Historical Reliability of the Gospels

The following arguments analyze the historical and objective evidence for the Gospel accounts.  Some of the arguments relate to the New Testament as a whole, while other specifically upon the four Gospels.

1. The New Testament documents are the best attested documents of antiquity in terms of total number of manuscripts.

Generally speaking, very few manuscripts of the ancient classical writers (Aristotle, Plato, Caesar, Tacitus, Thucydides, Herodotus, etc.) exist.  The best cases average about twenty extant manuscripts for any given historical work.  And this number is generally considered an exceptional quantity in terms of manuscript attestation.  However, in most instances far fewer manuscripts remain.  In fact, for most authors's works the number amounts to a mere handful.  Yet by the accepted standards of historiography, even those are not rejected as inauthentic or unreliable on the the basis of their sparse number.  The reality is that some ancient documents are accepted as authentic test with extremely thin manuscript attestation.

In stark contrast to these familiar classical works, the New Testament documents are backed by an astounding quantity of manuscript evidence.  For example, more than 5,000 individual Greek manuscripts that contain all or part of the New Testament exist.  These manuscripts are augmented by more than 8,000 copies of the Vulgate, and important Latin version of the Bible translated by the early-fifth century Western church father, Jerome.  Further attestation comes in the form of several thousand early New Testament manuscripts translated into Eastern languages such as Syriac, Coptic Armenian, Slavic, and Ethiopic.

Even without  these thousands of extant manuscripts, virtually the entire New Testament text could be reproduced from specific scriptural citations within the written (and preserved) sermons, commentaries, and various other works of the early church fathers.  These Christian leaders, apologists, and writers served from the second through the fifth centuries.  The Patristic writers, as they are also called included (among others) such prominent Christian figures as Tertullian, Athanasius, Ambrose, Chrysostom, Jerome, and Augustine.

The New Testament stands as the best attested document of the ancient world.

Excerpt from Without a Doubt, Author - Kenneth R. Samples
(pages 92-93)

The Problem of Forgiveness

Excerpt from The Cross of Christ, Author - John Stott


We must, therefore, hold fast to the biblical revelation of the living God who hates evil, is disgusted and angered by it, and refuses ever to come to terms with it.  In consequence, we may be sure he searched in his mercy for some way to forgive, cleanse and accept evil-doers, it was not along the road of moral compromise.  It had to be a way that was equally expressive of his love and of his wrath.  As Brunner put it, "where the idea of the wrath of God is ignored, there also will be no understanding of the central conception of the Gospel:  the uniqueness of the revelation in the Mediator.  Similarly, "only he who knows the greatness of wrath will be mastered by the greatness of mercy."


All inadequate doctrines of the atonement are due to inadequate doctrines of God and humanity.  If we bring God down to our level and raise ourselves to his, then of course we see no need for a radical salvation, let alone for a radical atonement to secure it.  When, on the other hand, we have glimpsed the blinding glory of the holiness of God and have been so convicted of our sin by the Holy Spirit that we tremble before God and acknowledge what we are, namely "hell-deserving sinners," then and only then does the necessity of the cross appear so obvious that we are astonished we never saw it before.


The essential background of the cross, therefore, is a balanced understanding of the gravity of sin and the majesty of God.  If we diminish either, we thereby diminish the cross.  If we reinterpret sin as a lapse instead of a rebellion and God as indulgent instead of indignant, then naturally the cross appears superfluous. But to dethrone God and enthrone ourselves not only dispenses with the cross; it also degrades both God and humans.  A biblical view of God and ourselves, however-- that is, of our sin and of God's wrath-- honors both.  It honors God by affirming him as having moral character.


So we come back to where we began this chapter, namely that forgiveness is for God the profoundest of problems.  As Bishop B. F. Westcott expressed it,  "Nothing superficially seems simpler than forgiveness," whereas "nothing if we look deeply is more mysterious or more difficult."  Sin and wrath stand in the way.  God must not only respect us as the responsible beings we are, but he must also respect himself as the holy God he is.  Before the holy God can forgive us, some kind of "satisfaction" is necessary.


