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HISTORICAL JESUS |
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Is it True that Everything
We Have Been Taught About Jesus is False?
by Dr. John Ankerberg, Dr. John Weldon |
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"What I mean," Teabing countered, "is that almost everything our fathers
taught us about Christ is false…" (Dan Brown,
The Da Vinci Code (New York: Doubleday, 2003), p. 235.)
At heart, this
statement in The Da Vinci Code is an attack on the Bible, since it is
our primary source of information about Jesus. Is the Bible untrustworthy?
Is the information in it false? Have "our fathers" been feeding us a lie all
these 2,000 or so years?
Our research has
shown just the opposite. If you are going to trust ANY information from the
first few centuries A.D., then you must also accept the Bible. Let us
explain why…
Can it be proved
that the New Testament text is historically reliable and accurate?
Christians and
skeptical non-Christians, including members of religious cults, have
different views concerning the credibility of the Gospels and the rest of
the New Testament. For the Christian, nothing is more vital than the very
words of Jesus Himself who promised, "Heaven and earth will pass away, but
my words will never pass away" (Mt. 24:35). Jesus’ promise is of no small
import. In other words, if His words were not accurately recorded in
the Gospels, how can anyone know what He really taught? The truth is, we
couldn’t know. Further, if the remainder of the New Testament cannot be
established to be historically reliable, then little if anything can be
known about what true Christianity really is, teaches, or means.
Christians
maintain that anyone who wishes can prove to their own satisfaction that, on
the basis of accepted bibliographic, internal, external and other criteria,
the New Testament text can be established to be reliable history. Textually,
we have restored over 99 percent of the autographs and there is simply no
legitimate basis upon which to doubt the credibility and accuracy of the New
Testament writers. Further, the methods used by the critics (rationalistic,
higher critical methods) which claim "assured results" proving the New
Testament unreliable, have been weighed in the balance of secular
scholarship and been found wanting. Their use in biblical analysis is
therefore unjustified as we documented in The Facts On the False Views of
Jesus: The Truth behind the Jesus Seminar (1997) and in Knowing the
Truth About the Reliability of the Bible (1997). Even in a positive
sense relative to the biblical text, the fruit they have born is minuscule
while, negatively, they are responsible for a tremendous weight of
destruction relative to people’s confusion over biblical authority and their
confidence in the Bible. (Although even fair-minded biblical critics would
have to agree that higher criticism’s 200-year failure to prove its case by
default strengthens the conservative Christian view as to biblical
reliability.)
In this sense,
the critics who continue to advance discredited theories conform to the
warnings of Chauncey Sanders, associate professor of military history, The
Air University, Maxwell Air Force Base, Montgomery, Alabama. In his An
Introduction to Research In English Literary History, he warns literary
critics to be certain they are also careful to examine the evidence
against their case:
…he must be as
careful to collect evidence against his theory as for it. It may go
against the grain to be very assiduous in searching for ammunition to
destroy one’s own case; but it must be remembered that the overlooking of
a single detail may be fatal to one’s whole argument. Moreover, it is the
business of the scholar to seek the truth, and the satisfaction of having
found it should be ample recompense for having to give up a cherished but
untenable theory. 1
In order to
resolve this issue of New Testament reliability, the following ten facts
cannot logically be denied:
Fact One—The
existence of 5,300 extant Greek manuscripts and portions, 10,000 Latin
Vulgate and 9,300 other versions, with the Papyri and early Uncials dating
much closer to the originals than for any other ancient literature;
Fact Two—The
lack of proven fraud or error on the part of any New Testament
author;
Fact Three—
The writings of reliable Christian sources outside the New Testament;
Fact Four—The
existence of a number of Jewish and secular accounts about Jesus;
Fact Five—Detailed
archaeological data concerning the New Testament;
Fact Six—The
existence of many powerful enemies of Jesus and the apostolic church who
would have proven fraud or pointed out other problems if they could;
Fact Seven—The
presence of living eyewitnesses to the events recorded;
Fact Eight
—The positive appraisals by conservative and even some liberal authorities
bearing on the issue of the genuineness of traditional authorship and the
early date of the New Testament books;
Fact Nine
—The consistent scholarly, factual reversals of the conclusions of higher
criticism which undermine its own foundations and credibility; and
Fact Ten—Legal
and other testimony as to New Testament reliability.
The above facts
demonstrate the truth of the conservative view of the New Testament in the
following manner.
Fact One—the
corroboration from textual transmission
To begin, the
historical accuracy of the New Testament can be proven by subjecting it to
the three generally accepted tests for determining historical reliability.
