Reliability of the New Testament

The Bible is the most scrutinised, yet most well attested ancient document in history. Here, I simply wish to show how reliable the New Testament is based on the evidence at hand as well as addressing arguments against the authenticity of the text. For information of the authorship of the Bible click here.

Early Composition
If we can prove that the gospels were written within 25-60 years of Jesus' life, it will mean less time for embellishment and an increased probability of them being accurate depictions of Jesus' life.

The Gospels
None of the gospels directly mention the destruction of the Second Temple, which took place in 70 AD. This is inconsistent with their style of pointing out things that happened after the fact. For example, when all four gospels mention Judas for the first time, they state that Judas was the one who betrayed Jesus (Matthew 10:4, Mark 3:19, Luke 6:16, John 6:71). This also includes when Jesus predicted the "destruction of the temple" but in reference to his own body. In addition, Acts 11:28 mentions a famine, and then notes that it took place at the time of Emperor Claudius.

All these examples suggest that when the gospels mention something in the past, and having been fulfilled by the time they were writing, they mention that it would have already taken place. However, when the gospel writers tell the story of Jesus predicting the destruction of the temple, they do not indicate that the destruction of the temple had in fact taken place. This seems inconsistent with their writing style of mentioning when something was fulfilled by the time they wrote. The language of the Gospels and Acts indicate they were written before, not only the destruction of the temple, but even before the persecution ordered by Nero.

The Revelation of John is clearly an anti-Roman piece (as well as being a piece of apocalyptic literature). 666, the number of the beast, is the numerical equivalent of Nero's name. This tells us that Revelation (as well as the Gospel of John) were written following Nero's persecutions of the early Christians, and during those under Emperor Domitian. However, in the Gospels, we don't see the same negative attitude towards the Romans. In fact, we see the opposite.

The famous story of Jesus and the Centurion in Luke 7:1-10 shows a sense of commonality between the Romans and the Jews, as well as the Centurion at the crucifixion who declares in Mark 15:39 that Jesus is "truly the Son of God." Acts is chock-full of these stories of good Romans. Acts 10 tells the story of Cornelius a Centurion who converts and is baptised by Simon Peter. Acts 21:28 tells us that Paul's life is saved by a quick-thinking centurion who stops the angry mob of Jews beating him. Acts 27:3 tells us of a centurion named Julius who treated Paul with respect and kindness.

Another piece of internal/external evidence that at least Matthew was written before 70 AD. Scholars agree that Matthew is writing to a Jewish audience. However, the destruction of the temple scattered the Jewish population and there was no longer a centralised religious/political group to lead the Jews. If Matthew was written after 70 AD, to whom was he writing?

John Wenham states:


 * "Some of the Apologetic (e.g. the account of the suicide of Judas and the accounts of the guard at the tomb) seems of no great significance, yet of particular interest to those who frequented Jerusalem."

If you check down below to the dating of Acts, you will see that we can accurately date Acts to about 63-64 AD. This is because Luke builds up to Paul's trial in Rome for several chapters, however, it ends just as Paul arrives in Rome. So Acts must have been composed before Paul's death, but after the character of Festus is in office as procurator of Judea. This puts Acts at most around 59-67 AD, however, a more precise estimate would be 63-64 AD.

Modern scholars generally agree that the four gospels were composed, at the very least, within the first century. This places their latest composition date about 60-70 years after the crucifixion. However, even the great sceptic Bart Ehrman admits that Mark was written around the mid-60's.

With all these factors put together, we can estimate when the gospels were written : What more, these early dates for the gospels are solidified by the theorised "Q" gospel, which would have been the source for both Matthew and Luke's gospels, but not Mark's. We also know that this "Q" gospel existed because Paul states in 1 Corinthians 15:4 that Jesus died for our sins "according to the scriptures." Paul wrote 1 Corinthians around 55 AD, so there was what he referred to as "scriptures" that detailed Jesus' death and resurrection.
 * Matthew would have been written around 42-64 AD
 * Mark would have been written around 50-65 AD
 * Luke would have been written around 42-64 AD
 * John would have been written after 85-100 AD

Udo Schnelle writes concerning the dating of the "Q" gospel:


 * "The Sayings Source was composed before the destruction of the temple, since the sayings against Jerusalem and the temple in Luke 13.34-35 do not presuppose any military events. A more precise determination of the time of composition must remain hypothetical, but a few indications point to the period between 40 and 50 CE."

