Introduction

What we are establishing here is the historical reliability of the Scripture, and its inspiration.

The historical reliability of the Scripture should be tested by the same criteria that all historical documents are tested.

C. Sanders in Introduction to Research in English Literary History, lists and explains the three basic principles of historiography. They are the bibliographical test, the internal evidence test and the external evidence test.

The Bibliographical Test for the Reliability of the New Testament

The bibliographical test is an examination of the textual transmission by which documents reach us. In other words, since we do not have the original documents, how reliable are the copies we have in regard to the number of manuscripts (MSS) and the time interval between the original and extant copy?

F. E. Peters points out that "on the basis of manuscript tradition alone, the works that made up the Christians' New Testament were the most frequently copied and widely circulated books of antiquity."

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.

The following is a breakdown of surviving manuscripts for the New Testament.

Information for the preceding charts was gathered from the following sources: Kurt Aland's Journal of Biblical Literature, Vol.87, 1968; Kurt Aland's Kurzgefasste Liste Der Griechischen Handschriften Des Neven Testaments, W. DeGruyter, 1963: Kurt Aland's "Neve Nevtestamentliche Papyri III," New Testament Studies, July, 1976; Bruce Metzger's The Early Versions of the New Testament, Clarendon Press, 1977; New Testament Manuscript Studies, (eds.) Merrill M. Parvis and Allen Wikgren, The University of Chicago Press, 1950; Eroll F. Rhodes' An Annotated List of Armenian New Testament Manuscripts, Tokyo, Ikeburo, 1959; The Bible and Modern Scholarship (ed.) J. Phillip Hyatt, Abington Press, 1965.

John Warwick Montgomery says that "to be skeptical of the resultant text of the New Testament books is to allow all of classical antiquity to slip into obscurity, for no documents of the ancient period are as well attested bibliographically as the New Testament."

Sir Frederic G. Kenyon, who was the director and principal librarian of the British Museum and second to none in authority for issuing statements about MSS, says, "...besides number, the manuscripts of the New Testament differ from those of the classical authors, and this time the difference is clear gain. In no other case is the interval of time between the composition of the book and the date of the earliest extant manuscripts so short as in that of the New Testament. The books of the New Testament were written in the latter part of the first century; the earliest extant manuscripts (trifling scraps excepted) are of the fourth century - say from 250 to 300 years later.

"This may sound a considerable interval, but it is nothing to that which parts most of the great classical authors from their earliest manuscripts. We believe that we have in all essentials an accurate text of the seven extant plays of Sophocles; yet the earliest substantial manuscript upon which it is based was written more than 1400 years after the poet's death."

Kenyon continues in The Bible and Archaeology: "The interval then between the dates of original composition and the earliest extant evidence becomes so small as to be in fact negligible, and the last foundation for any doubt that the Scriptures have come down to us substantially as they were written has now been removed. Both the authenticity and the general integrity of the books of the New Testament may be regarded as finally established."

F. J. A. Hort rightfully adds that "in the variety and fullness of the evidence on which it rests the text of the New Testament stands absolutely and unapproachable alone among ancient prose writings."

J. Harold Greenlee states, "...the number of available MSS of the New Testament is overwhelmingly greater than those of any other work of ancient literature. In the third place, the earliest extant MSS of the New Testament were written much closer to the date of the original writing than is the case in almost any other piece of ancient literature."

THE NEW TESTAMENT COMPARED WITH OTHER WORKS OF ANTIQUITY

The manuscript comparison

F. F. Bruce in The New Testament Documents vividly pictures the comparison between the New Testament and ancient historical writings: "Perhaps we can appreciate how wealthy the New Testament is in manuscript attestation if we compare the textual material for other ancient historical works. For Caesar's Gallic Wars (composed between 58 and 50 BC) there are several extant MSS, but only nine or ten are good, and the oldest is some 900 years later than Caesar's day. Of the 142 books of the Roman history of Livy (59 BC-AD 17), only 35 survive; these are known to us from not more than 20 MSS of any consequence, only one of which, and that containing fragments of Books II-IV, is as old as the fourth century. Of the 14 books of the histories of Tacitus (ca. AD 100) only four and a half survive; of the 16 books of his Annuals, 10 survive in full and two in part. The text of these extant portions of his two great historical works depends entirely on two MSS, one of the ninth century and one of the eleventh.

"The extant MSS of his minor works (Dialogues de Oratoribus, Agricola, Germania) all descend from a codex of the tenth century. The History of Thucydides (ca. 460-400 BC) is known to us from scraps, belonging to about the beginning of the Christian era. The same is true of the History of Herodotus (BC 488-428). Yet no classical scholar would listen to an argument that the authenticity of Herodotus or Thucydides is in doubt because the earliest MSS of their works which are of any use to us are over 1,300 years later than the originals."

Greenlee writes in Introduction to New Testament Textual Criticism about the time gap between the original MS (the autograph) and the extant MS (the oldest copy surviving), saying that "the oldest known MSS of most of the Greek classical authors are dated a thousand years or more after the author's death. The time interval for the Latin authors is somewhat less, varying down to a minimum of three centuries in the case of Virgil. In the case of the New Testament, however, two of the most important MSS were written within 300 years after the New Testament was completed, and some virtually complete N.T. books as well as extensive fragmentary MSS of many parts of the N.T. date back to one century from the original writings."

Greenlee adds that "since scholars accept as generally trustworthy the writings of the ancient classics even though the earliest MSS were written so long after the original writings and the number of extant MSS is in many instances so small, it is clear that the reliability of the text of the N.T. is likewise assured."

Bruce Metzger in The Text of the New Testament cogently writes of the comparison: "The works of several ancient authors are preserved to us by the thinnest possible thread of transmission. For example, the compendious history of Rome by Belleius Paterculus survived to modern times in only one incomplete manuscript, from which the edito princeps wa made - and this lone manuscript was lost in the seventeenth century after being copied by Bealus Rhenanus at Amerbach. Even the Annals of the famous historian Tacitus is extant, so far as the first six books are concerned, in but a single manuscript, dating from the ninth century. In 1870 the only known manuscript of the Epistle to Diognetus, an early Christian composition which editors usually include in the corpus of Apostolic Fathers, perished in a fire at the municipal library in Strasbourg. In contrast with these figures, the textual critic of the New Testament is embarrassed by the wealth of his material".

F. F. Bruce says: "There is no body of ancient literature in the world which enjoys such a wealth of good textual attestation as the New Testament."

Back to Top

  

Home	Site Index	Bible Index
Kingdom Dynamics	Truth in Action	Links