This file last modified 24 Feb 95 at 23:10 by Jeff Lowder < jlowder@spu.edu . 4A. THE RELIABILITY AND TRUSTWORTHINESS OF SCRIPTURE 1B. Introduction "What we are establishing here is the historical reliability of the Scripture, not its inspiration. The historical reliability of the Scripture should be tested by the same criteria that all historical documents are tested." According to McDowell these tests are the bibliographical test, the internal evidence test, and the external evidence test. 2B. The Bibliographical Test for the Reliability of the New Testament 1C. Manuscript Evidence of the New Testament "There are now more than 5,300 known Greek manuscripts of the New Testament. Add over 10,000 Latin Vulgate and at least 9,300 other early versions (MSS) and we have more than 24,000 manuscript copies of portions of the New Testament in existence today." "No other document of antiquity even begins to approach such numbers and attestation. In comparison, the Iliad by Homer is second with only 643 manuscripts that still survive. The first complete preserved text of Homer dates from the 13th century." 2C. The New Testament Compared With Other Works of Antiquity McDowell suggests that the New Testament is superior to any other work of antiquity in 2 ways: * There are more MSS of the NT than any other ancient work . * The extant MSS of the NT date closer to the writings of the originals, than do the extant MSS of any other ancient work . He then compares the NT to the Iliad again, stating that "only 40 lines (or 400 words) of the New Testament are in doubt whereas 764 lines of the Iliad are questioned." 1D. The manuscript comparison 2D. The textual comparison 3C. Chronology of Important New Testament Manuscripts 4C. Manuscript Reliability Supported by Various Versions 1D. Syriac versions 2D. Latin versions 3D. Coptic versions 4D. Other early versions 5C. Manuscript Reliability Supported by Early Church Fathers Clement of Rome Tertullian Irenaeus Ignatius Polycarp Clement of Alexandria Tertullian Hippolytus Justin Martyr Origen Cyprian 6C. Manuscript Reliability Supported by Lectionaries 3B. The Bibliographical Test for the Reliability of the Old Testament 1C. The Talmudists (A.D. 100-500) 2C. The Massoretic Period (A.D. 500-900) 3C. Quotations and Observations on the Reliability of the Old Testament 4C. The Hebrew Text 5C. The Witness of the Dead Sea Scrolls to the Reliability of the Hebrew Scriptures 6C. The Septuagint Substantiates the Genuineness of the Hebrew Text 7C. Samaritan Text 8C. The Targums 9C. The Mishnah 10C. The Gemaras 11C. The Midrash 12C. The Hexpla 4B. The Internal Test for Reliability of the Scriptures 1C. Benefit of the Doubt 2C. Primary Source Value 3C. Competent Primary Source Value 5B. External Evidence Test For Reliability of Scripture 1C. Substantiating Authority 2C. Supporting Evidence of Extra-Biblical Authors 3C. Evidence from Archaeology 1D. Ebla Kingdom proofs 2D. Old Testament examples of archaeological confirmation 3D. New Testament examples 1E. Luke's reliability as an historian is unquestionable. McDowell claims that "archaeology has authenticated the Gospel accounts, especially Luke." He highlights Sir William Ramsay who, as a result of his research, was forced to admit that the Book of Acts is historically reliable. McDowell claims, "It was at one time conceded that Luke had entirely missed the boat in the events he portrayed as surrounding the birth of Jesus (Luke 2:1-3). Critics argued that there was no census, that Quirinius was not governor of Syria at that time and that everyone did not have to return to his ancestral home." "First of all, archaeological discoveries show that the Romans had a regular enrollment of taxpayers and also held censuses every 14 years. This procedure was indeed begun under Augustus and the first took place in either 2-3 B.C. or in 9-8 B.C. The latter would be the one to which Luke refers." "Second, we find evidence that Quirinius was governor of Syria around 7 B.C. This assumption is based on an inscription found in Antioch ascribing to Quirinius this post. As a result of this finding, it is now supposed that he was governor twice -- once in 7 B.C. and the other time in 6 A.D. (the date ascribed by Josephus)." "Last, in regard to the practices of enrollment, a papyrus found in Egypt gives direction for the conduct of a census." 2E. The Pavement The court where Jesus was tried by Pilate "was the court of the Tower of Antonia which was the Roman military headquarters in Jerusalem. It was left buried when the city was rebuilt in the time of Hadrian and not discovered until recently." 