Chapter 5: Ordained to Be a Witness With Us of His Resurrection

When the 120 were praying together in the ten days following Jesus’ ascension, they were moved to choose another apostle to replace Judas. The man that would replace the notorious traitor had to have certain criteria:

Wherefore of these men which have companied with us all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, Beginning from the baptism of John, unto that same day that he was taken up from us, must one be ordained to be a witness with us of his resurrection. (Acts 1:21-22)

A “witness” for Jesus Christ was considered authoritative if he had seen the risen Jesus. Likewise, the New Testament canon was much like this chosen twelfth apostle: it had to speak with the authority of God, testifying of the risen Jesus. The human authors were all witnesses of the risen Jesus Christ, or one of their close associates who collaborated closely with such witnesses.

In the years following the deaths of these witnesses, many sources have come about to speak of the authority the New Testament canon. Let us look at some of these.

Sources Recognizing New Testament Books as Authoritative

Clement of Rome (late first century A.D., possibly the same Clement of Philippians 4:3) used materials from the gospels of Matthew and Luke, and had some Pauline influence. Together with Polycarp and Ignatius, most New Testament books are accounted for. Clement died around A.D. 99, so his works were written very early on in Christian history.
Ignatius, who wrote several letters of his own, made small references to several New Testament books. His letters would not have been later than A.D. 117, when he was martyred.
The Epistle of Barnabas 4:14, a second century source. The author quotes Matthew 22:14, and refers to it as scripture:
Moreover understand this also, my brothers. When ye see that after so many signs and wonders wrought in Israel, even then they were abandoned, let us give heed, lest haply we be found, as the scripture saith, many are called but few are chosen. (see source: http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/barnabas-lightfoot.html)
Polycarp’s epistle to the Philippians, in 12:1, he quotes Ephesians 4:26, calling it scripture:
For I am persuaded that ye are well trained in the sacred writings, and nothing is hidden from you. But to myself this is not granted. Only, as it is said in these scriptures, Be ye angry and sin not, and Let not the sun set on your wrath. Blessed is he that remembereth this; and I trust that this is in you.
In addition, his epistle quotes or references the New Testament gospels and epistles dozens of times. This is pretty impressive, considering this letter was written between A.D. 110 and 140; the copies of the New Testament books were already being circulated across the world even this close to the apostolic age.
Papias bishop of Hierapolis (second century A.D.) referred to the gospels of Matthew and Mark and accepted them as authoritative.
Valentinius’ work Gospel of Truth (second century A.D.) also recognized New Testament writings as authoritative, with quotes from the Gospels, Acts, and Pauline epistles.
Marcion’s Antitheses (second century A.D., preserved in Tertullian’s Adversus Marcionem) accepted most of the Gospel of Luke and 10 Pauline epistles as authoritative.
Justin Martyr quotes the Gospels and refers to Revelation in his First Apology and Dialogue with Trypho the Jew (see source: http://www.ntcanon.org/Justin_Martyr.shtml):
1. Matthew 2:1 in Dialogue 106:4
2. Luke 22:42, 44 in Dialogue 103:8
3. John 3:3 in I Apology
4. Dialogue 81:4 refers to Revelation 20:4, 11-15
Irenaeus quotes from or refers to most of the New Testament books.

