Cold-Case Christianity

by J. Warner Wallace

  JUSTIN TAUGHT TATIAN

  Not everyone who played a role in the scriptural chain of custody had orthodox beliefs. Many recognized (and wrote about) the eyewitness accounts, while misinterpreting them for themselves and their followers. Tatian the Assyrian (AD 120–180) was one such example.171

  Tatian was born (and probably died) in Assyria. He came to Rome, however, for some period of time and studied the Old Testament. He met and became a student of Justin Martyr and converted to Christianity. He studied in Rome with Justin for many years and eventually opened a Christian school there. Over time, he developed a strict form of Christianity that forbade marriage and the eating of meat. When Justin died, Tatian was driven from the church in Rome. He traveled to Syria and eventually wrote his most famous contribution, the Diatessaron, a biblical paraphrase, or harmony, which recognized the existence of the four eyewitness accounts of the Gospels, even as it sought to combine them into one document. The earliest church records in Syria (traced back to Tatian) identified an early canon that included the Diatessaron, the letters of Paul, and the book of Acts. Tatian’s work, combined with this ancient canonical list, acknowledges the early formation of the canon in the chain of custody from Paul to the late second century.

  History does not provide us with precise information about the next link in this particular chain of custody. In any case, this custodial sequence from Paul acknowledges that the eyewitness accounts existed, were treated as sacred Scripture from a very early time, and were handed down with care from one generation to another. All of this happened many years before any council determined what would officially become the New Testament record.

  PETER’S STUDENTS CONFIRMED THE ACCURACY OF THE GOSPELS

  The apostle Peter (ca. 1 BC–AD 67) was perhaps the oldest of Jesus’s disciples. He was also known as Simon Cephas (from the Aramaic version of his name). He was the son of Jonah (John) and was raised in Bethsaida (in Galilee). He was a fisherman (along with his brother Andrew) when he first met Jesus and quickly became a disciple. His story is well known, replete with human failures and triumphs. After the ascension, Peter established the church in Antioch and served there as its bishop for seven years. He eventually traveled to Rome and became bishop there as well. In chapter 5 we discussed the evidence that supports the claim that Mark authored Peter’s eyewitness account in the gospel of Mark. This gospel (like the gospel of John) is a critical piece of evidence from the “crime scene,” and Peter carefully handed it (along with other eyewitness texts that were emerging in the first century) to his own students and disciples:

  PETER COMMUNICATED THROUGH MARK

  John Mark was the cousin of Barnabas, and his childhood home was well known to Peter (Acts 12:12–14). Mark became so close to Peter that the apostle described him as “my son” (1 Pet. 5:13). Peter preserved his eyewitness testimony through his primary disciple and student, who then passed it on to the next generation in what we now recognize as the “gospel of Mark.”

  MARK TAUGHT ANIANUS, AVILIUS, KEDRON, PRIMUS, AND JUSTUS

  Mark established the church in Alexandria and immediately started preaching and baptizing new believers. History records the fact that he had at least five disciples, and these men eventually became church leaders in North Africa.172 Mark discipled and taught Anianus (AD ?–82), Avilius (AD ? –95), Kedron (AD ? –106), Primus (ca. AD 40–118), and Justus (AD ?–135), passing on his gospel along with the other early New Testament accounts from apostolic eyewitnesses. These five men eventually became bishops of Alexandria (one after the other) following Mark’s death. They faithfully preserved the eyewitness accounts and passed them on, one generation to another.

  JUSTUS PASSED THE TRUTH TO PANTAENUS

  While Mark was still alive, he appointed his disciple Justus as the director of the Catechetical School of Alexandria. This important school became an esteemed place of learning where the eyewitness accounts and Scriptures were collected and guarded. A key figure in the early development of this school was an ex-Stoic philosopher who converted to Christianity. His name was Pantaenus.173 He became an important teacher and missionary, traveling east of Alexandria (perhaps as far as India) and reporting that believers were already established in the East and were using the gospel of Matthew written in Hebrew letters. In any event, Pantaenus provided another important link in the chain of custody because the writing of one of his students survives to this day, chronicling and identifying the books of the New Testament that were already considered sacred.

