Knowing that the New Testament was written...?

Question

some 20 years or more after the death of Christ, are you skeptical about the literal truth in the gospels since so much time had passed and memories may have become altered?

Answer 1

There are more than 24,000 partial and complete manuscript copies of the New Testament. These manuscript copies are very ancient and they are available for inspection NOW. there are also some 86,000 quotations from the early church fathers and several thousand lectionaries (church-service books containing Scripture quotations used in the early centuries of Christianity). In fact, there are enough quotations from the early church fathers that even if we did not have a single copy of the Bible, scholars could still reconstruct all but 11 verses of the entire New Testament from material written within 150 to 200 years from the time of Christ. Bottom line: The New Testament has an overwhelming amount of evidence supporting its reliability.

Answer 2

Dates given for when the gospels were commited to paper. The Disciples did not actually "write" the books themselves.

Mark: c. 68–73

Matthew: c. 70–100 as the majority view; some conservative scholars argue for a pre-70 date, particularly those that do not accept Mark as the first gospel written.

Luke: c. 80–100, with most arguing for somewhere around 85

John: c. 90–110. Brown does not give a consensus view for John, but these are dates as propounded by C K Barrett, among others. The majority view is that it was written in stages, so there was no one date of composition.

Answer 3

After 20 years, indeed much more, there were still living witnesses to what Jesus said and did. The writers of the gospels and letters would not have been allowed to get away with writing anything which was not true,
Furthermore, the gospel stories had been used as an oral tradition, in preaching, up to the time that they were put into writing. In the same way the people themselves, who therefore knew these stories 'by heart' were in a position to challenge any writings which contained untruths.
This is in addition to what the Bible says about the writers being inspired by the Holy Spirit.

Answer 4

NO!
The hand of God was helping in the writing of the New Testament. The letters of Paul were the first, around 45 a.d. Next came the Gospel of Mark around 74 a.d. Luke and Matthew came next between 78 and 82 a.d. John was the last to be written about 86 a.d. We can tell when they were written by the wording and vernacular used in each. They were inspired by God at that time to further the church as a whole through the different congregations of the time. The way each was written was to inspire the Jewish and non-Jewish people of those communities to carry the Word of God to other nations. We see many people come into the ministry around this time that were inspired by these word to preach.

The Words of God have had the proper impact over time.
If you compare the Jewish church year and the Christian church year they prove the work of Christ in completing the promises of the Old Testament.

God Bless

Answer 5

No more than I'd be skeptical about Science writing about the Big Bang that occured 15 billioin years ago or Dinosaurs when no human record actually exists about them.

I mean if 20 years is a long time, what is 1 million years to be writing about something with NO back up documentation.

I mean there are no Cave Man Encyclopedias for us to draw on!

Answer 6

Knowing? The New Testament was nearly finished by then. The Gospels of Matthew and John were written by Apostles, eyewitnesses to the death burial and resurrection of Jesus. Mark got his information from the Apostle Peter. Luke got much of his information from Mary herself. No, I'm not skeptical at all. It's the truth, plain and simple.

Answer 7

I believe the old testament (The Torah) holds the real truth in the bible because it was written by Moses after receiving the 10 commandments on Mount Sinai 5767 years ago. It was believed that the 10 commandments (the second copy of which is contained in the ark of the covenant in Ethiopia...the first copy was destroyed by Moses - see Cecil B. DeMille's the Ten Commandments for a refresher.) was written by G-d in black fire upon white fire.

Answer 8

Knowing that much history being shown on television regarding George Washington has come 200 years following his death, do you think that it should change your interpretation of his life? Does it diminish the accuracy of the reports? No.

History is best remembered after the fact. Why did it take 20 years for them to write these accounts? Because they thought that Jesus was going to return soon. Only after he did not did they write these accounts down.

Answer 9

It was 200 years, not 20, and yes that makes me skeptical. Not to mention the fact that the Church controls the interpretations of the Bible and the Church is run by men, all flawed and bias, just like the authors of the Bible.

Answer 10

No not at all. They had the Holy Spirit which helped them bring all those things to remembrance and they told these stories every day I imagine when teaching. I can remember things that happened 20 years ago. If I had the Holy Spirit helping me as He did helping them, all the details would be clear and if I had told this story over and over, again it would help solidify the memory. That is when it stated that these books were written, but I imagine they had other references the relied upon. I have read that one of the Apostles had a job that traditionally required an knowledge in shorthand. They may have been able to write down what Jesus said verbatim at times.