Letters of Paul
There are at least four of Paul's letters, known as the Hauptbriefe (a term coined by famous sceptic F. C. Baur in the late 1800's), that are universally seen as authentically from Paul. These include: In recent decades, three more letters have been added to the list of "universally authentic" letters. These are: Colossians, Ephesians, 2 Thessalonians, and the Pastoral Epistles are split with their authorship and so their dating remains muddled. I deal with the authorship of these works here. Scholars who go against their authenticity often date them at the early second century.
 * Romans (55-58 AD)
 * 1 Corinthians (dated from 54-55 AD)
 * 2 Corinthians (56 AD)
 * Galatians (51 AD)
 * Philippians (60-61 AD)
 * Philemon (early 60's AD)
 * 1 Thessalonians (51 AD)
 * Ephesians, if authentic, is dated to 62 AD.
 * Colossians, if authentic, is dated from 52 to 62 AD.
 * 2 Thessalonians, if authentic, is dated from 51-52 AD.
 * 1 Timothy, if authentic, is dated to 62-64 AD.
 * 2 Timothy, authentic, is dated to 64 AD or beyond (as it is Paul's last letter and we're not sure if he died in 64 or 67 AD).
 * Titus, if authentic, is dated to 63-64 AD.

General Letters
The authorship of these works are also contested, so we will see if
 * James is dated widely from about 40-100 AD as it's author is pseudonymous.
 * 1 Peter, if authentic (or an amanuensis), is dated to about 65-90 AD.
 * 2 Peter if authentic, is dated from 64-65 AD.
 * The Epistles of John are dated from 85-95 AD.


 * Jude, if authentic, is dated from between 50 and 62 AD.

Other Writings

 * Acts was most likely written between 63-64 AD.
 * Hebrews is dated between 60-95 AD, as it's author is anonymous.
 * Revelation is dated between 81-96 AD, during the persecutions under Emperor Domitian.

The Creed of 1 Corinthians
The creed found in 1 Corinthians 15:3-8 dates back to just a year or so after the crucifixion. Here are a few non-Christian scholars discussing the creed:
 * “…the elements in the tradition are to be dated to the first two years after the crucifixion of Jesus…not later than three years… the formation of the appearance traditions mentioned in I Cor.15.3-8 falls into the time between 30 and 33 CE.”

- Gerd Lüdemann


 * “…The conviction that Jesus had risen from the dead had already taken root by the time Paul was converted about 33 C.E. On the assumption that Jesus died about 30 C.E., the time for development was thus two or three years at most.”

- Robert Funk


 * "[The Creed] goes back at least to what Paul was taught when he was converted, a couple of years after the crucifixion."

- Michael Goulder
 * “One is right to speak of ‘earliest times’ here, … most probably in the first half of the 30s.”

- A. J. M. Wedderburn

This is very significant as Paul tells us that he had already delivered the message to the church in Corinth during his preaching, so it must have originated prior to 55 AD, when 1 Corinthians was written. However, it is likely that it dates much earlier than this, most likely to when Paul visited Peter (Galatians 1:18), which was three years after his conversion, the latter of which was within months of the crucifixion. It is even possible that Paul received this Creed shortly after his conversion, within a year of the crucifixion. This early attestation of the crucifixion is incredible evidence for the authenticity of the New Testament and completely discredits the Christ Myth Theory.

In Comparison to the Sources of Alexander the Great
So if the time-gap between the crucifixion and the writing of the gospels is, at maximum, 70 years, with Mark being written around 30-40 years after the fact, can we trust it?

Well, let's compare the best sources of Jesus to the best sources of Alexander the Great. The earliest source for the life of Alexander was Callisthenes, who as a contemporary of Alex and personally knew the great king. In the 330's BC, not too long before Alexander's death, Callisthenes wrote The Deeds of Alexander, detailing Alexander's campaigns and was at least ten volumes long. Unfortunately, we have since lost this fine work.

Luckily for us, a historian named Cleitarchus, who lived near the end of the 4th century, copied Callisthenes' work. However, we have since lost Cleitarchus' work too and he has been described as "one of the least trustworthy historians on Alexander the Great."

Luckily for us, however, several historians quoted Cleitarchus' quotes of Callisthenes' work, and we still have their writings today. These include Strabo, Diodorus of Sicily, Plutarch and Arrian. However, these men all lived from the 1st century BC to the 2nd century AD. That's 300 to 500 years after Alexander.

