Is Eye-witness Testimony Reliable before a Judge or a Jury?

Welcome to my blog; we are still continuing to deal with the topic, Is NT reliable? In the last blog we saw the documentary evidence to show that NT is reliable given the early date in which the NT books had been written and the large number of manuscripts or copies of the originals available from an early date. Before passing on to the next evidence, the evidence of the eye-witnesses, I want to just dwell on another important matter concerning documentary evidence.

The Errors in the MSS:

Given the large number of MSS available, to the tune of 24,000, there is bound to be a lot of errors that crept up in the course of copy-writing. Imagine the scribes bending forward and meticulously copying down the documents! Also remember that eye-glasses were invented only in 1373 in Venice! Printing press was invented only in the 15^th century at Gutenberg, Germany! No wonder there are some 2,00,000 variants among the MSS,[1] but most of these concern spelling mistakes, wrong order of sequence, etc., and nothing big enough to affect the doctrines of the church.

To give a few examples of such mistakes, verses 1 John 7-8 are found only in 7 or 8 MSS, that too from 15^th or 16^th century onward. These two verses speak about three witnesses in heaven to Christ, the Father, the Word and the Holy Spirit; and three witnesses on earth to Christ, the Spirit, the water and the blood. This basically refers to the doctrine of Trinity and seems to be the work of an over-imaginative scribe, who thought of including these parallels, though excellent, not found in the originals. Even if we remove these two verses there are many other references to Trinity in the NT, like Matthew 28:19-20, 2 Corinthians 13:14, and thus this error will not affect the doctrine of the church in respect of Trinity. Later versions like New International Version (NIV) acknowledge the error by indicated in the foot-note that these verses were not found in any Greek manuscript before the 16^th century.

Another example is Romans 16:24, which is not found in the earliest MSS, so the NIV omits even to print this verse. Other versions print it, but indicate that it was not there in the originals. The verse reads, “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen.” We do not know who inserted this and why for Paul in the very next verse goes on to give elaborate blessings to the Roman church. By omitting this verse, nothing much is really lost.

One more example is the section John 7:53-8:11, which narrates the story of the woman caught in adultery brought before Jesus for a verdict. NIV prints this episode, but indicates that ‘the earliest and most reliable MSS and other ancient witnesses do not have John 7:58-8:11.’ It is a beautiful story, may be included later on from an oral tradition, but its absence in the NT will not diminish in anyway the importance and value of Jesus” teachings.

All these have led scholars to conclude that NT is 99.5% pure as seen from the available MSS.[2] Hence we can be rest assured that the errors that have crept in the NT books are largely insignificant.

Eye-witnesses Account:

Coming to the next evidence for the reliability of the NT, we come across eye-witness’s account. In any murder case, the case is clinched and the culprit grabbed, by two main types of evidences, one eye-witness’ evidence and the other circumstantial evidence. Of these the former are the most important ones, because the witness had seen the crime happening and is giving an account of it. In the absence of such an eye-witness, the jury or the judge has to rely on circumstantial evidences that corroborate the overall testimony to finally arrive at a decision.

In the NT, almost all the books or letters have been written by direct eye-witnesses. Of the four Gospels, Matthew was written by Levi, the direct disciple, who is also called Levi.[3] The Gospel of John was written by another direct disciple of Jesus, John, the son of Zebedee, also known as the beloved disciple, who writes that he is the one who is testifying these things and wrote these down and attests that his testimony is true.[4] He further writes that he has written these things so that the readers might believe that Jesus is the Christ, Son of God and believing thus might have life in His name.[5] John has also written 1 John, 2 John and 3 John and also Revelation, four more books of the NT.[6] Thus both the Gospels of Matthew and John were written by the direct disciples who had spend almost three and a half years with Jesus during his earthly ministry and very valuable as testimonies.

The other two Gospels, Mark and Luke were written not by direct disciples but by those who were very close to the Apostles, who can be called the disciples of the Apostles. Mark was the close associate of the Apostle Peter, who calls Mark ‘my son,’[7] and Church Fathers of repute like Papias (130 AD) and Irenaeus (180 AD) have left in their writings that Mark who was the interpreter of Peter wrote down Peter’s preaching on public demand in Rome. Thus Mark writes from the vantage point of the preaching and teachings of Jesus’ direct disciple and Apostle Peter.

Luke makes it very clear that he set to write a narrative of the happenings around Jesus, gleaning it from the direct disciples who were the eye-witnesses to all these events and who were still living, so that he could write an orderly account. He also wrote a sequel to his Gospel, the Acts describing the early spread of Christianity and the ministry of Paul with which he was intimately connected. Luke was an associate of Paul, accompanying him on his missionary journeys, thus had an intimate knowledge about the teachings of Christ, through Paul and other eye-witnesses who were living then, including Peter.

The next thirteen letters or epistles were written by Paul, who was not the direct disciple of Jesus during his earthly ministry, but was converted, on the road to Damascus when the resurrected Christ appeared to him in a vision and gave him the mission to preach the gospel to the Gentiles. This he did diligently and wrote these letters to the churches he himself helped to establish and to the others.

The book of James is written by James the half-brother of Jesus who was not a disciple during the earthly ministry of Jesus, but became a believer after the resurrection of Jesus and went on to become one of the three pillars of the Jerusalem church along with Peter and John.[8] Jude calls himself as the brother of James, that would mean he was the half-brother of Jesus, has also written a book in the NT.[9] He also had believed only after the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

The only book that is anonymous in the NT is the book of Hebrews, but many scholars, assessing from the style of writing and the words used, believe that it was written by Apostle Paul.

Lo and behold, thus it is seen that all the books of the NT were written either by the direct disciples of Jesus, called Apostles or by those who were closely associated with them. Paul also can be categorised as a direct disciple of Jesus Christ and an Apostle. Their eye-witness accounts of the life and teachings of Jesus Christ with whom they spent three years and more, is much more valuable than all the other evidences put together. Who can refute their testimony? Anyone with intellectual honesty and integrity would stand by their testimony and acclaim their testimony as the truth.

Oops, again exceeded my limit! Well, good bye then, till next week, when I will round up the eye-witness account and turn to some more evidences to prove that NT is reliable.   

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[1] Lee Strobel, The Case for Christ, 2001, p.64

[2] Strobel, p. 65

[3] In Mark 2:14, Jesus calls Levi, the tax collector as his disciple; in Matthew 10:3 gives the tax collector’s name as Matthew. 

[4] John 21:29, 24

[5] John 20:31

[6] I John 1:1-3

[7] 1 Peter 5:13

[8] Galatians 2:9

[9] Jude 1