scholars tend to downplay the supernatural source and activity of God in this process and over emphasize the human aspects of the process. Overly conservative Christian scholars tend to downplay the human aspects too much while focusing on the supernatural aspects. These extremes are both wrong. We must see the equal importance of both the divine and human sources of the Bible. They were both understood and held in balance by the authors themselves. We must follow their example.
Third, they composed and recorded "without error." Just because God used imperfect humans to record His revelation to mankind doesn't mean they might have misunderstood or used the wrong word or introduced error in some other way. God made sure it was exactly what He wanted to communicate.
Fourth, they were without error "in the words of the original autographs." By autographs we mean the original manuscripts penned by the authors themselves. Unfortunately (at least from a human perspective), we don't have those originals. They are probably dust or ashes somewhere. So does that mean the copies we possess now aren't reliable reproductions? Not necessarily. And the rest of my talk this morning is about how we can be sure God's revelation was reliably transmitted to us today. I need to say one more thing about the claim "without errors in the original autographs." The original wording in the Hebrew or Greek documents is what was inspired. The English or other translation is not inspired. Something is always lost in the translation. Am I saying that you have to become a Hebrew and Greek scholar in order to understand the Bible? No. That's not what I'm saying. We can get, for most practical purposes, an adequate amount of the meaning through carefully studying the English translations; however, if you want to discover the richest treasures, you'll have to dig deep into the best copies we have in the Hebrew and Greek languages.
What is so exciting about the doctrine of inspiration as it applies to us is that we know that when we read Scripture we are reading what God intended to communicate to us. Timothy went on to write that Scripture has a purpose for us. It is "useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work." (2 Tim. 3:16-17)
Do you want to know what God's will is? Do you want to know the best way to live? Do you want to be ready for life's greatest challenges? Then study the Bible. It is God's revelation to you and me.
Can the Bible be a reliable transmission of God's revelation to us?
Let's move on to our claim that the Bible is a reliable transmission of God's revelation to us. You will hear teachers, professors, friends, family members and even some pastors say the Bible may be a book full of wise sayings, but it is full of errors, contradictions, inaccuracies, myths and legends. Therefore, we can't use it to get an accurate picture about what really happened. They will site the game "telephone." Who here has played the game "telephone?" How does it go? You put a group of people in a line. You say something to the first person and they are supposed to tell it to the second person who tells it to the third and so on down the line until it gets to the last person. And, of course, you remember what happens. By the time it gets to the last person it winds up being garbled gibberish that doesn't bear any resemblance to the original. In other words, the message is no longer genuine, authentic or accurate. The method used to transmit the message is not reliable.
Unfortunately, many people think this is how the Bible came about and is therefore unreliable, too. For example, they say, "Jesus was just a man, a very talented teacher who stepped on the toes of the authorities and was crucified for it. Then the followers of Jesus started telling others about Jesus' life and teachings, who then told others about Jesus' life and teachings and they went on to tell others and so on. And this oral tradition was passed on for a long time until it was finally written down. And then once it was written down it was then copied over and over. Of course, along the way people took the liberty, as in the telephone game, of changing what they heard to suit their purposes before passing it along. Perhaps they heard or read something that didn't sound very clear so they embellished it a little to try to make it more understandable for the next person. Or in an attempt to persuade, they even lied and said Jesus performed great miracles of healing people, raising them from the dead, and even rising from the dead himself. The bottom line is when we read the Bible 2000 years later we can't know what really happened. Therefore, we can only place the Bible on the same level of importance as the Hindu or Buddhist scriptures, the Koran, the Native American folk tales and The National Enquirer magazine.
But is this really how we got our Bible? Is it really just another book full of wise teachings from legendary figures? Today I will argue that we have every good reason to believe that the Bible is genuinely authentic, historically accurate and gives us an accurate picture, especially of who Jesus is. And finally, we'll talk about why it is even important. Right now, I only have time to talk about the New Testament of the Bible and I'll spend most of my time on the Gospels because they are the biographies of Jesus. But if we would apply the same principles to the rest of the Bible including the Old Testament we would see that all of the books of the Bible are accurate records of what really happened in human history even if it was a long time ago. I just want to mention one qualification. The Bible is composed of several genre's, or types, of literature, so it is vitally important to follow the rules of interpretation for each of those genre's to get the right meaning. For example, we shouldn't take the figures of speech in the Psalms literally because they weren't meant to be taken literally.
