Establishing the Evidence
Published
Key Point: The New Testament text was preserved by people who loved it enough to copy it.
The Jesus Study is all about answering the question "Who is Jesus?" using history, context, and public discussion. Over the next 6 weeks, we will answer the question "Who is Jesus?" by exploring his origins. Specifically, how do we know that this figure actually existed? How do we know what his origins are? And what does this tell us about Jesus?
Often, when people think of Jesus, they think of Christianity. But many other religions outside Christianity claim Jesus is an important figure in their faith and have texts that differ from the Christian accounts of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
To name a few:
- Islam, originating approximately 622 AD, claims Jesus to be the Messiah, a prophet of God, and son of Mary (Surah An-Nisa 4:171) but not the Son of God. Islamic texts also state that Jesus was not killed or crucified (Surah An-Nisa 4:157–158)
- Baháʼí Faith claims Jesus to be a manifestation of God
- Some Hindu traditions view Jesus as a divine incarnation, holy man, or guru (The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda, Volume 8, Notes of Class Talks and Lectures, “The Divine Incarnation or Avatara.”)
- Druze Faith claims Jesus to be a prophet and religious figure
- Manichaeism believes Jesus was a major revealer of divine truth
Each of these religions also has its own writings about who Jesus is.
Discussion: If so many religions claim to know who Jesus is, how can we actually know what is true about him?
To determine what is true about Jesus, we must first examine the evidence we have.
Although Hinduism dates back to 1500 BC, our textual discussion of Jesus dates only to the 19th century CE. The Baháʼí Faith originated in Persia and includes several writings about Jesus, but again they reach back only to the 19th century, the first of which is called the Bahá'u'lláh. The texts associated with Islam date back to 622 AD (the earliest surviving manuscript of Surahs 18, 19, and 20 is dated to the 7th century). Predating all of these texts are the texts associated with Manichaeism, including a gospel account written by a man named "Mani," who identified himself as "the apostle of Jesus Christ," written around 250 AD, although only fragments exist today, dating back to 350-400 AD.
Although Hinduism dates back to 1500 BC, our textual discussion of Jesus dates only to the 19th century CE. The Baháʼí Faith originated in Persia and includes several writings about Jesus, but again they reach back only to the 19th century, the first of which is called the Bahá'u'lláh. The texts associated with Islam date back to 622 AD (the earliest surviving manuscript of Surahs 18, 19, and 20 is dated to the 7th century). Predating all of these texts are the texts associated with Manichaeism, including a gospel account written by a man named "Mani," who identified himself as "the apostle of Jesus Christ," written around 250 AD, although only fragments exist today, dating back to 350-400 AD.
And predating all of the religious texts of Jesus are four accounts: The Gospel according to
- Matthew
- Earliest manuscript fragment found P104, dated 2nd century CE, and the earliest full manuscript is Codex Vaticanus, written in Greek, dated AD 325–350
- Mark
- The earliest manuscript fragment found is P137, late 2nd century, and the earliest full manuscript is Codex Vaticanus, written in Greek, dated AD 325–350
- Luke
- The earliest manuscript fragment found is P4, 3rd century, and the earliest full manuscript is Codex Vaticanus, written in Greek, dated AD 325–350
- John
- The earliest manuscript fragment found is P52 2nd century and the earliest full manuscript is Codex Vaticanus, written in greek, dated AD 325–350
What is the Codex Vaticanus?
A "Codex" is what we would call a standard book today. It is a stack of pages held together by a binding, rather than a long parchment rolled into a scroll. This matters because if you read each individual book of the New Testament, you'll find most of them aren't books at all. Instead, they were letters written for a specific purpose and audience.
Today, the normal process for sharing a book worldwide is that a writer gives his work to a publisher, who prints 10,000 copies at once and gets them into stores. But that is not how the letters in the Codex Vaticanus were originally distributed.
It started as one letter, and when it reached its intended audience, church members often hand-copied it and shared it with others, who also made copies. And whenever somebody didn't have a copy, they could handwrite another copy. It could easily go from 1 original to 10 copies, to 100 copies, to 1000 copies, and, pretty soon, these letters could be distributed throughout the world and become well known without a publisher or mass production in just a few years.
You might ask how individual members could make sure their copies were legitimate. At that time, they would simply go to someone else with a copy and compare. It was not easy to make a false copy and try to sell it as if it were true because
Today, the normal process for sharing a book worldwide is that a writer gives his work to a publisher, who prints 10,000 copies at once and gets them into stores. But that is not how the letters in the Codex Vaticanus were originally distributed.
It started as one letter, and when it reached its intended audience, church members often hand-copied it and shared it with others, who also made copies. And whenever somebody didn't have a copy, they could handwrite another copy. It could easily go from 1 original to 10 copies, to 100 copies, to 1000 copies, and, pretty soon, these letters could be distributed throughout the world and become well known without a publisher or mass production in just a few years.
You might ask how individual members could make sure their copies were legitimate. At that time, they would simply go to someone else with a copy and compare. It was not easy to make a false copy and try to sell it as if it were true because
- They could be copied for free as long as you could afford parchment and ink.
