Monthly Archives: December 2012

Textual Criticism, Top Ten Posts of 2012

How Do Other Ancient Texts Compare to the New Testament? #10 Post of 2012

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Post Author: Bill Pratt

When considering the trustworthiness of the New Testament (NT) documents, the first question we need to ask is, “Have these documents been accurately transmitted to us since they were originally written?”

In order to answer this question about the textual transmission of documents of the ancient world, historians look at the number of existing manuscript copies (MSS) of the original text and they look at the time gap between the earliest existing MSS and the date when the original document was written.  The more MSS, the better we are able to reconstruct the original.  The shorter the time gap, the better we are able to reconstruct the original.  This is referred to as the bibliographical test.

Christians have pointed out for decades that the NT documents are far superior in both dimensions of the bibliographical test.  There are more existing MSS and the time gap for those MSS is the shortest when compared to other documents of ancient history.

Clay Jones, professor at Biola University, has recently updated the data that compares the Greek NT documents (as a group) to other documents of ancient history in an article published in the Christian Research Journal.  Below are the results of his research:

Author Work Date Written Earliest MSS Time Gap Number of MSS
Homer Iliad 800 BC c. 400 BC 400 1757
Herodotus History 480-425 BC 10th C 1350 109
Sophocles Plays 496-406 BC 3rd C BC 100-200 193
Plato Tetralogies 400 BC AD 895 1300 210
Caesar Gallic Wars 100-44 BC 9th C 950 251
Livy History of Rome 59 BC-AD 17 Early 5th C 400 150
Tacitus Annals AD 100 AD 850 750-950 33
Pliny, the Elder Natural History AD 49-79 5th C fragment: 1; Rem. 14-15th C 400 200
Thucydides History 460-400 BC 3rd C BC 200 96
Demosthenes Speeches 300 BC Some fragments from 1 C BC 1100+ 340
Greek NT AD 50-100 AD 130 40 5795

The table illustrates that the Greek NT does extremely well with both the time gap (40 years) and the number of MSS (5795), as compared to all the other documents in the table.  But the situation is even better for the NT because we haven’t yet mentioned all the MSS of the NT in other languages.

Jones reveals that there are over 2000 Armenian, almost 1000 Coptic, 6 Gothic, more than 600 Ethiopian, more than 10000 Latin, more than 350 Syriac, 43 Georgian, and more than 4000 Slavic manuscript copies of the NT.

The only conclusion one can reasonably reach is that we have more confidence in the textual transmission of the NT than in any other document of ancient history.  To question the transmission accuracy of the NT texts we have today is to question all of ancient history.

About the blog

What Is Happening on the Blog in December?

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Post Author: Bill Pratt

For those of you who have followed the blog for a few years, you know that every December I re-run the top ten posts of the year. The top ten is solely determined by number of page views, so I am not picking out my personal favorites – just going by the numbers.

While the top ten is re-posting over the next few weeks, I will be writing new material which will start publishing in January.  It’s always possible that I will sneak a couple of new posts in before the end of the year, but I generally like to take a break this time of year.

I want to thank all of you again for subscribing to the blog, whether by email, Facebook, Twitter, or RSS feed. Our readership grew tremendously this year, mostly by word of mouth and links from other sites, and I’m grateful to all of you who have passed along Tough Questions Answered to your friends.

God bless all of you and don’t let Christmas stress you out!  After all, it’s the birth of our Savior we’re celebrating.  What a  wonderful time of year!

Bible Interpretation

Is There Support for Sola Scriptura in the Church Fathers?

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Post Author: Bill Pratt

Indeed there is.  Here are just a handful of quotes from church fathers that seem to support the supremacy of the Scriptures over all other sources.

Athanasius: “The holy and inspired Scriptures are fully sufficient for the proclamation of the truth.”

Cyril of Jerusalem: “With regard to the divine and saving mysteries of faith no doctrine, however trivial, may be taught without the backing of the divine Scriptures. . . . for our saving faith derives its force, not from capricious reasoning, but from what may be proved out of the Bible.”

John Chrysostom: (as paraphrased by J. N. D. Kelley) “[Chrysostom] bade his congregation seek no other teacher than the oracles of God; everything was straightforward and clear in the Bible, and the sum of necessary knowledge could be extracted from it.”

Augustine: “It is to the canonical Scriptures alone that I am bound to yield such implicit subjection as to follow their teaching, without admitting the slightest suspicion that in them any mistake or any statement intended to mislead could find a place.” (emphasis added)

Augustine: “He [God] also inspired the Scripture, which is regarded as canonical and of supreme authority and to which we give credence concerning all the truths we ought to know and yet, of ourselves, are unable to learn.”

Augustine: “Scripture has a sacredness peculiar to itself. . . . But in consequence of the sacred writing, we are bound to receive as true whatever the canon shows to have been said by even one prophet, or apostle, or evangelist.”

Augustine: “There is a distinct boundary line separating all productions subsequent to apostolic times from the authoritative canonical books of the Old and New Testaments, . . .  [for] the authority of these books has come down to us from the apostles . . . and, from a position of lofty supremacy, claims the submission of every faithful and pious mind. . . . In the innumerable books that have been written latterly we may sometimes find the same truth as in Scripture, but there is not the same authority. Scripture has a sacredness peculiar to itself.”

Aquinas: “We believe the successors of the apostles and prophets only in so far as they tell us those things which the apostles and prophets have left in their writings,” and “it is heretical to say that any falsehood whatsoever is contained either in the gospels or in any canonical Scripture.” (emphasis added)

From these few quotes, we can see that at least some of the tradition seems to support the idea that the tradition is subordinate to Scripture.  The Reformers, therefore, were not merely inventing a new doctrine that had no support from the church fathers themselves.  I think this is an important point.