A Sign For You Now

Aim of this step: To consider the historical evidences of why the New Testament we have is an accurate copy.

 

“Consider this for a second before I get into it”. These are the words of Simon Greenleaf, the famous Harvard Law Professor considered by many to be the foremost legal expert on evidence the world has known. When it came to his opinion regarding Christianity, however, it was a standard he long refused to apply to himself, without examining any evidence he had already made up his mind about Christianity, holding that it was groundless and based on myths. I have many friends who are the same and was also one of them for a time.

 

Dr. Greenleaf eventually succumbed to a challenge by one of his students to review the evidence. Applying the principles contained in his 3 volume discourse A Treatise on the Law of Evidence, he became so overwhelmed by the evidence that he eventually became a Christian (see his essay, Testimony of the Evangelists). He came to the conclusion that there is more historical evidence for the resurrection of Jesus Christ than for just about any other event in history, and that any unbiased jury in the world would reach the same conclusion based on the unswerving evidence.

 

Through the following questions, let’s try to apply Dr. Greenleaf's basic principle of first reviewing the evidence, then deciding on their merits.

 

If Jesus is who he says he is, we need two positive answers to the following questions:

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Question 1: Do we have an accurate copy of the new testament documents?

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Bart Ehrman (an Agnostic/Atheist) whom we mentioned earlier, wrote a book in 2005 called “Misquoting Jesus” to reveal what he believed were the inaccuracies of the Bible copies we now have and what the original apostles said. The problem is that not even he believes it. Later in 2005 Ehrman wrote to the academic community updating a famous text “The Text of the New Testament” his mentor Bruce Metzgher (who passed away a Christian and likely the top expert on the biblical manuscripts in the last century who also taught Ehrman) originally wrote. In this text Bart Ehrman answers yes to question 1 above. In the same year on the popular level he tries to say no to question 1 above, yet at the academic level he says yes? It’s the same evidence? So which is it?

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We are speculating here but you can mislead the general public quite easily, particularly to those who don’t really know and you can sell a lot of books by taking this controversial point of view, but if he was to say the Bible that we have now is actually an accurate copy, nobody is really going to care or have any interest.

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However, the academic community cannot be fooled easily and he knows that he is going to be found out so he changes the answer to question 1 from no to yes. In addition, in the second edition of misquoting Jesus, Ehrman updates the end section to say that he and Metzgher only differ on a few insignificant facts and he refutes his entire book of misquoting Jesus in his updated edition. He refutes himself!?

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The answer to question 1 is yes.    

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While the original New Testament documents do not survive or have not yet been found, we have abundant and accurate copies of the original New Testament documents – many more than that for the ten best pieces of ancient literature combined. Moreover, nearly perfect reconstruction of the originals can be accomplished by comparing the thousands of manuscript copies that do survive. We have discovered manuscript fragments from the early second century and perhaps as early as the mid-first century. There are no works from the ancient world that even come close to the New Testament in term of manuscript support.

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In addition, reconstruction is further authenticated by the thousands of quotations from the early church fathers. In fact, the entire New Testament, except for eleven verses, can be reconstructed just from their quotations of it alone.

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The Bible is reconstructed into its original form by comparing the manuscripts that survive. To reconstruct the original, it helps to have a large number of manuscripts that are written not long after the original. More manuscripts and earlier manuscripts usually provide more trustworthy testimony and enable a more accurate reconstruction.

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More Manuscripts

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In brief, you should know that there are some 5,800 handwritten Greek manuscripts of the New Testament. In addition, there are some 20,000 manuscripts in other languages. Some are complete Bibles, others are books or pages, and a few are fragments.

 

Earlier Manuscripts

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Not only does the New Testament enjoy abundant manuscript support, but it also has manuscripts which were written very soon after the originals.

 

In addition, at least 10 ancient non-Christian writers within 150 years of his life give information about Jesus, and their collective references provide a storyline consistent with the New Testament.

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If you want to understand more about this I suggest you get a book such as Dr Frank Turek’s I don’t have enough faith to be an atheist, which will provide more detail on this topic.

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So we know we have the same New Testament that was written down nearly 2,000 years ago. But the next question is even more important.

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Do we have an accurate copy of the truth or a lie?