Where Did it Come From?
Keith Campbell, Ph.D.
dkeithcampbell@yahoo.com
Review
Oct. 26: Four Sources of Authority
Preview
Scripture
Today: “The Bible…Where did it Come From”
Nov. 16: “The Bible…Why Trust It?”
Nov. 30: “The Bible…How to Read It?”
Tradition
Reason
Experience
For full schedule of Dinner Lectures visit
http://shanghaifellowship.org/resources/sunday-lectures/
• Where did the New Testament (NT) come from?
• Discussion of OT omitted: Less debated (see resources at PPT
end).
• Who decided what books belong in the NT?
• Was a book(s) left out or should one(s) be added?
• Is the NT we have today, the same as the original one?
• Why are there so many different translations of the
Bible today?
• The unbeliever: Skeptical people rightly
want and deserve to know (evangelism)
• The believer: Encourages our faith
(discipleship)
Where Did our NT Come From?
• AD 30–33: Jesus ministers and dies; the Church begins.
• AD 40–95: First Generation Christians (the NT writers)
• Wrote documents (Gospels, letters, etc.) about Jesus and the newly
formed Church.
• AD 95–350: Second and Third Generation Christians
• Second generation Christians (aka the “Apostolic Fathers”) used these
documents as Scripture (holy writings).
• And, finally, through decades of practical usage and several official
Church debates, third generation Christians (aka the “Church Fathers”)
recognize the NT as a closed canon of Scripture that completes the OT.
• c. AD 40—95 (NT writers: First Generation Christian Writers)
▫ The Four Gospels
▫ Paul’s Letters
▫ Other (called “General”) Letters
 Hebrews, James, 1-2 Peter, 1-3 John, Jude
▫ Book of Revelation
• NT writers seem aware that God was inspiring new documents in their day:
• 1 Tim 5:18: “For the Scripture says, "Do not muzzle the ox while it is treading out
the grain“ [Deut 25:4] and "The worker deserves his wages“ [Luke 10:7].
• 2 Pet 3:16: “[Paul’s] letters contain some things that are hard to understand, which
ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the other Scriptures, to their own
destruction.
• c. AD 95—150 (“Apostolic Fathers”: Second Generation Christian Writers)
▫ “1 Clement” (c. AD 100 by Clement of Rome)
▫ 1st available Christian document outside the NT
▫ Shepherd of Hermas (early AD 100’s)
▫ Didache (early AD 100’s)
▫ “Letter to the Philippians” (c. AD 110–140 by Polycarp of Smyrna)
▫ Heavily depends on the NT writers and calls some of their works “Scriptures”
▫ Ignatius of Antioch: wrote at least seven letters en route to martyrdom (c. AD
105–120)
• Apostolic Fathers depended heavily on the NT documents, often calling them
“Scripture”
• c. AD 150—400 (“Church Fathers” [Third Generation Christians] and many
writers who dissented from orthodoxy)
• Church Fathers refuted the dissenters and solidified the NT
Side note:
• c. AD 150—250: Gnostic Gospels (popularized by Dan Brown
in “The Da Vinci Code”)
 A collection of 52 later texts about Jesus
 Examples: Gospel of Thomas, Gospel of Peter, etc.
 The point: These were written 120+ years after Jesus
• Apostolicity: Direct or indirect association of a given
document with an apostle (a first-century eyewitness).
• Orthodoxy: Whether a given writer conformed to the
Church’s “rule of faith”
• Antiquity: Written during the apostolic era (not later)
• Church usage: Widely used by the Church
• Did the Church Fathers get it right?
• Is the canon opened or closed? Can
books be added today?
• Should some books be included and
others excluded?
• Based on arguments in my next lecture (an unashamed
plug for the 2nd Dinner Lecture!), I assume that God has
spoken to us in written form.
• It makes good historical sense to me (agreeing with the
Church Fathers) to
• Include only documents written by eyewitnesses and
• Their close associates in close historical proximity to Jesus.
• There are only a limited number of Christian documents
that meet this criteria.
• In other words, we don’t have a lot to choose from!
• These available documents are the ones that make up
our current NT.
• If we miscalculate the NT by several 1st Century
documents, then the major doctrines of Christianity
remain intact.
• I trust the second and third generation Christians:
• Apostolic Fathers: Read the individual NT documents as
authoritative witnesses to Jesus and the Gospel
• Church Fathers: Solidified the NT documents as a closed set of
Scriptures.
Is the NT we have today, the same
as the original one?
• The most scientific discipline in biblical studies is called “Textual
Criticism.”
• Textual Criticism tries to uncover the original wording of the NT.
• See Diagram on Whiteboard
• Most Text Critics think that we can arrive at about a 97%99% accuracy to the originals.
• See Bruce Metzger, The Text of the New Testament (1992). Contrast
with Bart Ehrman, Misquoting Jesus (2005). But, Ehrman even concedes
that no major Christian doctrine hangs in the balance.
• We have about 643 copies of Homer’s Iliad.
• The earliest extant copy is about 1000 years after the original.
• For most other ancient books, we only have a handful of copies: Plato
(several), Caesar’s Gallic Wars (9), Josephus (several)
• Historians consider this to be a lot of copies
• We have 25,000 ancient copies of
the NT, with 5,000 in close historical
proximity to the original.
• Our earliest copy: 120 A. D.
(Chester Beatty Manuscript: A
fragment of John’s Gospel)
• The evidence suggests “Yes.”
Why are there so many different
translations of the Bible today?
• “All translation is treason!”
• Accurate translation is sometimes difficult!
• Bilingual people experience this often
• More difficult with ancient texts
• Different goals of modern Bible translators:
• Word-for-Word
• Thought-for-Thought
See Diagram on next slide
• Having many translations is good, not bad!
Especially for non-Hebrew and non-Greek
readers
• Best to utilize many translations
• Where did the NT come from?
• Emerged as Scripture through practical use via the second generation
Christians (the Apostolic Fathers) and was officially recognized during the
time of the third generation Christians (the Church Fathers)
• Is our NT the same as the original one?
• 97–99% accurate, with no major Christian doctrines questionable.
• Why do we have so many modern translations?
• Because translation is challenging and because of different translational
goals (word-for-word and thought-for-thought)
• http://www.desiringgod.org/seminars/why-we-believe-the-biblepart-1
• The Canon of Scripture, by F. F. Bruce
(available on Kindle):
• The Bible…Why trust it?