  PANTAENUS TAUGHT CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA

  Titus Flavius Clemens (ca. AD 150–215) was also known as Clement of Alexandria.174 He was a student of Pantaenus and eventually became the leader of the Catechetical School of Alexandria. Clement was very familiar with the pagan literature of his time and wrote extensively. Three important volumes (the Protrepticus, the Paedagogus, and the Stromata) address Christian morality and conduct. Most importantly, Clement discussed the existing Scripture of the time (as it was handed down to him by Pantaenus) and quoted or alluded to all the New Testament books except for Philemon, James, 2 Peter, 2 John, and 3 John. Clement appears to have received and accepted the same New Testament documents that were known to his predecessors in the “chain of custody.”

  CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA TAUGHT ORIGEN

  Origen (ca. AD 185–254) carefully preserved and identified those ancient eyewitness accounts used by the Christian church around the Mediterranean. He was an Egyptian who came to faith and eventually taught at the Catechetical School of Alexandria.175 He wrote prolifically and penned commentaries for nearly every book of the Bible. Along the way, he quoted all of the New Testament books. He did express hesitation about James, 2 Peter, 2 John, and 3 John, but included them in his list of reliable orthodox eyewitness documents. Origen played a pivotal role because he had a number of students who became important links in the New Testament chain of custody.

  PAMPHILUS OF CAESAREA ADOPTED ORIGEN’S WORK

  In his later life, Origen fled Alexandria (under the persecution of an archbishop who expelled Origen because he had not been ordained with proper permission) and settled in Caesarea Maritima. Pamphilus176 also settled in Caesarea Maritima after a long stay in Alexandria, where he became devoted to the works of Origen and even wrote a five-volume treatise called Apology for Origen. Pamphilus guarded and defended the work of Origen, and he also accepted the eyewitness accounts of Scripture as authoritative, expressing his confidence in these documents to his own pupils.

  PAMPHILUS OF CAESAREA TAUGHT EUSEBIUS

  One of Pamphilus’s students was Eusebius of Caesarea (ca. AD 263–339), a man who later became an important church historian, church father, and devoted student who documented Pamphilus’s career in a three-volume work called Vita.177 Eusebius was a prolific writer, and much of his work survives to this day, including his Church History. A close survey of Eusebius’s work reveals that he recognized and identified twenty-six New Testament books as Scripture. He strongly affirmed Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts, Romans, 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 1 Thessalonians, 2 Thessalonians, 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, Titus, Philemon, 1 Peter, 1 John, and Revelation, and less-strongly affirmed James, Jude, 2 Peter, 2 John, and 3 John.

  This chain of scriptural custody, from Peter to Eusebius, brings us well into the period of time in which the Codex Sinaiticus was penned and to the doorstep of the Council of Laodicea. It is clear that the eyewitness accounts and writings of the apostles were collected, preserved, and transmitted from generation to generation during this span of time.

  The New Testament chain of custody preserved the primacy and sacred importance of the eyewitness documents and delivered them faithfully to those who would later identify them publicly in the councils that established our present canon of Scripture. These councils did not create the canon or the current version of Jesus we know so well; they simply acknowled
ged the canon and description of Jesus that had been provided by the eyewitnesses.

  THE LEAST WE CAN LEARN

  Now let’s imagine for a moment that all the alleged Christian eyewitness accounts have been destroyed. Imagine that all we have available to us is the written record of a few students of these supposed eyewitnesses. If this were the case, we would have to rely on the writings of Mark, Ignatius, Polycarp, and Clement. This remaining record would certainly be sufficient for us to learn the truth about Jesus; after all, Mark was tasked with chronicling the memoir of Peter and wrote a thorough account. So let’s make it a little more challenging. Let’s remove Mark’s gospel from consideration and force ourselves to consider only the nonbiblical letters of the other three students, even though these students made no conscious effort to record the details of Jesus’s life and ministry. What would we learn about Jesus from just these three men? Would their nominal description affirm what our twenty-first-century Bible tells us?

