[canuck_conservative]

From what I've heard, there was NO contemporary account of Christ's words - the earliest New Testament Gospel was written about 100 years after his death (presumably passed down orally until then - and we all know the problem about passing stories ...)


Yes? No?

[sine_nomine]

Incorrect. The Gospel of John was written by the apostle. Many characteristics of John show how accurate and early it was: geographical details, speech patterns, and so forth.

[aimhigh]

From what I've heard, there was NO contemporary account of Christ's words

The Gospel of John was written by the Apostle John, who witnessed it all.

[B Knotts]

The Gospel of St. Matthew was written possibly as early as A.D. 60, probably before A.D. 70 (since it, or for that matter, any of the Gospels, does not mention the destruction of the temple in that year), and by no means any later than A.D. 100.

[GarySpFc]

From what I've heard, there was NO contemporary account of Christ's words - the earliest New Testament Gospel was written about 100 years after his death (presumably passed down orally until then - and we all know the problem about passing stories ...)

That is totally false. See When were the books of the New Testament Written? Furthermore, one fragment (7Q5)from the Gospel of Mark found in cave 7 at Quram is dated by some excellent scholars as early as 42 AD.

[Osage Orange]

From what I've heard, there was NO contemporary account of Christ's words

You've also no doubt heard that Bill Clinton's administration was the most ethical administration ever.

[sine_nomine]

I believe the first biography of Mohammed was written 200 years after his death. One story reveals that he was born already circumcised, that he fell onto the ground, raised up a hand full of dirt and said, "Praise Allah." Of course, 200 years after his birth, they may have gotten a few details wrong.

[Skooz]

The best scholarship places the Gospels as being completed prior to the destruction of Jerusalem in 66 AD.

[Paraclete]

Depends on whether you believe in the supernatural. The scripture makes its own claim that revelation was superintended by the Holy Spirit. If you don't want to believe that, its your choice.

Yes, it is true that various portions of scripture have been questioned by biblical scholars. The good ones make note of it and let the reader decide. With few exceptions, those passages in question have little to do with key matters of faith and practice.

[RightWhale]

the earliest New Testament Gospel was written about 100 years after his death

Much was written by eye-witnesses or people who personally knew and talked to eye-witnesses and were largely anecdotal. Some of the later writings were more systematically structured and developed, but largely followed the eye-witness accounts.

[DJ MacWoW]

From Manuscript evidence for superior New Testament reliability

if the critics want to disregard the New Testament, then they must also disregard other ancient writings by Plato, Aristotle, and Homer. This is because the New Testament documents are better preserved and more numerous than any other ancient writing. Because the copies are so numerous, they can be cross checked for accuracy. This process has determined that the biblical documents are extremely consistent and accurate.

There are presently 5,686 Greek manuscripts in existence today for the New Testament.1 If we were to compare the number of New Testament manuscripts to other ancient writings, we find that the New Testament manuscripts far outweigh the others in quantity.

Graph at above link

As you can see, there are thousands more New Testament Greek manuscripts than any other ancient writing. The internal consistency of the New Testament documents is about 99.5% textually pure. That is an amazing accuracy. In addition there are over 19,000 copies in the Syriac, Latin, Coptic, and Aramaic languages. The total supporting New Testament manuscript base is over 24,000.

Almost all biblical scholars agree that the New Testament documents were all written before the close of the first century. If Jesus was crucified in 30 A.D., then that means that the entire New Testament was completed within 70 years. This is important because it means there were plenty of people around when the New Testament documents were penned who could have contested the writings. In other words, those who wrote the documents knew that if they were inaccurate, plenty of people would have pointed it out. But, we have absolutely no ancient documents contemporary with the first century that contest the New Testament texts.

Furthermore, another important aspect of this discussion is the fact that we have a fragment of the gospel of John that dates back to around 29 years from the original writing. This is extremely close to the original writing date. This is simply unheard of in any other ancient writing and it demonstrates that the Gospel of John is a first century document.

[AmishDude]

Mark is believed to have been written 30-40 years after the crucifixion. As with most ancient texts, it began with oral stories. Some scholars think that Luke and Matthew (60-70 years after crucifixion) drew heavily from a single older source called "Q".

[ohhhh]

[From what I've heard, there was NO contemporary account of Christ's words - the earliest New Testament Gospel was written about 100 years after his death (presumably passed down orally until then - and we all know the problem about passing stories ...)
Yes? No?]

No. The bible is the Word of God and God has kept it pure and safe from all those who hate Him and His only begotten Son, Christ Jesus our Lord and saviour. Your beleif that it was changed is based upon the testimony and teaching of atheist liberals and religious testimonies of those who are contrary to God and Jesus the Christ.
II Ti.3: 16,17"ALL scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine,for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness; That the man of God may be perfect, thouroughly furnished unto all good works."
This is why this atheist attacked the epistle of Paul written to Timothy; as did Satan in the garden of Eden when he attacked God's word saying the the woman Eve in her temptation;
Ge.3:1 " Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?"
The first words out of the devils mouth questioned the
Word of God.
This female atheist, like the serpent, attacked the Word of God and that has not changed throughout the centuries. Satan and all athiest mankind always deny the Word of God and therefore the wrath of God will fall on them because of their unbelief..