As I said, today we are going to focus on the Gospels because all of Christianity stands or falls on the accuracy of their reports about Jesus' death and resurrection. Let's find out if the Gospels are historically accurate. In other words, can and do they contain historically accurate information? To answer this question we are going to look, step by step, at the process by which we got our English Bibles. Right now I'll just summarize those steps. First, the news of the events and the teachings of Jesus were shared by word of mouth. This is called the Oral Tradition. Then, people wrote the information down to preserve it. The New Testament was written in Greek. Next, copies of the Greek manuscripts were made to disseminate that information. Finally, those copies were translated into various languages including English. In fact, it has been the most copied and translated book in the world. Now let's unpack that process and determine if each step was done reliably.
The Oral Tradition is historically accurate
First, let's clear up the misconceptions about how the information concerning Jesus' life, death and post-resurrection appearances was transmitted orally before being written down—the so called Oral Tradition. You will hear claims that the New Testament documents, like the Gospels, were written hundreds of years after Jesus died in 33 AD. The information was passed down for generations by word of mouth. And over that amount of time so many legends and myths and distortions would have developed that we can't know what really happened—like in the telephone game.
Most people don't realize that this is actually a very outdated view not held by any contemporary scholar worth their degree. All but the most radical of liberal scholars agree with conservative scholars that all the books of the NT were written before 100 AD. This means the books of the NT were written between only 30 to 70 years after Jesus' death. This is important because historians have determined this is not enough time for myths and legends to develop. It means the books of the NT were written either by eyewitnesses or by people like Luke who carefully reported eyewitness testimonies. Furthermore, this was done in the presence of other eyewitnesses who could correct them on the accuracy of their accounts. Second, we must understand the true nature of the oral tradition. This was far from the unreliable telephone game. In fact, as you know, the purpose of the game is to have fun so you have a lot of incentive to distort the message you received and pass that distortion on to the next person.
In the ancient world, however, passing information on by word of mouth was far from a game. Memorization was a major means of education. It had to be. An education that included reading and writing was only available to the wealthy minority. But that doesn't mean those without formal educations were not intelligent and informed. The Jews would memorize whole books of the OT just by listening to it being read to them. They were taught to memorize everything they heard from their teachers. They were taught to memorize it word for word and then check it for accuracy. In a world where few people could be taught to read or write, accurate memorization was important and strictly enforced.
The teachers even used special techniques to help their hearers memorize what they said. And we can see how Jesus employed many of these techniques himself. One popular means of ensuring accuracy in the passing on of information was to formalize it into creeds and songs. You know how a song helps you learn. After all a song taught you your ABCs, didn't it? We know that the apostles' claim that Jesus rose from the dead was put into creeds and songs almost immediately after Jesus' death, even before any of the gospels were written.
The third way we know the news of Jesus' resurrection was accurately passed on is that so many Christians died for what they believed was the truth. If they were not certain that the claim about Jesus' resurrection was historically accurate they would not have chosen to die for it. Since the communists took over China they have alternated between periods of tolerance and intolerance toward Christians. When they become very tolerant all kinds of cults and heretical doctrines arise which are false versions of Christianity. But as soon as the government starts to persecute Christians the false Christians denounce their beliefs while only the true and doctrinally pure Christians suffer persecution. This cycle has been repeated many times. The early Christian martyrs may not have been able to read or write like we can but they weren't dumb. They believed they were dying for the truth, not a lie or a hoax.
The Written Tradition is a reliable record
All of this shows the Oral Tradition was very reliable. Now we can move on to the next step in the transmission of God's revelation to us. We must now examine the accuracy of what was written down in the original manuscripts. Again, for sake of time I'll limit our examination to the Greek manuscripts of the Gospels. We want to find out if the events were accurately reported by the authors. Who were the authors of the Gospels anyway? You already know them: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. They were each either eyewitnesses or were reporting other people's eyewitness accounts. They would all be able to testify reliably and credibly as to what really happened. And if their testimonies agreed substantially it would make a strong case for their historical accuracy wouldn't it?
