EVIDENCE THAT THE NEW TESTAMENT
WAS WRITTEN IN THE 1
st
CENTURY
In the 1830s German scholars of the Tübingen school tried to date the books as late as the 3rd
century, but the discovery of some New Testament manuscripts and fragments from the 2nd and 3rd
centuries, one of which dates as early as 125 AD (Papyrus 52), disproves a 3rd-century date of
composition for any book now in the New Testament.
Additionally, a letter to the church at Corinth in the name of Clement of Rome in 95 AD quotes from
10 of the 27 books of the New Testament, and a letter to the church at Philippi in the name of
Polycarp in 120 quotes from 16 New Testament books.
Ignatius of Antioch (35-107 A.D.) was a student of the Apostle John. He was martyred, killed by Lions
in the arena in Rome. After his arrest and during his transportation to Rome, he wrote seven letters
(later, some obviously spurious additional letters were attributed to him – these are ignored here).
The letters of Ignatius, written very close to 107 A.D., quote from several New Testament books as
well.
EVIDENCE FOR JESUS AND THE EARLY
CHURCH FROM NON-CHRISTIAN WRITERS
Reporting on Emperor Nero's decision to blame the Christians for the fire that had destroyed Rome in
A.D. 64, the Roman historian Tacitus wrote:
Nero fastened the guilt ... on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus,
from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of ...
Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in
Judaea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome....
Another important source of evidence about Jesus and early Christianity can be found in the letters of
Pliny the Younger to Emperor Trajan. Pliny was the Roman governor of Bithynia in Asia Minor. In
one of his letters, dated around A.D. 112, he asks Trajan's advice about the appropriate way to
conduct legal proceedings against those accused of being Christians. Pliny says that he needed to
consult the emperor about this issue because a great multitude of every age, class, and sex stood
accused of Christianity. At one point in his letter, Pliny relates some of the information he has
learned about these Christians:
They were in the habit of meeting on a certain fixed day before it was light, when they sang in alternate verses a
hymn to Christ, as to a god, and bound themselves by a solemn oath, not to any wicked deeds, but never to
commit any fraud, theft or adultery, never to falsify their word, nor deny a trust when they should be called upon to
deliver it up; after which it was their custom to separate, and then reassemble to partake of food – but food of an
ordinary and innocent kind.
Lucian of Samosata was a second century Greek satirist. In one of his works, he wrote of the early
Christians as follows:
The Christians ... worship a man to this day – the distinguished personage who introduced their novel rites, and
was crucified on that account.... [It] was impressed on them by their original lawgiver that they are all brothers,
from the moment that they are converted, and deny the gods of Greece, and worship the crucified sage, and live
after his laws.