  From the earliest nonbiblical records, we would learn the following: Jesus had been predicted by the Old Testament prophets; He was a man in the line of David, conceived by the Holy Spirit as the only begotten Son of God, born of the virgin Mary, and announced with a star. He came forth from God and manifested God’s will and knowledge. He was baptized by John the Baptist, lived a humble, unassuming, perfect, and sinless life, spoke the words of God, and taught people many important divine truths (including the principles we recognize from the Sermon on the Mount). Although Jesus was anointed with oil, He was unjustly treated and condemned, whipped, and ultimately executed on the cross. This execution took place during the government of Pontius Pilate and the reign of Herod the Tetrarch. Jesus’s death was a personal sacrifice He offered to God in our behalf as a payment for the debt of our sin. Jesus proved His divinity by physically resurrecting from the dead, appearing to Peter and the other disciples, eating with them, and encouraging them to touch Him and see for themselves. The disciples were so emboldened by their observations of the risen Jesus that they became fearless, understanding that Jesus’s resurrection ensured eternal life and the resurrection for all of those who placed their faith in Him. Jesus returned to God the Father and now reigns in heaven, even as He lives in everyone who has accepted His offer of forgiveness and salvation. Jesus is the “Door,” the “Bread of Life,” the “Eternal Word,” the “Son of God,” our “High Priest,” “Savior,” “Master,” “Guardian,” “Helper,” “Refuge,” and “Lord.” Jesus and the Father are one; Jesus possesses eternal glory and majesty. All creation belongs to Him and is subject to Him. Jesus will judge the living and the dead. Jesus is “God.”

  We would learn all of this, not on the basis of what is taught in the gospel accounts, but on the basis of what is taught by the earliest first-century students of the gospel writers (and only three of them, at that)! The letters of Ignatius, Polycarp, and Clement confirm the accuracy of the Gospels. Even if, as skeptics, we had some doubt about the minute details that exist in each eyewitness account, there can be no doubt about the major themes and claims of the Gospels. Jesus was described as God, walked with His disciples, taught the masses, died on a cross, and rose from the dead. This version of Jesus is not a late invention or exaggeration; it is the version of Jesus that existed from the very first telling. This version of Jesus was witnessed and accurately described by the gospel writers and confirmed by their students. Unlike the man I interviewed, Jassen, whose early story was not aligned with the version he provided twenty years later, the earliest account of Jesus’s story (as given by the eyewitnesses and their students in the first century) is aligned with the version we have two thousand years later.

  THE JEWISH RECORDS DIVISION

  But how do we know if the other gospel details (not specifically mentioned by the students of the apostles) are accurate? How do we know that these portions of the Gospels weren’t corrupted in the period of time spanning from the first century to the inking of Codex Sinaiticus? I came to trust the detective’s notes in Jassen’s case because I had confidence in the record-keeping ability of my records division. I understood the precise and careful manner in which they copied and preserved the case files. Is there any good reason to believe that the primitive, first-century Christians would be equally willing and capable of such preservation?

  THE EYEWITNESSES WERE CONSCIENTIOUS AND PROTECTIVE

  In chapter 4 we looked at the role the apostles played as eyewitnesses. They clearly understood the gravity and importance of their testimony. The apostles recognized that their role in God’s plan was simply to tell others about their experiences with Jesus and their observations of His resurrection. It’s reasonable that people who saw themselves as critical eyewitnesses would be careful to protect the accuracy of their testimony. In the earliest years, their contribution came in the form of verbal testimony. That’s reasonable, given the sense of urgency the apostles felt as they eagerly awaited the imminent return of Jesus. But as the months and years passed without the arrival of Christ, the apostles inked their testimony so their observations could be shared with local church congregations. If the Gospels were written early (during the time in which these eyewitnesses actually lived), it is reasonable to expect that the witnesses would fact-check the content of their testimony as it was being told to others. If, for example, Mark’s gospel was written as early as the circumstantial evidence in chapter 11 suggests, it’s reasonable to expect that Peter would have caught (and corrected) any errors.