Such tests are utilized in literary criticism and the study of historical
documents in general. (These are discussed by military historian Chauncey
Sanders in his An Introduction to Research in English Literary History. 2)
These involve the 1) bibliographical test, 2) internal test and 3) the
external examination of the text.
The
bibliographical test
This seeks to
determine whether or not we can reconstruct the original manuscript from the
extant copies at hand. For the New Testament we have 5,300 Greek manuscripts
and manuscript portions; 10,000 Latin Vulgate and 9,300 other versions; plus
36,000 early (100-300 A.D.) patristic quotations of the New Testament—such
that all but a few verses of the entire New Testament could apparently be
reconstructed from these alone. 3
What does this mean?
Few scholars
question the general reliability of ancient classical literature on the
basis of the manuscripts we possess. Yet this is vastly inferior to that of
the New Testament. For example, of sixteen well-known classical authors
(e.g., Plutarch, Tacitus, Suetonius, Polybius, Thucydides, Xenophon, etc.,
the total number of extant copies is typically less than ten and the
earliest copies date from 750 to 1600 years after the original
manuscript was first penned). 4
We need only
compare such slim evidence to the mass of biblical documentation involving
over 24,000 manuscript portions, manuscripts, and versions, the
earliest fragment and complete copies dating between 50 and 300 years after
originally written.
Given the fact
that the early Greek manuscripts (the Papyri and early Uncials) date much
closer to the originals than for any other ancient literature; given the
overwhelming additional abundance of manuscript attestation, any doubt as to
the integrity or authenticity of the New Testament text has been removed no
matter what any critic claims. Indeed, this kind of evidence supplied by the
New Testament (both amount and quality) is the dream of the historian. No
other ancient literature has ever come close to supplying historians and
textual critics with such an abundance of data. Consider the chart below.
"A" is the documentation establishing the reliability of the ancient
classics. "B" is the documentation for the reliability of the New Testament.
If "A" is accepted as historically reliable, who can logically deny the
reliability of "B"?
Dr. F. F. Bruce,
former Ryland’s Professor of Biblical Criticism and Exegesis at the
University of Manchester, asserts of the New Testament: "There is no body of
ancient literature in the world which enjoys such a wealth of good textual
attestation as the New Testament." 5
Professor Bruce further comments, "The evidence for our New Testament
writings is ever so much greater than the evidence for many writings of
classical writers, the authenticity of which no one dreams of questioning.
And if the New Testament were a collection of secular writings, their
authenticity would generally be regarded as beyond all doubt."6
Further, Dr. Rene Pache remarks
of the great Princeton scholar B. B. Warfield that he "goes on to say that
the great bulk of the New Testament has been transmitted to us without, or
almost without, any variations. It can be asserted with confidence that the
sacred text is exact and valid and that no article of faith and no moral
precept in it has been distorted or lost."7
It is this wealth of material
that has enabled scholars such as Westcott and Hort, Ezra Abbott, Philip
Schaff, A. T. Robertson, Norman Geisler and William Nix to place the
restoration of the original text at 99% plus.8
Thus, no other document of the ancient period is as accurately preserved as
the New Testament:
Hort’s
estimate of "substantial variation" for the New Testament is one-tenth of
1 percent; Abbot’s estimate is one-fourth of 1 percent; and even Hort’s
figure including trivial variation is less than 2 percent. Sir Frederic
Kenyon well summarizes the situation:
"The number of
manuscripts of the New Testament… is so large that it is practically
certain that the true reading of every doubtful passage is preserved in
some one or another of these ancient authorities. This can be said of no
other ancient book in the world."
Scholars are
satisfied that they possess substantially the true text of the principal
Greek and Roman writers whose works have come down to us, of Sophocles, of
Thucydides, of Cicero, of Virgil; yet our knowledge depends on a mere
handful of manuscripts, whereas the manuscripts of the New Testament are
counted by hundreds and even thousands. 9
In other words, those who
question the reliability of the New Testament must also question the
reliability of virtually every ancient writing the world possesses! So how
can the New Testament be rejected when its documentation is 100 times that
of other ancient literature? Because it is impossible to question the
world’s ancient classics, it is far more impossible to question the New
Testament.10 In
principle, to throw out the New Testament is to throw out ancient history.
This is something no one can do.
In addition,
none of the established New Testament canon is lost or missing, not even a
verse as indicated by variant readings. By comparison, the books of many
ancient authors are missing: 107 of Livy’s 142 books of history are lost and
one half of Tacitus’ 30 books of Annals and Histories; for
Polybius, only five complete books remain from forty.
