The New Testament Documents

The New Testament Documents by F. F. Bruce is a classic overview of the historical reliability of the New Testament. Dr. Bruce was a prominent professor of Biblical Criticism and Exegesis and the University of Manchester in the 20th century. He published many academic and popular works and is widely recognized as an expert in New Testament history, textual sources of the Bible, and the life of the apostle Paul.

In this book, Dr. Bruce presents evidence for the historical reliability of the New Testament from a variety of perspectives. This is an important topic because Christianity is much more than a philosophy or a code of ethics. Christianity is good news.

And this good news is intimately bound up with the historical order, for it tells how for the world's redemption God entered into history, the eternal came into time, the kingdom of heaven invaded the realm of earth, in the great events of the incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection of Jesus the Christ.

Since the New Testament deals with supernatural events and universal claims, people naturally demand more evidence of its reliability than for other ancient documents. Fortunately there is ample evidence that the modern New Testament documents are extremely close to the originals written in the 1st century.

There are in existence over 5,000 Greek manuscripts of the New Testament in whole of in part. The best and most important of these go back to somewhere about AD 350, the two most important being the Codex Vaticanus, the chief treasure of the Vatican Library in Rome, and the well-known Codex Sinaiticus....

In addition, to the two excellent [manuscripts] of the fourth century mentioned above, which are the earliest of some thousands known to us, considerable fragments remain of papyrus copies of books of the New Testament dated from 100 to 200 years earlier still.

John Rylands Fragment, John 18:31-33 (about AD 130)

Codex Vaticanus (about AD 350)

In addition to all of these thousands of early copies and fragments, the early Church fathers were writers themselves. These documents, which were written from AD 90 to 160, contain quotations and allusions to passages from most of the books of the New Testament.

Further, there is much evidence from academic research in Textual Criticism.

This is a most important and fascinating branch of study, its object being to determine as exactly as possible from the available evidence the original words of the the documents in question.... Fortunately, if the great number of [manuscripts] increases the number of scribal errors, it increases proportionally the means of correcting such errors, so that the margin of doubt left in the process of recovering the exact original wording is not so large as might be feared; it is in truth remarkably small. The variant readings about which any doubt remains among textual critics of the New Testament affect no material question of historic fact or Christian faith and practice.

So while it is true that copy errors were introduced over time, modern scholars are able to sort the manuscripts out into sort of a family tree, with the earliest manuscripts near the trunk and the later copies out in the branches. Earlier mistakes will continue to be reproduced in later copies down a particular branch, but will not occur in other branches of the tree. By comparing variants of passages in the different branches, the correct original version can be found. And since there are many branches in the tree, the correct version can be located with a high level of confidence.

In other chapters of this fine book, Dr. Bruce describes many other evidences for the reliability of the New Testament. Some of these are:

• The four Gospels are consistent in portraying Jesus as the Messiah and the Son of God.
• All of the New Testament authors were eyewitnesses or closely related to eyewitnesses of the events.
• Consistent testimony of (a) the empty tomb (b) the post-resurrection appearance of Jesus to groups of disciples and (c) the inability of the Jewish authorities to disprove the resurrection of Jesus.
• The many accurate historical details in the Gospel of Luke and book of Acts.
• Rabbinic writings which, though hostile, give a similar portrayal of the life of Christ.
• Records from early Gentile historians which verify the reality of Christ's life and death.
  

Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.
ISBN: 0802822193