3E. The Pool of Bethesda "... another site with no record of it except in the New Testament, can now be indentified 'with a fair measure of certainty in the northeast quarter of the old city (the area called Bezetha, or 'New Lawn') in the first century A.D., where traces of it were discovered in the course of excavations near the Church of St. Anne in 1888." 6B. Conclusion ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- "After trying to shatter the historicity and validity of the Scripture, I came to the conclusion that it is historically trustworthy. If one discards the Bible as being unreliable, then he must discard almost all literature of antiquity." 1B. INTRODUCTION 2B. The Bibliographical Test for the Reliability of the New Testament While we would agree that the New Testament passes this test, this test does not actually prove that any of the statements in the manuscript are accurate. As Jim Lippard wrote: "This is a test ONLY of the accuracy of copying, NOT of the veracity of what is written. There are millions of copies of the Weekly World News distributed to supermarkets across the country every week. Each copy is made from original writing which was produced very close in time to the final copy. This is no indication whatsoever of the truth of anything in the Weekly World News." Dan Barker, commenting on McDowell's statement that there are "over 24,000 manuscript copies of the New Testament," demonstrates that the sheer number of manuscript copies does not help establish the accuracy of what the manuscripts actually say: "This information might cause believers to applaud with smugness, but it misses the point. What does the number of copies have to do with authenticity? If a million copies of this book you are reading are printed, does it make it any more truthful? Are the 'historical' facts reported in the Iliad considered reliable? There are currently hundreds of millions of copies of the Koran in existence, in many forms and scores of translations. Does the sheer number of copies make it more reliable than, say, a single inscription on an Egyptian sarcophagus? This argument is a smokescreen. There are no original manuscripts (autographs) of the bible in existence, so we all agree that we are working from copies. Critics might agree that the current translations of the bible are based on a reasonably accurate transcription of an early form of the New Testament, but what does this have to do with authenticity, reliability, or truthfulness?" (Losing Faith in Faith, p. 367) Barker also discusses McDowell's reference to the length of time between the writing of the original NT manuscripts, and the earliest extant manuscripts we possess today (p. 367-68): "Another argument made by McDowell and others is the close interval of time between the events or original writing and the earliest copies in our possession. Homer wrote the iliad in 900 BC, but our earliest copy is from 400 BC -- a span of five hundred years. Aristotle wrote in 384- 322 BC and the earliest copy dates from 1100 AD -- a gap of fourteen hundred years. In contrast, the New Testament was written (McDowell says) between 40 and 100 AD, and the earliest copy dates from 125 AD, a time span of twenty-five years." "This is important when considering the reliability of the text itself. A shorter interval of time allows for fewer corruptions and variants. But it has no relevance to the reliability of the content. If the New Testament should be considered reliable on this basis, then so should the Book of Mormon, which was supposedly written (copied by Joseph Smith) in 1823 and first published in 1830, a gap of only seven years. In addition to Joseph Smith, there are signed testimonies of eleven witnesses who claimed to have seen the gold tablets on which the angek Moroni wrote the Book of Mormon. We are much closer in history to the origin of Mormonism than to the origin of Christianity. There are millions of copies of the Book of Mormon and a thriving Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (with millions of members and billions of dollars in assets) to prove its veracity. Though most scholars (pro and con) agree that the current edition of the Book of Mormon is a reliable copy of the 1830 version, few Christian scholars consider it to be reliable history." Robin Lane Fox had this to say about the manuscript authority of the New Testament (The Unauthorized Version: Truth and Fiction in the Bible, p. 137): "... However, they [papyri] do give us some contact with Christian texts within a hundred years of their composition. This evidence is much earlier than the evidence for the Old Testament, and