Finally, the
Gospels are extremely close to the events which they record. The first three
can be dated within twenty years or so of the events cited and this may even
be true for the fourth gospel. This means that all four Gospels were written
during the lives of eyewitnesses and that abundant opportunity existed for
those with contrary evidence to examine the witnesses and refute them.
The Gospels,
then, pass the bibliographical test and must, by far, be graded with the
highest mark of any ancient literature we possess.
Fact Two—the
internal evidence test (corroboration from content accuracy)
This asserts
that one is to assume the truthful reporting of an ancient document, unless
the author of the document has disqualified himself by the presence of
either fraud or error. For example, do the New Testament writers contradict
themselves? Is there anything in their writing which causes one to
objectively suspect their trustworthiness?
The answer is
no. There is lack of proven fraud or error on the part of any
New Testament writer but there is evidence of careful, eyewitness
reporting throughout the New Testament. The caution exercised by the
writers, their personal conviction that what they wrote was true and the
lack of demonstrable error or contradiction indicate that the Gospel authors
and, indeed, all the New Testament authors pass the second test as well (Lk.
1:1-4; Jn. 19:35; 21:24; Acts 1:1-3; 2:22; 26:24-26; 2 Pet. 1:16; 1 Jn.
1:1-3).
For example, the
kinds of things the Gospel writers include in their narratives offer strong
evidence for their integrity. They record their own sins and failures, even
serious ones (Mt. 26:56, 72-75; Mk. 10:35-45). They do not hesitate from
recording accurately even the most difficult and consequential statements of
Jesus (Jn. 6:41-71). They forthrightly supply the embarrassing and even
capital charges of Jesus’ own enemies. Thus, even though Jesus was their
very Messiah and Lord, they not only record the charges that Jesus broke the
Sabbath, but that He was 1) born in fornication, 2) a blasphemer and a liar,
3) insane and 4) demonized (Mt. 1:19, 25; Jn. 8:41; Mt. 26:65; Jn. 7:20, 48;
8:41, 48, 52; 10:20, 33, etc.)!
To encounter
such honesty in reporting incidents of this nature gives one assurance that
the Gospel writers placed a very high premium on truthfulness.
Fact Three—the
external evidence test (corroboration from reliable sources outside the New
Testament)
This seeks to
either corroborate or falsify the documents on the basis of additional
historical literature and data. (In this section we will look at Christian
sources; in the next section, non-Christian sources.) Is there corroborating
evidence for the claims made in the Gospels outside the New Testament? Or
are the claims or events of the New Testament successfully refuted by other
competent reports or eyewitnesses? Are there statements or assertions in the
New Testament which are demonstrably false according to known
archaeological, historic, scientific or other data?
The New
Testament again passes the test. For example, Luke’s careful historical
writing has been documented from detailed personal archaeological
investigation by former critic Sir William Ramsey, who stated after his
painstaking research, "Luke’s history is unsurpassed in respect of its
trustworthiness." 11 A.
N. Sherwin-White, the distinguished historian of Rome, stated of Luke: "For
[the book of] Acts the confirmation of historicity is overwhelming. Any
attempt to reject its basic historicity even in matters of detail must now
appear absurd."12
Papias, a student of the
Apostle John13 and Bishop of Hierapolis around 130 A.D., observed
that the Apostle John himself noted that the Apostle Mark in writing his
Gospel "wrote down accurately... whatsoever he [Peter] remembered of
the things said or done by Christ. Mark committed no error...for he was
careful of one thing, not to omit any of the things he [Peter] had
heard, and not to state any of them falsely."14
Further, fragments of Papias’
Exposition of the Oracles of the Lord, ca. 140 A.D. (III, XIX, XX)
assert that the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and John are all based on reliable
eyewitness testimony (his portion on Luke is missing).15
We have now briefly examined
relevant bibliographic, internal and external evidence for the New
Testament. These criteria force us to concede the historical accuracy and
reliability of the Gospel accounts; they pass persuasive tests which
determine their integrity. Even two hundred years of scholarly rationalistic
biblical criticism (such as form, source, and redaction approaches) have
proven nothing except that the writers were careful and honest reporters of
the events recorded and that these methods attempting to discredit them were
flawed and biased from the start.16
In conclusion,
it is not only a demonstrable historical fact that Jesus lived and taught
what the New Testament says He lived and taught, it is also a fact that the
New Testament is the best documented and most accurately preserved book of
ancient history.
