In order to find in history a basis for faith in Jesus, we must look at the New Testament from a strictly human point of view. That is, we have to view the New Testament historically, not theologically. Until we have faith in Jesus, we will have to consider the New Testament as merely the word of men – just as we would any other record of history. How can we believe in a person without believing in his words? And how can we believe in his words if we don’t know what they were? And how can we know what they were unless we have reliable history to tell us what he said? Therefore, to find out about Jesus, we’re going to initially focus exclusively on the New Testament’s historical dimension.
The New Testament is a thing. People may doubt or even vehemently deny the existence of God, but no one can reasonably question the existence of the New Testament. There’s just too many copies of it sitting around. Tell someone it doesn’t exist and they’ll think you’re crazy.
Sure, the New Testament is a part of the Bible, but it’s a clearly distinguishable part. And for our purposes we do want to consider it separately because our focus right now is history – history that tells us about Jesus. The Old Testament was written before Jesus lived. Therefore, our historical research into Jesus needs to focus on the New Testament. We want to understand Jesus as a man, and as he was spoken of by men.
The reason no one can deny the existence of the New Testament is because it’s a tangible, physical thing. It’s wherever a Bible is. You probably have one in your house. Even if you don’t, there’s probably one in your neighborhood. And in the public library. And in the courthouse. There’s hardly anywhere in the world you can go and not find a Bible.
The New Testament is not only a thing, it’s the same thing. That is, wherever you find a New Testament, you’ll find that it has exactly the same 27 writings listed in the table of contents. The three main branches of Christianity – Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and Protestant – all claim the same New Testament as their founding documents. Individual Christian denominations number in the tens of thousands, but they all use the same New Testament. Christian denominations, and even Christians within a single denomination, argue among themselves about what the New Testament means, but they don’t argue about what the New Testament is. They all agree it’s the same 27 texts.
Even when the New Testament is in a different language, it still says the same thing. Even when different translation versions exist in the same language – and there are over 100 different English translations – they only differ on minor points, never on major ones. John the Baptist is never Fred the Baptist. Pontius Pilate is never Pontius Smith. Jesus is never a Gentile. Every New Testament bears witness to the exact same set of material facts.
The New Testament is not only the same thing all over the world today, it’s been the same thing for a long, long time. Its origin as a collection goes back to the 4th and 5th centuries. That’s over 1,500 years of existence! It’s way too late for anyone to try to change its contents now. Some people may not like it, but it is what it is. And what it is, among other things, is the complete set of the 27 primary historical sources we have for the life of Jesus of Nazareth.
The 27 texts were written in the 1st century by Jesus’ apostles and associates but not published as a compete collection until the 4th century. There are quite a number of reasons for this, including the fact that the texts were written by different individuals at different times in different places for different recipients, with no stated plan for ever assembling them all, much less giving them the collective name “New Testament.” When in the 4th century the Roman Emperor and empire decided to embrace Christianity, hundreds of geographically-dispersed and organizationally-autonomous Christian churches in existence at that time agreed that only 27 authentic texts came from the apostolic generation, which was the 1st century. The few disagreements that remained were resolved by the end of the 5th century. These 27 texts are exactly what you’ll find in all New Testaments to this day.
- Gospels by
- Matthew, one of the 12 apostles
- Mark, helper to Peter and Paul
- Luke, helper to Paul
- John, one of the 12 apostles
- Acts of the Apostles by Luke
- Epistles by
- Paul the apostle (14)
- James, a brother of Jesus (1)
- Peter, one of the 12 apostles (2)
- John (3)
- Jude, a brother of Jesus (1)
- Revelation by John
These 27 texts by these 8 authors were labeled “the New Testament” without even the need for an ecumenical council to debate, finalize, and ratify the decision. The 300-year vetting process had been sufficient and hundreds of independent congregations did not have to be coerced to agree. They were independently all voicing the same conclusion.
The table of contents in every Bible reports on this verdict by ancient churches regarding authenticity and inspiration of the 27 texts. That is, the ancient verdict as reflected in the table of contents we still see today was both historical and theological. Theologically, by calling the 27 texts the “New Testament” and combining them with the Jewish Scriptures, identifying those, by contrast, as the “Old Testament,” the ancient churches were claiming that Jesus’ apostles were as inspired by God as Israel’s prophets had been. Two testaments, put on a par, with one labeled as “Old” and the other as “New.” But that’s the theological dimension, on which we are not currently focused.
