Is the New Testament Reliable?: A Look at the Historical Evidence

Is the New Testament Reliable: A Look at the Historical Evidence (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press), by Paul Barnett (an Australian scholar who is currently bishop of North Sydney) is a fine evaluation of the subject. The book was first issued in 1986 by Hodder & Staughton as Is the New Testament History? It's an up-to-date entry in the abiding controversy concerning the historicity of the New Testament, and it's both readable and persuasive--an effort to evaluate the historical evidence without specifically arguing theories of inspiration or theological issues (though they are, of course, in the end unavoidable). Barnett, in addition to his theological preparation, spent three years in a university studying Greek and Roman history, where he "came to appreciate how solid the evidence for Christianity was, relative to other great people and movements in antiquity" (p. 14). Consider the case of ben Kosiba, a self-styled "President of Israel" who led a three-year campaign against Rome which resulted, as Rome reacted, in the deaths of half a million Jews and the razing of a thousand villages. Before being executed by the Romans in 135 A.D., he made quite a stir. But, amazingly enough, we know virtually nothing about him; little evidence endured to tell his story! Compare the ben Kosiba record with New Testament accounts of Jesus, and you discover how extensively they document the origins of Christianity. Even if you ignore the NT, extra-biblical sources support its basic details. It's obvious, for example, that Jesus actually existed (though some adamant skeptics have tried to disprove even that), for non-Christian sources such as Pliny, Tacitus, inscriptions at Pompey, and Josephus confirm it. If you doubt Jesus lived, you might as well doubt most everything that happened before you were born! That the NT was written in the first century seems equally certain. It's demonstrable that the NT is a set of first century documents. Early Fathers, such as St Clement of Rome and St Ignatius of Antioch, so extensively quoted both Paul's letters and the Gospels that "it can be stated that twenty-five pieces of the New Testament were definitely in circulation by about the year 100" (p. 39). These were all written 20-40 years after the events they describe. Compare these documents with those we turn to when interested in Tiberius Caesar (emperor when Christ was crucified), virtually all of which were written a century after Tiberius lived. Even more impressive is the data which indicates how accurately the NT documents were transmitted. The great numbers of early manuscripts, the widespread NT quotations in non-NT documents, and their early translations into other languages, all demonstrate their reliability. Again, compared with other ancient sources, such as Josephus or Tacitus, the antiquity and abundance and accuracy in the transmission of NT documents is without parallel. Barnett persuasively argues t

Is the New Testament an historically reliable source of information about Jesus and the early church? According to a number of contemporary scholars, the answer to that question is no. For example, Robert Funk and the members of the Jesus Seminar argue that Jesus did not say or perform a majority of the words and actions attributed to him in the Gospels. Elaine Pagels and Bart Ehrman argue that multiple versions of Christianity competed for the allegiance of the faithful in the early centuries of the church. The books of the New Testament - and the history and theology they communicate - are simply the documents of that competition's winners, who went on to forcibly suppress alternative Christianities. Even popular media debunk the New Testament. Last year, just in time for Christmas, both Time and Newsweek ran cover stories that expressed skepticism about the veracity of details of Jesus' birth. But these voices represent only one side an ongoing debate. Paul Barnett's Is the New Testament Reliable? is a representative of the other, affirmative side. Barnett is a churchman and a scholar - the former Anglican bishop of North Sydney, Australia, and currently a teaching fellow at Regent College in Vancouver, Canada, and a visiting fellow in ancient history at Macquarie University in Australia. He is the author of Jesus and the Rise of Early Christianity and Jesus and the Logic of History, among other books. The first volume of his trilogy, The Birth of Christianity: The First Twenty Years will be published in April by Eerdmans. Four Questions In Is the New Testament Reliable? Barnett argues that "Jesus and the first Christians are genuine figures of history and that they are faithfully and truthfully written about in the Gospels and Acts of the Apostles." To bolster this conclusion, Barnett asks and answers a number of questions. First, "Did Jesus in fact live?" Barnett cites several early Roman and Jewish writers and texts that confirm both his existence of the spread of Jesus-worship from Judea to Rome by the mid-First-Century A.D. Second, "Can we know the time frame in which the New Testament was written?" The latest date that the New Testament books could have been written is approximately A.D. 95, when patristic writers began to cite them in their own works. The earliest date they could have been written was A.D. 33, which is the date Barnett offers for the crucifixion of Jesus. (He notes that most scholars date Christ's death to A.D. 30.) Based on internal evidence, Paul began to write his letters around A.D. 50, and the last of his letters was written in the early 60s. Most scholars date the Gospels and Acts in the 60s to 80s. What this means is that the books of the New Testament were written within a generation of two of Jesus' death. By contrast, "our major sources [for the life of Tiberius, 42 B.C.-A.D.37] are considerably later-Tacitus about A.D. 110, Suetonius about A.D. 120 and Dio Cassius about A.D. 220." If we can be reasonabl

It seems to me that the most often quoted resource on this subject (for works written for lay-readers, anyways) is "The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable?" by F.F Bruce, which was recently reprinted. I have read both Bruce's book and this one, "Is the New Testament Reliable?: A Look at the Historical Evidence" by Paul Barnett. I think that while Bruce's book is well written and quite detailed, I prefer this book, by Barnett, because it is easier to read and contains all of the information I was looking for.I especially found chapters 2 ("Did Jesus Exist? Early Non-Christian References") and 3 ("Fixing the Time-Frame") to be succinctly written and clear. I still reference material found in these chapters.The only problem I found was that many of the references for further reading at the end of the chapters are now out of print and/or hard to find. If you want more details on a specific subject, you may need to search out a dedicated source on that subject.My only previous knowledge of this subject matter was from Lee Strobel's excellent "Case for Christ", and my purpose for buying this book was that I wanted to know more details about the historicity and accuracy of the Bible. I found what I was looking for here, and this is a simply terrific book which I recommend wholeheartedly.

This books is an incredible resource for anyone interested in taking a serious, objective look at the background information behind the NT. It does not simply assert it's truth, as many opposing views of the Bible do, but calmly weaves many seemless arguments which, to this author's knowledge, have gone unchallenged thus far in Christianity.

Overall, I enjoyed this book a lot. The author does have a bias, but supports his arguments well. The idea that the New Testament is reliable without having to rely on the 'every word is true' approach is refreshing.This book is thoughtful, straightforward and well written. I'd recommend it.