What this means
is that we can trust what the authors say as being true. When we examine the
evidence for something like the resurrection of Jesus as given in the New
Testament, this means there is no logical, historical or other basis upon
which to doubt what is being stated is true.
Fact
Four—corroboration from non-Christian sources
The existence of
both Jewish and secular accounts, to a significant degree, confirm the broad
picture of Christ we have in the New Testament.17
Scholarly
research such as that by Dr. Gary R. Habermas in Ancient Evidence for the
Life of Jesus and other texts indicates that "a broad outline of the
life of Jesus" and His death by crucifixion can be reasonably and directly
inferred from entirely non-Christian sources.18
For example, concerning Jesus’ death by crucifixion and resurrection from
the dead:
Using only the
information gleaned from these ancient extrabiblical sources, what can we
conclude concerning the death and resurrection of Jesus? Can these events
be historically established based on these sources alone? Of the seventeen
documents examined in this chapter, eleven different works speak of the
death of Jesus in varying amounts of detail, with five of these specifying
crucifixion as the mode. When these sources are examined by normal
historical procedures used with other ancient documents, the result is
conclusive.
It is this
author’s view that the death of Jesus by crucifixion can be asserted as a
historical fact from this data.... 19
Further, he points out that the
resurrection of Christ itself can be indirectly inferred from non-Christian
sources.20
Fact
Five—corroboration from archaeology
There exists
detailed archaeological confirmation for the New Testament documents.21
As archaeologist Dr. Clifford Wilson, author of New Light on the New
Testament Letters, New Light on the Gospels, Rock, Relics and
Biblical Reliability, and a 17-volume set on the archaeological
confirmation of the Bible, writes concerning Luke:
Luke
demonstrated a remarkably accurate knowledge of geographical and political
ideas. He referred correctly to provinces that were established at that
time, as indicated in Acts 15:41; 16:2, 6-8. He identified regions, such
as that referred to in Acts 13:49, and various cities, as in Acts 14:6. He
demonstrated a clear knowledge of local customs, such as those relating to
the speech of the Lycaonians (Acts 14:11), some aspects relating to the
foreign woman who was converted at Athens (Acts 17:34), and he even knew
that the city of Ephesus was known as "the temple-keeper of Artemis" (Acts
19:35).... he refers to different local officers by their exact titles—the
proconsul (deputy) of Cyprus (Acts 13:7), the magistrates at Philippi
(Acts 16:20, 35), the politarchs (another word for magistrates) at
Thessalonica (Acts 17:6), the proconsul of Achaia (Acts 18:12), and the
treasurer at Corinth (Aedile)—which was the title of the man known as
Erastus at Corinth (Acts 19:22; Rom 16:23)....
Luke had
accurate knowledge about various local events such as the famine in the
days of Claudius Caesar (Acts 11:29); he was aware that Zeus and Hermes
were worshiped together at Lystra, though this was unknown to modern
historians (Acts 14:11, 12). He knew that Diana or Artemis was especially
the goddess of the Ephesians (Acts 19:28); and he was able to describe the
trade at Ephesus in religious images (Acts 19:26, 27)....
At these
points, archaeology has had something significant to say, sometimes where
the biblical record had previously seemed to be in error. One good example
relates to those magistrates at Philippi. In Acts 16:20, 35 we read of the
magistrates being referred to as "praetors." Strictly, their title should
have been duumvir, but it was as though they called themselves,
"senior magistrates" instead of magistrates." Ramsay showed by an
inscription recovered in another Roman colony, Capua, that Cicero had
spoken of the magistrates: "Although they are called duumvirs in the other
colonies, these men wish to be called praetors."
This is a
point at which critics had thought Luke was in error, but the fact is Luke
was better informed than those who opposed him. His writings constantly
bear this impress of authenticity. He was an eyewitness of so much that is
recorded in the Acts, and the source documents have now been recognized as
first-class historical writings.22
The above is
only a minuscule portion of the data underlying his conclusion that "Those
who know the facts now recognize that the New Testament must be accepted as
a remarkably accurate source book."23
Fact
Six—corroboration from enemies’ silence
The complete
inability of the numerous enemies of Jesus and the early Church to discredit
early Christian claims (when they had both the motive and ability to do so)
argues strongly for their veracity in light of the stupendous nature of
those claims (e.g., concerning Christ’s messiahship and resurrection) and
the relative ease of disproof (documenting Jesus’ failure to fulfill
specific prophecies; producing Jesus’ body).
