After perusing the documentary
evidence, eye-witness account, chain of custody and corroborative evidence from
other sources, we now come to the last but not least in importance, the
archaeological evidence to prove that the NT accounts are reliable.
Many sites referred to in the Gospels
and Acts and the Epistles in the New Testament have been unearthed by
Archaeological searches and it goes to prove that these places or events
surrounding these places as narrated in the NT really exist and the events
happened.
First we will examine the evidence
for the existence of the Pool of Bethesda, described in John 5:2, which had
five porches, where Jesus healed a man who had infirmity for 39 years. This has
been discovered in 1888, when excavations revealed an ancient church building
in that quarter, mainly to mark the site of Bethesda. The pools, lying in the
north and south with a rock partition between them and the five porticoes have
also been identified.
The Pool of Siloam mentioned in John
9:7, where Jesus asks the blind man he healed to go and wash his eyes, has been
identified. Thus these are not fictional accounts but actual places that
existed during Jesus’ time. It is still there and it was a pleasure to visit it
in 2015 during my trip to the Holy Land.
The tomb in which Jesus was buried
near the hillock Golgotha, has been traditionally held as the place where the
Church of the Holy Sepulchre has been built by Constantine, the first Christian
Emperor in 345 AD. In 2018, while taking up renovation works, analysis of the
mortar of the old original limestone cave walls of the tomb, over which had
been build a marble edicule (A small building, a shrine), has been dated 1st
century AD, thus authenticating that that was the place where Jesus was buried.
In his Epistle to the Romans, Paul
sends greetings from one of his companions in Corinth from where he writes the
letter, mentioning him as ‘Erastus, the City Treasurer,’ in Romans 16:23. In
excavations carried out in 1929, on a pavement in Corinth was found the
inscription ‘Erastus, curator of public buildings, laid this pavement at his
own expense.’ (translated from Latin). This pavement is dated 1st
century AD. It is possible that this Erastus is the same person sending his
greetings through Paul’s letter to the Romans.[1]
By the time Paul wrote his letter, this Erastus might have been promoted from the
office of Public works, to that of the city treasurer.[2]
Linguistic analysis of the Greek
written by the not-very-well-educated disciples of Jesus, who were mostly
fishermen, has established that this Greek was different from that of the
classical Greek. The Greek these disciples used to write NT is known as the
language of the common people, the vernacular Koine or common.[3]
This clears the doubt how come the uneducated fishermen could write such
gospels and epistles of the NT.
We must also remember that Peter’s
teachings were abridged and written by Mark, an educated young man as the
Gospel of Mark. The Gospel of Luke and Acts of the Apostles were written by
Luke the Physician, definitely educated and a qualified practicing medical man.
That leaves only Matthew and John, the former a tax collector of Roman Empire
and as such must have been educated enough to do the official work and John
definitely had the basic education in spite of being a fisherman. In Judea, every
Jew had to be literate, if only to read Torah and understand it.
Another very interesting episode is
about Luke mentioning Lysanias as the Tetrarch of Abilene in Luke 3:1. Scholars
had thought Luke has had it wrong, for Lysanias was not a tetrarch but the
ruler of Chalcis some fifty years before the birth of Jesus. However,
archaeology has discovered an inscription from the time of Emperor Tiberius,
from AD 14-37, that one Lysanias was the tetrarch in Abila near Damascus. There
had been two officials named Lysanias. Luke stands vindicated!
Luke in the course of his two
writings, a gospel and a historical account of the first apostles, mentions
nearly 32 countries, 54 cities, and nine islands, and not a single one is a
mistake, their authenticity attested either by historical accounts or
archaeology.[4]
This is creditable indeed and goes a long way to authenticate the writings in
NT.
Archaeological digs have also
unearthed what is most possibly Peter’s house in Capernaum. Under the remains
of an octagonal shaped church from 5th century AD, they found the
remains of an earlier church underneath it. This early church has been built
around a private house, a place used by early Christians as a meeting place,
dated as the second half of the first century AD. Today a modern church exists
in this place, suspended above the site, with the excavated site visible
through a glass floor. This could have definitely been the house of Simon Peter
we read about in Luke 4:38.
Pontius Pilate, the Roman official
who condemned and gave Jesus over to be crucified, was a true historical figure
as ample evidence is available in written records as we have seen earlier. In
1961, an inscription was discovered written in Latin, dated AD.26-37, which
translates “To Tiberius – Pontius Pilate, Prefect of Judea.” What more proof
you need to authenticate the historicity of Jesus and the gospel narratives
about him in the NT?
I would quote just one more
discovery. In 2002 archaeological digs unearthed a mid first century ossuary in
the vicinity of Jerusalem, with the inscription, “James, son of Joseph, brother
of Jesus.” James was the half brother of Jesus, who became one of the pillars
of the Jerusalem church after Christ’s crucifixion. He was martyred in 62 AD.
Well, there are many more finds of
the archaeological investigations that keep throwing up many interesting facts
confirming the reliability of the New Testament books and writings. But I think
suffice has been said about these for anyone interested to dig deeper. It is an
interesting study in itself and a rewarding one at that.
I will close my writings on “Is NT reliable?”
with this final evidence from archaeology and we will turn to equally interesting
topics from the next blog onward. I hope you have enjoyed these writings
and look forward to more. God bless you all.
Good bye for now.
[1]
F.F. Bruce, The New Testament Documents:
Are they reliable? OM Books, Secunderabad: India, 2004, p. 112
[2] Leslie
C. Allen, Romans, New International Bible
Commentary, Zondervan Publishing House, Grand Rapids, Michigan: USA, 1979, p. 1345
[3] Bruce,
p.115
[4]
Lee Strobel, The Case for Christ, OM
Books, Secunderabad: India, 2001, p. 98
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