The Bible:
A Relic or Reliable Revelation?
(This is the fourth part of The Bible: A Relic or Reliable Revelation? I've broken the whole talk up into smaller sections, the rest of which can be found through the links on the Bible Section page. For online reading I recommend reading the shorter sections successively. To view the document with the whole talk in it Click Here. To view the rest of the parts of the talk Click Here. It does not contain numbered endnotes but you can find a list of references used at the end.)
The Written Tradition is a reliable record, (continued)
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.
Click here to go to the next section.
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.
