Fourteen questions about the reliability of the New Testament answered.
Editor’s Note: This is a series of 14 questions, so I disperse my answers after the questions. Most of these criticisms are already refuted elsewhere at the web site, but since this poor unfortunate believer has been assaulted with so many false claims, I am including answers to all of them below. My responses are in italics.
Comment:
I am currently reading your book “Reasons for Belief”. I’m not that far into yet but I wanted to point out that the passage that you use from Josephus to support the miracles of Jesus is considered to be a Christian interpolation and therefore not reliable. From what I understand, several passages from Josephus are suspect and I’m not sure if they can be used to prove the existence of Jesus.
Response:
You are correct that there is very good reason to believe that part of the famous little section in Josephus is an interpolation. I mention this in a footnote in the book. Below is a little set of notes I used in a class I taught about this issue recently. I will complete my comments below this section.
2. Flavius Josephus (AD 38-100) Writing about AD 94 under Domitian. Concerning events he had indirect knowledge of. Josephus was a Pharisee. Jewish historian who was a turncoat, switching from the Jewish rebel side to Rome to serve under Nero and Vespasian. Josephus is a relatively reliable historian.
The “Testimonium Flavium” (Antiquities 18:3.3)
About this time there lived Jesus, a wise man, [if indeed one ought to call him a man]. For he was one who wrought surprising feats and was a teacher of such people as accept the truth gladly. He won over many Jews and many of the Greeks. [He was the Messiah.] When Pilate, upon hearing him accused by men of the highest standing amongst us, had condemned him to be crucified, those who had in the first place come to love him did not give up their affection for him. [On the third day he appeared to them restored to life], for the prophets of God had prophesied these and countless other marvelous things about him. And the tribe of Christians, so called after him, has still to this day not disappeared.
Agapius, an Arab Christian in 9th century quotes what was probably the original, leaving out the parts in parenthesis. Note the passage reads grammatically well without the parts in parenthesis.
Note: Josephus also reports the martyrdom of “James, the brother of Jesus who was called the Christ” (Antiquities 20:20)
Now for my comments. Serious scholars of this section of the Antiquities of Josephus generally agree that Josephus mentioned Jesus in this section of his history, but that, unfortunately and unwisely, a Christian believer with a sincere motives interpolated extra phrases to amp up the passage, making it even more convincing. We look at this and cringe, of course. This interpolation had the effect of making the passage less, not more powerful because it made the entire passage by Josephus about Jesus to be suspect. Fortunately, a translation of Josephus into Arabic by a man named Agapius really helps us here. This translation was from several centuries later, showing that the Christian interpolater probably did his unfortunate deed several centuries after Josephus wrote. It contains the section by Josephus, but without the parts in brackets. If you look at the shortened version it makes complete sense and is gramatically superior than the one with the interpolated section. The most likely correct view is that Josephus wrote this section on Jesus but a zealous but unwise Christian added the parts in brackets, hoping to make it even more convincing. I have read many on this subject and for those without a strong agenda one way or another, this seems to be the consensus.
You say that “several passages from Josephus are suspect.” I believe that this is an exaggeration. What are these “several passages?” I believe you have read from someone who is biased against the reliability of Josephus. The fact is that you cannot trust the biased Christian interpreters or the biased anti-Christian interpreters about Josephus. The person saying that there are several suspect passages ought to supply his “several passages” but as far as I know, this is an exaggeration, intended to undercut the reliability of the bona fide mention by Josephus of Jesus.
It is also worth noting that, as far as I know, there is no evidence of tampering with the Antiquities passage about the death of “James, the brother of Jesus who was called the Christ.”
I hope this helps.
John Oakes
2. The historians were simply writing what Christians believed about Jesus which is why they can’t be used as evidence that Jesus existed since they were only recording what Christians believed..
This claim is in direct contradiction with the previous claim. If claim #2 is true, then claim #3 is false. You cannot have it both ways. In fact, it is quite ridiculous to say that neither Suetonius, not Tacitus, not Josephus, nor the other non-Christians writers who mentioned Jesus did not exist. Honestly, this is an absolutely ridiculous and irresponsible claim.
4. The apostles and disciples in the New Testament never existed and there were no eyewitness accounts.
As for eyewitness accounts, we have plenty of those, including John and Mark. There is a significant doubt about whether the apostle we know of as Matthew wrote the Gospel of Matthew, although I personally believe the testimony of the early church, but the case for Matthew is a bit weaker. However, to say that none of the gospel writers were eye-witnesses is extremely unlikely. What we can say for absolute certain is that there were many thousands of eye-witnesses to the life, sayings and deeds of Jesus, and none of these eye-witnesses ever objected to the accuracy of the gospel accounts, and they would know. I cannot absolutely prove that eye-witnesses wrote John and Mark, but the evidence very strongly supports that they were the authors.
