Greek New Testament Documents

Last week in Men's Bible Study, I was called out for making a statement without sufficiently delineating the limits of the claim.  If you understand that the format of Bible study does not allow me the ability to drone on for minutes, perhaps I can be forgiven.  Let me review the argument and the claim.  Then, I will try to clarify the ambiguity that arose and provide the background that both supports the original claim and was omitted in the original discussion.

The discussion was concerning the authority of scripture.  The issue that was raised was concerning the believability of scripture, particularly in terms of particular New Testament claims.  I responded that the Greek New Testament documents are one of the most historically strong documents by the standards by which academicians evaluate other historical documents or even literature.  In addition, I asserted that secular sources corroborate parts of the New Testament, validating its historical authenticity.  The particular assertion had begun with a reading of 1 Corinthians 15:1-19.  This is Paul's appeal to the historical truth of the resurrection based upon the eye witness accounts of people who, then, were still alive.  The connection was made by the observer between the Pauline quote and the secular corroboration, a connection that was not made by me specifically, but neither was it specifically denied by me.  This was admittedly sloppy scholarship.  This post is an effort to clean up the mess for those interested parties.  There is much to say on this topic, but primarily, I wanted to provide a sort of bibliography or stepping stones to further inquiry. 

Every Easter, A & E, the History Channel, Discovery Channel, even National Geographic Channel, roll out their specials on the life of Jesus with their “respected scholars” telling us the party line.  Make no mistake, there is a cottage industry built on creating doubt in fragile Christians and reaffirming the atheist certainty of the secular world.  The Jesus Seminar is one of the main offenders, and John Dominic Crossan, its founder, is one of the worst offenders.  He seems to appear on all of the shows and speaks with the sound of authority, and his Irish accent, convincing all that Jesus is not a historical person.

Unfortunately, Paul doesn’t agree with him.  Here is the text to 1 Corinthians 15:1-19.  Please understand that I do not mean to prove that any secular sources would confirm the resurrection.  Why would they do that?  What they do instead is confirm particular events in the New Testament, most often from Acts, and attempt to justify these events in the light in which they would prefer them to be seen.

Who were the interested dissenting parties?  First, there were the Jews, particularly the Jewish Sanhedrin and other Jewish leaders.  Their interest was in ending the assumed apostasy of the Christian sect, to prevent the believed subversion of more of their people.  Plus, they had a vested stake in being right; after all, they were instrumental in the death of Jesus.  Second, there were the Romans.  They just wanted peace and taxes.  The trouble was that the Christians and the Jews were such a volatile mix that peace was becoming more difficult to come by.

And so we have these witnesses.  The one that everyone knows about is Flavius Josephus, a historian who twice mentions Jesus in his writings.  It has been widely believed that his documents have either been altered in later years by Christians, or that they are complete forgeries.  It is interesting that other parties will lend credibility to Josephus in any area other than this one area.  An Arabic translation of Josephus was found by a Jewish scholar, Schlomo Pines, in 1972.  The unaltered text of that discovery is translated in this way.

At this time, there was a wise man called Jesus, and his conduct was good, and he was known to be virtuous.  Many people among the Jews and the other nations became his disciples.  Pilot condemned him to be crucified and to die, but those who would become his disciples did not abandon his discipleship.  They reported that he had appeared to them three days after his crucifixion, and that he was alive.  Accordingly, he was perhaps the messiah, concerning whom the prophets had reported wonders.  And the tribe of the Christians, so named after him, has not disappeared to this day.

Frederick G. Kenyon was a respected Biblical scholar with the British National Museum at the early part of the twentieth century.  Here is an online copy of one of his pertinent manuscripts.  His conclusion is that the New Testament documents, as we move forward in archeology and research, become increasingly more validated, and the gap between the death of Christ and the earliest records has become so small that there is insufficient time to insert the creation of legend into the record.  By the way, the mechanical sound of the audio version of the book in the above citation is difficult to follow, but it does make for an interesting listen if you rather.  I have not read even a fraction of this text as of now, but it was referenced in the bibliography of my source material and I have tracked it down for you.

The Babylonian Talmud gives a great description of the events of Holy Week. 

He shall be stoned because he has practiced sorcery and enticed Israel to apostasy.  On the eve of the Passover, this Jeshua was hanged.  For 40 days before the execution took place, a herald went forth and cried “He shall be stoned because he practiced sorcery and enticed Israel to apostasy.” Anyone who can say anything in his favor come forth and plead on his behalf.  But because nothing was brought forth in his behalf, he was hanged on the eve of the Passover.

Ulla retorted, “Do you suppose he was one for whom a defense could have been made?  Was he not a mesith?” [enticer or heretic]

Notice that the appeal is not to deny the miracles attributed to Jesus, but rather to account for them as sorcery.

Gary Habermas is another author who has written on the subject of Knowledge of Jesus outside the Gospels.  Here are some excerpts from his book.  This is an incredible source and worth wading through if you have interest in this topic.  A Lutheran source of good scholarship on the subject comes from Paul L. Maier of the Department of Ancient History, University of Western Michigan, Kalamazoo.  Here is an article he wrote for Issues, etc. 

The intent of this post was not to prove the validity of the New Testament documents.  It was, instead, an attempt to show that scholarship is moving closer to confirming larger portions of the Biblical record, not disproving it.  The resurrection remains the key historical point.  That is not ever going to be upheld by hostile witnesses.  The point is to prove the veracity of the rest of the New Testament so that we can intellectually settle on the authority of Scripture, faith based on public historical events, not blind faith in a warm feeling or events that happened in a closet.

--Ogre--