So the only contemporary source we have on Alexander the Great is lost and the best source that we have on it is from a notoriously unreliable historian whose works are totally lost to us and only found in quotations from other historians many centuries years later? Why do we question the validity of the New Testament when the sources for Alexander the Great are far less reliable, yet we seem certain about what we know of him?

Apostolic Writings
Between 70 and 115 AD, there are several extant writings from the early church that quote the gospels, giving validation to the claim of early composition.
 * In 115 AD, Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch quotes Matthew in his Letter to the Smyrnaeans and also quotes John in his Letter to the Philadelphians. Seeing as John was the last Gospel written, this shows that the gospels were finished by 115 AD.
 * Going back 20 years to 95 AD, Clement, Bishop of Rome, quotes from Matthew, Mark and Luke in his First Epistle to the Corinthians. This shows that the Synoptic Gospels were finished and in wide circulation by the end of the first century.
 * Going back even further to about 70-80 AD, the Didache, a relatively unknown document, was written and quotes from Matthew and Luke, which means that they must have been composed before then. Furthermore, seeing as virtually all scholars agree that Mark was the first gospel written, Mark would have been written even earlier than that. This lends credibility to the idea that Mark was composed sometime around 60 AD, with Matthew and Luke being composed around 65 AD.
 * On top of all this; Clement, Ignatius, Papias and Polycarp frequently quoted from Paul's letters as well.
 * Check here for all of the quotes: https://www.biblequery.org/Bible/BibleCanon/EarlyChristianNTGridReferences.html#_Toc22063263

Reconstruction Using Only Early Church Quotes
Although there was a myth floating around that we could reconstruct the entire New Testament, save for only 11 verses, using only quotes from the Early Church, I did find some information on a Logos thread where someone had compiled all the New Testament quotes from the early church right up to the time of the Council of Nicaea. He excluded Eusebius and allusions to verses and got some pretty incredible results:

Using just Early Church quotes, we can: In total, we can reconstruct 72.8% of the entire New Testament using just quotes from other writers before 325 AD. I think from this, we have a pretty good idea of what the Gospels look like and how well they have been preserved.
 * Reconstruct 87.7% of the Gospels
 * Reconstruct 73.1% of Paul's writings
 * Reconstruct 98.6% of the Gospel of John before 200 AD
 * Reconstruct 100% of 1 Peter, 2 Peter and Jude

Here's the link for you to see for yourself: https://www.biblequery.org/Bible/BibleCanon/EarlyChristianNTQuotes.xls

Compared to Other Writings of Antiquity
Biblical scholar Daniel B. Wallace said:


 * "Early on the NT into a variety of languages - Latin, Coptic, Syriac, Georgian, Gothic, Ethiopian, Armenian. There are more than 10,000 Latin MMS alone. No one knows the total number of all these ancient versions, but the best estimates are close to 5,000 - plus the 10,000 in Latin. It would be safe to say that we have altogether about 20,000 handwritten manuscripts of the NT in various languages, including Greek."

To put things into perspective, we have: The New Testament blows all other works of ancient times out of the water when it comes to manuscript evidence. Nobody really questions whether we have the right version of the Iliad or the Gallic Wars, yet we have thousands more manuscripts than those writings.
 * 10 copies of Caesar's Gallic Wars
 * 20 copies of Tacitus' Annals
 * 50 copies of Aristotle's Constitution of the Athenians
 * 200 copies of Sophocles' Ichneutae
 * 650 copies of Homer's Illiad
 * 5800 copies of the New Testament

Adding up all the manuscripts, we can conclude that the New Testament has an accuracy rate of 99.5%! More than any other document in history.

List of the Earliest Papyrus Fragments
Biblical scholar Bruce Metzger said:


 * "Instead of the lapse of a millennium or more, as is the case of not a few classical authors, several papyrus manuscripts of portions of the New Testament are extant which were copies within a century or so after the composition of the original documents."

Here are just a few of the earliest papyrus fragments we have: New Testament Darren L. Bock states concerning early origins of the manuscripts:
 * Papyrus 32 - dates to around 200 AD - details Titus 1:11-15 & 2:3-8
 * Papyrus 77 - dates to around 180 AD - details Matthew 23
 * Papyrus 46 - dates to around 175 AD - details pretty much all of Paul's letters
 * Papyrus 137 - dates to about 170 AD - details Mark 1:7-9 & 1:16-18
 * Papyrus 98 - dates to about 150 AD - details Revelation 1:13 to 2:1
 * Papyrus 104 - dates to about 140 AD - details Matthew 24
 * Papyrus 52 - dates to around 130 AD - details John 18:31-39 - it is our oldest fragment at the moment


 * "Two of the oldest manuscripts we have, Papyrus 75 (or P75) and Codex Vaticanus (or B), have an exceptionally strong agreement. And they are among the most accurate manuscripts that exist today. P75 is about 125 years older than B, yet it is not an ancestor of B. Instead, B was copied from an earlier ancestor of P75. The combination of these two manuscripts in a particular reading must surely go back to the very beginning of the second century.

