Dr Neil Hamson

Abstract

This study presents a comprehensive, evidence-based examination of the origins, transmission, and early textual history of the New Testament. Drawing on palaeography, codicology, archaeology, and comparative textual criticism, it evaluates what can be empirically verified about the composition, language, manuscript tradition, and canonical formation of the Christian Scriptures.

 

The analysis demonstrates that all surviving material witnesses to the New Testament are Greek manuscripts produced between the second and fifteenth centuries CE, none dating from the lifetime of Yeshua of Nazareth or his earliest followers. The essay further investigates non-canonical Christian writings and the testimony of the earliest patristic authors, which together provide external corroboration that New-Testament-like texts circulated by the early second century CE.

 

These data reveal the New Testament not as a single divinely delivered corpus but as a historically constructed textual tradition that emerged through successive generations of copying, translation, and theological redaction within diverse Jewish-Christian communities across the eastern Roman Empire.

Introduction

 

1. Purpose and Scope

The present inquiry asks a fundamental historical question: What can be scientifically demonstrated about the origin and early transmission of the New Testament? The objective is not to assess theology or belief but to establish the verifiable historical and material facts about the text’s creation, preservation, and canonisation.

 

The discussion therefore employs the methods of textual criticism, archaeology, palaeography, and linguistic analysis rather than confessional exegesis. It also incorporates external literary evidence, non-canonical writings and patristic quotations to build a comprehensive dossier of every class of data available for reconstructing the New Testament’s formation.

 

2. Methodology

Four methodological pillars support this analysis:

1. Textual criticism, the comparison of all extant Greek manuscripts to identify patterns of copying, error, and interpolation (Aland & Aland 1987; Parker 2008).

2. Palaeography and codicology, the dating and contextual analysis of manuscript hands, materials, and book construction (Cavallo & Maehler 1987; Nongbri 2018).

3. Archaeological correlation, situating manuscripts within their wider cultural matrix of first- to fourth-century Christianity (Hurtado 2006).

4. Historical-critical analysis, using non-canonical texts and patristic citations as chronological anchors to verify when specific writings were already in use (Koester 1990; Ehrman 2005).

 

All conclusions are therefore empirical, confined to what can be documented or measured.

 

3. The Historical Problem

The central problem of New-Testament textual history lies in the absence of autographs, the original manuscripts purportedly written by the first-century authors. The earliest surviving fragments, such as the Rylands Papyrus P52 (a few verses of John), date from approximately 125–200 CE (Nongbri 2018: 77-88), at least ninety years after the lifetime of Yeshua. Complete New Testament codices appear only in the fourth century CE (Codex Vaticanus, Codex Sinaiticus). Consequently, every verse of the New Testament derives from a transmission process that spans at least a century of undocumented copying and editing. Understanding this process is essential to distinguishing demonstrable history from later ecclesiastical tradition.

 

4. The Linguistic Context

All early witnesses are written in Koine Greek, the common administrative and commercial language of the eastern Mediterranean (Deissmann 1910; Porter 1992). No manuscript survives in Aramaic or Hebrew from the first century CE. Greek composition indicates that the earliest Christian communities that produced these writings were Hellenised Jews and Gentile converts located in urban centres such as Antioch, Ephesus, Corinth, and Rome. The texts occasionally preserve Aramaic words, abba, talitha koum, Eloi Eloi lema sabachthani, which mark remnants of Semitic oral tradition translated into Greek literary form. Thus, linguistic evidence alone situates the New Testament firmly within a Greek-speaking intellectual milieu, not within rural Palestinian Aramaic culture.

 

5. The Documentary Record

Modern catalogues maintained by the Institute for New Testament Textual Research (INTF, Münster) list approximately 5,700 Greek manuscripts ranging from second-century papyri to fifteenth-century minuscules. Among these, only a small subset, about 140, dates earlier than the fourth century.

The earliest substantial witness, Papyrus 46 (P46), a codex of Pauline letters, is palaeographically dated to c. 175–225 CE and partially confirmed by radiocarbon analysis (Charlesworth 2004). These manuscripts provide tangible proof that by the late second century, a collection of texts attributed to Paul and the Gospels was in wide circulation. However, they also reveal that no first-century copies exist, leaving a chronological gap of roughly 140 years between the presumed composition and the earliest extant artefacts.

 

6. The Broader Historical Setting

The New Testament emerged within the religiously plural landscape of the Second-Temple Jewish and Greco-Roman world. Archaeological discoveries, from the Qumran manuscripts to diaspora synagogue inscriptions, attest to multiple Jewish sects (Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes, Zealots) and hybrid Judeo-Hellenistic movements.

The earliest followers of Yeshua were one such group: Jewish sectarians who interpreted his life and death through apocalyptic and messianic categories. Over subsequent decades, their message was transmitted in Greek across the empire, where it absorbed Hellenistic literary forms and philosophical idioms.

 

The New Testament is the literary residue of this cultural synthesis.