Matthew and John were disciples who lived with Jesus everyday, all day long every day for about 4 years. Believe me; they knew a lot about Jesus. So they were reliable and credible eyewitnesses and biographers. Mark was not one of the 12 disciples but he was Peter's assistant in his traveling evangelistic ministry. Mark carefully recorded Peter's eyewitness accounts of Jesus. Finally, there was Luke. Luke was a physician with a cool analytical mind that dealt with the detailed facts. As a first rate investigative reporter he was only interested in the facts ("Just the facts, ma'am, just the facts?). He took great care in getting his facts straight before he wrote his report. Scholars regard him as an excellent historian. He wrote at the beginning of his gospel,
Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us, just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word. Therefore, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, it seemed good also to me to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught.
In case you are wondering, this Theophilus dude was a high ranking, educated Roman official who wanted to know if what Jesus' followers were saying was true. Luke answered with a 5,400 word investigative report! Let's zoom in on some of the other eyewitnesses who saw Jesus after he rose from the dead.
First, there were the women who discovered the empty tomb and saw the resurrected Jesus. Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome came to anoint Jesus' body with perfume to counteract the stench of decaying flesh. Now this is very important. According to Jewish law the eyewitness account of a woman was worthless. I know, they were sexist pigs, but that's the way it was. Now, if Jesus' resurrection was just a legend made up by people many years later, then using the women's report would be self-defeating wouldn't it? They would suffer a credibility problem. Instead, they would attribute the report to men. So this is another point in favor of the Gospels being accurate testimony. There were other followers of Jesus who reported seeing Jesus after he rose from the dead, too. He appeared to Peter, then to the disciples on several occasions. He even appeared to a group of over 500 people on a mountainside in Galilee. My point here is that Jesus was seen by a large number of credible eyewitnesses who could agree or disagree on what they witnessed. The fourth and final body of eyewitness testimony was those who were hostile to Jesus and his followers. His enemies wanted nothing more than to be able to prove that Jesus didn't rise from the dead. So all they would have to do is produce the body and say, "See, he's still dead you fools!" But they couldn't. And their silence speaks louder than words.
Now, I've been assuming these were credible eyewitnesses, but how can we know for sure? There are four tests that historians use to determine if eyewitnesses are credible and if their reports are accurate and reliable sources of information about a past event. These tests are the Credibility Test, the Internal Consistency Test, the External Corroboration Test and the Bibliographic Test. We'll go through these one at a time. First we need to prove that the eyewitness testimony is credible. Is it an accurate, reliable picture of what really happened? We'll use the Credibility Test to find out.
The Credibility Test
If you witnessed a crime against a friend or loved one you would probably want the opportunity to give your eyewitness testimony in a court of law. Now do you think the defense attorney would want you to testify? No. It might undermine his defense of the client. So what will he or she try to do? He or she will attempt to prove that your testimony is not credible. What criteria, then, would you need to meet in order to prove that your eyewitness testimony is credible? First, you would have to show that you are of trustworthy character, willing to tell the truth. Second, you would have to be able to tell the truth. In other words, you would be able to tell the truth because you are of sound mind and witnessed the crime. A careful study of the people who witnessed and recorded Jesus' life, death and post-resurrection appearances shows they met those criteria of credibility. They had every reason to want to and to be able to tell accurately and truthfully what they experienced.
The Internal Consistency Test
There are a couple more criteria to prove that your testimony would be accurate. These get into the Internal Consistency Test. First, your testimony would have to be consistent. If you were inconsistent in how you reported the event you would undermine your own credibility. It would sound like you are making it up as you testify or were too unsure of what you witnessed to be reliable. Second, your testimony would also have to coincide with the other facts and circumstances involved. Applying this to documents the Internal Consistency Test shows us how credible, acceptable and accurate a document is whether it is ancient or modern. This test deals with the apparent conflicts or inconsistencies within the document or set of documents. Many people say, "Oh, I can't accept the Bible with all of its contradictions." There certainly are some apparent contradictions. For instance, there are inconsistencies among the accounts of the empty tomb. One account says there were two angels at the tomb to tell the women Jesus had risen while another account said it was one. One says they were two men, another says it was one man. Well, which were they? Were they angels or men and how many? Can they be reconciled? If so, how?