Fact
Seven—corroboration from eyewitnesses
The presence of
hundreds of eyewitnesses to the events recorded in the New Testament would
surely have prohibited any alteration or distortion of the facts, just as
today any false reporting as to the events of the Vietnam War or World War
II would be immediately corrected on the basis of living eyewitnesses and
historic records.
Some argue that
the gospel writers’ reporting of miracles can’t be trusted because they were
only giving their religiously excited "subjective experience" of Jesus, not
objectively reporting real miraculous events. They thought Jesus did
miracles, but were mistaken.
What is ignored
by critics is what the text plainly states and the fact that the gospel
writers could not have gotten away with this in their own day unless they
had been telling the truth. They claimed that these things were done openly,
not in a corner (Acts 26:26), that they were literally eyewitnesses of the
miraculous nature and deeds of Jesus (Lk. 1:2; Acts 2:32; 4:20; 2 Pet.
1:16), and that their testimony should be believed because it was
true (Jn. 20:30-31; 21:24).
Indeed, they
wrote that Jesus Himself presented His miracles in support of His claims to
be both the prophesied Messiah and God incarnate. In Mark 2:8-11 when He
healed the paralytic, He did so "that you may know that the Son of Man has
authority on earth to forgive sins"—a clear claim to being God. In John
10:33 when the Jews accused Jesus of blaspheming because as supposedly only
a man He was yet claiming to be God, what was Jesus’ response? "Do not
believe me unless I do what my Father does. But if I do it, even though you
do not believe me, believe the miracles, that you may learn and understand
that the Father is in me, and I in the Father" (Jn. 10:37-38), another
obvious claim to deity. When John the Baptist was in jail and apparently had
doubts as to whether or not Jesus was the Messiah—after all if Jesus was the
Messiah, John probably reasoned, he should not be in jail—what did Jesus do?
He told John’s disciples to go and report about the miracles that Jesus did
which were in fulfillment of specific messianic prophecy (Mt. 11:2-5). Many
other examples could be added.
The truth is
that the teachings and miracles of Jesus, as any independent reading of the
gospels will prove, are so inexorably bound together that if one removes the
miracles, one must discard the teachings and vice versa. It is logically
impossible to have any other Jesus than the biblical one. But it is
precisely the biblical Jesus—His deeds and teaching—which have such abundant
eyewitness testimony, as any reading of the Gospels and Acts proves.
Fact
Eight—corroboration from date of authorship
The fact that
both conservatives (e.g., F. F. Bruce, John Wenham) and liberals (Bishop
John A. T. Robinson) have penned defenses of early dating for the New
Testament is a witness to the strength of the data for an early date. For
example, in Redating Matthew, Mark and Luke, noted conservative
British scholar John Wenham presents a convincing argument that the synoptic
Gospels are to be dated before 55 AD. He dates Matthew at 40 AD (some
tradition says the early 30’s); Mark at 45 AD and Luke no later than 51-55
AD.24
German
papyrologist Carsten Peter Thiede has argued that the Magdalen papyrus,
containing snippets of three passages from Matthew 26, currently housed at
Oxford University, are actually the oldest extant fragments of the New
Testament, dating from about 70 AD. Thiede’s book, Eyewitness to Jesus
(Doubleday, 1995), points out that the Magdalen papyrus is written in Uncial
style which began to die out in the middle of the first century. In
addition, the fragments are from a codex, containing writing on both sides
of the papyri which may have been widely used by Christians in the first
century since they were easier to handle than scrolls. Further, at three
places on the papyri the name of Jesus is written as KS which is an
abbreviation of the Greek word kyrios or Lord. Thiede argues that
this shorthand is proof that early Christians considered Jesus a sacred name
just as the devout Jews shortened the name of God to Yhwh. This would
indicate a very early belief for the deity of Christ. "New papyrus
discoveries, Thiede believes, will eventually prove that all four gospels,
even the problematic one ascribed to John, were written before AD 80 rather
than during the mid-second century. He argues that a scroll fragment
unearthed at the Essene community of Qumran in 1972 almost certainly
contains a passage from Mark’s gospel and can be accurately dated to AD 68.
In Thiede’s opinion, recent research has established that a papyrus fragment
of Luke in a Paris library was written between AD 63 and AD 67." 25
Even liberal bishop John A. T.