is often contrasted triumphantly with the evidence for various Greek and Latin classics. Whereas our knowledge of Catallus's love poems goes back to one Latin manuscript some fifteen hundred years after their composition, the New Testament can be followed to within two lifetimes of Paul and its other authors..." However, cautions Fox, this fact does not mean that the New Testament is lacking any serious problems (Ibid, p. 137-38): "... Unlike Catallus's love-poems or Juvenal's satires, the Christian scriptures were a battlefield for textual alteration and rewriting in the first hundred years of their life. In the 140s an important Christian, Marcion, troubled many of his fellow Christians by producing a 'Gospel' which abbreviated Luke's so as to suit his own theology, however, not history). He edited ten letters of Paul, changing and omitting bits which he did not like and also omitted the Epistles to Timothy and Titus. This enterprise played havoc with the written text. So did the efforts of another extreme Christian, Tatian, who blended all four Gospels into one during the 170s, and changed the text to support his extreme hostility to sex. Tatian's 'Harmony' was widely accepted in the Christian East and made a serious impact on Christianity in the Syriac language for many centuries." "If Christian texts were being changed and altered to this degree, even a gap of a century between an original and its first survival on a papyrus is a long and potentially dangerous time..." 1C. MANUSCRIPT EVIDENCE OF THE NEW TESTAMENT As McDowell does throughout his book, he uses the propaganda technique of card-stacking to emphasize some points and ignore others; to make it appear that a large number of authorities agree with him; and that authorities that he does quote agree with him on all points. Found at the very beginning of his book, The New Testament, Its Transmission, Corruption and Restoration(Oxford University Press, 1968), Dr. Bruce M. Metzger comments, "The necessity of applying textual criticism to the books of the New Testament arises from two circumstances: (a) none of the original documents is extant, and (b) the existing copies differ from one another." 2C. THE NEW TESTAMENT COMPARED WITH OTHER WORKS OF ANTIQUITY 3C. CHRONOLOGY OF IMPORTANT NEW TESTAMENT MANUSCRIPTS 4C. MANUSCRIPT RELIABILITY SUPPORTED BY VARIOUS VERSIONS 5C. MANUSCRIPT RELIABILITY SUPPORTED BY EARLY CHURCH FATHERS Clement of Rome The author of 1 Clement, an anonymous letter, usually dated as ca. 96 CE, and attributed to Clement writing from Rome to the church at Corinth, does not appear to be aware of any written Gospels. On two occasions he refers to what Jesus had said; in chap. l3, he repeats the words of Jesus, very similiar to those in the Gospels, although they are not quotations. In chap 46 he brings together two unconnected Markan statements (9:21 and l4:21) and he appears to be quoting loose sayings that were circulating, but not in a fixed form; this view is strengthened by the fact that he never refers to Gospel stories, or sayings, when it would be very appropriate, applicable and would support the argument he is making; instead he quotes or refers to the O.T. Tertullian Irenaeus Ignatius Ignatius, ca. ll0 AD, mentions the Gospel although it again appears he is referring to the Gospel message, rather than written documents. He gives much more information about Jesus' life, but as he refers to things not found in any of the four canonical Gospels, eg. the story of Jesus speaking after the resurrection, (Smyrn. 3) which is apparently from the apocryphal Gospel according to the Hebrews and not from the canonical Gospels, and he describes the Bethlehem star in a way that is not found in Matthew (the only canonical Gospel to mention this), it is not clear what written Gospel was available to him. He refers to other N.T. writings, but there is no clear indication he knew of any written Gospels.......... In his letter to the Philippians he uses terms found in Matt and Luke although it is noteworthy that the author of l John, facing the same Docetic problem as Ignatius, but at an earlier time, clearly did not have the biographical information about Jesus, which was available to Ignatius. Polycarp Polycarp, ca. l30 CE, apparently knew Matt and/or Luke and improves upon Clement's "quotations", but apparently didn't know of John's Gospel. Barnabas The Epistle of Barnabas ca. l30 CE, uses OT references to support its contents when NT ones would have been far more appropriate. It refers to a passage in Matt 20:l6b and 22:l4 and surprisingly for this early date calls it 'Scripture'; this is