Are there any writings at all that exist today that were actually written by people who know Jesus ?

Answer 1

"The New Testament: A Student's Introduction" is a good book to look in for research. I read it a few years ago, but as a recall, none of the New Testament authors personally new Jesus. The gospels that made it in the canon were writen up to 60 years after Jesus' death!

Answer 2

Most of the 4 Gospels were written around 70 AD. When you write something that long after the fact then the facts get a little bit enhanced, and so on and so forth...............
In the first place we don't really know if the man they called Jesus really did the things they said or if he was just a good talker. No one knows for sure so why do so many people believe what they do not have proof of in any form?

Answer 3

The Bible books written by Matthew, John, James, and Peter, were written by men who were/are part of the original 12 disciples. Mark (John Mark) probably saw Jesus and may have spoken with Him. Luke was a physician and may have experienced Jesus first hand. Paul may have seen Jesus, but probably did not speak with Jesus until his experience on the Damascus road, but he did know Jesus first hand after that, as it is written that he know everything that the original 12 knew when he compared notes with Peter in Acts. Jude is also a brother of James, who both experienced Jesus more than the other 12 Apostles, as James and Jude were sons of Jesus mother, Mary and therefore step brothers of Jesus.

All of the New Testament was written by men who's lived were directly impacted by Jesus. Although these men held the quills it is certainly the Holy Spirit who was the actual intelligence and author in constructing the Bible that we have today.

Answer 4

If you mean original manuscripts, then no. Only copies of copies remain. The gospels claim to be written by the contemporaries of Jesus, but even that has been cast in to question. Some of them were most likely copied from one original source. And the book of John may have been written centuries after the others, in an attempt to discredit certain Christian sects that weren't keeping in line with the teachings of the church leaders at the time.

Answer 5

There are many copies of the old testament dated way back in the first centuries, and they still exist today in the museum in Syria, Egypt, Israel.

All of this writings have been adulterated through translations, to justify their religious purposes. The dead sea scrolls is now under deep scrutiny, as to the veracity of the King James version of the Old Testament and now 99% accurate according to the Bible scholars. 1% can not be accounted for, for it is written in unknown language which men do not speak now a days.

The masoretic text, if am not mistaken is written in Aramaic, Greek and Hebrew languages.

Answer 6

There are no texts in existance today that are originals of the texts dictated by God to the original scribes. All that is available today are copies of copies of fragments of translations that man has been mucking about with for centuries. There is no inerrant text of the Bible in existance today.
It is only by the leading of The Holy Spirit that any hope can be of understanding God's Word and Will from any "translation""paraphrase" of The Bible we now have.

edit note: dispite devlsadvocat's statement the original texts of the New Testiment, from wich we now have only many generation removed copies, were written by those who knew and walked with Jesus. With the exception of Paul who only knew Jesus in spirit form but did have the personal contact. And the one called John who recorded Revelation

Answer 7

Dorie *,
the latest news I got was a report, (sorry not available) of a fragment of Matthew 19 dated back in 48AD. Now, they did not have chapter and verse until much later. Old fragaments and manuscripts were written in a variety of ways.

I figure that if they find one that old, it has a good likelyhood of being an original or a very close copy.

Answer 8

No, all of the gospels were written several years after his death by unknown authors. The original texts that we have were written in Greek and not Aramaic, (which is also weird). My understanding is that Paul's letters are actually the oldest of the gospels.

Answer 9

None of the original documents exist.

The Four Gospels:
Matthew and John were two of the twelve disciples. Mark and Luke were not disciples. Those two guys were companions of Paul.

The Rest of the New Testament:
Mostly letters from Paul to the towns that he travelled through to convert people to Christianity.

Answer 10

I have heard of scrolls that have been found that refer to Christ. But, I do not know of any original aramaic scripts that have been found that were written by people who actually walked and talked with Jesus.