Robinson argued in his Redating the New Testament that the entire New
Testament was written and in circulation between 40 and 65 AD.26
And, liberal Peter Stuhlmacher of Tubingen, trained in Bultmann’s critical
methodology of form criticism says, "As a Western scripture scholar, I am
inclined to doubt these [Gospel] stories, but as a historian, I am
obligated to take them as reliable." And, "The biblical texts as they stand
are the best hypothesis we have until now to explain what really happened."27
In our view, the
Synoptics may even have been completed before 40 AD, within ten years of the
death of Christ. One reason for this is cited by Wenham:
Good reasons
for making a written record are likely to have arisen quite soon. For
instance, a reliable source of instruction would be needed when no
qualified teacher was available; it would be felt necessary to secure
accuracy in the substance of what was being taught in the scattered
Christian community; probably a need would be felt for a form of witness
to those outside the church. Torrey gives a sense of the urgency that
characterized the early church: "The truth must be made known to
all the Jews, everywhere, and as soon as possible…. As soon as the
adherents of the new faith became a veritable sect, their need of a
‘gospel’ was imperative. It was a literary age in a literary people, but
this was not all. The Israelites were ‘a people of the book’ (to use
Mohammed’s term); meaning, that their faith was based on a divine
revelation which was written down. Here was a new and most important
chapter, to be added to the record. No other means of presenting the new
truth with authority and in consistent form could compare, in its appeal
to the Jews at home and abroad, with the written announcement...."28
We feel it is
more reasonable to conclude an earlier date for the writing at least of the
Synoptics, i.e., in the mid to late 30s than it is to accept a "later" date
of the 40s-70s. Obviously, once we accept that the Synoptics were written by
40 AD, the destructive results of higher criticism vanish for then there was
not sufficient time for changes to have been made in the gospels and they
must stand as written. The same is true for the New Testament as a whole.
Indeed, it is
becoming an increasingly persuasive argument that all the New Testament
books were written before 70 AD—within a single generation of the death of
Christ and perhaps earlier.
The implications
of this are not small. A New Testament written before 70 AD virtually
destroys the edifice on which higher critical premises regarding the New
Testament are based. If true, insufficient time now remains for the early
church to have supposedly embellished the records with their own
particularist views. What the New Testament reports, it reports accurately.
Fact
Nine—corroboration from critical methods themselves
Even critical
methods indirectly support New Testament reliability. Although higher
critical theories in general reject biblical reliability a priori,
nevertheless, when such theories "are subjected to the same analytical
scrutiny as they apply to the New Testament documents, they will be found to
make their own contribution to validating the historicity of those records."29
Fact
Ten—corroboration from legal testimony and former skeptics
Finally, we must
also concede the historicity of the New Testament when we consider the fact
that many great minds of legal history have, on the grounds of strict legal
evidence alone accepted the New Testament as reliable history—not to mention
also the fact that many brilliant skeptical intellects of history and today
have converted to Christianity on the basis of the historical evidence (Saul
of Tarsus, Athanagoras, Augustine, George Lyttleton and Gilbert West, C. S.
Lewis, Frank Morison, Sir William Ramsay, John Warwick Montgomery, etc.)
Lawyers, of
course, are expertly trained in the matter of evaluating evidence and are
perhaps the most qualified in the task of weighing data critically. Is it
coincidence that so many of them throughout history have concluded in favor
of the truth of the Christian religion?
For example, in
his day, Irwin Linton represented cases before the Supreme Court. He wrote
A Lawyer Examines the Bible (1943, 1977) in which he stated:
So invariable
had been my observation that he who does not accept wholeheartedly the
evangelical, conservative belief in Christ and the Scriptures has never
read, has forgotten, or never been able to weigh—and certainly is utterly
unable to refute—the irresistible force of the cumulative evidence upon
which such faith rests, that there seems ample ground, for the conclusion
that such ignorance is an invariable element in such unbelief. And this is
so even though the unbeliever be a preacher, who is supposed to know this
subject if he know no other.30
Then there are hundreds of
contemporary lawyers who, on the grounds of strict legal evidence, accept
the New Testament as historically accurate. Examples include the eminent
Lord Chancellor Hailsham who twice held the highest office possible for a
lawyer in England, that of Lord Chancellor. He wrote The Door Wherein I
Went wherein he upholds the truth of the Christian Religion.31
Another example is Sir Norman Anderson, who is one of the greatest
authorities on Islamic law, yet is also a Christian. He is convinced of New
Testament authority and reliability.
