Theopedia

Historicity of the New Testament

Definition

The historicity of the New Testament is the claim that its twenty-seven books are reliable historical sources for the life, teaching, death, and resurrection of Jesus: that they rest on apostolic and eyewitness testimony, were composed within reach of living memory of the events they narrate, and were received by the earliest church as such testimony rather than as later legend. The question is the New Testament’s origin and trustworthiness as history, not which books belong in the canon or how faithfully today’s Greek text reproduces the original wording.

Confessional Witness

The Reformed confessional family speaks with one voice on how Scripture commends itself as trustworthy: the 1689 Second London Baptist Confession repeats, word for word, the Westminster Confession’s and the Savoy Declaration’s own list of internal evidences.

We may be moved and induced by the testimony of the church of God to an high and reverent esteem of the Holy Scriptures; and the heavenliness of the matter, the efficacy of the doctrine, and the majesty of the style, the consent of all the parts, the scope of the whole (which is to give all glory to God), the full discovery it makes of the only way of man’s salvation, and many other incomparable excellencies, and entire perfections thereof, are arguments whereby it doth abundantly evidence itself to be the Word of God; yet notwithstanding, our full persuasion and assurance of the infallible truth, and divine authority thereof, is from the inward work of the Holy Spirit bearing witness by and with the Word in our hearts.1

The confession treats a case like this article’s own, the coherence and apostolic authorship of the New Testament documents, as a genuine argument for Scripture’s divine origin, without making that argument the ground of a believer’s full assurance; that ground is the Spirit’s own internal witness. Petrus van Mastricht’s later scholastic treatment of Scripture works the same list in more detail, naming the text’s “antiquity, perpetuity, authority, the harmony of its parts, the majesty of its style… the method of its preservation, its prophecies, and other points” among the marks by which Scripture evidences its own divine origin.2

Biblical Basis

The New Testament writers present their own work as resting on eyewitness testimony rather than on later reflection. Luke opens his Gospel by explaining that he has compiled “an orderly account” from what was “delivered to us by those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word” (Luke 1:1-4). John’s Gospel closes by naming its own author as “the disciple who is bearing witness about these things, and who has written these things, and we know that his testimony is true” (John 21:24), and John’s first epistle opens the same way, grounding its message in “that which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands” (1 John 1:1-3). Peter makes the same claim explicitly: “we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty” (2 Pet. 1:16). Paul, writing within roughly two decades of the resurrection, hands on a summary of the gospel he says he himself “received,” including a list of the eyewitnesses to the risen Christ, most of whom “are still alive” and so still able to be questioned (1 Cor. 15:3-8). Michael Kruger observes that the New Testament authors write with a degree of self-awareness that they are producing authoritative documents bearing the apostolic message, not merely personal reflections that a later church would happen to find useful.3

Historical Development

Apostolic-era composition

The Gospels and epistles were written within the lifetime of the apostolic generation, not generations after it. The Gospel of Mark, on the patristic testimony that ties its composition to Peter’s own preaching near the end of his life, was produced roughly forty years after Jesus’s death, the same interval in which other ancient communities are known to have first committed founding oral tradition to writing.4 Several New Testament books also carry features of the ancient “testamentary” genre, in which a leader’s teaching is deliberately set down in permanent written form as his death approaches. Second Peter is explicit about this motive: “I think it right, as long as I am in this body, to stir you up by way of reminder, since I know that the putting off of my body will be soon… And I will make every effort so that after my departure you may be able at any time to recall these things” (2 Pet. 1:13-15). Kruger, citing Charles Hill, notes that “a ‘testamentary aura’ surrounds the writings of the NT, particularly the later ones,” as the apostles and their associates took care to provide the churches with a permanent written record before the apostolic generation passed from the scene.5

The earliest church’s testimony to apostolic origin

The generation immediately following the apostles did not treat the Gospels as anonymous or communal folklore, but specifically as written apostolic testimony. Justin Martyr, writing in the mid-second century, calls the Gospels “the memoirs of the apostles”: “For the apostles, in the memoirs composed by them, which are called Gospels, have thus delivered unto us what was enjoined upon them.”6 He uses this description even though he knows that two of the four Gospels, Mark and Luke, were not written by apostles themselves. Irenaeus reasons the same way, tracing the church’s knowledge of the gospel to the apostles even where the text was set down by others: “We have learned from none others the plan of our salvation, than from those through whom the Gospel has come down to us, which they did at one time proclaim in public, and, at a later period, by the will of God, handed down to us in the Scriptures, to be the ground and pillar of our faith.”7 He calls all four Gospels “Gospels of the Apostles” on this basis, and Tertullian likewise describes Mark and Luke as “apostolic men.”7 A purely historical-critical account has the tradition written down only after it had already gained authority through a long, late process. Kruger argues the patristic evidence points the other way: “the traditions were seen as authoritative before they were written down,” because of their apostolic connections.8 He quotes James Dunn’s related judgment that “the de facto canon of Jesus and Paul, gospel and epistle, was already functioning with effect within the first thirty years of Christianity’s existence.”8

