THE ORIGIN OF THE NEW TESTAMENT
Intro: There is no more controversial book than the Bible. The Bible has been attacked more than any other book that I know of. It has been scrutinized -- and studies over and over again. Can we know where the Bible comes from? I strongly believe that the answer to that is yes!! The New Testament especially can be demonstrated in many ways to be accurate -- to have been written in the first century.
SPS: TODAY I AM GOING TO DISCUSS THE ORIGIN OF THE NEW TESTAMENT.
Can we prove that the New Testament comes from the time of the Apostles? Yes I believe we can give evidence to that effect. Can we prove that every word of the New Testament is absolutely true? NO!! Ultimately, it takes faith to believe God's Word.
ROM 1:17 The just shall live by faith. Ultimately, we must have faith. If we were able to prove every word of the Bible true would that cause everyone to turn to God? NO!! We can see that from the Bible itself that seeing miracles don't convert you -- it takes God's Spirit. It takes faith to believe that Jesus Christ is going to return to govern the earth.
SITUATION TODAY: Many today who have been with our former association are discouraged -- what they have believed in all of their lives has been thrown away from some. They saw that there was a plan to change these doctrines for some period of time. They consider it a conspiracy -- therefore -- they are very prone to speculations that the whole New Testament was a conspiracy. That the Gospels (Mt, Mk, Lk, Jn) were written hundreds of years after Christ's death and don't reflect truly what happened. This has been the idea of the Jesus Seminar and now some who have left the Church years ago are saying the same thing. The idea is this: The Old Testament is accurate but the NT has been infiltrated by early Catholics and simply reflects tales of pagan ideas.
This is not a new idea: PAGE 18-19 The Jewish People and Jesus Christ by Jakob Jocz. Here we find that Jews tend to say that the Gospels were written at a late date. That they weren't written in the first century. "such a theory implies three assumptions: a late composition of the Gospels in a non-Jewish milieu." This is not a recent idea that came up with some book like those recently espoused by some.
The Jews themselves were accusing Christ of being born of "fornication"
. John 8:41 Notice that the Pharisees here were accusing Christ of being born of fornication. There was a constant battle between Christ and the Pharisees.
SOME ARE NOW CLAIMING THAT THE JEWS WOULD NEVER HAVE CONSPIRED TO KILL CHRIST! Let's go to the Old Testament to see what kind of people they had become there. 2 KINGS 17:7-14 The Children of Israel sinned against God. They did come back to Israel for awhile and under Ezra and Nehemiah were doing better. But by the time Christ comes on the scene they have become corrupt again just like their fathers.
PAUL JOHNSON -- A HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY Page 14. Indicates that the Jews were so corrupt and had many problems that the Romans could rule better than them.
Also there are other sources where you can go and see the corruption. There is something about human nature -- Jewish, Christian, Moslem -- they all have their corruption.
Rom 3:23 All men are sinners. There were good reasons why the Jews of Christ's day were under the thumb of the Romans. They had sinned against God. In 69 AD or thereabouts -- their whole civilization was destroyed -- why? Because they were corrupt!!
WHAT IS THE Source OF THE GOSPELS? Is there evidence to show that they were written early? YES!!! There is evidence that they were written very early.
There were many Christian writers in the immediate centuries after Christ's death. These writers wrote about the origin of the Bible as they understood them. Obviously, they were normally Christian. If you were to write about the Mormons -- shouldn't you check with their writers to see exactly where they came from.
IS THE NEW TESTAMENT RELIABLE BY PAUL BARNETT. Page 38. Here we see that Polycarp (who lived about year 110) attests that the 4 Gospels are written. We can see that the NT as we know it already was in existence by this time.
FF BRUCE -- THE NEW TESTAMENT DOCUMENTS, ARE THEY RELIABLE? PAGE 35 He mentions that Mark was the Interpreter of Peter. Here we have early affirmation that the source of the Gospels themselves was an Apostle.
THE GOSPELS THEMSELVES: Should we not look at the Gospels themselves and see where they say they came from?
LUKE 1:1-2 Here we see that Luke says that he got the gospels from "eyewitnesses". I don't have time to go into all of that today -- one of the eyewitnesses was probably Peter. Luke was Paul's companion and in the book of Acts we find very interesting terminology -- "We" did this and that.
JOHN 20:30-31, 21:24 There is evidence internally from the Bible that the Gospels were written by eyewitnesses of the evens which they describe. No other ancient book that I know of can be established to have been written closer to the time period the events happened in. Example: Alexander the Great was not written about until 100's of years later.
ACTS 20:6, 13, 15 The writer of the Book of Acts writes as if he were with Paul on his journeys.
GAL 1:18 Here we see that Paul met Peter at Jerusalem. Again if Luke were with him on his travels -- Luke probably talked to Peter about the Gospel. There is no evidence (outside of ideas of men) that I know of that shows that Mark was the first Gospel and the others (Mat. & Luke) are copied from that.
ARCHAEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE.
Today we have the new science of archaeology. We are digging in so many places. Science today wants "proof" of things -- not just scripture.
ARTICLE FROM BIBLE REVIEW. Reinterpreting John Page 19 February 1993. Here is evidence that indeed the Book of John is not a 2nd or third Century fraud.
The scholars used to think that John was a late work. Again, here is where archaeological evidence and the Dead Sea scrolls have helped us understand the book of John.
JOHN 5:2-4 Notice what the Bible says. It describes a pool that Josephus and others had not described. The only place that it could be found is in the Book of John. An archaeologist decided to dig where the Bible said the pool was and there is was! Just as the Bible said. A 5 sided pool was found. The author of John did live in the 1st century after all!! The Article in Bible Review has a picture and describes the pool which was found by archaeologists after they decided to dig where the Gospel of John said the pool was located.
BIBLE REVIEW, PAGE 22, FEB. 1993 Here we see that the dualism in John is typical of the writings of Christ's time.
JOHN 3:19-21 Here we see that Christ came to bring light to the world. Indeed brethren -- can you imagine the Bible without the New Testament? Think of what this means -- Gals you have to wait 80 days after giving birth to a girl before coming to Church. Men -- you all must be circumcised -- and those of you who aren't should realize what that means. The Passover Lamb must be killed on the 14th of Nissan.
The evidence from the Dead Sea scrolls is that -- John is speaking of 1st Century ideas. Ideas that Jesus had -- and that John learned from him.
ALLEGED CONTRADICTIONS: One of the things the Jews attack the NT is the alleged contradictions and errors of the NT.
Let's go to one of those places:
LUKE 2:1-5 Jewish skeptics and others have attacked the authenticity of this taxing mentioned by Luke. They have tried to say that Luke was not accurate.
READ FROM "THE ABC'S OF BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGY...THE BIBLE & CHRIST" BY DR. CLIFFORD WILSON (ONLINE BIBLE). Article about Christ's birth. The article shows that Luke's account of the taxation can be reconciled with what we know from archaeological evidence and other evidences.
Notice -- there is evidence that they had to be taxed.
CONCLUSION: I don't have enough time to go into all the questions that have been raised by some. When you realize that the NT can be shown to be a 1st Century work -- then you can know that God has given us his word. Let's be thankful that we can know God's truth. Let's be thankful that Jesus Christ came and gave his life for our sins.