Let's return to your eyewitness testimony. Let's suppose that the crime you witnessed was in another country. You would have some additional barriers to relating your testimony in a credible way. But it's not because you didn't accurately see what happened or that you want to distort the truth. The barriers to communication come from differences in things like language, cultural values, and geographical features. In a similar way, when we are reading the Bible and come across an inconsistency it may be that we are literally missing something in the translation. Most inconsistencies have been reconciled when scholars learn more about the contexts in which it was written. Some of these contexts are language, culture and geography. Every language has its own genres of literature, figures of speech and idioms. Every culture has differences in philosophical, religious and economic outlooks. Geography is important as well. What might be normal in the temperate Piedmont of NC might not be normal in a desert in the Middle East. The apparent major contradictions have been reconciled. Any minor inconsistencies that have not been reconciled are just that, minor inconsistencies that don't have a significant bearing on the meaning of the text.
That brings us to the other question we must ask about any inconsistency is, "Just how big is it?" If you told your eyewitness testimony in a court room, I will guarantee you that it will not agree in every detail with the other eyewitnesses even if you and they are earnestly attempting to recount the true story. You will disagree on things like the number of people, the clothes they were wearing, the kind of vehicle or the time of day and many other points. Does this mean the court should throw out your whole testimony as being not credible just because it differs slightly from the other? No. In fact, it would be very suspicious if all of your testimonies were identical. This would mean that you all got together and agreed beforehand on what the story was going to be. This would be collusion and it would severely undermine your testimony.
Well then, just how much do the testimonies have to agree? Well here are some standards used in courts today. First, they must be in complete agreement on major points. Second, they must be in complete agreement on significant details supporting the major points. Third, there must be acceptable variation on non-supporting details. And fourth, they must be given the benefit of the doubt. So, for example, even without attempting to reconcile the gospel accounts of the empty tomb these testimonies pass the test. They agree on the major point that Jesus' tomb was found empty and that he appeared alive to individuals, small groups and large groups.
They also agree on the significant details supporting the major points such as: the tomb was discovered empty on Sunday morning, by a small group of women who were told by at least one angel that Jesus had risen from the dead. They brought some of the disciples back to see for themselves, and so on.
There is also acceptable variation on non-supporting details such as how many angels there were at the tomb and where they were located in and around the tomb. By the way, the contradiction about whether they were angels or men is simple to clear up. First, the men are described in the original language with the same characteristics other Biblical writers typically use of angels. Something is lost in the translation. Second, Mark and Luke use the term "men" as a special figure of speech called anthropomorphism. It is just a way of saying these supernatural beings took on the appearance of humans so they could relate to humans. The number of angels is not a problem either. Let's say two or more strangers came up to you on the street asking for directions. It was probably only one of them that you had a dialog with. If you told me afterward about it, you might say quite innocently, "Two men asked me for directions. They asked me how to get to Market St." But the person with you might just as truthfully tell me, "A stranger asked us for directions today." So this, like all the contradictions you will find in the Bible is just an apparent contradiction.
Finally, in a court of law, witnesses are given the benefit of the doubt until they prove to be unreliable witnesses. Why not give the gospel writers the benefit of the doubt as well? There is no good reason not to. Oh, by the way, the Internal Consistency Test is one of the tools used to determine which books belong in the Bible. You will see new books and National Enquirer headlines about a "missing" or "secret" gospel or book of the Bible, but that is just sensational advertising. Bible scholars have known about these books since early Christianity. These books are so internally and externally inconsistent that they were left out of the Bible a long time ago, for obvious reasons.
So far we have seen that the eyewitness accounts of Jesus' life, death, burial and post-resurrection appearances were passed on accurately for only about one generation of eyewitnesses using strict standards of accuracy in the Oral Tradition. We've seen that the accounts were written down by credible eyewitnesses. The Internal Consistency Test shows that what they wrote is accurate and reliable.
