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Is the New Testament Reliable?
The historical claims of the New Testament--that Jesus performed miracles, fulfilled prophecy, died and rose again, and ascended into heaven--come to us as received tradition, and we receive them in faith, trusting that the New Testament is indeed an inspired collection of writings, that it indeed tells us the truth. Increasingly, the reliability of not just the New Testament but really any document of history is called into question. If everyone writes from a point of view and with an agenda, can we reasonably expect any historical account to be objective--to tell us the truth? In this newly revised edition of Is the New Testament Reliable? Paul Barnett defends the task of the historian and the concept of history. He then addresses questions about the New Testament of importance to people of faith and skeptics It is no small thing to trust ancient claims, but Barnett shows that we can take confidence in the New Testament, for it tells us the truth.
197 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1993
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About the author
Paul Barnett
104 books20 followersPaul Barnett, former Anglican Bishop of North Sydney, Australia, is a Visiting Fellow in Ancient History at Macquarie University and Teaching Fellow at Regent College, Vancouver and Moore College, Sydney. He is a frequent traveler to Israel, where Christianity began, and to Turkey and Greece, to which it rapidly spread.
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
March 30, 2011
The book in itself is a fascinating piece of literature that very clearly and specifically lays out the evidence for the reliability of the New Testament. Barnett leads the reader through each of the Gospels, the letters of Paul, and the Acts of the Apostles, each time providing historical and factual evidence for the reliability of the texts. Barnett wrote his book as to the skeptical unbeliever. He relied solely on facts and history to prove the reliability of the New Testament and kept faith out of it. The author seemed to have made a very clear case based on physical evidence alone.
Barnett opened his book with statements regarding the veracity of history. Basically, asserting that history in itself is a reliable representation of the truth of past events. He then moved on to point out a few extra-biblical references to the existence of Jesus; not references of His deity or authority, but merely to the fact that He did live here on earth. Some of his references were of Roman nature, while others were Jewish. This specific topic was extensively covered.
Barnett then fixed some loose time frames for the life of Christ, the death of Herod, the writings of the apostles, and other Christian writings. He covered in brief the transmission process of tradition, translation, and teachings of the early church. Two witnesses of Jesus, John and Peter, were then thoroughly investigated and put to the test of reliability. They passed with flying colors. Also present in the book was a moderately extensive list of physical, archaeological evidences that corroborate the Bible. The plethora of physical evidence provided by the author is quite fascinating. Although I know there is more, Barnett's inventory is quite satisfactory for a skeptic, ranging from ossuaries to engravings to inscriptions and such. He presents all of these pieces of evidences with a detailed explanation of its place of origin, uses, biblical references, and extra-biblical references.
A few other great discussion points were raised and dealt with. One was about ben-Kosiba being the real messiah in the minds of a few Jewish rabbis. This man was renamed by Rabbi Akiba 'bar-Kokhba', which meant 'son of a star' and would fulfill a Jewish prophecy. Ben-Kosiba was born a century after Jesus Messiah, and now virtually nothing is known about him. Another was regarding miracles in the modern world. Being that there is a lot more knowledge about the physical world now, people are less inclined to seriously consider the supernatural as having been possible. Barnett responds to this saying,
“It is because God chose to 'visit' our world in the person of His Son at that time and place that those extraordinary things happened in relationship to Him. Understand that the great miracle is the incarnation of the Son of God...and the miracles are reasonable to believe. Indeed, if Jesus was 'Emmanuel...God with us' (Mt 1:23) we should be surprised if miracles did not take place.” (105).
All in all I was fairly pleased with the book, however, there were a few contentions between his writings and me. I thoroughly doubt the Markan priority to which Barnett clings. The early church fathers held Matthew to have been written first of the Gospels. Markan priority is a fairly recent movement within the church. Also, by going against what was handed down by the earliest apostles, new divisions and questions regarding the inerrancy and authority of scripture are created. By introducing the possibility of 'pseudo authors' such as Q, L, M, and so on, there arises a great cloud of doubt and skepticism regarding the text as a whole. The Gospel of Mark does not even account the resurrection, while Matthew gives two accounts of the risen Lord Jesus. Mark does not mention the birth or childhood of Jesus, but Matthew does.