He insisted that there were only four gospels in Adversus Haereses 3.11.8 (A.D. 180, see source: http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf01.ix.iv.xii.html). He quoted from all four in this same reference:
It is not possible that the Gospels can be either more or fewer in number than they are. For, since there are four zones of the world in which we live, and four principal winds, while the Church is scattered throughout all the world, and the “pillar and ground” of the Church is the Gospel and the spirit of life; it is fitting that she should have four pillars, breathing out immortality on every side, and vivifying men afresh. From which fact, it is evident that the Word, the Artificer of all, He that sitteth upon the cherubim, and contains all things, He who was manifested to men, has given us the Gospel under four aspects, but bound together by one Spirit. As also David says, when entreating His manifestation, “Thou that sittest between the cherubim, shine forth.” For the cherubim, too, were four-faced, and their faces were images of the dispensation of the Son of God. For, [as the Scripture] says, “The first living creature was like a lion,” symbolizing His effectual working, His leadership, and royal power; the second [living creature] was like a calf, signifying [His] sacrificial and sacerdotal order; but “the third had, as it were, the face as of a man,”-an evident description of His advent as a human being; “the fourth was like a flying eagle,” pointing out the gift of the Spirit hovering with His wings over the Church. And therefore the Gospels are in accord with these things, among which Christ Jesus is seated. For that according to John relates His original, effectual, and glorious generation from the Father, thus declaring, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” Also, “all things were made by Him, and without Him was nothing made.” For this reason, too, is that Gospel full of all confidence, for such is His person. But that according to Luke, taking up [His] priestly character, commenced with Zacharias the priest offering sacrifice to God. For now was made ready the fatted calf, about to be immolated for the finding again of the younger son. Matthew, again, relates His generation as a man, saying, “The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham;” and also, “The birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise.” This, then, is the Gospel of His humanity; for which reason it is, too, that [the character of] a humble and meek man is kept up through the whole Gospel. Mark, on the other hand, commences with [a reference to] the prophetical spirit coming down from on high to men, saying, “The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, as it is written in Esaias the prophet,”-pointing to the winged aspect of the Gospel; and on this account he made a compendious and cursory narrative, for such is the prophetical character.
He quoted from Acts and the Pauline epistles (except Philemon) numerous times.
He quoted or made allusions to most of the rest of the New Testament
However, he also believed other texts to be authoritative, such as the Shepherd of Hermas and I Clement

The Diatessaron of Tatian is a four gospel harmony from the latter half of the second century.
The Muratorian Canon (ca. A.D. 170) names most of the New Testament books as canonical (see http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/muratorian2.html).
Origen (early third century A.D.) considered most of the New Testament as inspired. He also included some others which were not canonical.
Eusebius’ Church History (early fourth century A.D.) stated that the gospels, Acts, the Pauline epistles, 1 Peter, 1 John, and Revelation were universally agreed upon as canonical, James, 2 Peter, 2 John, 3 John, and Jude were mostly agreed upon, and that most rejected the Acts of Paul, Didache, and the Shepherd of Hermas, which are not in the New Testament today.
Athanasius of Alexandria’s Festal Letter has the complete listing of the New Testament canon we use today.

Internal Evidence of New Testament Canonicity

The New Testament itself demonstrates its authority. Jesus promised that the Holy Spirit would come and guide His disciples into all truth. Much of that involved bringing to mind the words of the Lord Himself so that future generations would have access to the Gospel. Consider these scriptures:

“And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever” (John 14:16).

“Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come” (John 16:13)

The commandment to publicly read the epistles shows that Paul knew the letters were authoritative: “I charge you by the Lord that this epistle be read unto all the holy brethren.” (1 Thessalonians 5:27)

The message that the apostles had was the Word of God: “For this cause also thank we God without ceasing, because, when ye received the word of God which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which effectually worketh also in you that believe” (1 Thessalonians 2:13).

Paul wrote the commandments of the Lord: “If any man think himself to be a prophet, or spiritual, let him acknowledge that the things that I write unto you are the commandments of the Lord” (1 Corinthians 14:37).

Finally, even Peter in his day equated the Pauline epistles to the Scriptures:

And account that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation; even as our beloved brother Paul also according to the wisdom given unto him hath written unto you; As also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction. (2 Peter 3:15-16)

Conclusion on New Testament Canonicity

With these witnesses in mind, we can see that many of these books were considered authoritative even in the apostles’ generation. Also, contrary to critical scholars who want to place the New Testament books with late dates long after the death of the apostles, we can see that the books were written very early on. Within the first three hundred years since the ascension of Jesus Christ, numerous primary and secondary sources attest to the New Testament’s authority. Consider this as we discuss the manuscripts of New Testament.

New Testament Manuscripts

Let us look at some important discoveries of ancient New Testament manuscripts.

