Posted by Chris Blair 3/6/26
How historically reliable is the New Testament? Some people never question the reliability of the Bible they are reading, and others won’t read the Bible because they doubt it’s historical accuracy. Why read a book about a man that never even existed? Many have asked, “how can you believe in a book that is just a copy of a copy of a copy that has been translated from one language to another to another?” A common follow up is comparing the Bible we have today to the person at the end of the telephone game. Most can remember playing the telephone game as a child. The first person starts with a word, like elephant. Then, each person turns and whispers into the next person’s ear quietly enough that no one else can hear. By the tenth person down, the word has morphed into something completely different, the elephant is now transformed into a piano! The truth is that the New Testament is the most historically reliable ancient document we have.
What exactly is the New Testament? The New Testament is a collection of twenty-seven books that are a combination of the eyewitness testimony of the life, miracles, teachings, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth, along with early church history and letters written by the eyewitnesses to the early believers. Paul Gould, Travis Dickinson, and Keith Loftin state in their book Stand Firm, “the accounts clearly date well within the lifetimes of the eyewitnesses, and the fact that the reporting of facts are tied to real people, real locations, at real times provides good evidence to believe that these accounts are indeed genuine eyewitness testimony.”[1] Luke, the author of Luke and Acts, was a model historian. Robert H. Gundry dedicates an entire chapter to Luke in his book A Survey of the New Testament. Gundry explains that Luke was a Gentile Physician that traveled as a companion of the Apostle Paul. His writings are a detailed historical narrative composed of multiple eyewitness reports including his own personal eyewitness.[2] A great example of Luke’s historical detail can be found in Luke 3:1-3 New International Version:
“In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar—when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, Herod tetrarch of Galilee, his brother Philip tetrarch of Iturea and Traconitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene— during the high-priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness. He went into all the country around the Jordan, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.“
Luke lists specific people by name and titles, places by geographical landmarks still known today, and actions that could all have been verified or refuted by the many people alive at both the time of events and the time of writing. R.T. Frank explains that a prior skeptic, the archeologist Sr William Ramsey, was so impressed by “Luke’s accuracy in referring to the details of political institutions and appointments in Asia Minor and Greece” that Ramsey later regarded Luke as a “careful and responsible historian.”[3]
How do we know the New Testament is not just a late dated copy of a copy of a copy and translations of translations of translations? Daniel B Wallace, a New Testament scholar, describes the number of verified ancient New Testament manuscripts that have been found. Today we have close to 5,600 handwritten Greek New Testament documents, approximately 10,000 handwritten Latin manuscripts of the New Testament, and another 5,000-10,000 manuscripts in Coptic, Syriac, Georgian, Gothic, Ethiopic, Armenian and several other languages. Altogether, there are over 20,000 handwritten ancient manuscripts of the New Testament alone.[4] This is a far departure from a single scribe copying the one copy of the Bible late into the night, his eyes straining to see by candlelight alone as he makes error by accident or change with purpose, forever altering the scripture as we know it. We have tens of thousands of copies that span over a millennium and cross multiple continents.
But how do we know when the first copies were even made, how many hundreds of years after the Death of Jesus was anything even written down? The answer to that question is: Very early! Jesus most likely died on the cross around AD 30-33. According to Josh and Sean McDowell in their co-authored book, Evidence that Demands a Verdict, liberal and conservative scholars disagree on how early the books of the New Testament were written, but not by as much as one might think. The range in the following examples shows the early (conservative) dating and the later (liberal) dating; Matthew: Early 60’s – 80’s. Mark: late 50’s – 60’s. Acts 62-64 AD.[5] Paul W. Barnett brings up the early date of church fathers citing from the books we know as the New Testament. “Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna, wrote his short letter to the church in Philippi in c. 110… In Polycarp’s letter (written in only twenty-nine verses) he quotes or adapts from every New Testament text except John, James, 2 and 3 John, and Revelation.”[6] That is a well-documented citation from twenty-two out of twenty-seven of the New Testament books by year 110AD. That is both early writing and early citation!
So, the New Testament seems reliable, now what? Now it is time to read it to discover the Good News. To get a summary of the New Testament, turn to John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” (NIV). Please take time to read into the cited sources used for this blog, there is great detailed information!
[1] Paul Gould, Travis Dickinson, and Keith Loftin, Stand Firm: Apologetics and the Brilliance of the Gospel (Nashville, TN: B&H Academic, 2018), 80–81.
[2] Robert H. Gundry, A Survey of the New Testament, 4th ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2003), 206-210.
[3] R. T. France, “The Gospels as Historical Sources for Jesus,” in Christian Apologetics: An Anthology of Primary Sources, ed. Khaldoun A. Sweis and Chad V. Meister (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2012), 293.
[4] Daniel B. Wallace, “Has the New Testament Text Been Hopelessly Corrupted?” in In Defense of the Bible: A Comprehensive Apologetic for the Authority of Scripture, ed. Steven B. Cowan and Terry L. Wilder (Nashville: B&H Academic, 2013), 143-146.
[5] Josh McDowell and Sean McDowell, Evidence That Demands a Verdict: Life-Changing Truth for a Skeptical World (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2017), 43.
[6] Paul W. Barnett, “Is the New Testament Historically Reliable?” in In Defense of the Bible: A Comprehensive Apologetic for the Authority of Scripture, ed. Steven B. Cowan and Terry L. Wilder (Nashville: B&H Publishing Group, 2013), 236.
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