- Authentic copies outnumbered the fake copies.
Another question you might ask is: How did these people know the apostles actually wrote these letters? When you read these letters, you will often see the messenger mentioned by name (Romans 16:1–2, Ephesians 6:21–22). These letters were not delivered to these churches by unknown men, but they were delivered by men held in high esteem. So the people who received these letters knew they came from the person named in the letter. This is why everyone copied these letters: the church knew they were authentic, and fakes were easy to spot if they weren't delivered by esteemed people.
So there was a list of letters that were well known and widely distributed throughout the church, and known to be authentic before there was ever an official "Christian book." And we have quotes from early Christian writers that talked about these different letters and their authenticity. To name a few
So there was a list of letters that were well known and widely distributed throughout the church, and known to be authentic before there was ever an official "Christian book." And we have quotes from early Christian writers that talked about these different letters and their authenticity. To name a few
- Papias of Hierapolis (AD 60-130) says
- "Mark, having become the interpreter of Peter, wrote down accurately, though not in order, whatsoever he remembered of the things said or done by Christ."
- He also says that Matthew was originally written in Hebrew, which gives us insight that it's likely his account was written to Jews
- Irenaeus of Lyons (AD 130-202) in a work called Against Heresies states
“Matthew also issued a written Gospel among the Hebrews in their own dialect, while Peter and Paul were preaching at Rome, and laying the foundations of the Church.”
He continues:
“After their departure, Mark, the disciple and interpreter of Peter, did also hand down to us in writing what had been preached by Peter.”
Then, concerning Luke and John:
“Luke also, the companion of Paul, recorded in a book the Gospel preached by him. Afterwards, John, the disciple of the Lord, who also had leaned upon His breast, did himself publish a Gospel during his residence at Ephesus in Asia.”
- Additionally, Clement of Alexandria, writing around the beginning of the third century, discussed the origins of the four Gospel accounts in his work Hypotyposes. A generation later, Origen of Alexandria discussed their authorship in his Commentary on Matthew. In his Homilies on Luke, Origen also distinguished the four Gospels accepted by the churches from other writings attributed to figures such as Thomas and Matthias.
So, the early church understood which letters were authentic and which were questionable based on how they were shared. The Church didn't maintain the authenticity of these letters by establishing a master copy of each one; it was maintained by the sheer volume of authentic copies distributed throughout the world and the decentralized nature of the church.
The creation of the Codex or "book"
So these letters were floating around the world but this leads us to our next question: How did these letters become a book or a "Codex" like in the case of the Codex Vaticanus and like we have today?
It is beyond the scope of The Jesus Study to dive into the complete history of events that unfolded in the Roman Empire during the third and early fourth centuries. But the Roman Emperor Constantine commissioned a man named Eusebius to collect all of the copies of the letters which the church already held in esteem and counted to be authentic and compiled them into 50 codices or books around AD 331–332 (Eusebius, Life of Constantine, Book 4, Chapters 36–37). But it is not accurate to say that these copies became "master copies" by which every other copy was judged, since the letters contained in these codices were already circulating throughout the world. We also cannot conclude that these 50 copies were the most accurate, as that would require judging them against all other manuscripts from that period.
Scholars are not sure if Codex Vaticanus is one of those 50 copies but it stands to reason that it could be since it is dated to approximately 325-350 AD and it was compiled in the form of a codex. But it's important to recognize that those 50 copies would have been outnumbered by thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of copies already circulating worldwide, and even after almost 1600 years, scholars have still found a substantial number of fragments from the same period.
In fact, below is the number of manuscripts found from before 500 AD that are still in existence today (Pages 413-414):
The creation of the Codex or "book"
So these letters were floating around the world but this leads us to our next question: How did these letters become a book or a "Codex" like in the case of the Codex Vaticanus and like we have today?
It is beyond the scope of The Jesus Study to dive into the complete history of events that unfolded in the Roman Empire during the third and early fourth centuries. But the Roman Emperor Constantine commissioned a man named Eusebius to collect all of the copies of the letters which the church already held in esteem and counted to be authentic and compiled them into 50 codices or books around AD 331–332 (Eusebius, Life of Constantine, Book 4, Chapters 36–37). But it is not accurate to say that these copies became "master copies" by which every other copy was judged, since the letters contained in these codices were already circulating throughout the world. We also cannot conclude that these 50 copies were the most accurate, as that would require judging them against all other manuscripts from that period.
Scholars are not sure if Codex Vaticanus is one of those 50 copies but it stands to reason that it could be since it is dated to approximately 325-350 AD and it was compiled in the form of a codex. But it's important to recognize that those 50 copies would have been outnumbered by thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of copies already circulating worldwide, and even after almost 1600 years, scholars have still found a substantial number of fragments from the same period.