Manuscript P52 was the oldest manuscript discovery of the New Testament, which dates to about A.D. 110 to 125. This contains portions of the Gospel of John (John 18:31-34, 37-38).
The Oxyrhynchus papyri, dating from the first to the sixth centuries. These papyri contain 35 manuscripts containing portions of the New Testament.
Chester Beatty papyri have a large portion of the New Testament in manuscripts dating from the first to the third century A.D.
Bodmer papyri have portions of the New Testament in manuscripts dating in the second and third centuries
Codex Sinaiticus contains the entire New Testament (A.D. 350). Despite its origin from a corrupted family of the Greek manuscripts, it shows that a whole New Testament was compiled and available by this time.
Codex Vaticanus contains the entire New Testament up to Hebrews 9:15. It also shows many of the same corruptions as Codex Sinaiticus.
Codex Alexandrinus has almost the entire New Testament, and dates in the fifth century.
Codex Ephraemi Rescriptus from the fifth century was a document where the original text was overwritten by sermons. The original text was recovered.
Codex Bezae from the fifth century contains the gospels and Acts, which has a very different text from the texts mentioned previously.
Codex Washingtonianus has all four gospels and dates from the fifth century.

Numbers of Manuscripts

As far as the number of Greek manuscripts of the New Testament are concerned, there are about 5,600. Compare this with the next largest number of manuscripts of an ancient text, Homer’s The Iliad, which is about 650 manuscripts.

The Iliad was written by Homer in about 800 B.C. for an event (the Trojan War) that happened in 1184 B.C., and its earliest manuscript is from the third century B.C. Compare this with the New Testament, where the events of the resurrection were recorded by eye witnesses, with the earliest manuscripts that were not too far removed from these eye witnesses. For an ancient text, these are pretty good statistics!

Two Manuscript Families

If you remember before, we mentioned that Codices Sinaiticus and Vaticanus had corruptions in them. These corruptions were introduced early on, some of them because of possible Gnostic influence from Alexandria.

For centuries, the majority of the known Greek manuscripts we had did not have the changes of Sinaiticus and Vaticanus. Fourteen hundred years after these two codices were written, they were discovered, and immediately were considered superior because they were “older” and “more reliable.” There are a few problems with this.

First, if God promised to preserve His Word (Psalm 12:6-7), why were the true, pure Words of God buried somewhere for centuries? Would God allow His people have corrupted Bibles for centuries? Did we really have 1,400 years of the impure Word?

Second, why do we conclude that the vast majority of texts have it wrong and a few manuscripts have it right? There is a reason why Sinaiticus and Vaticanus are “older” than most of the manuscripts. Let me give you an example.

When I worked in auto insurance claims some time ago, I would often get telephone calls from insureds lamenting that their brand new car, rather than the old clunker, was involved in the accident. “Of course the new one got hit. It couldn’t have been the old one!” There is a reason for that. Nobody wants to drive the old clunker! You tend to want to drive the new, beautiful, more reliable car! The car that is used the most is going to wear out the fastest, and is more likely to be in a wreck, stolen, flooded, etc.

It is the same with New Testament manuscripts. The ones that were used the most were the ones that wore out the fastest! Codex Vaticanus was sitting in the Vatican for centuries for good reason... no one wants to read the fake Bible!

So when you want to get to the original text of the Bible, if you have hundreds of manuscripts that say one thing, and one or two that say another, you know that the real text is in the majority, not in the few.

The sad news is that virtually all modern translations of the Bible depend on the few corrupted manuscripts, and not in the many. In the English language, if you go to most modern Bible translations, you will notice the following verses are entirely missing: Matthew 17:21; 18:11; 23:14; Mark 7:16; 9:44; 9:46; 11:26; 15:28; Luke 17:36; John 5:4; Acts 8:37; 15:34; 24:7; 28:29; Romans 16:24. Also, 1 John 5:7 is truncated to only a few words. Mark 16:9-20 and John 7:53-8:11 are entirely missing from these manuscripts, so these passages are usually undermined with marginal notes in modern translations. Luke 2:33 refers to Joseph as Jesus’ father in these modern translations. In 1 Timothy 3:16, the word “God” is changed to “he” to undermine the deity of Christ. There are also countless little changes throughout the text which should cause concern, especially if we believe Proverbs 30:5-6: “Every word of God is pure: he is a shield unto them that put their trust in him. Add thou not unto his words, lest he reprove thee, and thou be found a liar.”

Conclusion

From this evidence, we see from first, second, and third century A.D. sources that the New Testament books were widely known and very early in church history. We see how God has preserved His Word, seen in the number of surviving manuscripts compared with other ancient texts. The preservation of God’s Word is not in theory only, but also in archaeological evidence.

Next: Chapter 6: Then Opened He Their Understanding

Previous: Chapter 4: The Law of Moses, and in the Prophets, and in the Psalms

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