  THE COPYISTS AND SCRIBES WERE METICULOUS

  The ancient Jewish religious culture was already well established in the first century, and it was from this culture that the apostles and first believers emerged. It’s clear that the Jews guarded Scripture with extreme care and precision. From the postexile time of Ezra (and even before), there were priests (Deut. 31:24–26) and scribes (called Sopherim) who were given the responsibility of copying and meticulously caring for the sacred text. The scribes continued to work in Jesus’s day and were mentioned throughout the New Testament by the eyewitnesses who observed them alongside the Pharisees and other Jewish religious leaders. The Old Testament Scriptures were revered and protected during this period of time, largely because early believers considered them to be the holy Word of God along with the New Testament documents. Paul described Luke’s gospel as Scripture (1 Tim. 5:17–18), and Peter also described Paul’s letters as Scripture (2 Pet. 3:15–16). Paul told the local churches to treat his letters accordingly, making them available to other congregations so they could read them during their meetings (Col. 4:16 and 1 Thess. 5:27). It’s reasonable to conclude that the New Testament documents were handled in a way that was similar to the manner in which other ancient Scripture was cherished and preserved.

  The Meticulous Masoretes

  The Masoretes established comprehensive procedures to protect the text against changes:

  When they noted an obvious error in the text, they labeled it as a “kethibh” (“to be written”) and placed a correction called a “qere” (“to be read”) in the margin.

  When they considered a word textually, grammatically, or exegetically questionable, they placed dots above the word.

  They kept detailed statistics as a means of guarding against error. Leviticus 8:8, for example, was identified as the middle verse of the Torah. In Leviticus 10:16, the word “darash” was identified as middle word in the Torah, and the “waw” located in the Hebrew word gachon in Leviticus 11:42 was identified as the middle letter of the Torah.

  They also placed statistics at the end of each book, including the total number of verses, the total number of words, and the total number of letters. By assembling statistics such as these, they could measure each book mathematically to see if there was any copyist error. (Refer to Gleason Archer’s A Survey of Old Testament Introduction.)

  It’s difficult to know with complete certainty the exact method in which the first-century
Christian scribes copied and cared for their sacred texts, but we do know that they worked within a religious tradition that spanned hundreds of years, both before and after the first century. The Masoretic tradition, for example, gives us a glimpse into the obsessive care that Jewish scribes historically took with their sacred texts. Scribes known as the Masoretes (a group of Jewish copyists living and working primarily in Tiberias and Jerusalem) took over the precise job of copying the ancient Scripture and transmitting it for later generations. They developed something now known as the Masoretic Text.178 These documents are recognized as an incredibly trustworthy replica of the original Scripture, and we’ve come to trust these texts because we understand the manner in which they were copied. To ensure the accuracy of the Masoretic copies, the Masoretes developed a number of strict guidelines to guarantee that every fresh copy was an exact reproduction of the original. The rules of the Masoretes were every bit as comprehensive as any set of regulations used in modern-day records divisions; they copied and handled their documents with all the precision available to them.

  History has demonstrated the remarkable accuracy of these ancient scribes who worked under the conviction that the documents they were copying were divine in nature. The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in Qumran confirms their amazing ability. In 1947, a Bedouin herdsman found some unusual clay jars in caves near the valley of the Dead Sea. The jars contained a number of scrolls revealing the religious beliefs of monastic farmers who lived in the valley from 150 BC to AD 70. When this group saw the Romans invade the region, it apparently put its cherished scrolls in the jars and hid them in the caves. The Dead Sea Scrolls contain fragments of almost every book in the Old Testament and, most importantly, a complete copy of the book of Isaiah. This scroll was dated to approximately 100 BC; it was incredibly important to historians and textual experts because it was approximately one thousand years older than any Masoretic copy of Isaiah. The Dead Sea Scroll version of Isaiah allowed scholars to compare the text over this period of time to see if copyists had been conscientious. Scholars were amazed by what they discovered.