A BOOK REVIEW: The New Testament documents; Are they reliable?

The New Testament documents; Are they reliable?

Author: F. F. Bruce

Pages: 431

ISBN: 9780851115252

The late F. F. Bruce was Emeritus Professor, University of Manchester. He was a Biblical scholar who supported the historical reliability of the New Testament. His first book, New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable? (1943), was voted by the American evangelical periodical Christianity Today in 2006 as one of the top 50 books "which had shaped evangelicals"

Bruce does a great job of doing just as he argues, “if a work can be proven to be historically and culturally accurate with respect to most of its content, that document then becomes-on the whole-more compelling.”

The author makes his cases about why he thinks the New Testament documents are reliable.

This book is divided into following ten chapters:
First Chapter, Does it matter?
Is it essential that the New Testament documents should be reliable? Christianity it's not only about morals, ethics or metaphysics but about good news as well.
Second Chapter, the New Testament documents; In regard to their dating, the author declares that the New Testament was almost complete about 100 AD with the majority of documents being in existence 20-40 years before this. Author meant that the things that Jesus said and did were still around when the books were documented and some might have been alive even when the fourth gospel was written. Like Papyrus fragments, Papyrus Codex dated no later than 150 AD. The author gives many more examples in this chapter the author points out the overwhelming evidence of the New Testament and if we compare it to other historical writings of which no historian would ever doubt their authenticity. Third Chapter, The Canon of the New Testament; How was decided which books would make the cannon? The author also points out that there was a dispute about which books were recognized and how some people did not recognize certain books. At the end, the books that were recognized were those who were common among the Christian communities and also those books who were recognized by the Church which were pretty much the same that were going around.
Fourth Chapter, The Gospels; Author has divided into two sections; the synoptic gospels and the gospel of John.  The author wisely deals with the controversies, hypothesis, and many other things. Ones like, the claim that Luke and Matthew copied from Mark.

Fifth Chapter, The gospel of Miracles; Here, author argues in support of miracle narratives. He puts forward some of the arguments from people who have tried to reduce the miracles in a non supernatural way. For, instance, empty tomb, not all the disciples could have had the same hallucination, Jesus appearance, Paul's testimony.

Sixth Chapter, the Importance of Paul's evidence; As a response to many who argue that Paul doesn't talk about Jesus, his life and ministry. So the author talks about his background, life and conversion, Christ like life, Luke’s work, familiarity, with other Christians etc.

Seventh Chapter, Writings of Luke; Here, author deals with the authority and historicity of Luke’s writings and his personhood.

Eighth Chapter, More Archaeological Evidence. Ninth Chapter, The Evidence of Early Jewish Writers; Here, author gives good details about some of the Jewish writer who documented about Jesus. (Talmud, Josephus etc.).

Tenth Chapter, The Evidence of Early Gentile Writers; Now Bruce talks about gentile writers, Julius Africanus who refers to the writings of Thallus who wrote about the darkness that covered the land when Jesus was crucified. Some others also included in support.

In summary, Bruce puts it “He asks why the reliability and historicity of the New Testament documents are important. His answer is that the Christian faith is grounded in history and facts. Without a history or without the underlying facts, Christianity is not really Christianity.”

Bruce provides internal and external data that point to the historical reliability of the NT. Perhaps most notable is the fact that Bruce does not try to convince his readers that Christianity is true; that is not his objective. It is only his endeavor to demonstrate that the NT documents, which themselves declare Christianity's truth claims, are as historically reliable as any documents of antiquity. Indeed, this book is an extraordinary channel for any person, Christian or skeptic, who would like to comprehend the point of historical accuracy that can be found in the New Testament documents. Any historian would then need to take more critically the author's questionable claims such as the miracles, and Christ as God and savior of humanity. Bruce's work is an undeniable read for anybody interested in this topic.

I would like to strongly recommend this read for couple of reasons; first it will be a great help to understand the historical roots of Christian faith that lies in the New Testament. Second, non-Christians who believe that the Bible is mere religious myth, this book will change their concept completely. Third, this can be taken as a great tool on the New Testament for the apologetical study, since it has enormous information that aids in verifying the reliability and credibility of the New Testament.

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