The External Corroboration Test
Next, we will evaluate their accuracy as historically reliable documents based on external evidence. This is the External Corroboration Test. There are two ways we can use this test to affirm the historical reliability of the NT documents. We can compare what they say to what other ancient historians reported. We can also use archaeology to affirm or disprove what they wrote. If other ancient writers unanimously report something contrary to the NT or if archaeology shows the NT in error then we don't have much reason to trust it.
Affirmed by other ancient writers
We often hear the criticism that the only information we have about Jesus is found in the Gospels and that we don't have any other historical records about Him. But this is simply wrong. Several reliable ancient non-Christian historians outside of the Bible give testimonies about Christ. They were Jewish and Roman and had no reason to be partial to Jesus Christ or the early Christians. Even liberal scholars agree on the basic picture given when we combine these testimonies:
- Jesus was from Nazareth;
- He lived a wise and virtuous life;
- He was crucified in Palestine under Pontius Pilate during the reign of Tiberius Caesar at Passover time, being considered the Jewish king;
- He was believed by his disciples to have been raised from the dead three days later;
- His enemies acknowledged that he performed unusual feats;
- His small band of disciples multiplied rapidly, spreading even as far as Rome;
- His disciples denied polytheism, lived moral lives, and worshipped Christ as Divine.
Well what do you know? This picture confirms the view of Jesus Christ and his followers presented in the Gospels.
In addition, there were ancient Christian writers in the period of time following the Apostles (c. 95-150 AD). They quoted the New Testament documents extensively as they wrote to fellow Christians. By extensively, I mean 36,000 quotations all together! Scholars have laboriously compiled those quotations and have been able to reconstruct all but 11 verses of the New Testament. This means two things. First, even if we didn't have any copies of the New Testament manuscripts we could reconstruct what the original manuscripts said from these quotations. Second, we can use both this compilation and the thousands of manuscript copies to check each other for accuracy. Of course, when we do, the accuracy is so high that we can be certain that what we read today is a good translation of what the original authors of the New Testament wrote. That's reason for faith.
Affirmed by archaeology
Now what about the archaeological evidence? That is an important part of the External Corraboration Test. Archaeologist Nelson Glueck has boldly asserted,
It may be stated categorically that no archaeological discovery has ever controverted a biblical reference. Scores of archaeological findings have been made which confirm in clear outline or exact detail historical statements in the Bible.
Sir William Ramsey is regarded as one of the great NT archaeologists of the past century. At first he was convinced that the book of Acts, written by Luke, was not a trustworthy account of the facts of that time (around 50 AD), and therefore, it was unworthy of consideration by a historian. He quite naturally thought this because that is what his professors taught him. However, after 30 years of his own research about Asia Minor, Ramsey changed his mind. He concluded,
Luke is a historian of the first rank; not merely are his statements of fact trustworthy, this author should be placed along with the very greatest historians.
OK, so far we've established that the news passed along through the Oral Tradition remained accurate and that the original manuscripts were accurate written records of that information. So if you were to read any of the original manuscripts you would have an accurate description of what really happened. But unfortunately, we don't have any of the original manuscripts in any museum or collection in the world. For example, we don't have the original Gospel of Luke in Luke's own handwriting. We must rely on copies and copies of copies. So how do we know these copies are accurate? Wouldn't there be intentional as well as unintentional changes in the process of copying? In short, how can we know if what we read, for example, about Jesus' death, burial and resurrection in our modern English Bibles is really what happened? How can we be certain that Jesus really did claim to be God? Did he really say, "I am the way, the truth and the life, no one comes to the Father except through me.?" Perhaps these statements were made up and inserted by those whose job it was to copy the manuscripts for others to read.
The Gospels were accurately copied
The Bibliographic Test
There is another test that historians use called the Bibliographic Test. The Bibliographic Test determines the accuracy of the copies. Obviously, the more accurate the copies, the closer they reflect the reality of what actually happened. To do this we must know two things: (1) how much time elapsed between the original and the oldest copies, and (2) how many copies there are. Common sense tells us that the closer the copies are in time to the originals the more reliable they are likely to be; and the more copies there are the easier it is to catch any changes made.
