Skilled in the word of righteousness (Hebrews 5:13) Part 14

Written by: Yeow Chin Kiong

The first step in proving the historical reliability and truthfulness of the contents of a surviving manuscript is to subject that manuscript to the BIBLIOGRAPHICAL Test.

This test, firstly, attempts to show how close in time what is recorded in written form is to the actual event it records. The closer in time the written record is to the event, the less time for myth and fictional additions to be added to the factual account recorded. Obviously, if eyewitnesses to an event were alive when a particular event was recorded in writing, they would challenge and refute elements of untruth or error in the record.

The earliest manuscripts of parts of the New Testament (especially of the four gospels) have been dated to have be written before 100AD,- within the lifetime of Jesus’ apostles and other disciples who wrote them. These manuscripts have been discovered in the Middle East and in Mediterranean countries where these manuscripts were first circulated. The early, relatively wide circulation of these manuscripts reflect the fact that many of them were in the form of addressed letters like Luke and Acts, MEANT to be circulated, as were the apostles’ and early disciples’ epistles, including Revelation). Very many more manuscripts of the New Testament scriptures have been discovered, all traced to the 2nd century AD and after.

Remember that these were COPIES of the original written material. The original, Divinely-inspired manuscript had to pre-date these copies, having been written earlier. Fictitious “gospels” and “epistles” were written much later,- centuries after the death of eyewitnesses of the life, works and words of Jesus as His apostles and first disciples, when there were none alive to testify to the truthfulness of their contents.

We have manuscripts hand-copied within 30 years of Jesus’s death and many from 100 to 200 years after. This timespan compares very well with other written records universally accepted to be historical truth about personalities and events in ancient times. For example, the timespan between original writing and earliest surviving copy of Julius Carsar’s GALLIC WARS is 950 years, and Tacitus’ ANNALS (first half) is 750 years. As these written records in copies are so distant in time from their original writing and yet their contents are accepted as historical truth, copies of the New Testament portions which are a mere 150 years at maximum from their original writing should also be regarded as historical truth.

The BIBLIOGRAPHICAL Test, secondly, looks at the number of existing copies of a particular manuscript. The larger that number of surviving copies the more certain we can be of the original text we do not have. This is because we can compare manuscripts to arrive as closely as possible to the original written content. With multiple surviving copies of the same or similar texts, discrepencies or differences between them can be resolved by arriving at the most reasonable reading.