Why does the Bible pass the external test better than any other document of its time?

Answer 1

A:

The external test compares what The Bible says with the historical evidence.

The Old Testament is certainly better supported by the external test than is the New Testament. Although almost everything in the Book of Genesis and up until the period of the Judges is contrary to science and history, a good deal of the biblical history of the judges and the monarchies is consistent with the historical evidence. The Books of Ezra and Nehemiah are reasonably well supported by the external test. The Books of Esther and Daniel were originally written as novels, so although they would certainly fail the external test, it is probably unfair to apply it here.

There is little in the New Testament that can be checked against history. The census under Quirinius that we find in Luke's nativity account seems to refer to the census of 6 CE, which is fine except that Luke also talks of King Herod, who died in 4 BCE. Raymond E. Brown (An Introduction to the New Testament) says the best explanation is that, although Luke likes to set his Christian drama in the context of well known events from antiquity, sometimes he does so inaccurately. Fr. Brown also says that there is little likelihood that the genealogy in either Matthew or Luke is strictly historical. Acts of the Apostles used to be regarded as a reliable history, but recent scholarship means that New Testament scholars now regard it as substantially unhistorical.

The New Testament performs rather poorly in the external test, but much of the Old Testament performs moderately well. Against this, some other documents of antiquity perform rather poorly. The epics of Homer were once thought to be purely fiction, but the discovery of Troy has demonstrated that they contain a kernel of facts, but probably not much more.

Answer 2

There are three lines of evidence that theologians seek to use in claiming that the biblical documents are reliable: the bibliographic test; the internal test; and the external test. The first examines the biblical manuscripts, the second test the claims made by the biblical authors, and the third looks to outside confirmation of the biblical content.
The bibliographic testThere is no doubt that the evidence shows that the Old Testament has changed little since the beginning of the Common Era. However, there is plentiful evidence of amendment, addition and redaction in the earlier history of the Old Testament books. Even more so with the New Testament, various extant manuscripts show evidence of evolution in the books of the New Testament.

The bibliographic test on its own does not provide sufficient confidence of the truth of the Bible.

The internal testThe internal test for the reliability of the biblical documents, which looks at the claims the Bible make about itself is in large part circular reasoning, since it uses the testimony of the Bible to prove that the Bible is true.

Robert P. Carroll (The World of Ancient Israel, Prophecy and society) says the Hebrew Bible, or Old Testament, contains the ideologically controlled documents which represent the Propaganda of a small religious elite. Whatever we think of this statement, the fact that Carroll felt obliged to make it means that we have to treat the Old Testament with caution.

The claims that Paul wrote all thirteen epistles attributed to him have been discounted by a clear majority of biblical scholars. The pseudo-Pauline epistles do not support the view of the Bible as being reliable.

Although not properly part of the internal test, the claim that the gospels were written by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, two of whom were actual eyewitnesses to the life of Jesus, are generally examined as part of this test. The gospels were actually written anonymously and only attributed to the apostles whose names they now bear later in the second century. The gospels themselves do not claim to have been written during the apostolic period or by the apostles, and Biblical scholars are satisfied that they could not have been written by eyewitnesses to the events they portray. The gospels are too far removed, both in time and source, from the life of Jesus to be evidence of reliability.

The external testThis leaves the external test, which compares what the Bible says with the historical evidence.

The Old Testament is certainly better supported by the external test than is the New Testament. Although almost everything in the Book of Genesis and up until the period of the Judges is contrary to science and history, a good deal of the biblical history of the judges and the monarchies is consistent with history.

There is little in the New Testament that can be checked against history. The census under Quirinius that we find in Luke's nativity account seems to refer to the census of 6 CE, which is fine except that Luke also talks of King Herod, who died in 4 BCE. Raymond E. Brown (An Introduction to the New Testament) says the best explanation is that, although Luke likes to set his Christian drama in the context of well-known events from antiquity, sometimes he does so inaccurately. Fr. Brown also says that there is little likelihood that the genealogy in either Matthew or Luke is strictly historical.

The New Testament performs rather poorly in the external test, but much of the Old Testament performs moderately well. Overall, the Bible passes the external test better than any other test.