How accurate is the New Testament?

[Pinkfluffyslippers]

I have this problem with the New Testament - so much of it was written ages after the events they describe how accurate is it and how can we believe it? For instance the Gospels differ and don't all mention the same events. (This is before we even start discussing the differences between the translations of the Bible)
Who decided which Gospels to include? I know some were excluded>
Who was the editor ? Was it Paul?
Forgive me for sounding slightly blasphemous but if God wanted to get his message across don't you think he would have sorted this out and given his message to one person. (EG: As with Islam - Allah speaking to Muhammed). I often wonder if the New Testament isn't susceptible to the problems of Chinese whispers.

I do hope someone could answer these questions.

Well that would apply to the old testament too. I mean when Eve did the apple thing there was no one watching with a notebook writing it down. The first five books (If I remember rightly) were supposedly written by Moses.

As for God just making it clear what he wanted from us I think it's generally regarded as 'charactor building' to have to guess which story/religion to believe.

As I recall it the gospels according to Matthew, Mark and Luke are strongly related and are called Synoptic Gospels. Wikipedia says they were written fairly shortly (perhaps 60 - 70years or so years after the death of Christ.) This tallies with my recollection of the origin I was taught at school.

Mark was probably first and then copied more or less simultaneously by Matthew and Luke who added parts of their own from the oral tradition. The mysterious 'Q document' describes those stories that Matthew and Luke share but were not copied from Mark. The Q document has never been found but I recall being told that it might have been an early attempt to write down certain well loved stories in a rather more 'story book' form.

The gospel acording to John is much different and written later (perhaps 100 years after the death of Christ.)

God had no hand in their writing. Men did it and yes it is prone to chinese whispers. It is not logistically possible that the three Synoptic gospels were edited by Paul.

However, Paul died in Rome (AD65)around the time that the first of the Synoptic Gospels (Mark) was written so he may have been aware of or crossed paths with at least one of the authors of the three synoptic gospels.

Although Paul wrote some of his epistles to the early Greek church (and he travelled there) and it is known the John gospel perhaps has a Greek origin it was written long after he died so he had no hand in its authorship or editing.

To be honest a lot of the origin of the gospels is still quite a set of disputed competing theories.

I hadn't realised they were considered to have been written so much later. Surely that rules out Matthew, Mark, Luke or John having any part in writing them. What was the average lifespan at that time?

They were not written by Matthew, Mark, or Luke but at least 1 - 2 generations later by people who were connected to disciples of the original apostles.

John was written of course much much later.

I guess its a bit like us today writing a history book or a biography based on research done by talking to old people about stories they heard from their parents who themselves may not have actually winessed the events at the time.

Kind of third hand recollections written as fact.

When you said "Mark was probably first and then copied more or less simultaneously by Matthew and Luke who added parts of their own from the oral tradition" it sounded like they were writing it.

onagar - yes sorry I see what you mean. Lazy typing from me. What I meant was:

"then copied more or less simultaneously by other people that wrote Matthew and Luke who added parts of their own from the oral tradition

As far as I can recall, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John were the writers names - but they were not amongst the apostles. Many people assume they were, and if you ask someone to list the 12 apostles they'll usually start with those names because they are so familiar.

But they are thought to have been close to people who were there at the time of the events. I think Mark for example is thought to be John Mark who travelled with Peter and is mentioned in at least one of the epistles. (Sorry I don't have anything with me at the moment to check that).

The epistles were written earlier, then the gospels at the stage when those who had met Jesus personally were getting old and/or dying, to make sure that the oral tradition was written down clearly to be passed on.

The actual decision on which gospels and epistles to include in the Bible was made later - to begin with the individual ones were used separately, and there were others in circulation apart from the ones we have now. Some were left out of the edit because they didn't add anything extra, others because they had aspects which were considered to be "wrong".

Matthew, Mark and Luke are fairly consistent, though they each include things the others don't, and have slightly different slants on things because of who wrote them and for what audience. John's gospel is more "theological" and takes a different view of things.

As to whether we can say they are accurate - well, that's a tricky one. There's very little evidence outside of the Bible itself to corroborate the stories. Josephus, a Jewish historian, mentions the existence of Jesus as a teacher who had followers, got crucified, and his followers continued to follow him after his death. They were a small Jewish cult at that stage. There's a few other writings which corroborate odd parts, but not anything which would make the central story more "convincing".

