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TRANSMISSION

The trustworthiness of any ancient document depends on its ability to stand up under time-tested criteria. Let's see what that measure of authenticity is and how the New Testament and the Gnostic gospels stand up to it.

In the ancient Greek world, Aristotle cast a giant shadow of scholarly and scientific insight that touches us today. Long before the invention of the printing press, Aristotle used well-reasoned criteria for recognizing the trustworthiness of an ancient document. He listed three guidelines that have stood the test of time: (1) Was the person an eyewitness to the event he recorded? (2) How many copies of the record do we have and how close are they to the event they describe? (3) Are there other sources outside the document that corroborate the document's claims? Even today, historians follow these guidelines. They remain foundational to the science of textual criticism.

Such guidelines help us to see some of the many reasons that the credibility of the New Testament has stood the test of time. The Nag Hammadi documents (Gnostic gospels), by comparison, were written about 100 to 200 years after the life of Jesus. Being later in time and lacking connection to those who knew Christ, they reflect Gnostic doctrines of the second and third centuries rather than a first-century record of witnesses.

By contrast, the New Testament gives us eyewitness accounts, with more copies, closer to the event than any other document from the first century. Even though the oldest manuscripts are not complete, textual critics are able to piece together the evidence. Small portions like the Chester Beatty and John Ryland papyri fragments bring scholars back to within 40 years of the writing of the gospel of John (F. F. Bruce, The New Testament Documents—Are They Reliable? pp.17-18).

The revered New Testament scholar F. F. Bruce writes, "To sum up, we may quote the verdict of the late Sir Frederic Kenyon, a scholar whose authority to make pronouncements on ancient MSS was second to none: 'The interval then between the data of original composition and the earliest extant evidence become so small to be in fact negligible, and the last foundation for any doubt that the Scripture have come down to us substantially as they were written has now been removed. Both the authenticity and the general integrity of the books of the New Testament may be regarded as finally established' " (http://www.worldinvisible.com/library/ffbruce/ntdocrli/ntdocont.htm; Kenyon, F. G. The Bible and Archaeology. New York and London: Harper, 1940).

Likewise, F. F. Bruce in his book Jesus and Christian Origins Outside the New Testament shows how historians have used other early documents to confirm the reliability of New Testament accounts.