1. Expected testimony
2. Early testimony
3. Eyewitness testimony
4. Embarrassing testimony
5. Excruciating testimony
We looked at #1-expected testimony in an earlier post. That had to do with the Old Testament prophecies, the "marks of identification", about the coming Messiah, which were perfectly fulfilled through the birth, life, death and resurrection of Jesus. Today we will be covering #2 of the five E's.
Early testimony
The N.T. manuscripts give us very early testimony when compared with other ancient documents. For example, in all other ancient literature there is a gap of 500-1400 years from the earliest known copy to the actual event or time of the writing. Not so with the N.T. manuscripts. The earliest surviving copies to date are much closer to the events that they record.
Let's take a look at some examples for comparison. This is a portion of a chart of ancient literature compiled by Matt Slick on the Christian Apologetics & Research Ministry website.
Author Date Written Earliest Copy Approximate Time Span Number of Copies
from orig. to earliest copy
Pliny 61-113 A.D. 850 A.D. 750 yrs. 7
Plato 427-347 B.C. 900 A.D. 1200 yrs. 7
Demosthenes 4th cent. B.C. 1100 A.D. 800 yrs. 8
Herodutus 480-425 B.C. 900 A.D. 1300 yrs. 8
Aristophanes 450-385 B.C. 900 A.D. 1200 yrs. 10
Caesar 100-44 B.C. 900 A.D. 1000 yrs. 10
Tacitus circa. 100 A.D. 1100 A.D. 1000 yrs. 20
Aristotle 384-322 B.C. 1100 A.D. 1400 yrs. 49
Sophocles 496-406 B.C. 1000 A.D. 1400 yrs. 193
Homer (Illiad) 900 B.C. 400 B.C. 500 yrs. 643
New Test. 50-100 A.D. cc. 130 A.D. less than 100 yrs. 5,686
The exact date of the various N.T. books is debated by New Testament scholars, but from historical evidence, archaeological finds, and the events recorded or not recorded in the N.T., we have room to argue that most or all of the N.T. was written prior to the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem in 70 A.D. The 1st century Jewish historian, Josephus, records that James, the half-brother of Jesus, was killed in 62 A.D. The book of Acts records the death of James as if it had just occurred, which would place the date of the book of Acts at or very close to 62 A.D. But Acts doesn't record the deaths of Peter or Paul. The book of Acts, written by Luke, refers to his earlier work, his gospel account, so we know that the gospel of Luke was written before Acts. Luke is writing his gospel in an effort to also give his account, meaning that other gospels have already been written, such as the gospel of Mark.
The Apostle Paul died under the reign of Nero. History records that Nero died in 67 A.D., so Paul would have died before that. That means that all of Paul's writings, over half of the N.T., were written prior to 67 A.D. Nowhere in the N.T. is the destruction of Jerusalem even mentioned except in Jesus' predictions. It seems impossible that such a catastrophic occurrence would not have been mentioned. So, it is possible that most or all of the N.T. was written prior to the destruction of Jerusalem by Rome in 70 A.D.
I would like to close with a summation by Floyd McElveen from his book God's Word, Final, Infallible and Forever.
"To sum up; unless we want to throw a blanket over all of history and say that there is nothing knowable about the past, no history that can be trusted, no Grecian or Roman history, no Aristotle or Plato or Socrates, we had better not make any claims against the historicity and accuracy of the New Testament! The New Testament documents are far more numerous, older, demonstrably more accurate historically, and have been examined by a far greater battery of scholars, both friend and foe, than all the other ancient manuscripts put together. They have met the test impeccably!"