Historicity of the Bible

In Episode 2 we examined the concept of what History is and what Historians do within the field in order to know the veracity of an event, person, or place.  That concept is what is understood as historicity.  Back in Episode 1, we explained that "fancy word" as determining how, or the quality of said event, person, or place as being real, not fiction...not a myth or legend.

So, in this episode we apply those same rules or tools for history to the Bible. The Bible, as I have already explained, is a collection (a library) of 66 ancient manuscripts.  That collection is split into two parts.  The first part is a presentation of the Jewish Holy writings, known to religious Jews as the TaNaKh.  The second part is called "the New Testament" by Christians.

For both sections, we want to discover how many copies of the originals (the autographs) do we have and what is the dating by the experts.  So, how old/young are the copies, and thus how many years between original and first copy?  Remember, we saw in episode 2 that the average number of manuscript copies is about 150 (with some famous works of antiquity have far, far less, while others having more).  And, we learned that the average time span is about 1000 years from orginal to first copy. Does the Bible do better or worse, or is it in the same spot as the other works from antiquity?

We also examine the evidence for determining historicity through internal and external clues.  We first do with looking at the writings of Josephus, Antiquities. For the Bible we focused solely here on the New Testament, looking at creeds within the writings (earlier material memorized and then quoted by the NT writings). For some external clues, we examine the writings of the Church Fathers, and then also writings from non-Christian sources.

For the new research about Josephus, that book is called Josephus and Jesus: New Evidence for the One Called Christ. At least at the time of the writing of these show notes, you can download a free pdf here.