Certainly, such
men were well-acquainted with legal reasoning and have just as certainly
concluded that the evidence for the historic truthfulness of the Scriptures
is beyond reasonable doubt. As apologist, theologian and lawyer, John
Warwick Montgomery observes in The Law Above the Law considering the
"ancient documents" rule (that ancient documents constitute competent
evidence if there is no evidence of tampering and they have been accurately
transmitted); the "parol evidence" rule32
(Scripture must interpret itself without foreign intervention); the "hearsay
rule" (the demand for primary-source evidence) and "cross examination"
principle (the inability of the enemies of Christianity to disprove its
central claim that Christ resurrected bodily from the dead in spite of the
motive and opportunity to do so)—all these coalesce directly or indirectly
to support the preponderance of evidence for Christianity while the burden
of proof proper (the legal burden) for disproving it rests with the critic,
who, in 2,000 years, has yet to prove his case.33
We must, then,
emphasize that to reject the New Testament accounts as true history is, by
definition, to reject the canons of legitimate historical study. To reject
the Gospels or the New Testament is to reject primary historical
documentation in general. If this cannot be done, the NT must be retained as
careful historical reporting. The New Testament has proven itself reliable
in the crucible of history. It is the New Testament critic who has been
unable to prove his case. Nor are the implications small.
Legal scholar J.
N. D. Anderson observes in Christianity: The Witness of History:
...it seems to
me inescapable that anyone who chanced to read the pages of the New
Testament for the first time would come away with one overwhelming
impression—that here is a faith firmly rooted in certain allegedly
historical events, a faith which would be false and misleading if those
events had not actually taken place, but which, if they did take place, is
unique in its relevance and exclusive in its demands on our allegiance.
For these events did not merely set a "process in motion and then
themselves sink back into the past. The unique historical origin of
Christianity is ascribed permanent, authoritative, absolute significance;
what happened once is said to have happened once for all and therefore to
have continuous efficacy."34
Notes
1 Chauncey Sanders, An
Introduction to Research in English Literary History (NY: MacMillan,
1952), p. 160. His comments were specifically in reference to the
authenticity or authorship of a given text.
2 Ibid., pp. 143ff.
3 Josh McDowell, Evidence That
Demands a Verdict, rev. 1979, pp. 39-52; and Norman Geisler, William
Nix, A General Introduction to the Bible (Chicago: Moody Press,
1971), pp. 238, 357-367.
4 Josh McDowell, Evidence That
Demands a Verdict, p. 42; Newman, "Easter Week Narratives," 281-284.
5 F. F. Bruce, The Books and the
Parchments (Old Tappan, NJ: Revell, 1963), p. 78.
6 F. F. Bruce, The New Testament
Documents: Are They Reliable? (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press,
1971), p. 15.
7 Cited in Rene Pache, The
Inspiration and Authority of Scripture, tr. Helen I. Needham (Chicago:
Moody Press, 1969), p. 193, citing Benjamin B. Warfield, An
Introduction to the Textual Criticism of the Old Testament, p. 12ff;
"The Greek Testament of Westcott and Hort," The Presbyterian Review,
vol. 3 (April 1982), p. 356.
8 Josh McDowell, Evidence That
Demands a Verdict, pp. 43-45; Clark Pinnock, Biblical Revelation:
The Foundation of Christian Theology (Chicago: Moody Press, 1971), pp.
238-239, 365-366.
9 Robert C. Newman, "Miracles and
the Historicity of the Easter Week Narratives," in Montgomery, ed.,
Evidence for Faith, p. 284.
10 See John Warwick Montgomery,
Faith Founded on Fact (New York: Nelson, 1978); F.F. Bruce, The New
Testament Documents: Are They Reliable?; John Warwick Montgomery,
History and Christianity; Norman Geisler, Christian Apologetics
(Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1976), pp. 322-327.
11 William M. Ramsay, The Bearing
of Recent Discovery on the Trustworthiness of the New Testament (Grand
Rapids, MI: Baker, 1959), p. 81, cf. William F. Ramsay, Luke the
Physician, 177-179, 222 as given in F.F. Bruce, The New Testament
Documents: Are They Reliable?, pp. 90-91.
12 A. N. Sherwin-White, Roman
Society and Roman Law in the New Testament (Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1963) from N. Geisler, Christian Apologetics, p. 326.
13 Gary R. Habermas, Ancient
Evidence for the Life of Jesus: Historical Records of His Death and
Resurrection (New York: Nelson, 1984), p. 66.
14 Philip Schaff, Henry Wace, eds.,
A Select Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian
Church, 2nd series, vol. 1, Eusebius: Church History, Book 3, Chapter
39, "The Writings of Papias" (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1976), pp.
