Topic 31 of 33 - Your Place in the Learning Journey
The New Testament and History
The New Testament documents are among the best-attested ancient texts in existence. More than 5,700 Greek manuscripts survive, along with thousands of manuscripts in Latin, Syriac, Coptic, and other languages. The earliest manuscript fragments date to within decades of the original composition. By comparison, most classical authors survive in a handful of manuscripts copied a thousand years after the original. The manuscript tradition of the New Testament is remarkably robust, and textual scholars have been able to reconstruct the original text with a high degree of confidence.
The Gospels were written within living memory of Jesus - Mark probably in the late 60s CE, Matthew and Luke in the 70s to 80s, John in the 90s. They drew on earlier sources, including Paul's letters (written in the 50s CE), oral traditions, and possibly written collections of Jesus's sayings. The time gap between the events and their recording is short by ancient standards, and the communities that preserved the traditions had strong reasons to maintain their accuracy.
External sources corroborate several key New Testament claims. Josephus, the Jewish historian writing in the late first century, refers to Jesus as a historical figure, mentions his crucifixion under Pontius Pilate, and refers to James "the brother of Jesus who was called Christ." The Roman historians Tacitus and Pliny the Younger provide additional early references. Pilate's existence as a Roman prefect was confirmed by an inscription discovered at Caesarea Maritima in 1961. The Pool of Bethesda and the Pool of Siloam, mentioned in John's Gospel, have been excavated and match the Gospel descriptions.
The historical question that archaeology and external sources cannot settle is the resurrection. The claim that Jesus rose bodily from the dead is not a claim that can be verified or falsified by historical methods, because it is a claim about a singular, unrepeatable event. Historians can establish that the disciples genuinely believed they had encountered the risen Jesus, and that this belief transformed them from frightened fugitives into bold public witnesses. What caused that transformation is a question that historical evidence raises but cannot by itself answer.