Tough questions from antiquity.
2 Pet 1:16 says, "For we did not follow cunningly devised fables when we made known to you the power and the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of His majesty." In this section of the "New Testament" and others, the claim is made the it is a historical document. Is the Bible able to pass the test as a historical document?
A: One way to examine an allegedly historical document from antiquity is to apply a bibliographical test using four major questions, which are:
Q1) How many copies of the manuscript are there? We want as many as possible so we can compare to each other to see if they are accurate.
Q2) Where were the copies found? If they all came from one place, it could be collusion; people just conspiring and fabricating events. If they are from places far removed by time and location, is unlikely.
Q3)What length of time between when they were written and when the earliest copies were made as compared to the originals? If a long time, lots of errors could be introduced.
Q4) What are the variances? If there are big differences, we couldn't determine what the original author(s) wrote. If they are few and minor, then the copying over the years has been faithful.
Let's apply these tests to the new testament of the Bible as well as some contemporary historical documents which we rely on to write our history books.
A1) NT: Over 4000 Greek manuscripts; 13,000 partial copies. >23,000 total copies and fragments. VS: Any of the works of Aristotle: 5. Annals of Tacitus: 20. Plato's Tetralogies: 7. Conclusion: There are far more copies of the new testament than similar historical documents of the time; we can more easily check for errors within it than within documents we use for "bona fide" secular history.
A2) Egypt, Palastine, Syria, Turkey, Greece, Italy, etc. These locations were very far apart, especially in travel time during the era. Conclusion: It could not, therefore, be a conspiracy.
A3) Papyrus copies have been dated to within 50-100 years of the events. Several nearly complete manuscripts (See: Codex Sinaiticus, Codex Alexandrius, Codex Vaticanus) within 300 years; references (exact) to the writings long before that.
VS:History of Thucydides—the earliest copy is 1300 years old. Herodotus—1350 years displacement. Julius Caesar's Gaelic Wars, 950. Roman history of Livy, 1350 years, and the earliest copy is only a fragment with less than 1% of info in book.
Conclusion: We take these as valid historical documents, while the new testament is far more quantitatively reliable.
A4) The variance between copies is less than 1/2 of 1%, and about 99% of these amount to linguistic shift, regional dialect, and transposition error. Any good study Bible marks these. Conclusion: There is no fundamental doctrine of Christianity that rests in a difference in reading. The amount of variation is vastly less than contemporary documents, and there are no contradictions.
Conclusion: if the tests applied to secular historical documents are applied to the new testament, it passes with flying colors and is far better than almost every document in history for showing historicity and reliability.
(PN213)