On the Reliability of the New Testament

Problem

Two problems present themselves to the person investigating the credibility of the New Testament.

1. Do the copies of the N.T. that we have today reflect what the writings of the N.T. originally contained?
2. Did the writers reflect the Jesus of history?

Let's expand on these two problems.

(1) We have only copies of copies of copies of the N.T. Many of these are only fragmentary. How do we know that these reflect what the N.T. actually said?

In addition, the manuscripts differ amongst themselves. In fact it is estimated that we have 400,000 variants in the New Testament text. That is there are 400,000 different readings of the N.T. Almost every manuscript differs from the others in some respect. And some of these are almost certainly intentional.

Maybe the church changed the writings to suit their beliefs and to fit their agenda.

(2) It is sometimes said that the Jesus of history is a very different Jesus than the one presented us in the N.T. In fact, the Jesus of history was a great stoic teacher, or a political revolutionary, or a peaceable peasant sage, or someone who did not exist at all; and the N.T. reflects a distortion or a mythologization of this Jesus.

This seems plausible. it isn't impossible that an inspiring man's life would morph into a legend that embellishes on his teachings and character.

Resolution

To answer (1). We have over 5,600 MSS of the Greek New Testament. Some of these are within 50-100 years of the original writings. We have over 10,000 versions of the N.T., that is, translations into other languages than Greek. We have over a million quotations of the N.T. from the Church Fathers. From these quotations alone we may reconstruct the majority of the N.T. without even looking at the MSS.

And yes, there are very many variants. However, most of the variants hardly give us differences in the meaning of any book or the passage of any book.

In fact, the plethora of N.T. variants actually helps us understand what the Bible originally contained. First, if there was any doubt in the first place, it proves that no one standardized the text. So no church controlled all the manuscripts.

Further, the science of textual criticism has many reasonable methods of arbitrating between these. I’ll describe one.

Say we have manuscript A and manuscript B. And say that these differ. But they are clearly similar to one another. It is reasonable to assume that they represent a common, and earlier, reading of the N.T. We may compare readings that because of geographical and lexicographical distance must have had a distant common ancestor and achieve strong confidence in how early the documents ought to be dated.

Bart Ehrman, a prominent N.T. critique, and certainly non-biased authority, even says, "Scholars are convinced that we can reconstruct the original words of the N.T. with reasonable (although probably not 100%) accuracy."

The general consensus of those who study these things for a living under peer review is that we do largely have the original documents.

To answer (2). The other question faces us. Do the writings of the N.T. reflect the Jesus of history? We know that people are unreliable and are given to sensationalism. They also cheat and lie for private gain. Sometimes they are bad relayers of information, purely accidentally. Like the game of telephone an original message may become garbled over time, changed completely from what it was.

The N.T. could not have developed in this way for a few reasons.

1. At the heart of the Christian message is a crucified and resurrected Jewish messiah.

1. This message would not have been palatable to the Romans, Greeks, or Jews

1. The Romans, Greeks, and every nonJewish person was not looking for the resolution to Israel's O.T. story. They were not looking forward to God's promises to Abraham and David.

1. Further the Romans would have taken the Christian message as treasonous. For the Christians proclaimed a Jewish King who was King over everything in the whole world. The Christians said this man overcame the Roman legal system. It was tantamount to suicide to proclaim this message.

1. And further, the Greeks had no place for the material resurrection of the human body that the resurrection promised.

1. Even the Jewish people expected someone very different than this Jesus. They expected a political deliverance from Rome. They were looking for a King like David that would restore the national kingdom of Israel. Needless to say, Jesus did not do this.

1. Basically, it fit no one's expectation. It fit no one's story. It even was against everyone's story on a deep level. So it is hard to imagine anyone intentionally distorting the main message: a crucified and resurrected Jewish messiah. Given it’s disagreeableness to the Roman government, among these other reasons, a lie would hardly gain him anything. And further, a liar couldn't expect success. The message wouldn't appeal to anybody unless you could produce very strong evidence, for instance: the mass testimonial witness the N.T. proclaims.