In fact, below is the number of manuscripts found from before 500 AD that are still in existence today (Pages 413-414):
- Matthew: 36 manuscripts
- Mark: 21 manuscripts
- Luke: 20 manuscripts
- John: 34 manuscripts
So Constantine, or anyone else, could not have simply created a new copy that differed from the rest without threatening their credibility. Whether the Codex Vaticanus is one of those copies or not, the information it contains was long established by an unbreakable, traceable trail and an overwhelming volume of copies. So even though one of the world's biggest empires produced its own copies of these texts, their authenticity did not rely on those copies; it relied on the centuries before, when people who loved these texts copied them, and they spread rapidly throughout the world.
Codex Vaticanus and our translations today
The Codex Vaticanus was written in Greek, the original language, and we can read it today by translating it into English. But differences exist between our Bible versions today, such as the King James Version (KJV), and what the Codex Vaticanus records. For example, if we compare the Codex Vaticanus to our KJV version today:
Codex Vaticanus and our translations today
The Codex Vaticanus was written in Greek, the original language, and we can read it today by translating it into English. But differences exist between our Bible versions today, such as the King James Version (KJV), and what the Codex Vaticanus records. For example, if we compare the Codex Vaticanus to our KJV version today:
- Mark 16:9–20 — These 12 verses are absent from the Codex Vaticanus.
- John 7:53–8:11 — The KJV includes the account of the woman caught in adultery, where Jesus says, “He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.” This account is absent from Vaticanus.
- John 5:4 — The KJV describes an angel descending to stir the water at the pool of Bethesda, allowing the first person entering the water to be healed. This verse is absent from Vaticanus.
- Matthew 6:13 — The KJV concludes the Lord's Prayer with, “For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen.” This concluding phrase is absent from Vaticanus.
- Matthew 17:21 — The KJV records Jesus saying, “Howbeit this kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting.” This verse is absent from Vaticanus.
- 1 John 5:7–8 — The KJV includes the statement, “For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one.” This wording is absent from Vaticanus.
- Vaticanus's surviving text ends at Hebrews 9:14 and excludes the remainder of Hebrews, 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, Titus, Philemon, Revelation
Discussion: Can we really rely on our translations today to answer the question "Who is Jesus?" if these verses were not included in the Codex Vaticanus?
Yes, we can.
First, the testimony about Jesus in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John in our current translations largely matches what the Codex Vaticanus contains. Jesus still worked miracles in the Vaticanus (pg 1283–1284); he was still given over to the Romans to be crucified by his own people (pg 1274–1275); he was crucified (pg 1275–1276) and buried (pg 1276); and three days later he rose again (pg 1276–1277).
Second, much can be discussed about manuscripts, but that is outside the scope of The Jesus Study. But one must consider the manner in which these manuscripts were copied. Just because the Codex Vaticanus is the oldest known full codex still in existence today does not mean that it is the most accurate to the original text, since there were many copies in the world at that time. To evaluate whether these verses actually existed in the originals, you must dig into early church quotations and other manuscripts from the same period as the Vaticanus. Here are some places to begin your search:
First, the testimony about Jesus in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John in our current translations largely matches what the Codex Vaticanus contains. Jesus still worked miracles in the Vaticanus (pg 1283–1284); he was still given over to the Romans to be crucified by his own people (pg 1274–1275); he was crucified (pg 1275–1276) and buried (pg 1276); and three days later he rose again (pg 1276–1277).
Second, much can be discussed about manuscripts, but that is outside the scope of The Jesus Study. But one must consider the manner in which these manuscripts were copied. Just because the Codex Vaticanus is the oldest known full codex still in existence today does not mean that it is the most accurate to the original text, since there were many copies in the world at that time. To evaluate whether these verses actually existed in the originals, you must dig into early church quotations and other manuscripts from the same period as the Vaticanus. Here are some places to begin your search:
- Codex Sinaiticus — Original manuscript
- Codex Vaticanus — Vatican Library
- Codex Washingtonianus — Smithsonian
- New Testament Virtual Manuscript Room — Manuscript catalog
To keep things simple for our purposes, we can just put these verses in question that appear in the KJV versions today, and use the rest of the Codex Vaticanus, which agrees with our current translations today, to answer the question "Who is Jesus?" since the Codex Vaticanus is the earliest copy of testimony still in existence today, which predates all Islamic, Baháʼí, Druze, Hindu, and Manichaean texts regarding Jesus.
Conclusion
For the purpose of The Jesus Study, our objective is to answer the question, "Who is Jesus?" by examining the earliest surviving accounts of his life and the historical evidence surrounding those accounts.
The Gospels according to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were circulating long before the Roman Emperor Constantine commissioned fifty copies of the Scriptures in the fourth century. We know this not only from surviving manuscripts dating to the second and third centuries, but also from early Christian writers who discussed these accounts, identified their traditionally recognized authors, and preserved information about their origins.
Although differences exist between the surviving manuscripts, the accounts of Jesus' ministry, miracles, crucifixion, burial, and resurrection are preserved in these early witnesses.
Therefore, rather than beginning our investigation with traditions about Jesus that emerged centuries later, we will begin with Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, examining both what these ancient writings say about Jesus and the historical evidence for their transmission.
Next week, we will begin examining these accounts to answer the question, "Who is Jesus?"