5. The New Testament writers are unknown and the gospels are anonymous with the names of “Matthew,” “Mark,” “Luke,” and “John” later attributed to the writings because we have many quotes by them by earlier church fathers prior to the mid second century and none of them have any names attributed to them..
This statement shows that the one stating this is not looking carefully at the actual evidence. For example, Papias, in about AD 130 mentions the authors of all four gospels. Irenaus, in AD 160 also mentions all four authors. So does Justin around AD 150. Polycarp and Ignatius also mention more than one of the gospel authors in about AD 120. Also, we have a first century author, namely Peter, who tells us that Paul wrote several letters which are now part of the New Testament. Peter calls Paul’s writings “scripture.” Apparently whoever said this is parroting what they have heard from someone else and are probably even exaggerating what they heard.
6. Paul never existed.
Again, anyone saying this is only proving their own ignorance of history. Like I said, ALL reputable scholars of all stripes will repudiate this ridiculous statement.
7. Paul never saw Jesus and he was the only one to write about Jesus in the first century and every other author wrote about him in the second century.
This statement is in direct conflict with the previous statement. If he wrote about Jesus, then he obviously existed! We need to decide which rather poor and unfounded criticism of the New Testament we want to address. Let’s pretend that claim #6 was never made, for the sake of argument. OK. I will agree with the critic to this extent. The only witness we have for Paul’s having had a vision of Jesus on the road to Damascus is Paul himself. If a skeptic wants to reject Paul’s claim, I suppose I cannot blame them for choosing to believe Paul is a liar, although I would submit that Paul does not show evidence in his later life of being a liar. That he was the only person to write about Jesus in the first century flies in the face of ALL scholarship. End of story. Clement of Rome quotes from Matthew and John in roughly AD 95. The Didache, written about AD 100-110 clearly mentions Jesus!!! No one believes that any of the four gospels was written in the second century. No one!!! No one believes that James was written in the second century. The first part of this criticism is a fair proposal, but the rest is 100% proof positive that the person does not know what he or she is talking about.
8. The “wouldn’t die for a lie” argument is premised on apostolic martyrdoms that were legends that emerged centuries after Jesus lived and died and contradict one another by attributing different horrific martyrdoms to the same apostle.
Now, it is true that the majority of the apostolic martyrdoms recorded in Eusebius (published AD 325) are not well-founded. The honest truth is that our information on the deaths of apostles such as Bartholemew and Thomas are questionable at best. However, there is virtually no doubt whatsoever that Paul and Peter were martyred. Also, the martyrdom of James, the brother of Jesus is reported by Josephus. That Christians were martyred in the first century is a fact of history. That all the eye-witnesses of the resurrection of Jesus were under pressure, and even in danger of arrest and martyrdom is established by history.. Is it true that some of the accounts of the martyrdoms of some of the apostles is in doubt? Yes. Absolutely. But the “wouldn’t die for a lie” argument remains a very strong one.
9. No one mentions Josephus until 325 AD or Tacitus until 116 AD.
Is the claim that they were not real historians who did not write the works attributed to them? No it is not! This is a red herring argument. Besides, since Tacitus wrote around AD 110, the second fact is not very surprising. As far as I know, literally no one doubts that Josephus was a real person who really wrote the accounts attributed to him, so the statements above are red herrings and do nothing to minimize what these real people really wrote. By the way, I VERY seriously doubt the claim about Josephus, but, to be honest, I do not have the time right now to disprove this claim, so I will let it stand.
10. There is no proof in the Roman Senate records that Jesus Christ even existed.
Neither is there any proof in the Romans Senate records for 99.999% of all people who lived in the Roman Empire. This statement, though true, tells us nothing about whether Jesus was a real person. It does nothing whatsoever to undermine the reliability of the gospel accounts.
11. The Historic Jesus for the most part is studied in the same places by the same people that the Jesus of Faith is studied: seminary schools, Bible colleges, Christian universities and their critical evaluation which they claim isn’t very critical is only allowed to go so far and that the historical sources are mainly theologically-motivated texts and how theologians are not historians and that they may have an interest in ancient history, but that the primary motivation is to protect and preserve Christian theology and that the facts that historicists use to prop up the Historical Jesus are discredited by the very historicist scholars who mock the mythicist position.