I think you have to remember that Christianity is not meant to be a rules-based religion, it was meant (from Jesus teachings) to be about being in a right relationship with God and with other people. The stories which were written down in the New Testament were examples of Jesus' teachings, and some of the history of what happened - the whole Bible is not a set of rules, but the written history of God's relationship first with the people of Israel (Old Testament) then the followers of Christ (New Testament). It's therefore not just a question of picking out a passage and saying "The Bible says you must do x,y,and z" (though people do that a lot!) but if you consider yourself a Christian you should read it and think about what it says overall about how to live your life.

In answer to the questions from pinkfluffyslippers 'Who decided what gospels to include and who was the editor?'

As far as I can understand, after Roman Emperor Contantine converted to Christianity in 312AD he comissioned a worker of his to bring the New Testament as we currently know it togther, it was him and Contantine who decided what went into it and what was excluded (the gnostic gospels were among the excluded texts).

Many imagine that if Roman Emperor Contantine hadn't converted to Christiantity this jewish offshoot would have stayed as a small community and maybe died out.

I cannot put faith in a religion that was made mainstream by a brutal Roman Emperor.

I can put faith in human goodness and good relationships and strong communities that look after each other.

Actually 1Maya2, Constantine did not decide which documents made up the NT. A church council (of Hippo in 393) got together to recognise officially which documents were already regarded as authoritative by the churches.

This site has some interesting video interviews on the subject.

It's all fiction, IME, so I don't know if you can use words like "accurate" in relation to a narrative about imaginary events.

I had thought that Constantine ordered 50 copies of the bible to be produced by his worker/aid 'the Bishop of Caesaria' for use in Constantinople.

The Hippo 393 did this officially recognise Contantine's new testament or did it add/take away text or was it working with different documents altogther?

I find this all really fascinating.

And the fact that the new testament was put together and edited such a long time after Jesus lived is questionable to me.

Well, the fact that Jesus lived, had followers, was crucified, and his followers would not renounce their beliefs after his death are not imaginary events, and are not fiction. But feel free to question whether other events in the New Testament actually occurred, or what their significance is.

The accuracy of the New testament is crucial to Chriatianity.

Jesus may not have said the things that have been atrributed to him.

He may not have said that he was the only way to God, which would have made Christianity an entirely different animal.

Chriatains all over the world and all through the past 2000 years have used the New Testament in lots of different ways some good some bad.

The accuracy or inaccuracy of the New Testament is pretty important to whether Christianity is true or not.

Important to Christians, yes. But I'm answering dizietsma's suggestion that the whole thing is a work of fiction and relates to completely imaginary events. Which I will not allow to stand unanswered, as it is ignorant. Whether or not people follow Christianity, I think they ought to be aware of what is and is not believed by reputable scholars who have studied the Bible in an unbiased way.

This is my alst atatempt at posting LOL- baby keeps deleting. Think he's gonna be Buddhist

There are academics who specialise in dating the Bible paragraphs; they ahve broken the NT into segments attributed to various authors but I can't recall exactl the details- I do have the boks though if you want it looked up?

This site here, Unlike Wiki, is a Uni standard on RE courses so well worth a loof to see te gospels (or some of them) left ut of the text.

Your inference about the Qur'amn is interesting; yes traditin holds that it was spoken toMohammed but there is also a suggestion it vanished from records for many years, anything could have happened in that time. Agasin I can find academic references if anyone feels the need.

But as the Qur'an also says- to each nation was given a book etc etc etc. Now many of us might believe that the same corruption thing ahppened to all texts, whereas Muslims would argue obv.

It's also worth a mention that just because I could write you an essay pulling the Bibe apart doesn't ,mean I don't call myself a Christian; the relevance of the Bible to Chriostian identity varies massively between groups.

Sorry not goping to proofread, baby screaming a tantrum now.