172-173.
15 Habermas, Ancient Evidence for
the Life of Jesus, pp. 66, 177.
16 E.g., Gerhard Meier, The End
of the Historical Critical Method (St. Louis, MO: Concordia, 1977) and
Josh McDowell, More Evidence That Demands a Verdict (San
Bernardino, CA: Campus Crusade for Christ, 1972).
17 Habermas, Ancient Evidence for
the Life of Jesus; cf., F. F. Bruce, The New Testament Documents:
Are They Reliable?, chs. 9-10.
18 Habermas, Ancient Evidence,
pp. 112-115.
19 Ibid., p. 112.
20 Ibid., pp. 112-113.
21 See our chapter on archeology in
Ready With An Answer and F. F. Bruce, "Are the New Testament
Documents Still Reliable?", Christianity Today (October 28, 1978),
pp. 28-33; F. F. Bruce, The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable?,
chs. 7-8; Sir William Ramsay, The Bearing of Recent Discoveries on the
Trustworthiness of the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books,
1979); C. A. Wilson, Rocks, Relics and Biblical Reliability (Grand
Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1977), ch. 2; New Light on New Testament Letters
and New Light on the Gospels (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1975); Edwin
Yamauchi, The Stones and the Scriptures, Section II (New York:
Lippincott, 1972).
22 Wilson, Rocks, Relics and
Biblical Reliability, pp. 112-114.
23 Ibid., p. 120.
24 John Wenham, Redating Matthew,
Mark & Luke (Downers Grove, IL: 1992), pp. 115-119, 136, 183, see pp.
xxv, 198, 147, 200, 223, 238-239, 243-245. Mark: "The substantial truth of
the patristic tradition about Mark could be maintained without
necessitating a date somewhere after the mid-60s, and a date as early as
the mid-40s becomes possible." (p. 147)
"I shall argue in the next chapter...that there is some direct
evidence that Luke’s gospel was highly valued throughout the Pauline
churches in the mid-50s, and I am inclined to believe that Matthew and
Mark are referred to in Luke’s preface,..." (p. 221)
"On the face of it the synoptic apocalypse makes a date before 70
probable for all three gospels—there is not a suggestion of Jesus’
momentous prophecy having been fulfilled... [other considerations] makes
55 the latest possible date for Luke. Mark is to be dated c.45, after
Peter’s first visit to Rome in 42-44. Matthew is to be dated before the
dispersal of the apostles in 42." (p. 223)
"Any date between 44 and the writing of Luke in the early 50s is,
however, possible.... Dates assigned to Matthew vary between the 30s of
the first century and the middle of the second century. Cosmas of
Alexandria (died c.550) put it during the persecution which followed the
death of Stephen, which might be as early 33…. In his Chronicon
Eusebius places the writing of the gospel in the third year of the reign
of Caligula, that is, in 41."
"Dates like these in the 30s and 40s (which we might describe as "Eusebian")
are favored by many orthodox scholars right down to the 19th century. (pp.
238-239)"
In his "Conclusions" section he states his conviction that "Mark’s
gospel was probably written about 45" and that the universal tradition of
the early church places Matthew’s gospel at around 40. (p. 243) In
addition, "Luke’s gospel was apparently well known in the mid-50s" and
"Luke knew Mark’s gospel" meaning that Luke should be dated in the early
to mid 50s.
25 John Elson, "Eyewitness to
Jesus?," Time, April 8, 1996, p. 60.
26 John A. T. Robinson, Redating
the New Testament (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1976).
27 in Richard S. Ostling, "Who Was
Jesus?", Time, August 15, 1988, p. 41, emphasis added.
28 Wenham, Redating Matthew, Mark
& Luke, p. 200.
29 F. F. Bruce "Are the New
Testament Documents Still Reliable?", p. 33.
30 Irwin Linton, A Lawyer
Examines the Bible (San Diego: Creation-Life-Publishers, 1977), p. 45.
31 "The Door Wherein I Went" in
The Simon Greenleaf Law Review, vol. 4, 1984-1985), pp. 28-36.
32 parol evidence rule - n.
if there is evidence in writing (such as a signed contract) the terms of
the contract cannot be altered by evidence of oral (parol) agreements
purporting to change, explain or contradict the written document. (http://dictionary.law.com/definition2.asp?selected=1452&bold=||||)
33 Montgomery, The Law Above the
Law, pp. 87-88.
34 J. N. D. Anderson,
Christianity: The Witness of History (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity,
1970), pp. 13-14.
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