The Real Jesus: Myth #2 (4 of 10)

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Myth #2: The New Testament was written 100 years after Jesus

Jennings: "There is no reliable evidence about who the authors actually were. It is pretty much agreed that they were not eyewitnesses. In fact, the Gospels were probably written 40 to 100 years after Jesus' death."

Jennings is simply echoing a popular myth: some of the theologians of the Jesus Seminar have suggested that writers pretending to be Matthew, Mark, Luke and John took a historical person, Jesus of Nazareth, and invented a genealogy and added historical references as time went by thus "improving" the authenticity of their story.

There is no evidence that the earliest manuscripts of the Bible were altered to be more "historic." In fact, there is proof that little of the New Testament has been altered.

And what of the charge that the Gospel accounts were written many years after Christ? The higher critics face a huge problem with credibility here. In dating the New Testament in the second century rather than the first, they must ignore the fact that there were a number of late first century and early second century writers who quoted extensively from the New Testament. The Christians of that era already thought of what we know today as the New Testament — as being authoritative — as scripture.

We have already seen that Christian writers named Clement, Barnabas, and Polycarp wrote about Jesus in the first century. There are other documents as well.

• The Didache, a late first century catechism, quotes extensively from the New Testament.

• Ignatius (A.D. 35-110), the Bishop of Antioch, quotes from 16 New Testament books.

• Irenaeus (A.D. 130 -200), the second century Bishop of Lyons, makes 1,819 references to New Testament scriptures.

• Tertullian (A.D. 160 -220) quotes from the New Testament 7,258 times.

The problem for the higher critics and those searching for a "historical Jesus" is that these people were writing in the late first and second centuries. Since they quote from the New Testament books extensively, we can know that the church in many areas of the Roman Empire had access to all of the New Testament scriptures. So the Gospels must have been written sometime in the first century, during the time of the Apostles.

William Foxwell Albright, one of the world's foremost biblical archaeologists, said: "In my opinion, every book in the New Testament was written by a baptized Jew between the 40s and 80s of the first century A.D. (very probably sometime between about A.D. 50 to 75)."

In the 19th and 20th centuries, there have been thousands of archaeological discoveries of Greek manuscripts of the New Testament that are hundreds of years older than the manuscripts available prior to modern times. There are now more than 5,300 Greek manuscripts of the New Testament and 24,000 manuscript portions available for study. In other words, there are more reliable New Testament manuscripts in the original Greek language available for direct translation into modern English today than ever before.

Sir Frederic Kenyon, who was the director and principal librarian of the British Museum, states, "The last foundation for any doubt that the Scriptures have come down to us substantially as they were written has now been removed. Both the authenticity and general integrity of the books in the New Testament may be regarded as finally established."

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[andy16666]

Unfortunately there's no evidence that the NT *wasn't* altered since the *oldest* known manuscripts can only be traced back to a few centuries AD. This video is arguing one assumption against another which is ultimately self-defeating. Looking at the texts themselves, we see clear evidence that there were probably only two gospel writers and that they were removed from the events themselves.

[jcr4runner]

@andy16666 It depends on what you mean by "altered." If you mean copyist errors, then we know what these are and we know the original text 99 percent of the time.

But some assume that the NT was altered to the point where there are texts that are very different from each other. But what we are talking about are single words and even letters that vary from copy to copy that do not alter the meaning of the text AT ALL.

[cobrafarmer]

At 4:38, the video's time-line begins at 100 CE, which is still 60 years after the biblical Jesus would have died. In 100 CE, someone who might reliably recall events of 30 CE would be around 80 years old.

The earliest gospel Mark mentions the 70 CE destruction of the Jewish temple, leaving a 40-year gap. Why would one who experienced miracles wait 40 years to report them? Might a writer feel more free to embellish after a 40-year gap had seen the deaths of most surviving witnesses?

[jcr4runner]

@cobrafarmer Not exactly. The Didach and 1 Clement were written between 70 to 96 AD. a date of 70 for the earliest Gospel is the extreme liberal view. The conservative view has (at least the Synoptic) Gospels written between 40 to 67 AD. Even the liberals admit Paul wrote his letters beginning around 50 AD. we know the Gospels in some form must have been written or preached PRIOR to Paul because he quotes and alludes to the Gospels dozens of times.

[ororc]

Most of this video is a "red herring" argument. The author tries to debunk the claim that the Gospels were written well after the crucifixion by attacking claims of copyist and translation errors. The two faults are unrelated. The part about references to NT writings by 2nd century Christians suggests they may have been written at -some- point in the 1st century, but isn't conclusive. There are alternatives. Much of the NT is also in the OT. "Mark" may also have quoted Ignatius for all we know

[jcr4runner]

@ororc No, there is a reason why we know that Mark was mid first century and Ignatius was early second century. We use historical and literary context. You can only come to your point of view by ignoring the external evidences and looking at texts in isolation. There are volumes of extra-biblical testimony that show the early church knew who all the authors were and how different works were passed down. Most of the time the authors lived in the same cities in overlapping generations.

[vjt989]

very good video. im surprised all these haters bring up excuses to challenge the word of God. weak excuses.. .. if only they would just believe. hell is eternal and unbearable. :(

[dellclown]

@durbinjeff the hebrew meaning?

[Dirt2Purple]

i cant believe people really believe this god nonsense

[BiffWhitebread13]

You start from the premise that the gospels were written by Jews--but there is no evidence of that--all the earliest manuscripts are in Greek--none in Hebrew. All of these texts contain the same mistranslations that are in the Greek Septuagint version of the OT--why would Jewish writers use a that version of the OT when the original Hebrew text was readily available? Why are the NT authors so ingnorant of Jewish law and custom? It is vastly more likely the gospel writers were not Jews.

[jam63112]

something that could have been added later is judas, he always appears at the end of sentences or even in separate paragraphs (like acts1)

let' just find the complete list of the twelves in all the books we can find three lists and they do not match

they could match only if we suppress judas from these lists

in 1 corinthians 15:5 we read that jesus appears to the twelve after resurection so thomas and judas were here too

[lautz73]

But they say nothing about how long after Jesus died that the gospels were written.