1. It is no less easy to imagine the story being a mythologization. A myth would tend to fit the tastes of the people, and myth does not base itself on open and observable fact. This is precisely what the N.T. argues is the case.

In the absence of any evidence to the contrary, the only explanation is that the N.T. does indeed give an accurate picture of the proclamation of the earliest Christians. The Jewish messiah came into this world and was very different than what anyone had expected.

Discussion of the Screen Argument with Philosophy Professor

I recently had the pleasure of meeting with Dr. Joel Velasco, an Assistant Professor in Philosophy at Texas Tech University. Dr. Velasco specializes in the philosophy of science, biology, and epistemology, and he also has a firm grasp of many of the arguments related to philosophy of religion. More info on Dr. Velasco can be found here: http://joelvelasco.net/. Also present was a good friend of mine, Neil.

We met to discuss the "Screen Argument", which I have been writing on frequently.

http://honestsearchfortruth.blogspot.com/2014/04/the-screen-argument-re-explained.html
http://honestsearchfortruth.blogspot.com/2013/10/examples-of-screens.html
http://honestsearchfortruth.blogspot.com/2013/10/the-screen-argument-further-explained.html
http://honestsearchfortruth.blogspot.com/2013/09/the-screen.html

I recommend checking out this post from Scientia Salon as well: https://scientiasalon.wordpress.com/2015/05/18/ned-block-on-phenomenal-consciousness-part-i/

I hope you will enjoy the "fly on the wall" experience of listening in on our conversation.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pz2XdaYyzVc

 I would love to hear your perspective on our conversation in the comments.

Charles Leslie's Criteria for Determining the Truth of a Religion

     In his short work, A Short and Easy Method with Deists, Charles Leslie (1841) puts forth a set of rules for determining the truth of a religion. Leslie claims that his method is able to demonstrate that the Christian religion is true and that Islam and Paganism are false. Leslie writes:

I suppose that the truth of the doctrine of Christ will be sufficiently evidenced, if the matters of fact, which are recorded of him in the gospels, be true; for miracles, if true, do vouch the truth of what he delivered (Leslie 5). 

     His method for determining the truth of these religions consists of two steps. First, he will lay out his four rules. Second, he will apply the rules to Christianity, Islam, and Paganism. With his methodology in hand, I will now discuss Leslie's four rules.

The four rules are as follows:

1. The matters of fact be of such a manner that man's outward senses, their eyes and ears may be judges of it. 
2. The matters of fact be performed in public experienced by many witnesses. 
3. The miraculous events should have monuments kept in memory of them and outward actions performed to remember these events. 
4. The monuments and actions that are established are instituted at the time that the matters of fact occurred.

Next, I will discuss Leslie's analysis of Christianity, Islam, and Paganism with respect to these four rules. 

    First Christianity. Christ performed his miracles in such a manner that men and women could see with their own eyes what Christ was doing. Moreover, many of Christ's miracles were done in front of a multitude of witnesses numbering in the thousands. Therefore, we can conclude that Christianity satisfies the first two of Leslie's four rules. 

     Next, Christ instituted the sacraments of baptism and the Lord's Supper as a memorial of the miracles that he performed. Moreover, these sacraments were established not in later ages, but at the time of the matters of fact. In addition to being established at the time of the events, the memorials that were instituted by Christ have been observed since they were instituted up until the present day. Christ also ordained the ministers of these memorials himself. Therefore, it is reasonable to conclude that since Christianity satisfies all of the Leslie's four rules, the matters of fact that Christianity speaks of, most importantly the resurrection of Christ, is true. 