Eyewitness Detail
The gospels are filled with eyewitness detail that would be unusual if they were written by someone who did no witness what he was writing or if it was written in a foreign country.

Geography
Based on the names of the towns & villages and geographical locations in the gospels we can see that: The locations mentioned in the gospels per 1000 words is also very interesting:
 * All writers display knowledge of a range of localities from well known, to lesser known, to downright obscure.
 * No gospel writer gain all his knowledge from the other gospels, since each contains unique information.
 * All writers show a variety of geographical locations.

All four gospels have a strikingly similar frequency of locations, despite their obvious textual differences. However, the gospels written in the 2nd/3rd/4th centuries have nowhere near as many locations. They can often name 1 or 2 obvious ones like Jerusalem or Nazareth or Calvary. But when it comes to naming obscure locations only an eyewitness would have known, the 4 gospels of the New Testament win out completely.

Naming the Apostles
Studies by New Testament scholar Richard Bauckham have revealed some very interesting results on how people in the Gospels are named. If the name of a person in a text is reflected by it's popularity in the region itself, it's probably an accurate account. However, if the names in the text are foreign to a location (e.g. someone called Betty living in feudal Japan), it's probably not true.

Bauckham analysed the gospels and realised that the names given to Jesus' apostles in Matthew 10:2-4 not only reflect accurate names of the regions but also add disambiguators next to the names that are not so popular. This would make sense as if someone had a common name, you wouldn't refer to them as just their first name, but you would add more details to identify them. Here's what Bauckham found:


 * "These are the names of the twelve apostles: first, Simon (who is called Peter) [1] and his brother Andrew [>99]; James son of Zebedee [11], and his brother John [5]; Philip [61=] and Bartholomew [50=]; Thomas [>99] and Matthew the tax collector [9]; James son of Alphaeus [11], and Thaddaeus [39=]; Simon the Zealot [1] and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him [4]."

See what happens? Every name that is popular has a disambiguator in order to identify the individual. The less popular names are not given disambiguators because in the real scenarios these men were in, their names were so unique if someone were to call out their name in public, everyone would know which person they were talking about. But if you were to just shout "Simon!", about half the village would look at you!

This also helps discredit the apocryphal gospels where they have a whole variety of names that come from every corner of the known world at the time. Take the Gospel of Judas for instance: You have Jesus and Judas, obviously, but then you have names like Zoe, Yobel, Nebro, Saklas and Sophia. Definitely not native Palestinian names.

This is evidence that the gospels, wherever they were written, they were written with knowledge about the names and popularity of such names in Palestine. Now, some may say, "Well the gospel writers were just really clever, and were able to get that information," however this erases the other sceptic argument that the gospels were written by illiterate fishermen. Either they were really smart and made it up (despite having no motive to do so), or they were actual eyewitnesses of the events they wrote down.

The Many Jesus'
Bauckham's research can also be applied to the name Jesus. There were many Jesus' in His time - Jesus Justus (Colossians 4:11), Bar-Jesus (Acts 13:6) and Jesus Barabbas (Matthew 27:16). Time and time again we can see in the gospels people using disambiguators to identify Jesus. The people will say, "This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth of Galilee," whilst the narrator would simply "And Jesus entered the temple..." (Matthew 21:11-12). The narrator doesn't need to refer to Jesus by his many titles, we know who he's talking about. However, the people at the time would not have known and so would have needed to us disambiguators to identify Jesus in the crowd. It seems whoever wrote down the gospels knew about how people interacted and how conversations would have gone. Sounds like an eyewitness to me.

Undesigned Coincidences
Undersigned Coincidences refer to aspects of the gospel texts that coincidentally mix well with one another in ambiguous ways.

Who Hit Jesus?
In Matthew 26:67-68, the Sanhedrin begin to beat up and spit at Jesus after declaring him guilty. In verse 68, one of the Sanhedrin states, ''“Prophesy to us, Christ! Who hit you?”'' This seems like a very strange statement to make. If they were standing right in front of him, surely Jesus would have seen who struck him.

