There’s a lot of misinformation out there about the Bible. Maybe it’s because people often settle for getting their information from dubious sources like social media or somebody they know who told them something.

This past Sunday, in our I Could Never Believe in a God Who… series, we looked at the Bible. The message was titled: I Could Never Believe in a God Who…Gave Us a Faulty Bible (click here to listen).

Some common misnomers about the New Testament:

• Early Christians didn’t have the New Testament
• The books of the New Testament were not considered anything special in their time,  and it was only later on that these books came to be thought of as holy scripture.
• The New Testament only came into existence at the time of Constantine, 300 years after Jesus.
• The New Testament has been changed and tampered with over time.

As common as these beliefs are, they are actually historically incorrect.

Did First Century Christians View the New Testament Books as Scripture?

In 2 Timothy 3:16, Paul wrote these words: All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness

What Scriptures are being referred to here?

Obviously it is referring to the Old Testament scriptures, but interestingly, this comes from the last letter Paul ever wrote, at the end of his life. By this time, almost all of the books in the New Testament had been written, and they were being distributed amongst the Christian churches, to be read and studied in their gatherings.

There are 27 books in the New Testament. By the time Paul wrote 2 Timothy, at least 23/27 books of the New Testament (including 2 Timothy) had been written and were in distribution amongst the early Christians, who considered these books Holy Scripture in the same way that the Old Testament was considered Holy Scripture.

So, when Paul says, “All Scripture” — most scholars believe he’s not just talking about the Old Testament, he’s also talking about the New Testament!

In the New Testament, what you find is that the Apostles understood that God was using them in their time to bring about a New Testament of Holy Scriptures, by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

Here are a few examples:

• In 2 Peter 3:15-16, Peter refers to the writings of Paul as “Scriptures”
• In 2 Thessalonians 2:13, Paul referred to his own message as “the word of God”
• In 1 Timothy 5:18, Paul takes a quotation from the Gospel of Luke – and he calls it “Scripture” (Luke 10:7)
• In some of his letters, Paul instructs the recipients to distribute his letters and have them read in the churches. (Colossians 4:16, 1 Thessalonians 5:27)

Paul uses the term “all Scripture” in 2 Timothy 3:16, as opposed to the term he used for just the Old Testament in the prior verse: “sacred writings.” In other words, Paul uses a different, and broader term in Vs 16, because he is talking about more than just the Old Testament; he is including the recently written New Testament books, including the gospels and some apostolic letters.

Criteria for Canonization

When I was a kid, I used to love going to the grocery store, because in the checkout line they had tabloid magazines that were full of fake news.

“Aliens landed and took over Washington DC!” “Sasquatch sightings!” “Giant eagle carries off children!”   

We still have fake news today, but back then it was fun; now it’s just disturbing.

As you might imagine, there was a lot of fake news going around about Jesus in the years, decades and centuries following his ascension. So, the early church was forced into a position where they needed to create a “canon” of Scripture, in order to combat the fake news about Jesus, and solidify the accurate accounts of what really happened, and what was really inspired by God.

In the end, they canonized 27 books in the New Testament, using 3 major criteria:

1. Apostolic authority – Was it written by an apostle or an eye-witness?
2. Congruency – Was it consistent with what the rest of the Bible taught, and what the early Christians believed?
3. Acceptance — Was it widely used and accepted in the Early Church?   

The now well-known Gospel of Thomas, which was discovered in Egypt in 1945 immediately fails on 2 of these 3 criteria: it is not congruent with the rest of the Bible, and it was not accepted by the Early Church.

On further examination, it also fails the test of apostolic authority, since – although it bears the name of an apostle, it contains anachronisms, which indicate it was written much later than the time when Thomas actually lived. The reason it bears his name is because, in an attempt to make this Gnostic writing seem credible, they falsely attributed it to an apostle.

The reason the Gospel of Thomas was not included in the canon was not because of fear or suppression from church authorities, but because it had no business being there, since it’s just fake news.

The New Testament is the Most Widely Attested Ancient Document in Existence

Did you know that we have no original copies of any of the books of the New Testament?

It’s true.

But did you also know that we have no original copies of nearly any other ancient work?

Consider this chart:

We actually have fragments of the Gospel of John dating from only a few decades after they were written.

There is nothing that comes close to the New Testament when it comes to historical reliability.

Those 5686 manuscripts also match up, which means that when you read the Bible, you can be sure that what you are reading today is what was actually written.

It hasn’t been changed, it hasn’t been tampered with. It is an accurate account of Jesus’ life, and it has been considered holy Scripture and the very words of God since the earliest days of Christianity.

Isn’t the New Testament Full of Contradictions?

Check out this video in which Mike and I discuss that topic:

Here are some helpful links for you to look at as well:

• 10 Evidences for the Bible
• Are There Contradictions in the Gospels?