     Now I will discuss whether Islam is able to satisfy all of Leslie's four rules. With respect to the first two rules, Islam fails. First, Mohammed writes in the Qur'an that he did not perform any miracles. Moreover, the miracles that are attributed to Mohammed are considered by many Muslims to be fables. Let's suppose that the miracles attributed to Mohammed are believed by most Muslims and that Mohammed did claim to have performed miracles, the one's that are recorded still do not satisfy the first two rules. Mohammed's putative conversation with the moon, his single night journey from Mecca to Jerusalem and then to heaven were not performed in front of anyone. Since these miracles were not performed in front of anyone, we have very little reason to trust their reliability. Since Islam fails to satisfy the first two of Leslie's four rules, the matters of fact that is founded on are most probably false. 

     Last I will discuss whether the matters of fact concerning the pagan religions satisfies all of Leslie's four rules. Ancient paganism has many claims of the miraculous. Mercury is said to have stolen sheep and Jupiter is said to have turned himself into a bull. Leslie focuses on the pagan religion's failure to satisfy the fourth rule. The priesthood and feasts that celebrated the putative miracles that the gods performed were done much later than when the matters of fact occurred. Moreover, the priests who ministered at these feasts were not directly ordained by the gods, but by other people. The priests were chosen much later than when the events occurred. It is for these reasons that the pagan religions fail to satisfy Leslie's fourth rule, and hence, are probably false.        

A Defense of Strong Exclusivism: Why Some Religious Claims are False

     In this post I will address the problem of religious disagreement. I will summarize what seems to me to be a good defense of the position. I will explicate Peter van Inwagen's (2010) paper, "We're Right. They're Wrong". You can find van Inwagen's paper in the book edited by Ted Warfield and Richard Feldman entitled "Disagreement", published by Oxford University Press. The paper defends a strong exclusivist account, not only for religious beliefs, but political, philosophical, and scientific beliefs as well. A solid defense of the strong exclusivist position will demonstrate that at least some religious claims are false. I will now proceed in explaining van Inwagen's paper. 

     First, van Inwagen assumes for his argument that we have more or less a grasp as to what constitutes a religion, or religious institution. Next, van Inwagen uses his own term that is a variable for any religion. He calls this term "ism". Ism can be any religion (Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, etc). Now, van Inwagen gives conditions by which an "Ism" is what he calls weakly exclusivist. He states that a religion is weakly exclusivist if the adherents to the Ism at hand subscribe to. 

     Weak exclusivism: An Ism is weakly exclusivist if the following two theses   are logical consequences of the theses that Ism requires its adherents to believe.

1. Ism is logically inconsistent with all other religions. Any system of belief (besides Ism) that is logically consistent with Ism, is not a religion. For example, if Christianity is weakly exclusivist, then any Christian who thinks that Berkeley's metaphysic is consistent with Christianity is logically committed to the thesis that Berkeley's metaphysic is not a religion (van Inwagen 11). 

     Consider another example. If according to Hinduism, Hinduism and Islam are both religions, and it is a tenet of Hinduism that one can consistently be both a Hindu and a Muslim, then Hinduism is not a weakly exclusivist religion. 

2. According to Ism (Christianity, Islam, Hinduism), it is rational to accept Ism. Moreover, it is epistemically permissible for the Ismist to accept the teachings of Ism. 

     A few comments on weak exclusivism. It doesn't follow that if a religion is weakly exclusivist that it requires its adherent to believe that the adherents of other religions are necessarily irrational. This is what van Inwagen thinks does follow from weak exclusivism: 

 ...if Ism is a weakly exclusivist religion, those who accept its teachings will (at least if they are logically consistent and capable of a little elementary logical reasoning) reach the following conclusion: "The teachings of all other religions are at least partly wrong, and it is rational for is to believe this about the teachings of all other religions."