It's only until you read Luke that you see the reason why the Sanhedrin taunted Jesus to prophecy to them on who struck him. In Luke 22:63-64, it is revealed that the men who were guarding Jesus blindfolded him and struck him, before demanding prophecy from him on who had hit him. Luke tells us the thing that Matthew left out.

It is important to note that Mark was most likely the source used by both Matthew and Luke, however, Matthew and Luke were written around the same time as each other (mid 60's AD) and were most likely written in different locations (Luke was a Greek Gentile and Matthew was a Palestinian Jew). This means that, although they would have had similar sources, they would not have been able to copy off of each other.

This causes problems for the Farrer Hypothesis, which states that Luke got his information from both Mark and Matthew.

The Two Sisters
In Luke 10:38-42 we are shown Martha and Mary, two sisters who are shown to have two distinct personalities: Martha is shown as being stressed about her workload, whilst Mary attentively listens to what Jesus says.

In John we see the same two women after Lazarus has died. As soon as Martha sees Jesus, she goes to him, whilst Mary "remained seated" at home (John 11:20). We can immediately see the two personalities of the two sisters being consistent between both gospels.

But there's even more: After meeting Jesus, Martha sends a message to her sister that Jesus is calling her. Mary then gets up quickly and "fell at his feet" (John 11:32). Remember she did the same thing in Luke 10:39, sitting at Jesus' feet.

Mary begins to weep (John 11:33) but there is no mention of Martha weeping. Jesus then asks to remove the stone to Lazarus' tomb, but Martha says that his body would be dead four days, and would have a horrific odour. This is a very practical concern from the hardworking Martha. We can see that the characters of these women do not contradict each other and are, surprisingly similar to one another.

The Two Brothers
Luke 9:54 shows how James and John ask Jesus if they should tell the people that fire will come down and consume them if they do not receive Jesus. In Mark 3:17, James and John are called the Sons of Thunder. This is a small but significant similarity between the two. The complexity of the two reports are simply not strong enough to have been plagiarised off of each other, but not weak enough as to be completely different narratives.

Green Grass
Mark 6:39 mentions very green grass in the area where Jesus and the Apostles are preparing for the barley harvest. John 6:10 also mentions lots of grass. John 6:9 mentions loaves of barley bread. Now, the Passover had just taken come and Passover takes place in March-April time. Precipitation in Tiberias at that time would have been at it's highest and perfect for the barley harvest (around 50 mm ). This shows that both Mark and John talking about the grass of the land being very green is an accurate description of the land. Someone in a foreign nation would have most likely stuck to the stereotype of the Middle-East; desert and desolate wasteland. It is clear that someone writing this stuff knows how the rainfall in Tiberias. Either they are very smart, or eyewitnesses. It cannot be a coincidence for it to be the same description in two independent gospels.

R. T. France writes concerning acceptability of the gospels:


 * “At the level of their literary and historical character we have good reason to treat the gospels seriously as a source of information on the life and teaching of Jesus, and thus on the historical origins of Christianity. Ancient historians have sometimes commented that the degree of scepticism with which New Testament scholars approach their sources is far greater than would be thought justified in any other branch of ancient history. Indeed many ancient historians would count themselves fortunate to have four such responsible accounts, written within a generation or two of the events, and preserved in such a wealth of early manuscript evidence. . . . Beyond that point, the decision as to how far a scholar is willing to accept the record they offer is likely to be influenced more by his openness to a ‘supernaturalist’ world-view than by strictly historical considerations.”

Quirinius' Census
Many sceptics have claimed several points over this census being an "error" in the Bible. So I'll go through each accusation and address them.

Point #1
"Joseph would not have to travel to Bethlehem, and Mary would not have to register at all because she was a woman."

This can be historically refuted reasonably easily. Deissmann records a papyrus that dates to 104 AD and states the prefect of Egypt ordered Egyptians to return to their ancestral homes so a census could be carried out.

Harold Hoehner states:


 * "... the Romans would comply to the custom of laying claim to one's family estate in order to access it for taxation. Every person needed to appear to be questioned as to make a proper assessment of his property."

There is also obvious reasons why Mary went with Joseph: due to the rumours of her conceiving Jesus out of wedlock (Matthew 1:18-19, John 8:41), it would make sense that Joseph would take her with him in order to protect her from shaming or even stoning.

Point #2
"No Roman census would have been conducted whilst Herod the Great ruled until 4 BC."

