NT Reliability: Class 5 Recap

This week was all about external evidence validating the accuracy of the NT record. Last week included a bunch of external evidence when we talked about the importance of Luke’s writings but this week was about more archaeological evidence, evidence of early Jewish writings, and evidence of early Gentile writings—all of which confirm historical details of the NT. Below are a couple highlights from those sources of evidence. Before looking at some archaeological finds a few comments should be made. It would be great to have archaeological evidence for every single event mentioned in the NT but this is not expected for at least two reasons. First, in AD 70 Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans and so a lot was lost. Second, Jerusalem is currently (and always has been) a very populated, active city and so it can’t be shut down and dug up; there’s probably a lot of amazing evidence that is simply still down there!  “Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool, which in Aramaic is called Bethesda and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades” (John 5:2) It was long thought that this pool and the five covered colonnades mentioned by John (John 5:2) was a fabrication meant to symbolize the five books of the Pentateuch. But, after more than a hundred years after its discovery the exact pool along with its five porticos has been confirmed.  The left picture is from the dig site and the right picture is an artist’s rendering of the pool with the five covered porches, four surrounding it and one down the middle.  "Erastus, who is the city’s director of public works, and our brother Quartus send you their greetings.” (Rom 16:23) A first century pavement stone in Corinth was found with the same Erastus mentioned. “Erastus in return for his aedileship laid (the pavement) at his own expense.” [source] In Corinth Paul “reasoned in the synagogue every Sabbath, and tried to persuade Jews and Greeks” (Acts 18: 4). Crispus (18:8) was the synagogue leader and Justus lived next door (18:7). An inscription identifying this synagogue h as been found.  ". . . GOGE EBR . . ." = [SYNA]GOGE EBR[AION] — which can be translated as "Synagogue of the Hebrews [= Jews].“ [source] “Eat whatever is sold in the meat market [Greek: macellum] without raising any question on the ground of conscience.” (1 Cor 10:25). Numerous inscriptions referring to a meat market by this same Greek name have been found. These and many, many other archaeological finds show that the NT accounts are grounded in historical reality.    Not long after the fall of Jerusalem (AD 70) the Jews documented their laws and then also added commentaries. This entire work is called the Talmud. Being a book of law there is not much mention of Christianity and where there is, it is hostile. Nonetheless it agrees with numerous NT claims about Jesus: He was a transgressor in Israel, practiced magic, scorned words of the wise, led the people astray, Jesus said he had no come to destroy the temple but add to it Jesus was hanged on Passover Eve for heresy and mislead the people Jesus’ disciples (five are name) healed the sick in his name Jesus was called Ha-Taluy (The Hanged One), referring to his death Jesus was called Ben-Pantera (Son of Pantera [corruption of Greek word for virgin]), referring to his birth The most distinguished, first century Jewish, historical writer wasJosephus. He was born in AD 37 to a priestly family, joined the Pharasaic party, and then commanded forces in the Jewish Was in AD 66. He and his men were surrounded by Roman forces and vowed the commit suicide instead of getting captured. Josephus ended up not following through with the vow and was captured by the Romans. He became a high-level interpreter for the Romans and ended up living a comfortable life in Rome. He was viewed as a traitor to the Jews and so he attempted to repay them by using his life of leisure to write about the history of the Jews. He wrote many historical works.  Josephus independently confirms NT figures like Herod’s family, Augustus, Tiberius, Claudius, Quirinius, Pilate, Felix, Festus, Caiphas, Ananias, James, and many others. He also writes about Jesus. The passage about Jesus has questionable sections given that it was written by a Jewish man. Below is the section about Jesus with the questionable sections followed by the proposed revisions (per F.F. Bruce) in square brackets. In either case it is fantastic testimony to the historicity of Jesus! “And there arose about this time Jesus, a wise man, if indeed we should call him a man [a source of new troubles]; for he was a doer of marvelous deeds, a teacher of men who receive the truth [strange things] with pleasure. He led away many Jews, and also many of the Greeks. This man was the [so-called] Christ. And when Pilate had condemned him to the cross on his impeachment by the chief men among us, those who had loved him at first did not cease; for he appeared to them [,as they said,] on the third day alive again, the divine prophets having spoken these and thousands of other wonderful things about him: and even now the tribe of Christians, so named after him, has not yet died out.” (Ant 18:3.3) We don’t have any existing first-century writings by Gentile about Christianity but there are two reasons for this. For one, to Rome Christianity was an obscure superstition not worth writings about (remember writing was costly). Secondly, the most likely Gentile writings about Christians are prison reports which has certainly been lost by now. Nonetheless, a few early Gentile writings about Christianity are important to highlight.  Cornelius Tactitus wrote (AD 110) of a fire during Nero’s reign (AD 54-68). Nero was rumored to have started the fire himself. In comment to this Tacitus write: “Therefore, to scotch the rumor, Nero substituted as culprits, and punished with the utmost refinement of cruelty, a class of men, loathes for their vice', whom the crowd styled Christians. Christus, from whom they got their name, had been executed by sentence of the procurator Pontius Pilate when Tiberius was emperor; and the pernicious superstition was checked for a short time, only to break out afresh, not only in Judaea, the home of the plague, but in Rome itself, where all the horrible and shameful things in the world collect and find a home.” Suetonius, a Roman historian writing around AD 120 also writes about the fire and says, “Punishment was inflicted on the Christians, a class of men addicted to a novel and mischievous superstition.” He also writes about events during the reign of Claudius that match up with NT accounts. “As the Jews were making constant disturbance at the instigation of Chrestus, [Claudius] expelled them from Rome.” In Acts we read that Paul “met a Jew named Aquila, a native of Pontus, who had recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla, because Claudius had ordered all Jews to leave Rome.” (Acts 18:2) Suetonius also says that Claudius’ reign was marked by “constant unfruitful seasons”, reminiscent of this account in Acts: “Agabus, stood up and through the Spirit predicted that a severe famine would spread over the entire Roman world. (This happened during the reign of Claudius.)” (Acts 11:28).

Pliny the Younger (AD 61-112) was governor in Asia Minor writing a letter to the emperor asking for advice on what to do with the embarrassingly large number of Christians in his area. He writes about them, “they were in the habit of meeting on a certain fixed day before it was light, when they sang an anthem to Christ as God, and bound themselves by a solemn oath (sacramentum) not to commit any wicked deed, but to abstain from all, fraud, theft and adultery, never to break their word, or deny a trust when called upon to honor it; after which it was their custom to separate, and then meet again to partake of food, but food of an ordinary and innocent kind.” These non-Christian sources have no interest in affirming Christianity but yet, as they write about history, they can’t help but to confirm the accuracy of the NT account. We closed the discussion with a reallynicely-done, short video on the external evidence for the NT. Next week we will be meeting to chat with Jim Warner Wallace. This is ashort video about his testimony that we watched. Jim’s a cold case detective who was studied the NT reliability, the historicity of the resurrection, and the existence of God and found that the evidence shows it all to be true. As he says, he’s a Christian “because it’s true!” So please come next week with questions for Jim on anything like the NT reliability, the existence of God, and even general apologetics questions.  Before the conversation with Jim we will be taking the final quiz. Remember there is a prize for the people with the top two cumulative quiz scores. Right now the Saints and Browns are tired for the top spot but they can easily be caught. The final quiz is cumulative and worth 10 points so study up for it! For what it’s worth, on the website I’ve posted an outline and shortened outline of the book that I made for myself to study. As a disclaimer, it hasn’t been thoroughly reviewed so it may contain typos or mistakes but hopefully it can still be of some use.