The difference in time between the originals and the oldest copies
First, let's deal with the difference in time between the originals and the oldest copies that we possess. To put the original Gospel documents and their copies in perspective let's compare them to other important ancient documents and their copies. If we took a representative sample of ancient literature, it would include some familiar names like Plato, Aristotle, Tacitus, Herodotus, Sophocles, Homer and others. On average, the oldest copies that we possess of these ancient writers were made around a thousand years after the originals were written. There were copies made during that thousand years, but either they didn't survive or have not been discovered yet. So the oldest ones we have were made around a thousand years after the originals.
So, for example, Plato lived and wrote around 400 BC. The oldest copy anyone possesses is from around 900 AD. That is a difference of about 1,300 years. Tacitus who was one of the most important historians of Rome wrote in around 100 AD. But the oldest copy we have of his writings is from around 1100 AD. That is a time span of a thousand years. Now Homer is a little better. There was only a time span of about 500 years between his writings and the oldest copies. But this is a major exception, and 500 years is still a long time. In big, bold, bright, beautiful contrast, the oldest copies we have of the NT documents. The original NT documents were written between around 60 and 100 AD. We have manuscript copies that date from around 120 AD to the early 300's. Let's do the math. The maximum time difference between the oldest originals in around 50 AD to the copies in the early 300's is only around 250 years. Many of the copies are earlier than that. So this is not much time. Why is this significant? Schoars have determined this is not enough time for major changes to occur during the copy process. As a modern day example, we still have the original Declaration of Independence and Constitution to compare copies to.
The Number of Copies
The second issue in helping to establish the accuracy of the copies is the number of copies. Let's contrast the number of copies with other ancient historical literature. Let's return to our representative sample of ancient writers. Again, Homer is better. There are 643 copies of Homer's Iliad. He was no doubt the most widely read author back then. But, again, he is by far a major exception. Did you know we only have 7 copies of Plato's works? We only have 20 copies of the works of Tacitus. We only have 5 copies of Aristotle's writings. I could go on but the numbers are very similar. Now what about the NT copies? How many do we have? We have approximately 5,000 Greek copies, about 8,000 Latin copies and more than 350 Syriac copies all done by the early 400's AD. Now that is impressive!
The Accuracy of the Copies
The third issue is how do we know if they were accurate copies and not full of intentional or unintentional errors? Well, there are many principles and techniques that historians use to validate the accuracy of copies. This is both an art and a science that is used on other ancient literary works as well. We apply the same principles and techniques in forensic investigations today. I will spare you all the detail and just give you the bottom line. If you really are interested in learning more about this or anything I've talked about today I will be more than happy to help you explore it further.
The bottom line is this: scholars have concluded the Greek manuscripts from which we translate our English Bibles are 98% genuine. That is, only about 2 percent varies from the original manuscripts. These variations are minor as they are mostly things like different spellings of names of people and places. None of the variations make a difference in the meaning of the passage or the theological doctrines that make up Christianity. That is amazing! Did God superintend this process or not?
The Copies Have Been Accurately Translated
The final step in the process of transmitting God's revelation to us is the translation of those accurate copies into our own language. I believe it is a waste of time and emotional energy to try to argue that one translation is the only "right" translation. The issue in translation is how "wooden" you want it to be.
And this variation occurs in a continuum. On one extreme, you can translate the Greek word by word to preserve the original word order but it won't be very easy to read in English. You can loosen the translation a little bit to rearrange the English words in the order in which we are used to reading them. It would still be an accurate translation. You can loosen it still more to emphasize more of the flow of thoughts and ideas rather than the individual words. Finally, on the other extreme is a paraphrase like the Living Bible.
The question is not which translation is the right translation? The question is which is the best translation for your purposes right now? If you are doing an in depth, analytical study of a passage but can't study it in the Greek then a more wooden translation like the New King James or the New International Version is the best. If you are having a Quiet Time and just want to catch the major ideas then a paraphrase like the Living Bible might serve you better. But the bottom line is that anyone can get most of the meaning of the original text by studying any of the English translations.