Josephus tells us that Herod fell out of favour with Augustus, so it is likely his autonomy was taken away by the Emperor. He also tells us that the people of the land swore allegiance to both Herod and Augustus. This means that Rome would have had a greater involvement in Herod's Kingdom, which would make sense seeing as Herod's power would have been taken from him by the Emperor after they lost friendship with one another.

Point #3
"Quirinius was not governor until 6 AD. Jesus was born under Herod the Great around 4 BC, making it impossible for the Census recorded in Luke to be Quirinius' census."

There are two possible explanations for this.

One, is that the census recorded in Luke was the census of Quirinius, but that it took many years for it to be finalised. By the time it was done, Quirinius was governor and Jesus was about ten years old. Things like this happen in modern day censuses. The UK census that occurs every 10 years is announced and prepared for several years in advance. Given that this census occurred in ancient Palestine, where long-distance communication was via messengers on horseback, it would seem logical that it would take some time in preparation for a census after the Emperor decrees it.

Another explanation is that there were multiple censuses. Luke 2:2 mentions the census was the "first" under Quirinius' rule, implying there were others that took place afterwards (Luke even mentions the one in 6 AD in Acts 5:37, so the census mentioned at the beginning of Luke was obviously not the same as the one in Acts.

Tertullian even notes in 200 AD that censuses were conducted in Judea during the time of Quintilius Varus or Sentius Saturnius, the governors who preceded Quirinius.

All this evidence points towards more than one census that took place during Quirinius' lifetime

Point #1
"Josephus and Mark provide two completely different accounts of John's death."

Josephus tells us that John was executed because Herod feared he would incite a revolt, but Mark tells us that he was killed for disproving with Herod marrying his brother's wife. This is not a massive issue, however, as John was criticising the decision of the king and influencing people to view Herod's actions as unlawful.

Craig Evans says:


 * "Josephus had hardly supplied us with a reason for Herod's actions. What is missed is that Mark... supplies the reason that Herod feared John's influence over the people... Herod found himself in a difficult position. His first wife became aware of his intentions and fled to her father, King Aretas of Nabataea. Herod's actions shattered the fragile truce between Roman Galilee in the west and Nabataea in he east. Hostilities were almost certain and Herod needed the full support of his people. John's condemnation of his actions was the last thing he needed."

John was imprisoned because Herod feared he would lead the people into a revolt because John was criticising a moral decision that led to war. Josephus is the what, Mark is the why.

Point #2
"The gospels get the incorrect locations of John's imprisonment."

Mark 6:21 states that "the leading men of Galilee" attended Herod's birthday celebration, however, John was imprisoned and beheaded in Machaerus, which is in Perea, not Galilee. However, Mark never says that the location of the celebration was in Galilee, and it could simply be the case that the leading men of Galilee travelled to Perea to celebrate the king's birthday.

Richard Bauckham points out:


 * "the leading men of Galilee... whatever their real sympathies, would be obliged to honour the tetrarch by attending his birthday celebration."

Point #3
"Mark 6:27 records that it was a military officer who executed John, however, a civil executioner would have carried out this task."

This one is resolved by the answer previous point. If John was imprisoned in Herod's military fortress in Machaerus, then it would make sense if a military officer committed the execution. This actually affirms the historicity of the gospels as Herod was at war at the time and resided in a military fortress. It would make sense that he would use a military officer to carry out the execution.

The Ending of Mark
Because some of the earliest manuscripts and codices we have of Mark (including the Uncials named Sinaiticus and Vaticanus) do not include 16:9-20, many have assumed that it was added in later and was not the original ending. Here are just a few counter-arguments against this:
 * Irenaeus, in his work Against Heresies in 180 AD, quotes from Mark 16:19 saying: "Also, towards the conclusion of his gospel, Mark says 'So then after the Lord Jesus had spoken to them he was received up into heaven and sat on the right hand of God.""
 * Tatian, a student of Justin Martyr, wrote a harmony of the 4 gospels called the Diatessaron in 170 AD that quotes Mark 16:15 and Mark 16:19.
 * Both of these quotes come one-and-a-half centuries before any of the codices that have Mark 16:9-20. Seeing as most of our earliest manuscript fragments of the New Testament date to around the same time as these men wrote, it would seem illogical to say the section was added in later when it was known to the church in the mid-late 2nd century.
 * It is possible that Mark 16:9-20 was added in sometime later (as Mark was written around 60 AD), however, this does not make the writing illegitimate. The ending of Deuteronomy was not written by Moses as he had died in Deuteronomy 34:5, so he obviously did not write Chapter 34, nor did he write Chapter 33 as it switches from first to third person. It is clear that someone else (most likely Joshua) wrote the last couple chapters of Deuteronomy, but this does not mean it is not meant to be part of Deuteronomy, nor is it not inspired.
 * 1 Corinthians was written before Mark (around 55 AD), so even if it turns out that Mark 16:9-20 is not legitimate, we still have an earlier account of the resurrected Jesus. Go back up to Early Composition to read the creed in 1 Corinthians 15:3-5 so find out more.

