What do you guys know about the validity of the new testament?

Question

I am writing an essay and I am looking for inputer from various individuals.

Answer 1

If you are looking for information that validates the historicity of Jesus as well as the New Testament, then you might want to check into some of the material produced by Dr. Gary Habermas.

http://www.garyhabermas.com

You might also check into Robert Cornuke
http://www.baseinstitute.org/

Answer 2

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 3

What is commonly known as the New Testament (or Brit Chadashah in Hebrew) shows its own validity in that it constantly refers back to the Tanakh (that's the Torah, Nevi'im, and Kethuvim : The Old Testament) -- most quotes come from Devarim (Deuteronomy), Yeshayahu (Isaiah), and Tehillim (Psalms). It was written by Hebrews who believed that Yeshua V'Nazaret (Jesus of Nazareth) to be the proimised Mashiach (Messiah). The Brit Chadashah was never meant to replace the Tanakh, but to complete it. For other information, see :

Answer 4

http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/bibleorg.html

New Testament - In considering the New Testament we have tens of thousands of manuscripts of the New Testament in part or in whole, dating from the second century A.D. to the late fifteenth century, when the printing press was invented. These manuscripts have been found in Egypt, Palestine, Syria, Turkey, Greece, and Italy, making collusion unlikely. The oldest manuscript, the John Rylands manuscript, has been dated to 125 A.D. and was found in Egypt, some distance from where the New Testament was originally composed in Asia Minor). Many early Christian papyri, discovered in 1935, have been dated to 150 A.D., and include the four gospels. The Papyrus Bodmer II, discovered in 1956, has been dated to 200 A.D., and contains 14 chapters and portions of the last seven chapters of the gospel of John. The Chester Beatty biblical papyri, discovered in 1931, has been dated to 200-250 A.D. and contains the Gospels, Acts, Paul's Epistles, and Revelation. The number of manuscripts is extensive compared to other ancient historical writings, such as Caesar's "Gallic Wars" (10 Greek manuscripts, the earliest 950 years after the original), the "Annals" of Tacitus (2 manuscripts, the earliest 950 years after the original), Livy (20 manuscripts, the earliest 350 years after the original), and Plato (7 manuscripts).

Thousands of early Christian writings and lexionaries (first and second century) cite verses from the New Testament. In fact, it is nearly possible to put together the entire New Testament just from early Christian writings. For example, the Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians (dated 95 A.D.) cites verses from the Gospels, Acts, Romans, 1 Corinthians, Ephesians, Titus, Hebrews, and 1 Peter. The letters of Ignatius (dated 115 A.D.) were written to several churches in Asia Minor and cites verses from Matthew, John, Romans, 1 & 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, 1 & 2 Timothy and Titus. These letters indicate that the entire New Testament was written in the first century A.D. In addition, there is internal evidence for a first century date for the writing of the New Testament. The book of Acts ends abruptly with Paul in prison, awaiting trial (Acts 28:30-31 (1)). It is likely that Luke wrote Acts during this time, before Paul finally appeared before Nero. This would be about 62-63 A.D., meaning that Acts and Luke were written within thirty years of ministry and death of Jesus. Another internal evidence is that there is no mention of the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. Although Matthew, Mark and Luke record Jesus' prophecy that the temple and city would be destroyed within that generation (Matthew 24:1-2 (2),Mark 13:1-2 (3), Luke 21:5-9,20-24,32(4)), no New Testament book refers to this event as having happened. If they had been written after 70 A.D., it is likely that letters written after 70 A.D. would have mentioned the fulfillment of Jesus' prophecy. As stated by Nelson Glueck, former president of the Jewish Theological Seminary in the Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati, and renowned Jewish archaeologist, "In my opinion, every book of the New Testament was written between the forties and eighties of the first century A.D."

With all of the massive manuscript evidence you would think there would be massive discrepancies - just the opposite is true. New Testament manuscripts agree in 99.5% (5) of the text (compared to only 95% for the Iliad). Most of the discrepancies are in spelling and word order. A few words have been changed or added. There are two passages that are disputed but no discrepancy is of any doctrinal significance (i.e., none would alter basic Christian doctrine). Most Bibles include the options as footnotes when there are discrepancies. How could there be such accuracy over a period of 1,400 years of copying? Two reasons: The scribes that did the copying had meticulous methods for checking their copies for errors. 2) The Holy Spirit made sure we would have an accurate copy of God's word so we would not be deceived. The Mormons, theological liberals as well as other cults and false religions such as Islam that claim the Bible has been tampered with are completely proven false by the extensive, historical manuscript evidence.

Here's a link to another argument for the validity of what is taught in the NT about Jesus rising from the dead.

http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/jesus/greenleaf.html

Testimony of the Evangelists by Simon Greenleaf (1783-1853)
Greenleaf, one of the principle founders of the Harvard Law School, originally set out to disprove the biblical testimony concerning the resurrection of Jesus Christ. He was certain that a careful examination of the internal witness of the Gospels would dispel all the myths at the heart of Christianity. But this legal scholar came to the conclusion that the witnesses were reliable, and that the resurrection did in fact happen.

You can read the rest by clicking on the link.

Answer 5

I have over 30 Bibles. All of them claim perfection. All of them contradict the other 29 in one way or another. Like any other text book the Bible says what the people who teach it want to get over to the class and have it believed---so the editors and publishers go along with them to get the money.

Answer 6

Look into the history of Paul (Saul).

Answer 7

i think that the new testement is true. it talks about the live and death of the man that saved our lives.
its totally true

Answer 8

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicity_of_Jesus

http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_jcno.htm

Both sides.....