Opposing Views

Historical-critical scholarship in the form-critical tradition has generally worked from a different model: that the Jesus tradition circulated for decades among anonymous early Christian communities, who reshaped it to meet their own theological and pastoral needs before it was ever fixed in writing, and that a Gospel’s standing as authoritative reflects a late development in the tradition’s history rather than something present from its origin.8 On this account, the interval between the events and the written Gospels is long enough, and the transmission process communal and malleable enough, that the Gospels are better read as evidence for the beliefs of the later communities that produced them than as direct reports of what Jesus said and did.

Objections and Responses

The Gospels were written decades after the events they describe, long enough for reliable memory to give way to legend. The interval between the crucifixion and Mark’s Gospel, on the dating tied to Peter’s death, is about the same span in which other ancient oral cultures are documented to have first put a founding generation’s teaching into writing, not an unusually long gap by the standards of its own time.4 Several New Testament books also show the marks of a genre written expressly to fix a leader’s own teaching in writing before living witnesses to it, Peter among them, passed away.5

The Gospels are the product of anonymous church communities reworking oral tradition, not eyewitness reporting. This was not how the generation closest to the apostles understood the documents. Justin Martyr and Irenaeus both treat the Gospels as apostolic memoirs, even while knowing that two of the four were written by companions of the apostles rather than by apostles themselves, and Justin’s own term for the Gospels, “memoirs of the apostles,” ties their authorship to eyewitness testimony rather than anonymous communal composition.6

Related Doctrines

Further Reading

References

References

  1. The Second London Baptist Confession of Faith (1689), chap. 1, “Of the Holy Scriptures,” para. 5. ↩

  2. Petrus van Mastricht, Theoretical-Practical Theology, vol. 1, Prolegomena, trans. Todd M. Rester, ed. Joel R. Beeke (Grand Rapids: Reformation Heritage Books, 2018), chap. 2, “Holy Scripture,” 241. ↩

  3. Michael J. Kruger, Canon Revisited: Establishing the Origins and Authority of the New Testament Books (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2012), chap. 5, “The Apostolic Origins of the Canon”: “there seems to be a degree of self-awareness among the New Testament authors that they are producing authoritative documents that would function as a rule for the church.” ↩

  4. Michael J. Kruger, The Question of Canon: Challenging the Status Quo in the New Testament Debate (Nottingham: Apollos, 2013), chap. 2, “The Origins of Canon”: the textualization of founding oral tradition elsewhere in the ancient world “typically occurs within forty years of the community’s founding, approximately the same amount of time between the death of Jesus and the production of Mark’s Gospel.” ↩ ↩2

  5. Kruger, The Question of Canon, chap. 2, “The Origins of Canon,” quoting Charles Hill: “A ‘testamentary aura’ surrounds the writings of the NT, particularly the later ones. The apostles and their assistants are taking care to provide for the churches when the apostles depart from the scene.” ↩ ↩2

  6. Kruger, Canon Revisited, chap. 5, “The Apostolic Origins of the Canon,” quoting Justin Martyr: “For the apostles, in the memoirs composed by them, which are called Gospels, have thus delivered unto us what was enjoined upon them.” ↩ ↩2

  7. Kruger, Canon Revisited, chap. 5, “The Apostolic Origins of the Canon,” quoting Irenaeus: “We have learned from none others the plan of our salvation, than from those through whom the Gospel has come down to us, which they did at one time proclaim in public, and, at a later period, by the will of God, handed down to us in the Scriptures, to be the ground and pillar of our faith.” ↩ ↩2

  8. Kruger, Canon Revisited, chap. 5, “The Apostolic Origins of the Canon”: “the historical evidence suggests that the traditions were seen as authoritative before they were written down (owing to their apostolic connections),” quoting James Dunn: “The de facto canon of Jesus and Paul, gospel and epistle, was already functioning with effect within the first thirty years of Christianity’s existence.” ↩ ↩2 ↩3