John 7:53-8:114
The same with the ending of Mark, John 7:53-8:11 - the story of the woman caught in adultery - is not found in some of the earlier manuscripts, leading many to believe that the story was added in later. The truth, however, it the other way around. People were taking it out.
 * Augustine of Hippo and Ambrose wrote in the 4th century both accusing scribes of removing the passage because of their apparent moral objections to it. Augustine also feared that people were eliminating the passage because they wanted to ensure that people in their churches would not misinterpret the passage as Jesus affirming adultery.
 * Augustine and Ambrose were vindicated in 1952 when manuscript Papyrus 66 was discovered. The codex, much like the other copies of John, did not include the story of the woman caught in adultery. However, this manuscript had a small asterisk-like dot right where the story should be. This shows us that the story was known to these scribes before Augustine and Ambrose, however, they deliberately chose to remove it for some reason. Seeing as Papyrus 66 dates to about 150 AD, earlier than most fragments on the gospel, we can conclude that the story of the woman caught in adultery is part of the original, but due to certain scribes removing it, the story appears to have been added in later.

1 John 5:7
Just like the previous two, 1 John 5:7, often called the Johannine Comma, are removed from virtually every version of the Bible other than the King James and New King James. Here's just a couple arguments in favour of the Johannine Comma: Here's a few early quotations of the Comma: Here's what a few scholars say concerning the Comma:
 * "Father, Word and Holy Spirit" is unique to the New Testament. A forger would have surely used "Father, Son and Holy Spirit."
 * The time of John writing his epistles - sometime in the 90's AD - was in concordance with the rise of early Gnosticism. Nine times he gives tests for knowing truth in conjunction with the Greek verb ginosko, which means "to know" (1 John 2:3,5; 3:16,19,24; 4:2,6,3; 5:2). Gnosticism simply means "having knowledge," so John's insistence to talk about true knowledge may be a critique of early Gnosticism.
 * The Comma was common in the Greek Orthodox bibles of the 5th century.
 * Tertullian (200 AD) mentions it in his work Against Praxeas: "The connection of the Father in the Son, and of the Son in the Comfroter, makes an unity of these three, one with another, which three are one--not one person; in like manner as it is said, 'I and my Father are one,' to denote the unity of substance, and not the singularity of number."
 * Origen (240 AD) mentions it in his work Selecta in Psalmos (this quote may have come from Pseudo-Origen (Adamantius), however he wrote in the 4th century which is still very early on): "...spirit and body are the bondservants of the Lord Father and Son; but the soul is the bondwoman of the lady Holy Spirit. And the Lord our God is three, for the three are one."
 * Cyprian of Carthage (250 AD) mentions it in his work On the Unity of the Church: "The Lord says, 'I and the Father are one,' and likewise it is written of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, 'And these three are one.'"


 * "The omission of he Johannine Comma leaves much to be desired grammatically. The words 'Spirit,' 'water' and 'blood' are all neuters, yet they are treated as masculine in verse 8. This is strange if the Johannine Comma is omitted, but can be recounted for if it is retained; the masculine nouns 'Father' and 'word' in verse 7 regulate the gender in the succeeding verse due to the power of attraction principle. The argument that 'Spirit' is personalized and therefore masculine if offset by verse 6 which is definitely reffering to the personal Holy Spirit, yet using the neuter gender."

- Thomas M. Strouse


 * "It is striking that although Spirit, water, and blood are all neuter nouns in Greek, they are introduced by a clause expressed in the masculine plural... Here in 1 John he clearly regards the spirit as personal, and this leads to the personification of the water and the blood."

- I. H. Marshall

Even if we were to concede that 1 John 5:7 is not part of the original, it would not effect the Christian theology surrounding the Trinity. The verse could be used to describe Modalism (the idea that God is indivisible from his three persons and only manifests himself in three forms) or even Arianism (the idea that God created Jesus at some point). Early Church members argued for the Trinity without the need for his verse, so it does not effect the theology of Trinitarianism whether it was part of the original or not.

