Can you cite one objective fact about Christ from that book? No doubt there are documents wwhich are reliably dated to the first century AD, but by the time anything came to be written down the narrative had been passed on orally and as we all know all such stories are embellished by the tellers. There's a booktitled 'Nation' by Sir Terry Pratchett which illustrates, particularly in the last few chapters, how such things happen.
Hi Susan, My apologies for taking so long to respond to your request. Apart from having other things to attend to I also invariably have great problems in actually accessing the Board,
After much thought I concluded that a short one or two line extract of quotes was of little value. So with much trepidation I attach a lo----ng slightly edited extract from the FF Bruce book that I referred to. It is taken from a section which deals with comparing the quality of the historical evidence for the validity of the Gospels to that for much secular history dating from around the same period. I am hoping you can perhaps get some assistance from someone in working your way through it.
My source material goes back a few years and there may well be later findings which have added to our knowledge since then. But I believe the following examples remain valid.
First a brief synopsis of the dates given for the manuscripts for ancient secular history.
For Caesars Gallic Wars there are several extant manuscripts in our possession but only nine or ten are good and the oldest of these is dated some 900 years later than Caesars day.
Of the 142 books of the Roman History of Livy (59 BC – 17 AD) only 35 survive; these are known to us by no more than 20 manuscripts of any consequence, only one of which and that containing fragments of Books iii & iv, is as old as the fourth century AD.
Of the 14 books of the Histories of Tacitus (c AD 100) only four and a half survive; of the 16 books of his Annals, ten survive in full and two in part. The text of these extant portions of his two great historical works depends entirely on two manuscripts, one of the ninth century and one of the eleventh century AD.
The Histories of Thucydides (c 460 – 400 BC) is known to us from eight manuscripts, the earliest belonging to c 900 AD and a few papyrus scraps dating to about the beginning of the Christian era. The same is true of the History of Herodotus (c 448 – 428 BC) Yet no classical scholar would listen to an argument that the authenticity of Herodotus or Thucydides is in doubt because the earliest date of their works which are of any use to us are over 1 300 years later than the originals.
But how different is the situation of the New Testament in this respect. The two well-known manuscripts; the Codex Vaticanus and the Codex Sinaiticus are dated at around 350 AD. However, there are considerable numbers of fragments of copies of the NT books dated in the period AD 100 – AD 200. An example is a fragment of John’s Gospel, which was and I presume still is held in the John Rylands Library, Manchester. This is dated circa AD 130, indicating that the fourth Gospel was already in circulation in Egypt by then, strong support for an early date for its writing. And there are many other examples.
The Chester Beatty Biblical Papyri consists of portions of eleven papyrus codices, three of which contain most of the New Testament writings. One of these containing the four Gospels and Acts belongs to the first half of the third century, while another containing Paul’s letters to churches and Hebrews dates at around 200 AD.
Another example is some papyrus fragments dated by papyrological experts at not later than AD 150 which contains paraphrases of several of the accounts found in the four Gospels.
Attestation of another kind is provided by quotations from the NT in many early writings. The letter sent by Clement, bishop of Rome about AD 96 to the Corinthian church contains quotations from the synoptic Gospels, from Acts, Romans, 1 Corinthians, Ephesians, Titus, Hebrews and 1 Peter. In letters written by Ignatius, bishop of Antioch as he journeyed to his martyrdom in AD 115 there are reasonably identifiable quotations from Matthew, John, Romans 1 & 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians Philippians, 1 & 2 Timothy and Titus. Polycarp, the last living linked to the Apostles, in a letter to the Philippians c 120 AD quotes from the synoptic Gospels, from Acts, Romans, 1 & 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, 2 Thessalonians,1 & 2 Timothy, Hebrews, 1 Peter and 1 John.
So certainly for those of us who are believers, safe to say that in terms of both quality and quantity of the historical evidence, the NT is far superior to that for ancient secular history. Do you happily accept the validity of ancient secular history (which I do) but then reject the NT writings as myth and fairy tales? Well that is your call