OK. So we have a large number of copies made within a short period of time after the originals were penned. These copies are 98% genuine. The English translations we study today are accurate. What does all this mean? Well, this is the key point I want to make as clear as I can. This is why I'm up here today. What all this shows is that our modern Bibles are accurate translations of accurate copies of the original manuscripts written by authors like Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. When we read what Jesus taught and when we read the accounts of Jesus healing people, and when we read how Jesus was crucified, buried and then seen alive again we can be certain that these things really did happen. It's all true. If we apply the same tests to the rest of the New Testament and to the Old Testament, we come up with the same results there, as well. No one who learns the facts can still say with intellectual honesty that the Bible we have today is not an accurate representation of what really happened. It is not full of myths and legends and contradictions. It is what really happened in the land of Palestine involving real people just like you and me.
The State of Scholarship regarding the Gospels
Now, if all of what I have said is true then why do many scholars, teachers and other educated people believe the Gospels are not reliable and that they are just full of legends, myths and contradictions? There are two major reasons: First, many scholars and lay people simply are not familiar with the current state of scholarship. They just parrot what they were taught by their teachers who probably parroted what they learned from their teachers and so on. Remember this was the case with Sir William Ramsey whose professor taught him to not trust the Gospel of Luke to be historically accurate. But when he did his own research he concluded that Luke was one of the greatest historians of the ancient world and could be trusted. There are many competent, leading New Testament scholars who regard the Gospels as highly reliable.
The second reason is an across-the-board bias against the supernatural. This anti-supernatural bias has reigned in all academic fields, including biblical and theological studies, for the past 200 years. They assume before they even look at the facts that there is no transcendent personal God who acts in human history. If there is no personal God that is over and above everything else then a man who claims to be God in the flesh is a liar, a lunatic or a legend. Therefore, any document or set of documents that claims there was a man who claimed to be God and did supernatural miracles can't be right. It can't be trusted. But we have to ask these people, "What makes you so sure there is no God and no such thing as a miracle?" Do you know everything about the universe? Were you present in every moment of everyone's history to verify that nothing ever happened outside of normal natural laws? If you were, then you are God yourself and we should be worshipping you!
No person can be intellectually honest, fair and objective when they start with a bias that determines what they can and can not find. But when we start with no bias against what we don't want to find and let the facts speak for themselves we discover abundant evidence that entitles us to believe that there really is a personal, loving God who came into our world to provide salvation from our sin.
The Nature of Faith and Proof
I'd like to digress a little bit and say a few helpful things about proof and faith. Until we stand before God in Heaven no one will ever be able to prove beyond any possibility of doubt that there is a God or that there isn't a God, that there are miracles or that there are no miracles, that Jesus rose from the dead or didn't rise from the dead or that the Bible is completely trustworthy or not. But that is not necessary anyway. The only way you can have 100% proof about something is by committing yourself to it, testing it and seeing if it is real. When you sat down on your chair today you didn't know beyond all doubt that it would hold you up. You couldn't know until you actually sat down. Now, you probably didn't even think about it consciously but subconsciously you looked at the chair and said, "I'm approaching this decision about sitting in this chair in an open-minded, unbiased fashion, after all my bottom and my ego are at stake. It has four legs, looks stable, and someone else was just sitting in it; therefore it will probably hold me up as well."
In other words, you examined the evidence with an open mind and decided you were entitled to believe it would hold you up. When you sat down and it held you up that is when you had 100% proof, not a moment before. And what about your faith? Is your faith holding the chair together? If you had less faith would the chair fall apart and you wind up on the floor? If you had more faith would that make the chair hold together longer? You can put your faith in faith but it is not your faith that is holding you up. The chair is holding you up. In other words, our faith is certainly important but not as important as the object of our faith. You could have a lot of faith in a broken chair that is missing a leg. But your faith won't hold you up if you sit in the chair. On the other hand, a small amount of faith in the right object will hold you up. This is why Jesus said, "If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you could say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it will move. Nothing is impossible for you."
The skeptics' bias against God and miracles is like a chair missing a leg and they still put their faith in it. But when we put them to the test like we have today, their skepticism and conclusions don't hold them up. To put our faith in something that has been proven to not hold up under pressure is foolish. In contrast, when we look at the abundant evidence available to us we have every reason, every right to believe in God, Jesus' death on the cross, Jesus' resurrection and the trustworthiness of the Bible. It is the most sensible thing to do.
Why is history so important in Christianity?