quite unique. However, 20:l6b appears to have been an interpolation and if it was a loose saying, it is more likely the author is using Matthew's source, rather than Matthew itself. The author chose to use the apocryphal Enoch when writing about the end (instead of Mark l3), and in referring to the crucifixion he refers to the Psalms, not the Gospels. The Epistle (chap. 7) has a saying attributed to Jesus not found in the Gospels. Hermas Clement of Alexandria Tertullian Hippolytus Justin Martyr Justin Martyr, in the middle of the second century, refers to written Gospels which were deemed as authoritative as the O.T, but he does not name them, nor state their number so it is not known what he was referring to. He too, used non-canonical material. It was only by ca. l70 CE that Tatian was using all four Gospels for his Diatessaron harmony and about a decade later Irenaeus was arguing for acceptance of the four canonical Gospels, and only those. Origen Cyprian 6C. MANUSCRIPT RELIABILITY SUPPORTED BY LECTIONARIES 3B. The Bibliographical Test for the Reliability of the Old Testament 1C. The Talmudists (A.D. 100-500) 2C. The Massoretic Period (A.D. 500-900) 3C. Quotations and Observations on the Reliability of the Old Testament 4C. The Hebrew Text 5C. The Witness of the Dead Sea Scrolls to the Reliability of the Hebrew Scriptures 6C. The Septuagint Substantiates the Genuineness of the Hebrew Text McDowell asserts, using many card-stacking quotations of secondary sources, that the Septuagint (LXX), a Greek translation of the Hebrew scripture by scholars in Alexandria, Egypt, and which use was widespread in the East, and which was popular among Christians, shows that the Hebrew Old Testament as used by Jews today (the Massoretic text) is "substantially the same as the text of 300 B.C." Warning: none of the scholars quoted by McDowell in this section are mainstream authorities. Geisler and Nix are graduates of Wheaton College (see McDowell's appendix on quoted authors). Ironically, while the Septuagint agrees with the *majority* of the Hebrew text, there are numerous important differences. As I recall, the ages and names of the patriarches of Genesis are different. Christians, including the writers of the New Testament, generally supported the readings of the Septuagint as *opposed* to those in the Hebrew text. The prophecy of the Virgin Birth is taken from the Greek, and is not supported by the Hebrew words. Christians accused the Jews of changing the Hebrew text when it suited their arguments. That is, they said the Greek was right, and the Hebrew was wrong. In Dialogues 73, Justin quotes Psalm 96:10 (Psalm 95 in the LXX) with its notorious Christian interpretation, 'The Lord reigned from the tree' and bitterly accuses the Jews of having eliminated this phrase! (C.F.D. Moule, The Birth of the New Testament, 3rd ed., San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1982, p.100. Moule is professor Emeritus of NT at Cambridge). 7C. Samaritan Text 8C. The Targums 9C. The Mishnah 10C. The Gemaras 11C. The Midrash 12C. The Hexpla 4B. The Internal Test for Reliability of the Scriptures The New Testament does not pass this test. Anyone who has read the New Testament must be aware of the discrepancies. All six of the different resurrection accounts are contradictory, and there doesn't seem to be any way to reconcile the differences without adding or subtracting from what is in the New Testament. Jim Lippard: "The New Testament fails this test. There are innumerable manuscript variants, plus logical errors and inconsistencies between different accounts of the same events. The Skeptical Review and Ralph Nielsen each offer $1,000 (for a total of $2,000) to anyone who can produce a single consistent narrative of the resurrection appearances of Jesus as described in the four gospels, Acts, and 1 Corinthians 15, without deleting any details or adding any purely speculative material. This challenge has been publicized in The Skeptical Review (one year free from P.O. Box 617, Canton, IL 61520-0617), sent to such persons as Gleason Archer, James White, and Robert Morey, and also in Tucson's Good News newspaper. So far as I know, nobody has even attempted to take up the challenge." I have listed several of the discrepancies in the New Testament post- resurrection accounts elsewhere. 