Since the New Testament is a document from ancient history that we have available to investigate, if we put it through the same rigorous textual criticism as other ancient texts, when our investigation is complete and we find there are historically probable events that are only satisfactorily explained by one of numerous tested hypotheses, should we then trust that one hypothesis to be historically reliable (in so far as can be expected from ancient documentation)?
What do you think?
MJ
MJ,
I found this site posted on facebook: http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/
Is it accurate?
Roger
Roger,
As far as I know it is. There are others I have used. Christian Classics Ethereal Library is good one for primary sources.
MJ
Roger,
I’ve found the texts there to be very useful. The webmaster is a skeptic, but to his credit he’s assembled some very good resources. Not all of the secondary sources are equally good, but that’s inevitable.
Thanks Tim & MJ.
Roger
Roger,
I should add that the one rather unreliable thing about earlychristianwritings.com is the dating of the New Testament documents and, to some extent, other documents (e.g. I Clement). The earliest dates mooted in scholarly circles (e.g. Matthew and Mark in the 40s-50s) are generally omitted. There are many reasons for this, but the central one is the conviction of many scholars that the miracle stories reported in some of these documents cannot be accepted as genuine and therefore there must be a substantial margin of time for them to have developed before the composition of the gospels. If you want to hear the case for earlier datings, you won’t generally be able to find a link to it on that site. In one sense this is understandable since it reflects the scholarly consensus; but anti-supernatural bias affects that consensus powerfully.
Caveat lector.
Thanks, Tim.
So, it would benefit the theist’s cause to dialogue the supernatural and metaphysical to aid in this area? How far would we get with that topic? Or, should we simply stick to what is already accepted and work off of that?
Roger
Roger,
One difficulty with sticking with what is accepted is that this is a moving target; another is that sometimes what’s accepted isn’t actually reasonable in light of the evidence. When that’s the case, there are usually some professionals who are dissenting, but they’re not given equal time. C’est la vie — we’ve seen it all before in the history of science. My advice would be to follow the evidence as best you can, wherever it leads.
Your best move if you’re interested in coming to understand these issues better yourself would be to read some of the literature on the dating and interrelationships of the Gospels. Almost any standard textbook or commentary will give you the case for late dates of the Gospels, Markan priority, and the Q hypothesis; if you want more detail, look up some of the work of John Kloppenborg or Burton Mack. For earlier dating, I can recommend John Wenham’s Redating Matthew, Mark, and Luke (outrageously expensive from Amazon, even used; a little cheaper here, but interlibrary loan might be your best bet) and Richard Bauckham’s Jesus and the Eyewitnesses. For a critique of Q, see Wenham (who advocates the Augustinian position) and Mark Goodacre’s The Case Against Q.
Hope that’s useful!
Tim,
Thank you very much. This is very helpful. I come across the need for this on facebook quite often and in talking face-to-face with people at restaurants, etc. Your references will be a great aid. I had some already from my Seminary days, but the additions are appreciated.
Roger