[lastchance]

Not really. You have to remember that in a culture that did orally pass on their stories and traditions. The content of those stories was closely guarded and monitored for errors. People were very protective of the Truth and would have noticed any changes that contradicted what they had already known. Ever try to skip a few words in a child's bedtime story?

[Quix]

Not so.

We have sufficient fragments from within 30-50 years or so of the events--within the lifetimes of those who saw the events before their own eyes--to know that The Gospels etc. were accurate descriptions of real events. There was plenty of time for detractors to disagree with the texts which were written within the lifetimes of the observers who saw them.

Josh McDowell's

NEW EVIDENCE THAT DEMANDS A VERDICT has great research on such issues.

[Captain Rhino]

Not quite.

Mark, the earliest of the three synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke), probably dates to the 60 A.D. period, about 30 years after Jesus' crucifixion. Matthew and Luke appear sometime later and appear to have a knowledge of the Mark text. Briefly browsing through my copy of the 3rd edition of the New Oxford Annotated Bible (NRSV), it appears that all the remaining books of the New Testament existed in written form by about 100 A.D. So the latent period where oral tradition alone was preserving Jesus' teachings was only about 30 years (death to the time of Mark's gospel) versus the 100 years you mention. (Of course, this statement is based on analysis of what has come down to us. Like the entirety of the records of the Temple (destroyed by fire in the revolt of 70 A.D.), there may have been hundreds of early Christian accounts and letters that have been just lost due to turmoil and the passage of time.)

The distinction is important because during those first 30 years there would be many hundreds (if not thousands) of people who had seen Jesus and heard his teachings. This would act as a source of material, a source of confirmation/reconfirmation of the author's recollections, and a check on the author making unfounded statements concerning Jesus' life or teachings. This community of believers would be increasingly dispersed from Judea and Samaria as persecution by both Jewish and Roman authorities fell upon it. What remained there would have had to endure the Jewish Rebellion of 70 to 72 A.D. Those that still survived would have reached the end of their natural lifespans shortly thereafter.

However, as is the case with all of documents from this period, we usually don't have the original or even a verifiable 1st generation copy of the original. The reason for all the copying and recopying mentioned in the article is that the materials they were written on, parchment or paper, are organic and deteriorate with time; thereby necessitating preparation of fresh copies. The copyists are human beings and even the most careful of them can make an inadvertent mistake in the copying of hundreds of thousands of words. Also, because the copiest was human and perhaps motivated by a particular sect or factional belief, he may deliberately introduce new material in an attempt to given it an undeserved authority.

Nearly all our knowledge of the ancient Greeks arises from copies made by Arab Muslim scholars who, seeking for knowledge from all sources, recognized the need to preserve the deteriorating texts and recopied them. Consequently, the provenance of a particular version of say...the Iliad... may be Greek original to middle ages Arabic copy to renaissance re-translation back into Greek to modern European/African/Asian language today. A parallel effort attributed to monastic copyists in western Europe is also credited with saving many ancient Roman and Greek texts from loss.

Since there can simultaneously 2nd, 3rd, 4th, through Nth generation copies of a particular original work, you can, if you have the necessary education in the required languages, engage in analysis of documents to identify a specific text's lineage and when and where various errors in copying and insertions of non-original material occurred. Very painstaking patient scholarly analysis is required to successfully do this work. Fortunately, I am constitutionally unsuited for it!

If you are interested in investigating this further, I recommend you acquire a copy of the reference work I mentioned above. Mine is a student version, cost about US$25.00, and is worth every cent. BTW, it is available in various English versions (King James, NIV, etc.). Here is a link that may also be useful if you want to see the original Greek or Hebrew text:

http://www.greeknewtestament.com/

http://www.hebrewoldtestament.com/

[Lee N. Field]

From what I've heard, there was NO contemporary account of Christ's words - the earliest New Testament Gospel was written about 100 years after his death (presumably passed down orally until then - and we all know the problem about passing stories ...)

Yes? No?

No. All are early, in the lifetime of eyewitnesses.

[tenn2005]

From what I've heard, there was NO contemporary account of Christ's words - the earliest New Testament Gospel was written about 100 years after his death (presumably passed down orally until then - and we all know the problem about passing stories ...)

Jesus Died in AD30.

Approximate dates of Gospels

Luke AD60

Mark AD62

Matthew AD60's

John AD80's

[madison10]

Matthew and Mark were written before 70 A.D. as was the Acts of the Apostles.

Ye be 30 years off. ;)

[MississippiMan]

From what I've heard, there was NO contemporary account of Christ's words - the earliest New Testament Gospel was written about 100 years after his death (presumably passed down orally until then - and we all know the problem about passing stories ...)

No. I'm sure others are offering up specifics for you in this thread, but no, that's definitely incorrect.

MM

[Ranald S. MacKenzie]

There are fragments of Matthew at Magdalen College in Oxford that date to ca. 70 a.d.. These fragments are a copy, not the original (I don't know how papyrologists determine this), so the original must be older than this. With the crucifixion at ca. 30 a.d., there must have been many, many eyewitnesses still alive when Matthew was written that were around when the events recorded in the gospel actually transpired. Most scholars date Mark even earlier than Matthew.

This doesn't even take into account the authorship of the gospel, which most conservative scholars and early church tradition ascribe to the Apostle Matthew himself.