1C. BENEFIT OF THE DOUBT 2C. PRIMARY SOURCE VALUE 3C. COMPETENT PRIMARY SOURCE VALUE 5B. The External Evidence Test for Reliability of Scripture Jim Lippard: "The New Testament fails this test, as well. Other documents contradict the gospels (e.g., early Jewish writings about Jesus, including parts of the Talmud and the Toldoth Jeshu; Quirinius was not governor of Syria at the time of the census described in the gospel of Luke; Josephus' record of Herod's atrocities makes no mention of the slaughter of infants described in Luke; other, pagan myths parallel and often predate the equivalent stories in the Bible)." 1C. SUBSTANTIATING AUTHENTICITY 2C. SUPPORTING EVIDENCE OF EXTRA-BIBLICAL AUTHORS 3C. EVIDENCE FROM ARCHAEOLOGY 1D. Ebla Kingdom proofs 2D. Old Testament examples of archaeological confirmation 3D. New Testament examples 1E. Luke's reliability as an historian is unquestionable. Luke's Gospel incorrectly describes Quirinius and King Herod as contemporaries. Robin Lane Fox, The Unauthorized Version: Truth and Fiction in the Bible, p. 28-29. "The difficulty begins on one small point but spreads from it, like dry rot, to bring larger constructions to the ground. Quirinius, the governor of Syria whom Luke's Gospel mentions, is known from a careful history of affairs in Judaea which was compiled by Josephus, an educated Jew, writing in Greek at Rome between c. 75 and c. 80. Josephus had his own prejudices and areas of interest, but he worked with a framework of hard facts which were freely available for checking and which he had collected responsibly. According to Josephus, Quirinius was governor of Syria with authority over Judea in AD 6, when the province was brought under direct Roman control. The year was a critical moment in Jewish history, as important to its province as the 1972 to Northern Ireland, the start of direct rule. On such a fact, at such a moment, Josephus and his sources cannot be brushed aside. There is however, an awkward problem. Luke's Gospel links Jesus's birth with Quirinius and with King Herod, but in AD 6 Herod had long disappeared. He had died soon after an eclipse of the moon which is dated by astronomers to 12-13 March 4 BC, although a minority of scholars have argued for 5 BC instead. The Gospel, therefore, assumes that Quirinius and King Herod were contemporaries, when they were separated by ten years or more. There is no doubt about the Herod in question. When the great King Herod died, his kingdom was split between his sons, two of whom did add Herod to their names. Herod Antipas locally in Galilee as a tetrarch until 39, but Luke 1:5 connects the Annunciation with Herod `king of Judea': when he refers to Herod Antipas at 3:1, he correctly calls him tetrarch, not king. Herod Archelaus ruled Judea until AD 6, but only as an ethnarch: like Matthew 2:22, Luke might have misdescribed him as king, but, like Matthew, he would have called him Archelaus or Herod Archelaus. At 1:5 the Herod must be the great King Herod, just as Matthew's Gospel describes. In Matthew the Nativity coincides with the great Herod, Massacrer of the Innocents, whose death is a reason for the return from the Flight into Egypt. Luke's Gospel, therefore, assumes that King Herod and the governor Quirinius were contemporaries, but they were separated by over ten years or more. The incoherent dating is only the start of the problem. Luke's Nativity story hinges on its `decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed.' `Caesar Augustus' was the Roman Emperor, but if the Nativity took place in the reign of the King Herod the Great, the Jews were still Herod's subjects, members of a client kingdom, not a province under direct Roman rule. The status of client-kings in the Roman Empire left them responsibility for their subjects' taxation. Relations between the Emperor Augustus and King Herod had often been stormy and had even led to threats of Roman interference which Herod and his envoys had to avert. However, their conflicts never caused the removal of Herod's royal status, although this was the only way in which his kingdom could have been taxed on the Roman model in accordance with orders from the Roman Emperor. It is not just that Herod the Great never coincided with Quirinius the governor: he never coincided with a Roman taxing of Judaea." Augustus never issued a decree to tax the whole world. Robin Lane Fox, The Unauthorized Version: Truth and Fiction in the Bible, p. 29. "It is even doubtful if the Emperor Augustus ever issued a decree to Rome's provinces that `all the world should be taxed.' Certainly, Romans did take censuses in individual provinces which were ruled directly by their governors. They were not, however, co-ordinated by an order from Augustus to all the world, at least so far as our evidence goes. As that evidence extends through histories, local inscriptions and the papyrus returns of tax-payers in Egypt, it is immensely