Today, I have argued that the Bible is an accurate picture of what really happened to real people in history. But why is history so important in Christianity? Why is it so important that the facts in the Bible really happened? The answer is, that is what sets Christianity apart from all other religions and their sacred books. The other religions are based on rituals, superstitions, philosophical principles, the teachings of men who never claimed to know the truth, myths and legends. By contrast, Christianity is based on real historical events involving real people. It is not how much faith we have in something that is important but the integrity of the object we are placing our faith on.
Can you picture the elderly apostle John remembering as if it was yesterday what it was like to be with the Jesus he vividly remembers? He wrote this in 1 John 1:1-5a:
That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched—this we proclaim concerning the Word of life. The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us. We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. We write this to make our joy complete. This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you.
When we read the NT and we see how Jesus worked in the lives of real people in another time and place we realize He can work in our lives as well. We see how Jesus overcame sin for all people, times and places. Christianity has solutions for real life back then, right now and tomorrow. But the scriptures of all other religions leave us in confusion, doubt, fear and despair.
How the sacred books are to be used is different as well. The Hindu scriptures are supposed to be interpreted by gurus, the Buddhist scriptures by priests and the Islamic scriptures by clerics. Go to the library sometime, sit down and try to read the Hindu Bagavad Gita and try to understand it for yourself. But the Bible was written in a way that is clear and straightforward so we can understand it on our own. John, in his biography of Jesus wrote plainly,
Jesus did many other miraculous signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.
The authors speak to us personally, individually, directly.
Finally, the Bible leaves us with a solution and a hope. Not only does the Bible fairly and accurately define our state of being completely lost and without hope of eternal life, it records the solution that Jesus provides. Here is a sample you've heard countless times before, but as I read it, think about the clarity of it:
For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son.
That is based on an accurate account of what really happened not myth or superstition. And that's why I put my faith in Jesus Christ for my salvation.
Conclusion
In conclusion, I believe we have answered the very important questions we asked at the beginning: (1) Can and does the Bible accurately transmit the records and content of God's revelations to us. (2) Can and does the Bible accurately communicate what God is like, what His absolute truth is, what His absolute standards of morality are and how we are to live in light of them? The answer is a resounding "YES!"
But in the future, you will hear or read about some problem with the Bible that will cause you to panic and think, "Oh no, I'm a fool to believe this!" This still happens to me occasionally. But remember there's another side to the issue and competent scholars have addressed it, and, if you want, you can find the solution that restores faith.
References and Resources
Blomberg, Craig. The Historical Reliability of John’s Gospel: Issues and Commentary. Downers Grove: Inter-Varsity Press. 2001.
Blomberg, Craig. The Historical Reliability of the Gospels. Downers Grove: Inter-Varsity Press. 1987.
Bock, Darrel L. Studying the Historical Jesus: A Guide to Sources and Methods. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic. 2002.
Bruce, F. F. The Canon of Scripture. Downers Grove: Inter-Varsity Press. 1987.
Bruce, F. F. The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable? Downers Grove:Intervarsity Press. 1972.
France, R. T., The Evidence for Jesus. InterVarsity Press, Downers Grove, 1986, pp. 106-111.
Fuller, Reginald. The Formation of the Resurrection Narratives. New York:Macmillan. 1971.
Green, Joel B., Scot McKnight, I. Howard Marshall (eds). Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press. 1992.
McDonald, Lee M. The formation of the Christian biblical canon. Rev. and expanded ed. Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers. 1995.
Metzger, Bruce. The canon of the New Testament: Its origin, developmemnt, and significance. Oxford, Clarendon Press. 1987.
Strobel, Lee. The Case for Faith: A Journalist Investigates the Toughest Objections to Christianity. Grand Rapids:Zondervan Publishing House. 2000.
Van Voorst, Robert E. Jesus Outside the New Testament: An Introduction to the Ancient Evidence. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans. 2000.
Wilkins, Michael J. and Moreland, J. P. Jesus Under Fire. Grand Rapids:Zondervan Publishing House. 1995.
Copyright 2005. Gary C. Burger and New Media Ministries. This article may be reproduced and distributed freely as long as it is done so in its entirety. If quoted it must be properly cited as a reference.