The Gospel of Matthew is a very detailed, expansive, thorough account of the life of Christ, Old Testament prophecies, the death and resurrection of Jesus. It is more reasonable to assume that Mark borrowed passages from Matthew and Luke to write his shorthand account than vise versa. Matthew was written to a Jewish audience, while Mark was written to a Roman/Gentile audience. Logically, it is more reasonable for the first written Gospel to have been written to Jews, being that the account followed a fellow Jew, Jesus.
Barnett opened his book with statements regarding the veracity of history. Basically, asserting that history in itself is a reliable representation of the truth of past events. He then moved on to point out a few extra-biblical references to the existence of Jesus; not references of His deity or authority, but merely to the fact that He did live here on earth. Some of his references were of Roman nature, while others were Jewish. This specific topic was extensively covered.
Barnett then fixed some loose time frames for the life of Christ, the death of Herod, the writings of the apostles, and other Christian writings. He covered in brief the transmission process of tradition, translation, and teachings of the early church. Two witnesses of Jesus, John and Peter, were then thoroughly investigated and put to the test of reliability. They passed with flying colors. Also present in the book was a moderately extensive list of physical, archaeological evidences that corroborate the Bible. The plethora of physical evidence provided by the author is quite fascinating. Although I know there is more, Barnett's inventory is quite satisfactory for a skeptic, ranging from ossuaries to engravings to inscriptions and such. He presents all of these pieces of evidences with a detailed explanation of its place of origin, uses, biblical references, and extra-biblical references.
A few other great discussion points were raised and dealt with. One was about ben-Kosiba being the real messiah in the minds of a few Jewish rabbis. This man was renamed by Rabbi Akiba 'bar-Kokhba', which meant 'son of a star' and would fulfill a Jewish prophecy. Ben-Kosiba was born a century after Jesus Messiah, and now virtually nothing is known about him. Another was regarding miracles in the modern world. Being that there is a lot more knowledge about the physical world now, people are less inclined to seriously consider the supernatural as having been possible. Barnett responds to this saying,
“It is because God chose to 'visit' our world in the person of His Son at that time and place that those extraordinary things happened in relationship to Him. Understand that the great miracle is the incarnation of the Son of God...and the miracles are reasonable to believe. Indeed, if Jesus was 'Emmanuel...God with us' (Mt 1:23) we should be surprised if miracles did not take place.” (105).
All in all I was fairly pleased with the book, however, there were a few contentions between his writings and me. I thoroughly doubt the Markan priority to which Barnett clings. The early church fathers held Matthew to have been written first of the Gospels. Markan priority is a fairly recent movement within the church. Also, by going against what was handed down by the earliest apostles, new divisions and questions regarding the inerrancy and authority of scripture are created. By introducing the possibility of 'pseudo authors' such as Q, L, M, and so on, there arises a great cloud of doubt and skepticism regarding the text as a whole. The Gospel of Mark does not even account the resurrection, while Matthew gives two accounts of the risen Lord Jesus. Mark does not mention the birth or childhood of Jesus, but Matthew does.
The Gospel of Matthew is a very detailed, expansive, thorough account of the life of Christ, Old Testament prophecies, the death and resurrection of Jesus. It is more reasonable to assume that Mark borrowed passages from Matthew and Luke to write his shorthand account than vise versa. Matthew was written to a Jewish audience, while Mark was written to a Roman/Gentile audience. Logically, it is more reasonable for the first written Gospel to have been written to Jews, being that the account followed a fellow Jew, Jesus.
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January 12, 2025short answer, yes.
May 26, 2011
Recommended by Byron Borger. Barnett does a nice job of making the conversation accessible, though at times I feel like he compromises what should/can be more complex aspects.
