Jesus and Salvation Series (Part 8)

Welcome to the Summer 2006 study for the Koinonia Class of Calvary Baptist Church, Denver, Colorado. We’re looking at the issue of Jesus and Salvation, using the book “Is Jesus The Only Savior” [James R. Edwards, Is Jesus The Only Savior? (Grand Rapids/Cambridge: 2005)]. We encourage each person to buy a copy and follow along.

The Reliability of the New Testament

In 1943 F. F. Bruce first published “Are The New Testament Documents Reliable?”. Still relevant and popular, later editions, which are still being printed, are now titled, “The New Testament Documents, Are They Reliable?” This 135 page paperback, available for about $9.25 online, is packed with evidence that the answer is “Yes!”.

I believe I first read that book while in college. I’ve since referred to it numerous times because the question keeps being asked. Another way to phrase it is to ask, “Can we rely on the New Testament for credible information about Jesus?”.

The New Testament is understood as a Historical Document

Edwards has an interesting way to approach the question in Chapter 3: he discusses examples of the various types of literature in ancient and modern religious texts.

• Some are understood to be myths. The Bhagavad Gita and the stories of Greek and Roman mythology, for example, do not claim to be based on actual historical events.


• Some are simply collections of wise sayings (the Analects of Confucius), again making no claim to historicity.


• Some make claims to state historical fact, but for which there is no historical or archeological evidence (the Book of Mormon).


• The Bible, though, claims to be genuine history and its claims can be validated by research and comparison to other known historical documents (e.g. Tacitus’ Annals, or Josephus’ Wars).

You need only to check out the many historical reference points in the New Testament to see that other historical and archeological evidence exists for the people and places mentioned (Emperor Tiberius, Pontius Pilate, Herod Antipas, etc.). Edwards notes that the Roman historian Tacitus wrote that Jesus was “executed by sentence of the procurator Pontius Pilate when Tiberius was emperor.” (Annals 15.44)

So, the New Testament documents are seen to be historically reliable in those instances where people and places are mentioned.

Manuscript Evidence for the New Testament

Another point made by Edwards and F. F. Bruce is that the New Testament documents are vastly superior in comparison to other ancient writings at the point of manuscript evidence.

“Caesar’s Gallic War, which was written between 58 and 50 BC, has only ten manuscripts of worth, the oldest dating from nine hundred years after Caesar. Tacitus’s Histories, written about A. D. 100, and his Annals, written slightly later, depend on only two manuscripts, one ninth-century and one eleventh-century.”

By contrast, there are over 5,000 manuscripts of the New Testament in whole or in part. Some of these date from the early to late 2nd century. We have two copies of Greek manuscripts of the entire New Testament (Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus) which date from about 350 to 400 A. D.

See this link for a table of manuscript evidence for superior New Testament reliability when compared to other ancient documents.

And, this link to Oxford University’s manuscript collection which states, “Oxford’s most important manuscript of classical philosophy is the Clarke Plato (MS. E. D. Clarke 39), the oldest surviving manuscript for about half of Plato’s dialogues, which was acquired by the University in 1809: it was written in Constantinople in A.D. 895.”

Reliability of hand-copying of the New Testament

Another argument for the reliability of the New Testament documents comes from overwhelming evidence that the manuscripts (hand-copied texts) were carefully and meticulously copied, with only minor variations over centuries. That evidence came in 1947 when the Dead Sea Scrolls were found. Comparing those scrolls (from 100 B. C. or so to no later than 70 A. D.) to the Leningrad Codex (from about 1,000 A. D.), there is virtually no difference.

The printing press was invented in 1455 A. D. Those who hand-copied the scrolls and codices of the Bible in the prior 14 centuries took great care to be exact. And with so many documents to compare, our confidence in their reliability grows even more.

Edwards concludes “The historical framework of the New Testament is not only corroborated by Jewish and pagan sources. It is, in fact, the primary source document for first-century Palestine.” (page 44)

In this short article I can’t do this subject justice. I can only point you to do some research on your own. If this subject interest you at all, by all means get F. F. Bruce’s book in addition to reading chapter 3 of Edwards’ book. You can also read what Mark D. Roberts wrote in his 3 volume (30-part) blog series on this topic. It will be worthwhile, I guarantee. And chapter 3 of the book I mentioned in my last post by Douglas Groothuis “Searching for the Real Jesus in an Age of Controversy” is also a good brief source.
In summary, for every argument against the reliability of the New Testament there is at least one book, if not scores of books with answers that can provide intellectual support for trusting its historicity. Find one and prepare your own argument.