Revelation 13:18
Papyrus 115 and the Codex Ephraemi states that the number of the Beast is actually 616, not 666.

Sceptics like to point this out as if it's a big deal. So what if the Devil's number may be 616 instead of 666? It doesn't exactly debunk Christianity does it?

Frankly this argument is irrelevant. Two manuscripts vs thousands of the rest? I tend to side with the Majority Text on this one.

1 Thessalonians 2:7
A variant found in manuscripts USB5 and NA28 in comparison to the Textus Receptus and the Byzantine Text states that the passage can either mean "we were gentle amongst you" or "we were little children amongst you."

But both can fit with the context of the writing and does not effect any theological beliefs.


 * "Neither external nor internal evidence elevates one reading far above the other. The fact that both sides contain important manuscripts is enough to evaluate both possibilities fairly... Nonetheless, when adding both external and internal evidence, it seems reasonable, though not strongly, to conclude that could have been the original writing."

- Albert Solano Zatarain

Romans 5:1
Some manuscripts state that Romans 5:1 says "let us have peace with God" or "we have peace with God."

Again, these variants do not severely affect the meaning of the text. No theologian is going to lose his mind pondering over the meaning of this verse.

John 1:18
Some manuscripts state either, "No one has ever seen God; the only God" or "No one has ever seen God; the only Son."

Some (particularly Jehovah's Witnesses and Muslims) will point to this verse as an example of Jesus not being God. However, this variant does not effect the deity of Christ. John constantly affirms that the identity of Jesus is both God (8:58, 10:10, 20:28) and the Son of God (3:16-18, 20:28), so this verse can go either way and still would be consistent with Christin doctrine on the divinity of Jesus

Matthew 24:36
Some manuscripts include "nor the Son" in the verse concerning the time of the Second Coming.

Some will say that this effects Jesus' understanding on whether or not he knew the time of the tribulation. However, the parallel in Mark 13:32 has no textual variants and includes "nor the Son." Also, if the "nor the Son" is removed, it will still say that only the Father knows. So even without the "nor the Son," its meaning does not change.

Mark 1:41
Some manuscripts, including Codex Bezae, state that Jesus moved with anger rather than compassion when healing the leper. This is a significant difference, however, both would make sense in the context.

We know that Jesus was compassionate, but he wasn't void of anger. We see it when he wrecks the temple marketplace (John 2:13-24). In fact, it actually strengthens the passage. It would make sense if Jesus was angry at the leper because he asked him not to tell anyone about his healing, yet he did anyways. The leper;s actions hampered Jesus' ministry and forced him to go out into the wilderness for ritual cleansing (Mark 1:45).

It doesn't significantly effect the image we have of Jesus in the passage, but strengthens what Mark says everywhere else about Jesus being angry.

Other Variants
Popular biblical scholar Bart Ehrman pointed out in his book Misquoting Jesus that the amount of variations in the New Testament fragments are about 400,000. Ehrman leaves a lot of information out of this and makes an argument of sheer numbers.

However, what he does not mention is that, out of these 400,000 variants, the ultimate minority of them are categorised as meaningful and viable differences in the text. And when we see one of these genuinely meaningful mistakes, we can compare them to the thousands of other copies that we have. If we had four people each with a copy of a text. If one of those people makes a change to their copy, we can see that they were the ones who changed it and compare it to the majority text. That's how we identify tampered manuscripts.

Although Ehrman is a sceptic and often attacks the credibility of the Bible, he is unafraid to say this in the appendix of Misquoting Jesus:


 * "Bruce Metzger is one of the great scholars of modern times, and I dedicated the book to him because he was both my inspiration for going into textual criticism and the person who trained me in the field. I have nothing but respect and admiration for him. And even though we may disagree on important religious questions - he is a firmly committed Christian and I am not - we are in complete agreement on a number of very important historical and textual questions. If he and I were put in a room and asked to hammer out a consensus statement on what we think the original text of the New Testament probably looked like, there would be very few points of disagreement - maybe one or two dozen places out of many thousands. The position I argue for in 'Misquoting Jesus' does not actually stand at odds with Prof. Metzger's position that the essential Christian beliefs are not effected by textual variants in the manuscript tradition of the New Testament."

Maybe his book should be called Misquoting Bart.

Academic Sources


Ancient Sources