As for the historical dimension, it is found in the titles of the 27 books. Because of space limitations, the book titles in the table of contents are usually shortened, with the fuller titles appearing at the beginning of each book. For example, “Romans” in the table of contents will usually say “The Letter of Paul to the Romans” at the beginning of the letter. Therefore, the author of each book is named explicitly in either in the table of contents or at the head of the book itself. As we saw above, the historical claim of the titles is that these 8 authors were known contemporaries and followers of Jesus…and that’s what makes them primary historical sources for his life. The ancient churches are bearing witness to the identities of the witnesses of Jesus. And there was no pope ruling over them in those days, nor was any vote taken among them to secure their testimony. It was practically unanimous agreement among the hundreds of these congregations about the authenticity of these texts and authors, and, correspondingly, it was a silent rejection of the many forgeries in circulation at that time.
In proclaiming the New Testament writings and authors, the ancient Christians were not testifying to some esoteric theological point. They were testifying to a very mundane fact: who wrote which text. This is the same thing every publisher of every book does – whether it’s an ancient book or a modern one. That is, the publisher declares the author of the work. How do we know that Aristotle wrote the books ascribed to him? From the generations that handed Aristotle’s books down to us. You can substitute for Aristotle every other author of every other book because the principle is the same. When you walk through your local library do you worry about whether the author named in each book is the actual author? Neither should you page through the collection of books we call the New Testament doubting the identity of the author. The publishers – that is, those who bring books to the public – bear witness to the authors.
Sure, there are occasional forgeries in the world of publishing, but they’re usually discovered and rooted out. Maybe there was even a book or two in your county library that had to be removed or re-published. But such occasions are so rare, you are seldom thinking about the possibility of forgery when you’re trying to decide which books you want to check out and read. On top of that, authorship of the New Testament books was scrutinized by far more people and over a more extended period of time than most, if not all, the other books in your local library or book store.
In recent centuries, some biblical scholars have chosen to dispute the authorship claims of the ancient churches. That is, while modern conservative scholars have tended to stick with the verdict of antiquity, modern liberal scholars have given all sorts of reasons why the authors designated by the ancients couldn’t have actually written this or that book of the New Testament. This is why you’ll see many “study Bibles” include an introductory page by currently credentialed experts at the beginning of each book speculating about who the “true” author might be. It’s also why modern Bibles usually don’t include Paul’s name in “The Letter to the Hebrews” even though Bibles up to and including the King James Version 1611 usually did. Modern scholars think they are more knowledgable about who wrote these 27 texts than ancients scholars. But we are separated by more than 1,500 years from the chain of custody for these writings that the ancients had. Their languages and cultures are foreign to us. For modern scholars to think that they have superior means to ascertain ancient authorship than ancient scholars did is ridiculous. If you want to know whether your copy of Aunt Millie’s recipe for German chocolate cake is actually hers, would you ask her closest relatives or her most distant ones? Would you change your mind if her most distant relatives thought they were much smarter than her closest relatives?
The jury on the authorship of the 27 books of the New Testament rendered its verdict long, long ago. It was a very, very big jury, comprising multiple generations between the 1st century and the 4th who were handing down those texts like prized family recipes. Those folks went to a lot of effort to make sure they weren’t being duped; and ancient people didn’t want to look like patsies anymore than we do. No modern scholar or group of scholars – no matter how smart they think they are – will ever be as close to the evidence as the ancients were. That trail is cold. The ancients told us who wrote each of the 27 New Testament documents, and every one of the authors were from the same generation as Jesus. Therefore, they all wrote was within living memory of him. That’s what makes them prime historical sources for his life.
The New Testament’s table of contents doesn’t tell us a lot of things, but what it does tell us is very, very important from a historical point of view. It tells us the identity of the 8 authors who produced the 27 texts. Therefore, we are not receiving testimony about Jesus from anonymous sources.
Related essays:
- Defining Faith and Related Terms (6 min)
- Toward a Faith in Jesus: My Pivotal Moment (7 min)
- All Essays
10/31/25
The Duty of a Man 