     A few things follow from this quote. Consider Christianity and Zoroastrianism. If it is rational for me to accept Christian teaching, or conversely if it is rational for me to accept Zoroastrian teaching (it is rational to believe one or the other if both are weakly exclusivist religions, recall the two theses above), then it is rational for me to believe what logically follows from my rational beliefs. So, if Christianity is a weakly exclusivist religion, then one of its teachings will be (or on of its teachings will at least imply) that it is rational for me to believe that Zoroastrianism teaches something false. van Inwagen generalizes the point. 

 A weakly exclusivist religion X contains a teaching Y such that it is rational for its adherents to believe that all other religions teach something false. 

     Now that we have established what it means for a religion to be weakly exclusivist, let's move on to van Inwagen's definition of strong exclusivism: 

 Strong exclusivism: A religion (Ism), is strongly exclusivist if it is weakly exclusivist and it teaches (or its teachings entail) that for any other religion, it is not rational for anyone who is in an epistemic situation of the sort in which Ismists typically find themselves to accept the teachings of that religion (van Inwagen 13). 

     Again, let's discuss a few things that follow from this definition. First, it is consistent with Ism being strongly exclusive that it doesn't require its adherents to believe that people of other religions necessarily or typically violate the norms of rationality. For example, if Islam is a strongly exclusivist religion, then if a person were to convert from Islam to say, Christianity, and if that person was in an epistemic situation that is typical of Muslims (they understood and believed their faith just as well as any faithful Muslim) then other Muslims must believe that the person who converts is irrational. 

     But, it is consistent with Islam being a strongly exclusivist religion that a well informed Muslim can regard a Christian, Pagan, or Jew (who have not been properly exposed to the teachings of Islam) as possibly rational. 

     Last, for sake of completeness, I will discuss very strong exclusivism. Very strong exclusivism is the view that it is a teaching of Ism that all other adherents of every other religion besides Ism are ipso facto irrational. This is not my nor van Inwagen's position, but there are people who believe this so it is worth mentioning. 

     Now, why should we adopt mere weak exclusivism or strong exclusivism. First, as noted by van Inwagen, not all religious claims can be true. They all could be false, but not all of them can be true. So, unless someone wants to give up logical consistency, they should subscribe to some form of exclusivism regarding religious belief. Next, is there any reason to favor mere weak exclusivism over strong exclusivism, or vice versa?

     It seems to me that the strong exclusivist position is more plausible. When we adhere to a religion, not only do we think that that religion is true, but we also think (or should think) that all other religions make at least some false claims. It strikes me as odd to think that if I believed my religion to be true and that other religions were incompatible with my religion (say for example that my religion requires that I believe P and another religion requires its adherents to believe ~P), I couldn't also believe (at least if I wanted to remain logically consistent) that the religion that requires its adherents to believe ~P is also true. For example, if my religion requires me to believe that Jesus claimed to be the son of God and another religion requires me to believe that Jesus did not claim to be the son of God, then if I believe the former (which entails that I believe the claim is true) then I cannot also believe that the claim that Jesus never claimed to be the son of God is true. If I did, I would believe both P and ~P, which would render me irrational. So, if Christianity is a strongly exclusivist religion, and I am adherent of it, then I must believe that at least some of the claims from other religions are false.

Welcome to Evidence-Based Christianity

This blog is dedicated to communicating evidence for Christianity. It is the sibling of Honest Search for Truth, http://honestsearchfortruth.blogspot.com/, the wildly popular hit-blog that burst into the limelight in 2011.

Honest Search for Truth documents the journey of one of our authors, and explores the process of developing a coherent, evidence-based worldview from the ground up. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b3HpUUP9DfI

Evidence-Based Christianity will explore arguments in favor of Christianity, specifically--although it maintains the same willingness to follow the evidence wherever it leads, even if that is away from Christianity.

Our authors:

Dax Bennington, Grad student in philosophy
Nathan Conroy, Grad student in mathematics
James Kunz, Grad student in philosophy
Andrew Rogers, philosophy student
Joshua Willms, MD/PhD Candidate