October 17, 2021
The author mainly uses the New Testament as evidence to prove the reliability of the New Testament, so didn't find it convincing. The best parts of the book is when the author uses other sources to corroborate. However not enough focus is given on exploring the intentions of the writers of these sources when using them as evidence to support the New Testament.
February 21, 2022
good points were made but it was an incredibly boring read
September 17, 2022
Read this in 2 days for a class which I don’t recommend at all. Can a book be both extremely dry yet also grounding for one’s faith? If so, I found one.
March 30, 2011
Paul Barnett’s approach is a primarily historical approach. He wishes to inform the reader about the reliability of the New Testament whether or not the reader is a devout Christian or a dedicated atheist. This approach, although very noble and respectable, provides a rather different lens to view the bible. The reader gets the opportunity to see the bible in a real fashion where only history and “facts” can support it. This at first makes the Christian reader rather uneasy but proves to be a very neat perspective of viewing the bible. It manages to peel back the “faith-based” factor of the bible in a respectable way so that it can allow the reader to see real people living during a real time where they are writing about a real person (Jesus) who lived in a real place. It simply makes the New Testament so much more real.
Although there are some things in the book that are not covered as detailed as I would have liked (topics such as the sources of the books and the order of the writing of the gospels), the book provides a very simple and brief overview of the topics. As a reader, I found that although the book was written as simple as possible, some times I was not able to grasp ideas because I did not know the historic background. I could only imagine how someone who was just picking up the book to find out whether the New Testament was reliable or not could follow along with the ideas of the book.
In the long run, I do want to emphasize that the topics were necessary and that they did support the main argument of the book, which was to inform the reader of the reliability of the New Testament.
Barnett’s book Is the New Testament Reliable? is a valuable tool for those who wish to really study the accuracy of the New Testament as well as a good book for those who doubt its authenticity. It allows the reader to gain knowledge and have reassurance that the bible is a historically sound document, which in turn may allow some to grow a deeper love and respect for the book. The book is by no means all there is on the topic, but it certainly is a very well written start to a very exciting, controversial, and sometimes “hard-to-find-resources-for” topic.
Although there are some things in the book that are not covered as detailed as I would have liked (topics such as the sources of the books and the order of the writing of the gospels), the book provides a very simple and brief overview of the topics. As a reader, I found that although the book was written as simple as possible, some times I was not able to grasp ideas because I did not know the historic background. I could only imagine how someone who was just picking up the book to find out whether the New Testament was reliable or not could follow along with the ideas of the book.
In the long run, I do want to emphasize that the topics were necessary and that they did support the main argument of the book, which was to inform the reader of the reliability of the New Testament.
Barnett’s book Is the New Testament Reliable? is a valuable tool for those who wish to really study the accuracy of the New Testament as well as a good book for those who doubt its authenticity. It allows the reader to gain knowledge and have reassurance that the bible is a historically sound document, which in turn may allow some to grow a deeper love and respect for the book. The book is by no means all there is on the topic, but it certainly is a very well written start to a very exciting, controversial, and sometimes “hard-to-find-resources-for” topic.
October 4, 2013
Barnett sets out to try and prove the reliability of the New Testament by proving it's authenticity and historicity. Although this book is probably good for a seeker, or a Christian just setting out on the adventure to New Testament criticism, namely, source, form, and redaction criticism of the text, the treatment itself is just brief overview, and mentions a side or two to very complex issues - for example the "Q" hypothesis of the synoptics. Wouldn't recommend just because there are better resources on this topic, for example, D.A. Carson and Moo's treatment of New Testament Survey.
October 19, 2008
Read for Contemporary Christian Belief. Fairly good, really. Addresses whether or not the NT is trustworthy.
March 6, 2012
A better book is the one written by F.F. Bruce.
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May 28, 2013Really good book and not too long
August 11, 2016
A standard work on the reliability of the gospels.
June 27, 2016
Good introduction to this area of NT study; perfect for a beginner.
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews