1.

The Earliest Non-Christian References to Jesus (peace be upon him)

Introduction
The Christian neophyte, greenhorn and polemicist, Sam Shamoun, has made a number of amazing claims in one of his usual shallow propaganda tracts entitled: The New Testament Documents and the Historicity of the Resurrection. From the title it is clear that the greenhorn desires to demonstrate the "historicity" of the resurrection. He attempts to go about this task by offering reasons why one should view the New Testament as a reliable collection of documents. Of course, the greenhorn does not say that the New Testament writings are inerrant in this propaganda of his. But we know from his other writings that by "reliable" he means reliable to the point of inerrancy. We do not intend to offer a point by point reply to the above in this paper. Instead, we will expose some of his clumsy assertions in this rebuttal.

Use of Josephus
In a section entitled "Early Non-Christian References to Jesus" the neophyte cites a few nonChristian writers. In this paper we will examine his strange use of the non-Christian sources beginning with a look at his use of the Jewish historian Josephus, who is cited as follows: It comes as no surprise to find Josephus writing on the ministry of Jesus Christ, called the Testimonium Flavianum: "Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it is lawful to call him a man, for he was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews, and many of the Gentiles. He was the Christ, and when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men among us, had condemned Him to the cross, those that loved Him at the first did not forsake Him; For He appeared to them alive again in the third day; and the divine prophets had foretold these and countless other wonderful things concerning Him. And the tribe of Christians so named from Him are not extinct at this day." (Antiquities, xviii. 33.) The following is a tenth-century Arabic version of the Testimonium: "At this time there was a wise man who was called Jesus. And His conduct was good, and [He] was known to be virtuous. And many people from among the Jews and the other nations became His disciples. Pilate condemned Him to be crucified and to die. And those who had become His disciples did not abandon His discipleship. They reported that He had appeared to them three days

after His crucifixion and that He was alive; accordingly, He was perhaps the Messiah concerning whom the prophets have recounted wonders." Notice carefully the bits which have been emphasised: the part according to which Jesus (peace be upon him) was resurrected and appeared alive on the third day. The neophyte has placed bold emphasis on this part obviously because he wants his readers to take them seriously. Although he does not say it in so many words, the unstated message conveyed by the bold is "look! even Josephus mentions the resurrection!" This is precisely the part which scholars almost universally regard to be a Christian addition to Josephus' writing. Almost no scholar accepts the authenticity of the reference to the resurrection within Josephus' above paragraph. Realizing the problematic character of the paragraph as it appears above, the neophyte jumps into a desperate - and weird - damage control mode as follows: Many scholars attacked this passage as nothing more than a Christian forgery due its proChristian statements. Others, however, agree that the reference has an authentic core to it, despite its seemingly pro-Christian insertions. The neophyte does not state clearly that scholars who argue for an "authentic core" in the above paragraph do not include within it the reference to the resurrection of Jesus (peace be upon him). In other words, they too regard the mention of the resurrection to be a later Christian interpolation. Yet the neophyte still added bold emphasis upon the almost universally acknowledged interpolated part above! Why? He proceeds to then cite scholars who actually exclude from the "authentic core" the reference to the resurrection: New Testament scholar Edwin M. Yamauchi explains that although there is obvious Christian terminology used throughout, there are a number of factors that point to a Josephan style of writing: 1. Jesus is called a "wise man." Though the phrase is complimentary, it is less than one would expect from Christians. 2. "For he was one who wrought surprising feats." This is not necessarily a statement that could only have come from a Christian. 3. "He won over many Jews and many of the Greeks" is simply an observation. 4. "Those who had in the first place come to love him did not give up their affection for him," confirms to Josephus' characteristic style. 5. "and the tribe of the Christians, so-called after him, has till this day not disappeared." Most scholars would agree that the word phylon "tribe", is not a

typically Christian expression. (Michael J. Wilkins and J.P. Moreland, Jesus Under Fire: Modern Scholarship Reinvents the Historical Jesus, p. 213) Renowned Jewish scholar Geza Vermes also believes that the Testimonium originates from Josephus, albeit with Christian additions. Vermes demonstrates that the expressions 'wise man' and a 'performer of astonishing deeds' are thoroughly Josephan in style: (1) The form of the description of Jesus as sophos aner and paradoxon ergon poietes, when compared with the presentation of other personalities, biblical and post-biblical, strikes me as genuinely Josephan. King Solomon is referred to as 'a wise man possessing every virtue' (andri sopho kai pasan arten echonti) (Ant. viii 53). The prophet Elisha was 'a man renowned for righteousness' (aner epi dikaiosune diaboetos) who performed paradoxa erga (Ant. ix 182). Daniel, in turn, is portrayed as 'a wise man and skilful in discovering things beyond man's power' (sophos aner kai deinos heurein ta anechana) (Ant. x 237). A little later he appears as 'a good and just man' (aner agathos kai dikaios) (Ant. x 246). Ezra is said to have been 'a just man who enjoyed the good opinion of the masses' (dikaios aner kai doxes apolauon agathes para to plethei) (Ant. xi 121). Among post-biblical personalities, Honi-Onias is called 'a just man and beloved of God' (dikaios aner kai theophiles) (Ant. xiv 22), and Samaias 'a just man' (dikaios aner) (Ant. xiv 172). John the Baptist is introduced as 'a good man' (agathos aner) who 'exhorted the Jews to lead righteous lives, to practice justice towards their fellows and piety towards God' (Ant. xviii 117). As for the leading Pharisee at the time of the outbreak of the first revolution, Simeon ben Gamaliel, he is presented as 'a man highly gifted with intelligence and judgment' (aner pleres suneseos kai logismou) (Vita 192) ... In brief, there seems to be no stylistic or historical argument that might be marshaled against the authenticity of the two phrases in question. In fact, the clause that follows 'wise man', viz. 'if indeed one might call him a man' (eige andra auton legein chre), which is generally recognized as an interpolation, seems to support - as Paul Winter has aptly pointed out - the originality of sophos aner, an idiom which in the mind of a later Christian editor required further qualification. (2) In addition to appearing prima facie to be Josephan, closer analysis of sophos aner and paradoxon ergon poeites points to the improbability of their later Christian provenance. To begin with, the title 'wise man' has no New Testament roots, and in the absence of such an authoritative backing it is, I think, totally unfit to express the kind of elevated theological notion that a forger would have intended to introduce into Josephus' text. It would have been meaningless to invent a testimony that did not support the belief of the interpolator. But not only does it fail to convey the idea of the divine Christ of the church; it actually conflicts in a sense with New Testament terminology. Jesus is admittedly twice identified by Paul in I Cor. 1:24 and 30 with the abstract 'wisdom of God', but the adjective sophos as applied to men in the same chapter

(1:18-31) carries a pejorative connotation. Furthermore, on the only occasion where the Gospels put this word into the mouth of Jesus, 'the wise' are unfavourably compared to 'babes' (nepioi) (Matt. 11:25; Luke 10:21). In the few instances where the term sophos is employed positively, it relates to Christian teachers, but never to Jesus himself. (Vermes, Jesus In His Jewish Context [Fortress Press Minneapolis, 2003], pp. 92-93; bold emphasis ours) Both Yamauchi and Vermes do not conclude that the reference to resurrection is coming from Josephus. Vermes is only concerned with showing the authenticity of two phrases: sophos aner and paradoxon ergon poietes. Both of these scholars regard it (the mention of resurrection) to be a later Christian interpolation. In fact, Vermes clearly states in a recent book: Josephus' reference in the Testimonium Flavianum to the resurrection of Jesus is considered by all modern experts as a Christian interpolation. (Geza Vermes, The Resurrection, 2008, Penguin Books Ltd, p. 157.) The neophyte continues to quote and writes: Even the radical liberal NT scholar and Jesus Seminar co-founder and member, John Dominic Crossan, believes that both the Testimonium and Tacitus' statement are basically authentic early witnesses to Jesus. Crossan writes: Jesus' death by execution under Pontius Pilate is as sure as anything historical can ever be. For, if no follower of Jesus had written anything for one hundred years after his crucifixion, we would still know about him from two authors not among supporters. Their names are Flavius Josephus and Cornelius Tacitus ... We have, in other words, not just Christian witnesses but one major Jewish and one major pagan historian who both agree on three points concerning Jesus: there was a movement, there was an execution because of that movement, but, despite that execution, there was a continuation of the movement. In describing civil disturbances during Pontius Pilate's rule over the Jewish homeland's southern half between 26 and 36 C.E., Josephus mentions Jesus and followers called Christians. His text was later preserved under Christian control, and I give their delicate but deliberate improvements italicized within brackets so that you can ignore them: About this time there lived Jesus, a wise [if indeed one ought to call him a man]. For he was one who wrought surprising feats and was teacher of such people as accept the truth gladly. He won over many Jews and many of the Greeks. [He was the Messiah]. When Pilate, upon hearing him accused by men of the highest standing amongst us, had condemned him to be crucified, those who had in the first place come to love him did not give up their affection for him. [On the third day he appeared to them restored to life, for the prophets of God had prophesied

these and countless other marvelous things about him.] And the tribe of the Christians, so called after him, has still to this day not disappeared. (Jewish Antiquities 18.63) (Crossan, Who Killed Jesus? Exposing the Roots of AntiSemitism in the Gospel Story of The Death of Jesus [HarperSan Francisco, paperback edition 1996], p. 5) Putting aside Tacitus for a while and focussing only upon Josephus, we need to ask: what does he mean by "basically authentic"? Crossan too believes that the mention of the resurrection is a secondary Christian addition/interpolation into Josephus' writing as is so clear from his above cited words. Thus, the "basically authentic" part LACKS all mention to the resurrection. Why then has bold emphasis been added upon the spurious lines: "For He appeared to them alive again in the third day" and "They reported that He had appeared to them three days after His crucifixion and that He was alive"? Naturally, he placed bold emphasis upon the above lines since they convey something he likes. But the neophyte's own cited sources say they are interpolations! The neophyte extracts the following points from his use of Josephus and other non-Christian sources (which we will discuss in a while):

1. 2. 3.

Jesus Christ was worshipped as God. Christ performed wonderful deeds. Christ was sentenced to die on a cross by the orders of Pontius Pilate during the reign of Tiberius. Christ's followers claimed that he had appeared alive to them after his death, affirming that he had been resurrected, something considered to be nothing more than a superstition. Those who were devoted to him refused to recant their faith, opting instead to die horrible deaths for the sake of the one they had come to love and adore. Jesus' brother was well known even by non-Christians, having been put to death presumably for his belief that his brother was in fact the Messiah.

4.

5.

6.

(We have replaced the bullets with numbers so readers can more easily follow the response)

Numbers 1 and 4 find no mention in Josephus. If we had Josephus alone and if we were to accept the authenticity of "the core", then we could only infer some or all of the contents of numbers 2, 3, 5 and 6 (see below for what precisely we learn about Jesus (peace be upon him) from Josephus). The crucial point, the resurrection, is in fact not mentioned by ANY of the non-Christian sources cited by Shamoun. We will now consider his citations of other non-Christians one by one below (we will maintain the neophyte's emphasis): 1. Thallus: In the third book of his history, Thallus calls this darkness an eclipse of the sun wrongly in my opinion. (5.50) No mention to the resurrection above or to any other points mentioned by Shamoun. More than that, we learn nothing from the above about any of the teachings and deeds of Jesus (peace be upon him), or even the views of his later followers. Furthermore, if we suppose that Thallus did link the eclipse with Jesus (peace be upon him), then it is probable that he was simply repeating what Christians at the time already believed. Thus, instead of offering independent information based on his own personal witness and experience, Thallus countered a popular Christian belief with the argument that the darkness came about as a result of an ordinary eclipse and was not of a miraculous nature. Voorst, who cautiously accepts the authenticity of Africanus' Thallus remark, writes: Since Thallos seems to be refuting a Christian argument, he likely knew about this darkness at the death of Jesus from Christians, either directly or indirectly, not from an independent source. . . . Darkness at the death of Jesus was just as likely an element of oral Christian proclamation. As Craig Evans remarks, this reference does not prove that there really was darkness - however it is to be explained - during the time of Jesus' crucifixion.7 Rather, it is evidence for the early tradition of darkness at Jesus' death. (Robert Van Voorst, Jesus Outside the New Testament: An Introduction to the Ancient Evidence (Studying the Historical Jesus), 2000, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, pp. 22-23) 2. Pliny the Younger: "I have never been present at an examination of Christians. Consequently, I do not know the nature of the extent of the punishments usually meted out to them, nor the grounds of starting an investigation and how far it should be pressed ... I have asked them if they are Christians, and if they admit it, I repeat the question a second and third time, with a warning of the punishment awaiting them. If they persist, I order them to be led away for execution; for, whatever the nature of their admission, I am convinced that their stubbornness and unshakable obstinacy ought not to go unpunished ... They also

declared that the sum total of their guilt or error to be no more than this: they had met regularly before dawn on a fixed day to chant verses alternately amongst themselves in honor of Christ as if to a god, and also bind themselves by oath, not for any criminal purpose, but to abstain from theft, robbery, and adultery ... This made me decide that it was all the more necessary to extract the truth by torture from two slavewomen whom they call deaconesses. I found nothing but a degenerate sort of cult carried to extravagant lengths." There is no mention to the resurrection above. All it says about Jesus (peace be upon him) is that the Christians in the region worshipped Jesus (peace be upon him) "as if to a god." While this letter is valuable when it comes to knowing how far Christianity had spread in the second century and what some Christians believed at the time, it is of no use when it comes to ascertaining what the historical Jesus (peace be upon him) said and did. The letter only tells us what a group of Christians in a particular region believed about Jesus (peace be upon him). A group of leading Evangelical scholars conclude: Pliny, the governor of Bithynia (now part of Turkey), writes about the problems Christians were causing for him, but the only mention of Jesus in his long letter is that they sang 'a hymn to Christ as to a god.' There is not much basis here for a knowledge of Jesus as a historical figure! (Dr Richard Baukham, Rev, Dr R. T. France, Melba Maggay, Dr James Stamodis, Dr Carsten Peter Thiede (Consulting Editors), Jesus 2000: A major investigation into history's most intriguing figure, 1989, Lion Publishing plc, p. 11.) Meier agrees and says: Suetonius, Pliny the Younger, and Lucian are often quoted in this regard [as independent witnesses of Jesus' existence], but in effect they are simply reporting something about what early Christians say or do; they cannot be said to supply us with independent witness to Jesus himself. (John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus: The Roots of the Problem and the Person, Vol. 1, 1991, 1st Edition, The Anchor Bible reference library, Doubleday, p. 91.)

3. Lucian of Samosata "the man who was crucified in Palestine because he introduced this new cult into the world... Furthermore, their first lawgiver persuaded them that they were all brothers one of another after they have transgressed once for all by denying the Greek gods and worshipping the crucified sophist Himself and living under His laws." There is no mention to the resurrection above. Lucian of Samosata (c. 125-180 C.E.) was a Greek satarist, well-known for his dialogues (Dialogues of the Gods, Dialogues of the Dead, The Sale of Lives), who spoke harshly against the Christians and Jesus (peace be upon him) (Lucian does not use the names "Jesus" or "Christ" but refers to Jesus (peace be upon him) as the "sophist".). He said that Christians were a gullible people who worshipped a man who was crucified. Lucian is writing at a late date (near the end of the second century) and is offering no

independent information about Jesus (peace be upon him). Instead, he is aware that Christians of his time worshipped a man and he merely attacks Christian beliefs as he understood them. In other words, he does not know independently that Jesus (peace be upon him) was crucified, but is simply repeating and attacking what Christians at the time already believed. As Meier correctly notes: . . . no doubt Lucian is reflecting the common knowledge "in the air" at that time, not an independent source of historical data. (John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus: The Roots of the Problem and the Person , Vol. 1, 1991, 1st edition, The Anchor Bible reference library, Doubleday, p. 92. (see also his comments under Pliny the Younger) From Lucian we learn nothing about the teachings and deeds of Jesus (peace be upon him) or even the beliefs of his immediate followers. 4. Tacitus: "But all human efforts, all the lavish gifts of the emperor, and the propitiation of the gods did not banish the sinister belief that the conflagration was the result of an order. Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures 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 one of its procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judea, the first source of the evil, but even Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their center and become popular ..." There is no mention of the resurrection in the above. Yet the neophyte offers this amazing spin of Tacitus' words: The only superstition that had broken out from Judea to Rome was the Christian claim that on the third day the crucified Christ had been resurrected from the dead. Instead, the superstition is a reference to the Jesus (peace be upon him) movement itself and not to a specific belief held by its adherents. It is this Jesus movement which eventually spread out of Judea to other areas. While Tacitus may have indeed known the Christian belief in the resurrection of Jesus (peace be upon him), and perhaps other Christian beliefs, in this instance, however, he does not make mention of any specific Christian belief. Mark Allan Powell writes: Tacitus gives no indication that he knows anything about the beliefs of these Christians . . . much less about the life or teaching of Jesus himself.6 (Mark Allan Powell, The Jesus Debate: Modern Historians Investigate The Life Of Christ, 1998, Lion Publishing plc., p. 39.)

As John Meier explains: ... they [the Christians] constitute a deadly or dangerous superstition. That is to say, they are a recently invented and rapidly spreading oriental cult that spurns the Roman gods, practices secret and probably nefarious rites, and therefore is subversive of the good order of the Roman state. In Tacitus' pessimistic view of Roman history, Christians are just another sign of Rome's decline from integrity and virtue into corruption and decadence. (John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus: The Roots of the Problem and the Person, Vol. 1, 1991, Doubleday, The Anchor Bible Reference Library, p. 90.) Meier goes on to comment (Ibid, p. 91): In Tacitus' view, the execution of this Christ suppressed the dangerous religious movement of Christians for a brief time; but it quickly broke out again, first in Judea, but then spreading rapidly as far as Rome. What should be noted here is that Tacitus implies by his phraseology that the Christian movement was already in existence before Christ's execution; otherwise, it could not have been "suppressed" for a brief period by his death. Thus could, of course, be just another example of a naive retrojection by a Greco-Roman historian; we have already seen an example in Josephus. But it is worth noting that Tacitus has no sense that Christians, as a movement named for Christ, arose only after his death. By implication, the same hateful vices of the movement that caused their execution under Nero caused the execution of Christ under Tiberius. That this letter offers very limited information and is no independent source for the historical Jesus (peace be upon him) is also acknowledged by a group of Evangelical scholars: .Tacitus (about AD 115) describes Nero's attacks on Christians in Rome. He explains who these 'Christians' are by mentioning that in Judea 'the originator of that name, Christus, had been executed when Tiberius was emperor by order of the procurator Pontius Pilate.' That is all, and Tacitus is only repeating what Christians in his day were saying about their origins. (Dr Richard Baukham, Rev, Dr R. T. France, Melba Maggay, Dr James Stamodis, Dr Carsten Peter Thiede (Consulting Editors), Jesus 2000: A major investigation into history's most intriguing figure, 1989, Lion Publishing plc, pp. 10-11.) Furthermore, even the little that he says is problematic. For example, Pilate was not a "procurator" but a "prefect". Pilate was in fact not a "procurator" but a "prefect"; that is, he not only oversaw revenue collection, but also had some military forces at his command. (Bart D. Ehrman, Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium, 1999, Oxford University Press, p. 58.) In any case, Tacitus does not mention the resurrection. From him we learn only that "Christus, from whom their [the Christians'] name is derived, was executed at the hands of the procurator Pontius Pilate in the reign of Tiberius" Tacitus called Christianity a "superstition", which first

appeared in Judea. Besides this, he says nothing about Jesus (peace be upon him) or his followers. Let us once again remind ourselves the inferences the neophyte drew from his use of the above non-Christian references: 1. Jesus Christ was worshipped as God. 2. Christ performed wonderful deeds. 3. Christ was sentenced to die on a cross by the orders of Pontius Pilate during the reign of Tiberius. 4. Christ's followers claimed that he had appeared alive to them after his death, affirming that he had been resurrected, something considered to be nothing more than a superstition. 5. Those who were devoted to him refused to recant their faith, opting instead to die horrible deaths for the sake of the one they had come to love and adore. 6. Jesus' brother was well known even by non-Christians, having been put to death presumably for his belief that his brother was in fact the Messiah. In light of our discussion, we can safely conclude that none of the cited non-Christian sources mention the resurrection. So #4 can be immediately dismissed. It should be noted, however, that even if the neophyte is right in his interpretation of Tacitus, it simply does not follow that "Christ's followers claimed.." In this case Tacitus would be rehashing what Christians of his time (around 115-120 C.E.) believed and not necessarily what the immediate/original followers of Jesus (peace be upon him) believed. Suffice it to say that mention of the resurrection by second century Christians tells us nothing about the historicity of the event itself. Instead, we will revise the above list as follows (excluding Josephus): 1. Jesus (peace be upon him) was being worshipped as a god (Pliny the Younger, Lucian) 2. Jesus (peace be upon him) was crucified (Lucian) in the reign of Tiberius (Tacitus) 3. Christians were stubborn and met regularly before dawn on a fixed day to chant verses in honor of Jesus (peace be upon him) (Pliny the Younger). 4. Jesus (peace be upon him) is presented as the founder of a superstitious movement.

The above discussed pagan sources tell us about the spread of Christianity in the early second century, what some Christians at the time believed and how Christians were perceived by nonChristians. Moreover, they presuppose the historicity of Jesus (peace be upon him). But there is no information within them about the deeds, sayings and teachings of the historical Jesus (peace be upon him). Only from Josephus do we learn slightly more about Jesus (peace be upon him): In his Antiquities, Josephus makes mention of Jesus (peace be upon him) twice. He mentions the Jewish high priest Ananus, who abused his power and unlawfully put to death James, described as "the brother of Jesus who is called the messiah." So we learn that Jesus (peace be upon him) had a brother called James and that he was thought by some to be the messiah. Notice carefully that Josephus does not state that Jesus (peace be upon him) was being "worshipped as a god" by these followers of his. Instead, Jesus (peace be upon him) was believed to be the messiah by them. The second reference to Jesus (peace be upon him) in Josephus is of great controversy. Scholars either reject it in totality as a Christian interpolation, or attempt to prune from it Christian additions. At most, this is perhaps what Josephus may have originally said: At this time there appeared Jesus, a wise man. For he was a doer of startling deeds, a teacher of people who receive the truth with pleasure. And he gained a following both among many Jews and among many of Greek origin. And when Pilate, because of an accusation made by the leading men among us, condemned him to the cross, those who had loved him previously did not cease to do so. And up until this very day the tribe of Christians, named after him, has not died out. (Meier 1991, 91). From the above we learn: 1. Jesus (peace be upon him) was a wise man 2. Jesus (peace be upon him) was a doer of startling deeds 3. Jesus (peace be upon him) was a teacher of people 4. Jesus (peace be upon him) had gained a following among both the Jews and those of Greek origin 5. Pilate condemned Jesus (peace be upon him) to death on the cross on account of an accusation made by the leading Jewish men 6. Jesus' (peace be upon him) followers continued to love him and they still exist. There is no mention of the resurrection in the above and no mention of Jesus (peace be upon him) being "worshipped as a god". Josephus mentions a Jesus (peace be upon him) who is believed to be the messiah and not a divine being which requires worship.

According to Meier, Josephus is our only independent non-Christian source of information about the historical Jesus from the first century and that there is just a "bare possibility" that Tacitus, second century, might be another independent source, though he adds nothing new. See John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus: The Roots of the Problem and the Person, Vol. 1, 1991, 1st edition, The Anchor Bible reference library, Doubleday, p. 92. Consider now the neophytes amazing conclusion: In light of the preceding factors, we find that the non-Christian sources are in agreement with the New Testament portrayal of Jesus Christ. This serves to further establish the authenticity of the New Testament beyond a shadow of a doubt. Reminder: Pliny the Younger and Lucian inform us that the Christians they knew worshipped Jesus (peace be upon him) as a god. Lucian and Tacitus inform us that Jesus (peace be upon him) was executed through crucifixion. Are we to believe that these extraordinarily meagre details which convey no teachings and deeds of the historical Jesus (peace be upon him) - somehow validate everything within the New Testament writings and somehow "establish" the "authenticity" of the latter "beyond a shadow of a doubt"?! How does this work? How can anyone derive this bizarre conclusion? If we are to rely upon Pliny, Lucian, Tacitus and Thallus, then we would learn only a precious little about what some later Christians believed about Jesus (peace be upon him) - that they worshipped him as a god. Period. We would also learn that these Christians were willing to die for their beliefs. How on earth can this fully validate the "New Testament portrayal of Jesus" or justify every claim and contents of the New Testament? On top of that, the New Testament presents multiple portrayals of Jesus (peace be upon him). Precisely which portrayal is "affirmed" by the above pagan references, and how? With Josephus we begin to actually acquire some useful details about Jesus (peace be upon him). According to Josephus, Jesus (peace be upon him) was believed to be the messiah, a wise man, doer of startling deeds and a teacher of people. Surely this does affirm some details within the New Testament about Jesus (peace be upon him). But that does not mean that everything within the New Testament has been affirmed by Josephus, let alone that a so-called "New Testament portrayal of Jesus" is supported by Josephus or that the "authenticity" of the New Testament is "established" beyond "a shadow of doubt"! And given Josephus' rather human and non-divine presentation of Jesus (peace be upon him), should we conclude that some claims of the New Testament are therefore undermined? Putting aside the neophyte's vastly exaggerated and absurd comment, let us see what conclusions actual scholars draw from the non-Christian (pagan + Jewish) references to Jesus (peace be upon him). According to Robert Grant:

Our four Graeco-Roman sources, then, contribute nothing to our understanding of the life of Jesus. The Christian interpolator of Josephus undoubtedly thought that he was helping history to confirm faith. All he succeeded in doing was to remove any independent value from the testimony of Josephus. One might hope for some evidence from rabbinical Jewish sources, but the stories the rabbis tell are late in date and reflect no more than the attitude of the synagogue towards an early heretic. We are left, then, with Christian testimony. If we wish to recover early non-Christian attitudes towards Jesus we can rely only on what Christian sources are willing to tell us about them. (Robert M. Grant, A Historical Introduction to the New Testament, Chapter 19: The Problem of The Life of Jesus) Theissen and Merz rightly conclude: Only the Christian traditions contain details about the life and teaching of Jesus. ( Gerd Theissen, Annette Merz, The Historical Jesus: A Comprehensive Guide, 1998, SCM Press Ltd, p. 86.) A group of Evangelical scholars some of whom occasionally impress us with their own exaggerated claims, have the honesty to conclude: So there is, apart from Josephus, very little evidence about Jesus from contemporary or near contemporary non-Christian writers, and what there is comes from some generations after his time. (Dr Richard Baukham, Rev, Dr R. T. France, Melba Maggay, Dr James Stamodis, Dr Carsten Peter Thiede (Consulting Editors), Jesus 2000: A major investigation into history's most intriguing figure, 1989, Lion Publishing plc, p. 12.) Compare this with the neophyte's ignorant boast. If there is "very little evidence" in the non-Christian writers, then it is simply wrong to assert that "the non-Christian sources are in agreement with the New Testament portrayal of Jesus Christ." Since we do not learn much - in fact barely anything - about Jesus (peace be upon him) in the earliest non-Christian sources, we have no choice but to be constrained to the Christian sources. However, the Christian sources are also problematic and cannot be used and trusted blindly to learn about the historical Jesus (peace be upon him). We will discuss the problems with the Christians sources in another paper. We continue with our exposition of a greenhorn's abuse of evidence and propagation of blatant disinformation in a shoddy propaganda tract.

Previously (*) we examined his misuse and exaggerated claims about the non-Christian references to Jesus (peace be upon him) whereas this time we will consider his indubitably dubious assertions about the manuscripts of the New Testament.

New Testament manuscripts

The greenhorn presents a table listing the earliest and most important New Testament manuscripts. We reproduce the table below but with slight changes so readers can easily understand the data therein:

Biblical Manuscripts Magdalene Ms (Matthew 26) John Rylands (John) Bodmer Papyrus II (John) Chester Beatty Papyri (NT) Diatessaron by Tatian (Gospels) Codex Vaticanus (Bible) Codex Sinaiticus (Bible) Codex Alexandrinus (Bible)

Date Written 1st century 90 AD 90 AD 1st cen. 1st cen. 1st cen. 1st cen. 1st cen.

Earliest Copy 50-60 AD 130 AD 150-200 AD 200 AD 200 AD 325-350 AD 350 AD 400 AD

Time Span coexistent(?) 40 years 60-110 years 150 years 150 years 275-300 years 300 years 350 years

We will begin by making nine preliminary points in response to the above: 1. There is no manuscript/fragment of Matthew from the first century. The earliest evidence for Matthew comes from c. 200. These are p64, p67 and p104. Therefore, the neophyte committed a factual error here. The neophyte later cites Carsten Thiede as saying (his emphasis in all instances, unless otherwise stated): ".we either have a portion of the original gospel of Matthew, or an immediate copy, which was written while Matthew and the other disciples, and eyewitnesses to the events were still alive. This would be the oldest manuscript portion of our Bible in existence today, one which co-exists with the original writers!"

There is no "portion" of the "original" Matthew in existence nor is there an "immediate copy" of it in existence. This marvellous re-dating of p64 was first proposed by Carsten Thiede, an evangelical freelance academic researcher, who attempted to show that papyrus 64 (known as p64), consisting of three small scraps containing parts of Matthew 26: 7-8, 10, 14-15, 22-23, 3133 (these tiny scraps do not constitute a "copy" of Matthew!), were first century fragments. Thiede's arguments are universally rejected by the scholarly community. Therefore the greenhorn's claim that this fragment dates from "50-60 AD", as if this were an accepted indisputable fact, is nothing short of gross disinformation. There are a number of scholarly refutations to Thiede, some of them available online:

An online review by Professor Elliott Media Papyri: Examining Carsten Thiede's Rediscovered Fragments by Sigrid Peterson, PhD The Date of the Magdalen Papyrus of Matthew (P. Magd. Gr. 17 = P64): A Response to C.P. Thiede, by Peter M. Head A critique in a Christian magazine Indiana Jones and the Gospel Parchments.

A simple search on the internet would have made it quite clear that Carsten Thiede does not have much of a reputation in the scholarly arena and that his dating of p64 is universally rejected by scholars. But then again, we are dealing with a greenhorn! According to evangelical textual critic, Prof. Holmes: The claim by C. P. Thiede that fragments of Matthew should be dated to "c. A.D. 66" is based on a rat's nest of fanciful hypotheses and unsubstantiated assertions ... (Michael W. Holmes, Textual Criticism, in, David Alan Black & David S. Dockery (Editors) Interpreting the New Testament: Essays on Methods and Issues, 2001, Broadman & Holman Publishers, p. 66, footnote No. 11.) (More on the greenhorn's use of Thiede below). 2. John Rylands, also known as p52 - which is the earliest fragment of the New Testament - may be placed anywhere up to around 150 AD. The amount of text found on this fragment is hardly of any value in determining how much of the Gospel according to John at this stage agreed with the present canonical version or with any earlier phase. Prof. Ehrman says: ...the fact is that we can only approximate the date of this fragment's production within fifty years at best (it could as easily have been transcribed in 160 as 110). Moreover, we do not know exactly where the fragment was discovered, let alone where it was written, or how it came to be discarded, or when it was. As a result, all extravagant claims notwithstanding, the papyrus in itself reveals nothing definite about the early history of Christianity in Egypt. One can only conclude that scholars have construed it as evidence because, in lieu of other evidence, they have chosen to. (Bart D. Ehrman, The Text as Window: New Testament Manuscripts and the Social History of Early Christianity, in The Text of the New Testament In Contemporary Research: Essays

On The Status Quaestionis, Bart D Ehrman & Michael W. Holmes (Editors), 1995, William B. Eedermans Publishing Company, p. 372.) 3. There is no "Biblical manuscript" known as the "Diatessaron" which is used by textual critics for the restoration of the New Testament text. Instead, the Diatessaron was a gospel harmony composed by Tatian (around 170 AD): the distinctive phrases of the gospels were combined by Tatian to produce a single narrative. Where Tatian could not harmonise the accounts, he ignored them (for example, the genealogies in Matthew and Luke). In this way Tatian managed to produce a single gospel book, consisting of the distinctive phrases from multiple gospels, as well as lacking some of their contents. Nor is there a "copy" of the Diatessaron in existence. Unfortunately, the Diatessaron is now lost. The late William L. Petersen, an authority on the Diatessaron, explained: No direct copy of Tatian's Diatessaron exists. Instead, the scholar must be content with a wide array of sources, and attempt to reconstruct the Diatessaron's text from them. These sources, called "witnesses" to the Diatessaron, range in genre from poems to commentaries, in language from Middle Dutch to Middle Persian, in extent from fragments to codices, in date from 3d to 19th century, on provenance from England to China. Mastering these sources is the key to Diatessaronic scholarship. (Helmut Koester, Ancient Christian Gospels: Their History and Development, 1990, Trinity Press International, p. 408.) A challenge for scholars is to reconstruct the text of the Diatessaron as best they can. Doing so would enable them to gain an idea about the state of the gospel texts during the time of Tatian and may even make it possible to access the text form contained in manuscripts of around the mid-second century. (Reference and discussion has been taken and adapted from this paper). As should be obvious by now, it is not possible to systematically reconstruct the New Testament text on the basis of the Diatessaron. Additional observations: 4. Chester Beatty, consisting of p45 (contains parts of the four Gospels and Acts), p46 (contains parts of the Pauline Epistles including Hebrews), p47 (contains Revelation 9:10-17:2.), is placed anywhere between 200-250 C.E. Helmut Koester notes: However, this manuscript is very fragmentary. Only chapters 20. 21. 25-26 of the Gospel of Matthew, chapters 4-13 of the Gospel of Mark, chapters 6-13 of the Gospel of Luke, and chapter 10 of the Gospel of John have been preserved. (Helmut Koester, Ancient Christian Gospels: Their History and Development, 1990, Trinity Press International, p. 241.) Bodmer papyri are also a collection of papyrus, some as late as the seventh century. p66 (late 2 nd to early 3rd century - preserves most of John), p72 (3rd century - contains 1-2 Peter and Jude), p74

(7th century - portions of Acts, James, 1-2 Peter, 1-3 John and Jude), p75 (late 2nd or early 3rd century - one of the earliest manuscript of Luke - containing portions of chapters 3-5, all of 6-17, half of 18, and almost all of 22-24, together with nearly all of John 1-12, and portions of 13-15), p73 (7th century - contains only three verses of Matthew). 5. 1 Peter, 2 Peter, 1 John, 2 John, 3 John, Jude, Philemon, James, 2 Thessalonians, Acts and Mark appear for the first time in fragments or completely (3 John, 1 and 2 Timothy) in witnesses from the third and/or fourth centuries. Matthew (p64) and Luke (p4), on the other hand, appear in fragments which are placed in the late-second to early-third century period. The time gap for the Pauline writings is considerable. Paul wrote sometime in the 40's and 50's and the earliest fragments of his letters are from the late-second to early-third century period (p46). The shortest gap for any New Testament writing is that for the gospel according to John. Interestingly enough, the 3rd/4th century p72, the earliest witness for 1 Peter, 2 Peter and Jude, also contains the Nativity of Mary, the apocryphal correspondence of Paul to the Corinthians, the eleventh ode of Solomon, Melito's Homily on the Passover, a fragment of a hymn, the Apology of Phileas and Psalms 33 and 34. 6. Codex Vaticanus, Sinaiticus and Alexandrinus, dating from the 4th and 5th centuries - are removed from the autographs by centuries. Furthermore, they either contain extra books or lack some canonical books: Sinaiticus contains both the Epistle of Barnabas and Shepherd of Hermas; Vaticanus lacks 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, Titus, Revelation, and Alexandrinus contains I and II Clement. More differences are to be observed when we take into account the Old Testament books in these codexes. For example: Codex Sinaiticus includes Tobit, Judith, 1 and IV Maccabees, Wisdom and Sirach. Codex Vaticanus contains Baruch, Epistle of Jeremiah, Tobit, Judith, Wisdom of Solomon and Sirach. Codex Alexandrinus includes Baruch, Epistle of Jeremiah, Psalm additions (I), Tobit, Judith, Wisdom of Solomon, Sirach, I, II, III and IV Maccabees. 7. The earliest New Testament manuscripts are quite fragmentary and even completely lacking from the first century. For the major part of the second century there is nothing save the tiny p52 and p90. Substantial witnesses only begin to emerge from around c. 200. The vast majority of manuscripts date from the 9th century and onwards. Hardly forty or fortysix manuscripts/fragments may be placed before the fourth century. These forty-three oldest papyri, by century, are p52, p90 (2d); p32, p46, p64/67, p66 (ca. 200); p77 (2d/3d); p1, p4, p5, p9, p12, p15, p20, p22, p23, p27, p28. p29, p30, p39, p40, p45, p47, p48, p49, p53, p65, p69, p70, p75, p80, p87, p91, p95 (3d); and p13, p16, p18, p72, p78, p92 (3d/4th). 7 (Eldon Jay Epp, Chapter 1 The Papyrus Manuscripts of the New Testament, in, The Text of the New Testament In Contemporary Research:

Essays On The Status Quaestionis, Bart D Ehrman & Michael W. Holmes (Editors), 1995, William B. Eedermans Publishing Company, p. 6) Less than 2.5% are from the first five centuries: In all, something over five thousand witnesses to the Greek New Testament are extant today. Many (if not most) of these, it should be noted, are fragmentary or incomplete. Only 3 majuscules ... and fifty-six minuscules contain the entire New Testament; another 2 majuscules and 147 minuscules lack only Revelation.16 As for content, the Gospels are found in just over 2,300 MSS, the Acts and Catholic letters in about 655, and the Pauline letters in about 780, and Revelation in about 290. With regard to date, over 65 percent are from the eleventh through the fourteenth centuries, while less than 2.5 percent are from the first five centuries.17 (Michael W. Holmes, Textual Criticism, in, David Alan Black & David S. Dockery (Editors) Interpreting the New Testament: Essays on Methods and Issues, 2001, Broadman & Holman Publishers, p.49.) 8. Not all New Testament writings are attested by 5000+ manuscripts. Take Acts for example. It is found in around 573 manuscripts. Thus by stating that there are 5000+ manuscripts of the New Testament, a misleading impression is given as if there are 5000+ manuscripts of all the individual New Testament writings. Consider also the book of Revelation. This book has probably the lowest number of manuscripts. The Alands write: . . . the Gospels are preserved in 2,361 manuscripts, the Apostolos in 662 [Acts + Catholic epistles], the Pauline letters in 792, and Revelation in 287 Greek manuscripts. (Kurt Aland, Barbara Aland, The Text of the New Testament: An Introduction to the Critical Editions and to the Theory and Practice of Modern Textual Criticism, 1989, Second Edition, William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company Grand Rapids, Michigan, p. 78-79.) Of the 792 manuscripts of the Pauline letters, 71 are fragmentary. We can see that Acts, the Catholic epistles and Revelation appear in only a few hundred manuscripts, not an impressive figure, whereas the Pauline letters appear in less than a thousand manuscripts. According to Michael Holmes: As for content, the Gospels are found in just over 2,300 MSS, the Acts and Catholic letters in about 655, and the Pauline letters in about 780, and Revelation in about 290. (M. W. Holmes, "Textual Criticism", in D. A. Black & D. S. Dockery (Eds.), Interpreting The New Testament: Essays On Methods and Issues, 2001, Broadman & Holman Publishers: Nashville, p. 49.) Christian apologist David Stone writes: ... by far the majority [of Greek manuscripts] ... contain just the text of the Gospels. The Epistles are found together with Acts, in about 400 copies, while the Pauline Epistles alone appear in about 300 copies. There are 250 or so surviving copies of the Book of

Revelation. (David Stone, The New Testament (Teach Yourself Books), 1996, Hodder & Stoughton Ltd UK, p. 96.)

So when we consider the writings individually, the numbers vary, with the gospels having the most manuscripts and other writings, such as Acts, Revelation, Pauline and the Catholic epistles, having not that many witnesses. Helmut Koester notes: ... the manuscript tradition for the NT writings is uneven, and, for the first century of the manuscript transmission, even completely lacking. There are only about four dozen manuscripts which contain the entire NT anyway, and only the smaller portions of these are uncials from V to X CE, the others medieval minuscules. All other manuscripts contain but a part of the NT, and among these the majority are manuscripts of the gospels, while the Pauline epistles are represented less frequently, and manuscripts of the Catholic Epistles - not the mention the Revelation of John - are comparatively rare. (Helmut Koester, An Introduction To The New Testament: History And Literature Of Early Christianity (Vol. 2), Walter De Gruyter, 1982, p. 19.) 9. There appear to be no more than 61 manuscripts containing the whole of the New Testament: The number of Greek "manuscripts that contain the entire New Testament canon" has recently been set at sixty-one (including one duplicate).1 This is one more than previously calculated. In The Text of the New Testament the Alands claimed that only three uncials and fifty-six minuscules (excluding the duplicate one) "contain the whole of the New Testament"2 In the new edition of his Text of the New Testament, Bruce Metzger claims fifty-eight complete copies but provides no documentation.3 The fluctuation in count indicates the uncertainty over the actual contents of many of the minuscules.4 Even the three great uncials on the list require a disclaimer, because their contents are not limited to "the whole New Testament:" Codex Sinaiticus . also includes Barnabas and Hermas, while Codex Alexandrinus (A, 02) adds 1-2 Clement. Codex Ephraemi (C, 04) has many lacunae, including all of 2 Thessalonians, 2 John, and the ending, so it could have contained other writings as well. Codex Vaticanus (B, 03) has to be excluded because it ends at Heb 9:13, with the rest of Hebrews and Revelation supplied by a minuscule manuscript from the fifteenth century. As a result, the portion originally located between Hebrews and Revelation in the sequence of many earlier manuscripts, the Pastoral Letters and Philemon, is lacking entirely in the present combination of the two manuscripts. With such variations in mind, these "complete New Testament manuscripts" are the ones assumed to have been "originally complete" or "written as complete New Testaments,"5 so far as can be determined. (Daryl D. Schmidt, The Greek New Testament as a Codex, in, L. M. McDonald and J. A. Sanders (Editors), The Canon Debate, 2002, Hendrickson Publishers, p. 467.)

Most Christians of the past centuries never got to see what an entire Bible was supposed to look like! We will continue with our discussion of the New Testament manuscripts in the next section.

Addressing Shamounion bloopers

We must now turn our attention to a series of blatant pieces of disinformation presented by the greenhorn, beginning with his most amazing claim. He boasts: In comparison [to the works of antiquity], we have copies of the NT which date approximately 15-20 years after the authors of scripture originally penned the autographs. If this is so, then why does he not present a single example of a "copy" of the New Testament dating "approximately 15-20 years after the authors of scripture originally penned the autographs"? It is because this highflying claim is a big lie. There is not a single tiny little miniscule fragment - let alone a copy or "copies"! - of any part of the New Testament dating "approximately 15-20 years after the authors of scripture originally penned the autographs." There is no fragment/manuscript of any part of the New Testament from the first century. The manuscript evidence for the New Testament is COMPLETELY LACKING FROM THE FIRST CENTURY! Sizable manuscript evidence for the New Testament only begins to surface from around c. 200. Prior to this, we have the tiny little p52. Another fragment from the second century is p90, containing John 18:36 - 19:1 and 19:2-7. The earliest copy of the New Testament is the fourth century Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus. As noted above, Sinaiticus also contains the Epistle of Barnabas and Shepherd of Hermas while Vaticanus is incomplete. There is no Greek manuscript before 800 AD which has exactly 27 New Testament books. The greenhorn proceeds: Lukan Papyrus: "The Lukan papyrus, situated in a library in Paris has been dated to the late 1st century or early 2nd century, so it predates the John papyrus by 20-30 years (Time April 26, 1996, pg.8)." WRONG again. There is no such papyrus in existence. The greenhorn has presented a hoax.

The ACTUAL earliest witnesses for Luke are p4 (c. 200) and p75 (late second/early third century). The greenhorn proceeds: Mark and Qumran: "But of more importance are the manuscript findings of Mark and Matthew! New research which has now been uncovered by Dr. Carsten Thiede, and is published in his newly released book on the subject, the Jesus Papyrus mentions a fragment from the book of Mark found among the Qumran scrolls (fragment 7Q5) showing that it was written sometime before 68 AD It is important to remember that Christ died in 33 AD, so this manuscript could have been written, at the latest, within 35 years of His death; possibly earlier, and thus during the time that the eyewitnesses to that event were still alive!" On the contrary, there are no manuscripts and fragments of Mark (and of any other part of the New Testament) among the Qumran scrolls. The earliest witness for Mark is p45, from the early third century. Since Mark was likely composed around 65-70 C.E, this gives us a gap of over a century between Mark and its earliest witness. One Evangelical source states: Its [papyrus 45] approximate date is the early third century, that is, soon after AD 200. This is more than a century after the last of the Gospels was written . (Dr Richard Baukham, Rev, Dr R. T. France, Melba Maggay, Dr James Stamodis, Dr Carsten Peter Thiede (Consulting Editors), Jesus 2000: A major investigation into history's most intriguing figure, 1989, Lion Publishing plc, p. 18.) Once again, textual critics have dismissed Carsten Thiede's claims. There are no fragments of Mark in Qumran. No Christian text is to be found in Qumran. Refutations to Thiede are also available online: 7Q5: The Earliest NT Papyrus? By Daniel B. Wallace, Ph.D. Higher Critical Review, Carsten Peter Thiede, Rekindling the Word: In Search of Gospel. - Review by Daryl D. Schmidt Refutation of Carsten Peter Thiede's Rejection of the 7QEnoch Identification by way of an analysis of the arguments put forth by Thiede in his book: "The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Jewish Origins of Christianity. 7Q5: Is it 'Mark' and does it matter? Collected responses to Peter Carston Thiede

"Early" Gospel Fragments The above are just a few refutations that we came across within minutes while surfing the net. Was the greenhorn so utterly incompetent so as to be unable to execute a simple online search to ascertain how scholars treat Carsten Thiede's novel theories and spins? Burton Mack seemed to have the greenhorn in mind when he summed it up rather nicely and wrote: Thiede's Dead Sea Scrolls scenario is preposterous; his theory about the Markan fragment among the Dead Sea Scrolls has been discredited; and the mass of detailed scholarship on the origins and history of early Christian movements and their writings has simply been swept aside in the eager pursuit of a chimera. From a critical scholar's point of view, Thiede's proposal is an example of just how desperate the Christian imagination can become in the quest to argue for the literal facticity of the Christian gospels. (Burton L. Mack, Who Wrote The New Testament? The Making of the Christian Myth, 1995, HarperSanFrancisco Publishers, pp. 9-10.) The greenhorn also mentioned ...the possible discovery of several NT quotations found in Qumran. As was expected, the source used to put forth this huge claim is none other than Thiede, and the late Jose O'Callahan, a palaeographer, whose views are quoted from the "Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics" - hardly a credible source or authority on textual criticism. Suffice it to say that such claims have been unanimously rejected by scholars. Even these apologists are not so confident and certain if the New Testament is quoted in Qumran and thus need to use phrases such as "possible discovery", "if valid" and "if further research confirms O'Callahan's theories" and so on. This is an indication of the weakness of their arguments, and shows that either consciously or subconsciously they are aware of the futile nature of their theories. For a detailed discussion of Thiede's use of the Qumran scrolls, see:

Textual Reliability / Accuracy Of The New Testament

According to the greenhorn: We have today in our possession 5,300 known Greek manuscripts of the New Testament, another 10,000 Latin Vulgates, and 9,300 other early versions (MSS), giving us more than 24,000 manuscript copies of portions of the New Testament in existence today! A number of points can be made in response: A. As noted in #8 in the previous section, not all New Testament writings are attested by 5000+ manuscripts. The Pauline epistles, Acts, the Catholic epistles and Revelation appear in only a few hundred manuscripts.

B. Textual critics do not count manuscripts; they consider the quality and age of manuscripts. Of the 5000+ manuscripts, around 90% belong to the Byzantine text type. This is deemed to be the worst and the latest of the text types. As a result, manuscripts of this text type are barely used for the reconstruction of the earliest forms of the New Testament text. C. As noted in #7 in the previous section, the vast majority of the manuscripts are from the middle-ages and hardly 2.5% from the first five centuries. D. Besides the papyrus, the Greek manuscripts of the New Testament are divided into three parts: minuscule, majuscule and lectionary manuscripts. i. Minuscules: these form the bulk of the manuscripts, about 2,800, and are also the latest: There are several thousand minuscules of the NT, that is, manuscripts written in a cursive hand. Most of them were produced in the late Middle Ages, and the text of the Gospels is best represented. (Helmut Koester, An Introduction To The New Testament: History And Literature Of Early Christianity, 1982, Vol. 2, Walter De Gruyter, p. 29.) The earliest dated minuscule manuscripts date from the ninth century. The oldest dated minuscule MS is the Upsenski Gospels of the year 835 ... (Barbara Aland & Klaus Wachtel, Chapter 3 The Greek Minuscule manuscripts Of The New Testament, in Bart D Ehrman & Michael W. Holmes (Editors), The Text of the New Testament In Contemporary Research: Essays On The Status Quaestionis, 1995, William B. Eedermans Publishing Company, p. 44.) ii. Majuscules: The oldest majuscule manuscripts of the New Testament dates to the mid-third century. Hardly five may be placed before the fourth century. Consider their dates and contents:

Five majuscule MSS may be plausibly dated to a date before 312, although the case is not proved for all of them. The oldest is 0212, the Diatesseron fragment from Dura ... It is dated between 222 and 256 [containing part of a Passion Narrative]; 27 the terminus ante quem is established by archaeological data. The MS is unique among the majuscules in that it is a roll ... A recent commentator seems doubtful that the work can be shown to be Tatian's Diatessaron. 29 0220, containing Rom 4:23-5:3, 8-13 ... is dated by Hatch to "the latter part of the third century rather than early in the fourth." 30 ...

0171 contains verses from Matthew 10 and Luke 22. The Lukan fragment was the first to be found. 31 ... Placed by the first editor and by Cavallo in the fourth century, it is dated to about 300 by Treu and the Alands. 33 0189 is a MS of Acts (5:3-21), published just too late to be used by Ropes. 37 The script is a bookhand that had been in use since the late third century, here written well and carefully, with even pen stokes ... Attempts to bring the date down to "third/fourth" seem to be over optimistic... 0162 (P.Oxy. 847) contains John 2:11-22. It was dated by its editor to the fourth century, and had been brought down to third/fourth century by the Alands. 39 (David C. Parker, Chapter 2 The Majuscule Manuscripts Of The New Testament, in Bart D Ehrman & Michael W. Holmes (Editors), The Text of the New Testament In Contemporary Research: Essays On The Status Quaestionis, 1995, William B. Eedermans Publishing Company, pp. 28-29.)

iii. Lectionaries: The bulk of the lectionaries date from the ninth to the sixteenth century, with the earliest fragment dated to the fourth century (1604). According to the Alands only ten lectionaries are known prior to the 8th century (Kurt Aland, Barbara Aland, The Text of the New Testament: An Introduction to the Critical Editions and to the Theory and Practice of Modern Textual Criticism , 1989, Second Edition, William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company Grand Rapids, Michigan, p. 81). Lectionary manuscripts are important primarily in tracing the history of the New Testament text in the later Byzantine period. As for their significance for the "original" or the earliest forms of the New Testament text, the Alands write: . . . we can only conclude that for New Testament textual criticism, so far as the original text and its early history is concerned, nearly all the approximately 2, 300 lectionary manuscripts can be of significance only in exceptional instances . . . (Kurt Aland, Barbara Aland, The Text of the New Testament: An Introduction to the Critical Editions and to the Theory and Practice of Modern Textual Criticism, 1989, Second Edition, William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company Grand Rapids, Michigan, p. 169.) About 200 lectionaries contain only scattered New Testament texts. In light of the above, the exaggerated nature of the greenhorn's claim becomes clear. Remove most of the 2882 (as of 2008) miniscule manuscripts from the total manuscript count of 5760 (as of 2008). From the remainder further subtract most of the 2436 (as of

2008) lectionaries. Most of the majuscules (318 as of 2008) are also late and belong to the Byzantine text type; hence they too need to be removed. At the end we will be left with considerably less than two thousand manuscripts. This amply demonstrates the exaggerated nature of the greenhorn's claim. Look at Table II in this paper: the largest number of manuscripts used by scholars to prepare any critical edition of the Greek New Testament is for UBS GNT-3, using 905 manuscripts.

The gap between the original and the earliest manuscript VS the gap between the alleged event and its earliest written record
There are two separate issues to consider here: 1) gap between the date of events alleged within a document and the date of its earliest written record; 2) gap between the original and its earliest written record. The first is of relevance here. These are two separate topics and should not be confused. Apologists such as the greenhorn try to fool the readers when they talk about a relatively insignificant issue - the gap between the original document and its earliest fragment. It is the latter gap which matters. G. A. Wells probably had Shamoun in mind when he explained: Many play what they regard as a trump by confusing these two topics ... and if this interval [between a document and its earliest copy] is not distinguished from the interval relevant to topic 1, then apologists think they can claim not only textual accuracy, but also historicity of a Christian text's contents. (G. A. Wells, The Jesus Myth, 1998, Open Court Publishing Company, p. 3.)

Consider the issue this way: Jesus (peace be upon him) was on earth sometime in the 30's. The earliest New Testament fragment, p52, may be placed anywhere between 110-160 AD. This gives us a gap of around 80-130 years between Jesus (peace be upon him) and the earliest gospel fragment. But we may ignore p52 since it really does not contain much of a New Testament apart from five lines. Our earliest substantial manuscript of the gospel of John (p66) is from c. 200 CE, giving us a gap of over a century between the events alleged therein and the its earliest written record. The gap between the original and its earliest witness it not as important as the gap between the alleged events and their earliest written record. The most significant changes occurred in the period prior to the textual transmission of the gospels. The textual changes are comparatively of a secondary nature (which is not to say that they are unimportant). The primary changes occurred before the textual stage, in the period between Jesus (peace be upon him) and the writing of the canonical gospels. This takes us to our next point.

Textual reliability and historical reliability

The unstated suggestion in the greenhorn's pile of half-truths is that textual reliability = historical reliability. But it does not follow. We can have a document which is textually reliable, but that does not mean that it is historically reliable as well, so that we can accept all of its claims at face value. There can be a textually sound document with, nonetheless, historically questionable details. Therefore, even if the New Testament texts were "generally authentic", it would not render all of its contents historically reliable and accurate, let alone to the point of inerrancy. Elsewhere the greenhorn appeals to Bruce Metzger for the preservation of the New Testament text. But note that that does not lead Metzger to conclude that we can trust every claim made within the New Testament. For example, Metzger also wrote: The recounting of Jesus' teaching and activities entailed a certain amount of modification in order to bring out more clearly their meaning when applied to new situations. (Bruce M. Metzger, The New Testament, its background, growth and content, 2nd edition, enlarged, Abingdon Press Nashville, p. 98.) Also (p. 99): It is obvious that it would be unwarranted to regard the Gospels as a journalists verbatim report of what happened yesterday. What the evangalists have preserved for us is not a photographic reproduction of all the words and all the deeds of Jesus, but something more like four interpretative portraits. Each of these portraits presents distinctive highlights of Jesus' person and work, and taken together, the four provide a varied and balanced account of what Jesus said and did.

Just as the gospel writers altered and modified stories to suit their needs, so did those handling the Jesus (peace be upon him) traditions prior to them: (p.89) ... each evangelist has produced a distinctive presentation of the common gospel message. The most obvious reason which accounts for their variety is that each writer had access to a somewhat different body of oral traditions regarding Jesus' words and works. Moreover, since each evangelist had in mind a special reading public, he would naturally choose to emphasize those details which, in his view, were most suited to communicate the message of the Gospel to that reading public. The natural consequence is that each evangelist as a literary artist has drawn his own distinctive portrait of Jesus Christ.

Metzger admits that those who passed on the stories and words about/of Jesus (peace be upon him) in the earliest period altered them (p. 86): There is no reason to doubt that a significant portion of the words and events included in the Gospels are there not only because they figured in the life of Jesus, but also because they served some vital need in the life of the early church. Since, moreover, many of the

sayings of Jesus were preserved mainly by being preached, they were liable in this way to a certain, rather an uncertain, amount of modification with a view to bringing out the point of them in one or another set of circumstances in the primitive church. What each evangelist has preserved, therefore, is not a photographic reproduction of the words and deeds of Jesus, but an interpretative portrait delineated in accord with the special needs of the early church.

It is true that Metzger also stated that there was no "free invention" of gospel traditions and draws the reader's attention to the presence of eyewitnesses who would have acted as a "check" upon wholesale invention and distortion of Jesus' (peace be upon him) works and words (pp. 8788). Metzger, nonetheless, acknowledged the occurrence of modifications of Jesus' (peace be upon him) words and stories prior to the composition of the gospels and also attributed at least some creativity on the part of the gospel writers in further adapting those words and stories for their own purposes. Metzger also wrote that while John recorded some "valuable historical data" and supplementary information (p. 95), John was "guided by theological rather than simple historical interests" (p. 95) and implied that the Synoptics are more historical and reliable when he wrote (p. 96): While the synoptics preserve the sayings of Jesus more exactly in their original language and form, the fourth evangelist employs more freely his own modes of thought and language in reporting and interpreting the discourses of Jesus. If we are to accept Metzger's words (which are quite conservative), then it would mean that we just cannot accept the claims of the New Testament - particularly the claims of the gospel of John - at face value as if they convey pure historical details. We need to apply some sort of criteria upon the New Testament to determine which claims are likely (or less likely) to be historical. Therefore, just because the text of the New Testament may be "generally reliable", it does not mean that, for example, the story of the resurrection is historically accurate. As Tuckett explains: Nevertheless the nature of the Gospel tradition means that we cannot simply take everything recorded in all the Gospels as unquestionably genuine reports about what Jesus said or did in a pre-Easter situation. (Christopher M. Tuckett, Christology and the New Testament: Jesus and His Earliest Followers, 2001, Westminster John Knox Press, p. 203.) Conclusion: general textual reliability does not render the New Testament historically reliable in all its claims and details. It certainly does not render the New Testament "inerrant" by any means.

Conclusion
In this paper we exposed a number of highflying pieces of blatant disinformation presented by the greenhorn on the manuscript evidence of the New Testament. Either the greenhorn lied or he was too ignorant to get elementary facts straight and thus committed a series of embarrassing blunders. Whatever option you select, it reflects very badly upon the greenhorn. One wonders why he was unable to check an introductory book on textual criticism written by a competent textual critic to get some basic facts right while composing his propaganda. In fact, had he even bothered to conduct a search on the internet, he would have easily discovered a number of papers exposing the disinformation and distortions we exposed above.