(pages 110-111)

You Are Still You, But New

Excerpt from Finally Alive, Author - John Piper


In this chapter, we will continue the answer to the question of Chapter 1, What happens in the new birth? Jesus said to Nicodemus in John 3:7,  "Do not marvel that I said to you, 'You must be born again."" In verse 3, he told Nicodemus--and us-- that our eternal lives depend on being born again:  "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God."  So we are not dealing with something marginal or optional or cosmetic in the Christian life.  The new birth is not like the make-up that morticians use to try to make corpses look more like they are alive.  The new birth is the creation of spiritual life, not the imitation of life.


We began to answer the question What happens in the new birth? with two statements: 1) What happens in the new birth is not getting new religion but getting new life, and  2) What happens in the new birth is not merely affirming the supernatural in Jesus but experiencing  the supernatural in yourself.

Nicodemus was a Pharisee and had lots of religion.  But he had no spiritual life.  And he saw the supernatural work of God in Jesus, but he didn't experience the supernatural work of God in himself.  So putting our two points together from Chapter 1, what Nicodemus needed was a new spiritual life imparted supernaturally through the Holy Spirit.  What makes the new life spiritual and what makes it supernatural is that it is the work of God the Spirit.  It is something above the natural life of our physical hearts and brains.

In John 3:6, Jesus says, "That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which born of the Spirit is spirit."  The flesh does have a kind of life.  Every human being is living flesh.  But not every human being is living spirit.  To be a living spirit, or to have spiritual life, Jesus says, we must be "born of the Spirit."  Flesh gives rise to one kind of life.  The Spirit gives rise to another kind of life.  If we don't have this second kind, we will not see the kingdom of God.

(page 35-36)

Coveting Is An Equal-Opportunity Sin

Excerpt from Worldliness, Author - Dave Harvey


Coveting is an equal opportunity sin. It stalks the rich and poor alike.  The audience gathered around the Lord that day consisted largely of peasants, yet Christ took aim at their coveting and unbelief by relating the parable of the rich fool (12:13-21).  The issue is not tax brackets; it's desires.
     Consider the following true story:

Many years ago a major American company had trouble keeping employees working in their assembly plant in Panama.  The laborers lived in a generally agrarian, barter economy, but the company paid them in cash.  Since the average employee had more cash after a week's work than he had ever seen, he would periodically quit working, satisfied with what he had made.  What was the solution?  Company executives gave all their employees a Sears catalog.   No one quit then, because they all wanted the previously undreamed-of things they saw in that book.

The lesson is clear.  The mere availability of stuff can ignite covetous desires.  But we're called to walk a different road.  As this book's title suggests --Worldliness: Resisting the Seduction of a Fallen World--we're to battle covetousness at the level of our desires. 


In my travels, I've visited believers living in poverty in the Philipppines, Ghana, South Africa, India, and Sri Lanka.  It's utterly inspiring to see courageous Christians endure and prevail in surroundings of squalor.  The Western church has much to learn about suffering from poor Christians in the world.  But the temptation to covet can be just at strong whether the stuff in question is a neighbor's goat or a neighbor's golf clubs.


Yes, affluence can be a spiritual disability that dulls people to their need for God.  Jesus was quite serious in saying "How difficult it is for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!"  (Luke 18:34).  But this doesn't mean God is biased against the rich; it means the rich are often biased against God.  Their affluence feels like it meets needs, but it really diverts attention from the Savior to their stuff.


Locating materialism and consumerism in the coveting heart is important.  It offers a biblical diagnosis for a common social malady.  Consumer ailments don't begin with shopping addictions or "an offer I couldn't refuse."  The real problem is sin.  Austerity and indulgence won't cure the bankruptcy of soul and emptiness of life that commonly result when our covetous desires are allowed free reign.


(page 96)