unlikely that a new edict of such consequence has escaped our knowledge. In AD 6 we do know that Augustus was enacting a new tax on inheritance to help pay for his armies; however, the tax affected only Roman citizens, not Jews of Nazareth, and there was no need for a worldwide census to register their names. In Judaea under Quirinius, we know from Josephus's histories of something more appropriate, not a worldwide decree but a local census in AD 6 to assess Judaea when the province passed from rule by Herod's family to direct rule by Rome. Although this census was local, it caused a notorious outcry, not least because some of the Jews argued that the innovation was contrary to scripture and the will of God. According to the third Gospel, the census which took Joseph to Bethlehem was `the first while Quirinius was governor of Syria.' Quirinius's census was indeed the first, but it belonged in AD 6 when King Herod, the story's other marker, was long since dead." 2E. The Pavement 3E. The Pool of Bethesda 6B. Conclusion The Historical Reliability of the Bible Jim Merritt cites Noah's flood as an example of errors in the Bible: Let's look at the Biblical dates. I Kings 6:1 says that 480 years passed from the start of the Exodus to the start of construction on the first temple by Solomon. Gal 3:17 says that 430 years passed from the cevenant with Abraham to the delivery of the Law to Moses. The chapters of Genesis after the Flood accound give the periods in years that passed between the births of various individuals from Noah to Abraham, giving a period of 390 years from the Flood to the covenant with Abraham. Thus, according to the Bible, the Flood took place 1300 years before Solomon began construction of the first temple. * This is a clear, direct, falsifiable claim. These are clear, unambiguous statements that a period of X years elapsed between two events. * The event itself (a global Flood that wiped out all but 8 humans) would be pretty hard to miss or gloss over. * Because there were any number of literate cultures in the near East, who recorded dynastic lists, raised monuments giving dates and length of reigns, and sent ambassadors to each others' courts, we can pretty reliably construct chronologies for near Easter history, particularly for Egypt, and without reference to (but supported by) dating methods such as carbon-14 with corrections from tree-ring sequences. * The upshot of which is that the building of the first temple can be dated to 950 B.C. +- some small delta, placing the Flood around 2250 B.C. Unfortunately, the Egytians (among others) have written records dating well back before 2250 B.C. (the Great Pyramid, for example dates to the 26th century B.C., 300 years before the Biblical date for the Flood). No sign in Egyptian inscriptions of this global flood around 2250 B.C. * Therefore, either we have to reject the historicity of the Flood account; accept the historicity of the Flood account, but explain away the clear Biblical dating of the event; or accept the Biblical account and chronology, and reject the massive amount of written and archaological evidence estab- lishing the chronology of history in the near East." ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Supported by other versions Jim Merritt: "So? There are numberous versions of Aesop's fables. So should the bible be viewed as another collection of fables?" ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Supported by early church fathers Jim Merritt: "Of course! One would expect nothing else. This would not disallow anything that these earlier people (who had custody) changed/deleted." "His first reference on this is an encyclopedia!" Supporting Evidence of Extra-Biblical Authors Jim Merritt: "NONE of this list has ANY direct knowledge even by Josh's own words!" Jim Lippard on Clement of Rome: "The anonymous epistle known as 1 Clement (attributed to Clement of Rome) makes repeated references to Jesus, but does not put him in any historical setting. It is dated at 96 C.E. on the basis of internal evidence (assuming that its references to persecution are to that of Domitian). This work also cannot be considered independent historical testimony." Jim Merritt on Ignatius: "AD70-110, a desciple of Polycarp who was a desciple of John three times removed and a century later." Jim Merritt on Elgin Moyer: "Who wrote about Ignatius in 1968. This is historical evidence?!?!?" Jim Merritt on Tatian: "This guy didn't originate ANYTHING, but just 'harmonized'. And the date was given as AD170, centuries later." END****************************************************************************