The Reliability of the NT

Kyle Bartholic   -   July 19, 2024

 This Sunday, we will conclude our study through the Gospel of Mark. Mark’s conclusion likely comes with a note in your Bible that states, “Some of the earliest manuscripts do not include 16:9–20.” There are some linguistic inconsistencies and oddities in verses 9-20 that make some scholars wonder if they were part of Mark’s original writing. Couple that with the note that the earliest manuscripts do not have those verses, and we can really be left to scratch our heads. The reality is that, yes, there are some oddities in the concluding verses. But there is also much that is a direct connection to the other Gospel accounts, and there is nothing that directly contradicts Scripture. With those two things in mind, we can have confidence in Mark’s longer ending. Most of the content of the Longer Ending (vv. 9–20) echoes, usually in abbreviated form, elements in the resurrection stories of Matthew, Luke, and John, as follows: ^[1]

Again, this can leave us scratching our heads and wondering about the reliability of the NT. After all, this is what we, as an EFCA church, believe about the Bible. “We believe that God has spoken in the Scriptures, both Old and New Testaments, through the words of human authors. As the verbally inspired Word of God, the Bible is without error in the original writings, the complete revelation of His will for salvation, and the ultimate authority by which every realm of human knowledge and endeavor should be judged. Therefore, it is to be believed in all that it teaches, obeyed in all that it requires, and trusted in all that it promises.”[2]

When we look at the longer ending of Mark, we can see that the vast majority of its content is clearly represented in the other Gospel accounts. Many of the miraculous signs that Jesus talks about are demonstrated through the book of Acts. Yes, it has some linguistic oddities that leave us scratching our heads, but it does not contradict anything in the other Gospel accounts and, in fact, agrees with them. And, the early church quickly agreed on which of the NT writings were considered inspired Scripture. By 140 AD, the Apostles’ Creed was in place as the earliest statement of essential belief, and by 140 AD, there were lists circulating naming the 27 books of the New Testament. That is only 50 years after John wrote his Gospel account and the letter of Revelation. This is a rapid conclusion and sense of agreement from the early church! Remember, Christianity was illegal in Rome at this point, and many believers were suffering. So, it isn’t like they could all get together for a council down at the local Holiday Inn ballroom to debate and establish the NT cannon. This agreement was happening in real-time all over the Roman Empire. One figure named Marcion, a preacher’s kid from the region of modern Turkey along the Black Sea decided to trim down the agreed-upon NT list of 27 books around 150 AD. He tossed out the entire Old Testament—he even claimed the God of the Old Testament was all wrath and fury and must be cast off for the New Testament God of grace and mercy. He then tossed out the majority of the New Testament, unable to escape most of its Jewish origins. In the end, all Marcion had left was the Gospel of Luke (which he pared back) and the letters of Paul (but only Romans through 2 Thessalonians). However, the larger church rejected Marcion’s list (and his theology) because of the established and agreed-upon list that had been previously established. Around AD 240, Origen mentioned the twenty-seven New Testament books by name, which he called “trumpets hammered thin,” a charming image of a loud anthem played on the thin pages of the Bible. [3]

Let’s just recap: the NT isn’t some random collection of books that were written hundreds of years after Jesus. Nor were they randomly selected and edited over a period of hundreds of years. Instead, there was early and quick agreement about what was sacred Scripture and what wasn’t. And all of that happened within a fifty-year period after the death of the Apostle John.

Is the NT that we have today the same NT the early church had and agreed upon? Quick answer: yes. We have over 20,000 fragments and manuscripts of the NT.[4] From those fragments and larger manuscripts, scholars are able to trace and connect what we have today all the way back to the original writings of the NT. Here is how one scholar explains the importance of this work, “Scholars who study biblical manuscripts in order to reconstruct the autographs as closely as possible are known as textual critics. They spend long hours wading through manuscripts to understand how the Bible was copied over the centuries. What is clear from their research is not how corrupt the Bible became over time, but rather how well preserved it is. The text of our Bibles is much more well attested than most ancient books, and we can trust its reliability.” [5]

Because we can systematically test and conclude that the NT is reliable, we can courageously trust the Bible and all that God has revealed in it. Or, as our statement of faith states, “Therefore, it 9the Bible) is to be believed in all that it teaches, obeyed in all that it requires, and trusted in all that it promises.”

^[1] R. T. France, The Gospel of Mark: A Commentary on the Greek Text, New International Greek Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI; Carlisle: W.B. Eerdmans; Paternoster Press, 2002), 686.

[2] EFCA SOF Article #2 – https://www.efca.org/sof

[3] Reeves, Ryan M. . Know How We Got Our Bible (KNOW Series) (pp. 72-73). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.

[4] See this article for a helpful overview of manuscriptal evidence:  https://seanmcdowell.org/blog/what-is-the-most-recent-manuscript-count-for-the-new-testament

[5] Reeves, Ryan M. . Know How We Got Our Bible (KNOW Series) (pp. 26-27). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.