It truly depends what you mean by 'accurate'. The letters are, well, letters. They are what they are. Some things in them are a little obscure and we don't know what some of them were written in response to, but they've got a reasonably good textual history that can be traced. The letters (or 'epistles') are also the earliest of the documents in the NT, too - written before the books that relate history - the gospels and Acts of the Apostles. The gospels aren't really designed as journalistic history, they are books written for believers to tell them more about the life of Jesus. You can either believe what is written in them, or reject it, but it's just like any other historical document - it is what it is, it's far too late for corroborating DNA and things of that nature. Although archaeolgy often helps define what was likely to have happened where and so on.

They were collated over a period of time as the early church grew and there was a consensus about which books were considered inspired. Eventually, there was a disagreement among various splinter groups in the early centuries of Christian belief, who all had their own books which they considered scripture and the church came together to define the issue. They pretty much rejected any books which were latecomers, and went with the list that had the oldest attestation among early Christian writers.

The idea of inspiration in Christian scriptures isn't a direct dictation thing - it's more that people were 'moved along by the Holy Spirit'. They remained themselves, and wrote in their own personal styles, based in their own timeframe and culture, but God made sure that they wrote what He wanted written. The reason it's not one person is, IMO, lots to do with teachings about common humanity, and not having a certain type of person above another - what Christians would call the 'body' of believers.

hope some of that helps...

Dizziewe (I say thatas an RE grad) do know thatChrist existed. How much his life resembled thatwhich we are taughtabout is up for validdebate but amongst academics (and I mean non Christian ones, none of my Profs were Christian) it is accepted that Christ did live and preach. there were of cours4e many roaming charismatic preachers at the time, that in itself does not make him unique

I bow to the scholars on this thread.

What can you believe?
It is fairly certain that Jesus actually existed. He is independantly mentioned by Josephus, ( contemporary historian) which is about as good as it gets in terms of establishing whether or not anybody actually lived at that time.

Mark is the earliest of the gospels. It's thought to have some elements of an eyewitness account in that it mentions trivial things like colour of clothing and little details like that. John was the last written and was almost certainly 150 years or later.

If you want a comparison, consider Scientology. This is a religion which was created by L Ron Hubbard (a science fiction writer) for tax purposes, and to sell his books. He died in 1986, yet the legend about him has sprung up in that time and he has believers all over the world. Given that in the space of 20 years in this sceptic society, a religion which the founder admitted was made up for tax evasion purposes flourishes, it is easy to see how the legend of Jesus would have been developed and embellished by those who had a vested interest in it's perpetuation.

So, apart from the fact of his birth and his death, there is little, if anything, in the New Testament that can be taken as absolute fact. But then, religion is not about facts.

It's also worth bearing in mind that Jesus spoke Aramic, but the gospels were written originally in Greek, this being the language of learning and culture at the time. As you know, there is no such thing as an absolutly correct translation. Languages are conduits of culture and some things simply do not translate. Every time a translation is made, nuance is lost. Languages change with time, as does culture, another problem with translations and acuracy.

Chinese whispers is probably a very accurate description of the issue.

I would agree with Slug's last line (and the rest but YGWIM)

My religion (not one I had when starting Uni) is about Faith, you cannot teach that nor IMO choose it very easily. Faith exists independently of knowledge of a book etc. It is also, for me at least, a 'best fit'; it fits the beleifs I had anyway IYSWIm (the nearest match I have found actually is Quakerism).

not a book, certainly not the Church with a capital C.

Equally of course that's a cop out: it takes something that has to be debated into the realms of the unscientific, the non empirical. As an ex Agnostic i quite understand why Atheists beleive as they do.
the only viewpoint I can't understand is Evangelicism;: I have no issue with them but their level of faith in a text befuddles me somewhat.

Well, coming from the evangelical perspective, my post should be something by way of explanation...

Wow I never knew that about L Ron Hubbard.

I do like a bit of SciFi but not the Scientology thing (though I have read about Dianetics which is its progenitor).

Oh no kay I didnt mean (sorry) can't intellectually understand; my kids go to an Evangelical school. No,more- it'snot something that presents itsef to me as an answer IYSWIM?

Not that I expect anyone else to follow my way either LOL

Oh yes, Peachy, I know what you mean.

This is a really interesting thread, thanks to all who have posted.

Showing up my lack of theological knowledge again though

Thanks for all the postings. It makes interesting / educational reading. Perhaps if God wanted to ensure his message wasn't corrupted by mistranslations etc. he would have sent it out on Facebook. Just a thought. LoL