Reviews by Hubie Goode: Historicity of the New Testament

Historicity of 

the New Testament

Recently I read a letter to an advice column about a person who had a Jewish friend who believed themselves to be an agnostic Jew. Knowing what we know about genetics and the DNA stamp that the Jewish people have that sets them apart as a people rather than a religion, we know that there is no such thing as an agnostic Jew. The letter went on to say that this person was convinced that nothing that happens in the Bible is real and ever really happened and Christians are stupid for believing so. Well, I just had to answer that  comment with this next series.

The Importance of Historicity

An important aspect of the uniqueness of Christianity is the fact that it is founded on the basis of historical events rather than merely on ethical teaching. If the events surrounding the life of Christ, i.e. the virgin birth, the resurrection, the miracles are in fact not true events, then the whole thing is just one big lie. As it says in Corinthians, if Jesus didn’t rise from the dead, then your faith is in vain.

The same can be said of the early church and its development, as related to in the book of Acts and the epistles. Critics have tried for some time now to convince the public that the New Testament was written long after any actual events delineated and therefore contain lots of “fairy tale” type writing, especially when writing about those things involved with miracles. So much of this destructive criticism has been successful enough that major schools of learning which teach Bible “history and truth” have actually eroded the faith of many a borderline Christian.

However, if it can be shown that the New Testament documents are authentic, written by the traditional authors, then the evidence for the truth of Christianity is overwhelming. This is because the writings, when examined carefully, give indisputable evidence of sincerity and accuracy in such high degree that there is no reasonable doubt that all the actions and words of Christ and the apostles, really and truly happened.

This concept and its inevitable conclusions are not dependent upon the inquiry of whether or not the documents are divinely inspired or verbally without error. I do believe in the importance of plenary verbal inspiration, however, the genuineness of the work and the infallibility of Christ can be established without the need to fall back on divine inspiration as ultimate proof. We must then, of course, accept that the New Testament writings are as valid as any other historical writings.

Therefore,we must first establish the historicity of the New Testament documents as is required by all historical documents. Once this takes place, then the genuineness of the portrait of Christ revealed in the writings can be established. When he is acknowledged as true God and only Savior, then he himself becomes sufficient proof for authenticity. 

Next time we’ll look at the authenticity of the documents.