This is plainly and simply a lie. It is not true. It may be true that the majority of those who study the early history of Christianity are believers, but there are many atheists, skeptics and anti-Christians who also study the early church, and none of them will agree with the conclusion that he did not exist or that he was not killed by crucifixion by the Romans. (More accurately, only a tiny minority of the non-Christian historians deny this, but the reputation of this tiny minority speaks for itself). Honestly, this statement does a disservice to the hundreds of non-believing scholars who have studied the life of Jesus and the New Testament.
12. Josephus’ passage in Antiquities 18.3.3 is a forgery and nobody and not a single church father who quoted extensively from Josephus in their apologetics ever mentioned the passage and that it was first mentioned in the 4th century by Eusebius who is claimed to be a noted forgerer and likely responsible for the passage and we also have a UV image showing the passage was tampered with a second time.
13. Then there’s this quote:”…until it had appeared almost word-for-word in the writings of Sulpicius Severus, in the early fifth century, where it is mixed in with other myths. Sulpicius’s contemporaries credited him with a skill in the ‘antique’ hand. He put it to good use and fantasy was his forte: his Life of St. Martin is replete with numerous ‘miracles’, including raising of the dead and personal appearances by Jesus and Satan.”
I have already dealt with this question above. What does this person mean that they do not mention the 12 disciples being there? Whoever says this has obviously not read Matthew, Mark or Luke. Obviously the three Synoptic gospels have significantly different details. Otherwise, why have three separate but non-contradictory gospels, which is what we have? That Luke was a careful historian has been well established. That Mark and John were written by those who knew Jesus is not questioned by any reasonable critic. That the author of Matthew may possibly not have been Matthew himself is a possibility, but, given that it was written around AD 60-70 by an early Christian is well established. We do not have to be absolutely certain of the authors to be certain about the reliability of what they wrote.
The writer of the Gospel of John mentions several individuals being there, including “the disciple whom Jesus loved,” (presumably the apostle John himself) but as biblical archaeology.com states: “…‘Who wrote the Gospel of John?’ is a question that remains unanswered…We may never know for certain who wrote the Gospel of John, any more than we can know who wrote the books of Matthew, Mark and Luke…” Gospel of John Commentary: Who Wrote the Gospel of John and How Historical Is It? – Biblical Archaeology Society
This is a gross over-statement by a group which is extremely careful to not offend the atheists and other skeptics. People other than John himself have been proposed, but the majority opinion, even of skeptics, is that the author is more likely the apostle John. However, although we cannot absolutely prove who wrote these gospels, what we can say for sure is that the four attributed authors are likely the actual ones, and that, in any case, Mark was written in the late 50s or early 60’s, Luke was written around AD 65. Matthew was written before AD 70 and John by around AD 85. All three were written by people who were well acquainted with the accounts of eye-witnesses, and, on top of that, although Archaeology Today is an extremely careful and skeptical source, it does not deny any of what I am saying here. It is simply stating that we are not absolutely certain, which is true.
Further, while the list of who’s there in the Gospel of John does overlap somewhat with the other three gospels, it doesn’t agree with them.
Right. The four gospels are separate but reliable accounts of what Jesus said and did. They record different facts. Of course they do. What is the point here?
That means that the first account we have of the crucifixion and who might have been there was probably written about 40 years after the event by people who weren’t there. Further, the accounts were written by partisans, not recorded in any unbiased, official document like a Roman record.
In short, who knows?”
The answer is that the thousands of still-living eye witnesses to the life and deeds of Jesus would have known if the gospels were a fake. The knew! Is there any actual evidence that the gospels contain fabrications? If so, would someone like to give some evidence of fabrications? There is none.
Source: https://www.quora.com/Who-witnessed-the-supposed-crucifixion-of-Jesus-We-dont-even-know-who-wrote-the-gospels-yet-magically-there-are-witnesses-to-crucifixion-Not-even-the-family-of-Jesus-in-their-writings-mentions-crucifixion
You also have YouTubers like Godless Engineer making video replies and reacting to every apologist and debunking, destroying, and discrediting them and saying that they failed to prove this or that and that their arguments are bad and weak and the worst ones and logical fallacies and don’t and won’t prove anything and that they were caught lying and he even questions the brotherhood of Jesus and James: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oK5MxHm6sTs&ab_channel=GodlessEngineer
I can only respond to specific questions. If you have a specific question about a specific claim, go ahead and write to me about that, but I cannot respond to an entire website. Please provide specifics.
This is his YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@godlessengineer