 

7. Aim of the Study

This research therefore seeks to:

1. Compile the full range of empirical evidence, manuscripts, linguistic, archaeological, and literary, relevant to the New Testament’s origin.

2. Evaluate the historical reliability of claims concerning authorship and dating.

3. Analyse non-canonical writings and patristic citations as external evidence for textual circulation before the fourth century.

4. Trace the formation of the canon from diverse writings to an authoritative collection.

 

By applying a consistent critical standard across all categories of evidence, this study demonstrates that the New Testament is best understood as a second- to fourth-century textual construct that evolved within identifiable historical processes of composition, transmission, and institutional selection.

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Section 2 – Manuscript Evidence

The New Testament is known to us exclusively through a vast and complex body of manuscripts. According to the Institute for New Testament Textual Research (INTF), there are approximately 5,700 extant Greek manuscripts, in addition to more than 10,000 Latin and roughly 8,000 other ancient versions, including Syriac, Coptic, Armenian, and Gothic translations (Parker 2008).

 

These figures, while impressive, do not imply 24,000 complete Bibles; they represent a mixture of full texts, fragmentary papyri, and liturgical excerpts produced across more than a millennium. What this evidence shows, beyond any dispute, is that the New Testament has come down to us through a long process of human copying, revision, and translation.

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No original autograph, the first physical manuscript penned or dictated by an author, has survived. The earliest surviving witnesses are papyrus fragments from Egypt, written in Greek and palaeographically dated to the second and early third centuries of the Common Era. These are followed by later parchment codices and medieval paper copies. Together they form a stratified record of the text’s material history, allowing scholars to trace the development of its wording, format, and scribal conventions through time.

 

The earliest identifiable New Testament text is the so-called Rylands Fragment (Papyrus 52), a tiny scrap from the Gospel of John containing only a few verses (John 18:31–33, 37–38). Palaeographers date its handwriting to between 125 and 175 CE (Nongbri 2018). Although often presented as proof that the Gospel of John was already in circulation by the early second century, the fragment provides evidence only that a copy of the text existed in Egypt at that time. It tells us nothing about where, when, or by whom the Gospel was first composed.

 

More substantial evidence comes from Papyrus 46, a codex containing nine Pauline letters. This manuscript has been dated by handwriting analysis and limited radiocarbon testing to between 175 and 225 CE (Charlesworth 2004). Written on papyrus sheets bound as a codex rather than a scroll, it reflects the distinctive book culture of early Christianity. The use of sacred abbreviations (nomina sacra) for words such as “God,” “Lord,” and “Christ” indicates that Christian scribes had already developed a recognisable set of textual conventions.

 

The existence of this manuscript demonstrates that by the late second century a substantial corpus of writings attributed to Paul was already circulating among Greek-speaking believers.

 

Other papyri from roughly the same period include Papyrus 45 (containing portions of the Gospels and Acts), Papyrus 66 (John), Papyrus 72 (the Petrine Epistles), and Papyrus 75 (Luke and John). These are all dated between about 200 and 250 CE (Parker 2008). The variations between them reveal that more than one textual family of the Gospels was already in existence. Each community that copied or transmitted a text introduced minor alterations, sometimes by accident, sometimes through deliberate harmonisation or clarification.

These papyri, therefore, provide a snapshot of an evolving textual tradition that had already been in circulation for several generations before the surviving copies were produced.

 

Dating these manuscripts relies primarily on the sciences of palaeography and codicology. Palaeography examines the shapes and ligatures of letters, comparing them with dated documentary papyri, contracts, letters, and receipts, to place an undated manuscript within a relative time frame, typically with an accuracy of twenty-five to fifty years (Cavallo and Maehler 1987).

 

Codicology, the study of book construction, analyses the materials, ink, ruling, and binding methods. The preference for the codex format over the traditional scroll is one of the clearest material signatures of early Christianity (Hurtado 2006). Christians adopted the codex more than a century before it became common in Greco-Roman literature, suggesting a deliberate choice to distinguish their texts and to facilitate reference and portability. Radiocarbon testing, although rarely applied because it is destructive, has been used on a few fragments such as Papyrus 46, confirming palaeographic results within the expected margins of error (Nongbri 2018).

 

Almost all early New Testament papyri originate from Egypt, particularly from sites such as Oxyrhynchus, the Fayum, and the region surrounding ancient Aphroditopolis. This concentration does not necessarily indicate that the texts were composed there; rather, it reflects Egypt’s uniquely dry climate, which preserved papyrus where the humid conditions of the Mediterranean destroyed it. The geographic pattern of survival is therefore a matter of preservation bias, not necessarily of composition or early usage.

 

Comparison of the papyri with later parchment manuscripts reveals extensive textual variation. The majority of differences are minor, variations in spelling, word order, or omitted articles, but some are significant. Notable examples include the longer ending of the Gospel of Mark (16:9–20) and the story of the woman taken in adultery (John 7:53–8:11), both absent from the earliest witnesses but present in later copies (Metzger and Ehrman 2005). These differences illustrate that the text of the New Testament evolved over time and that no single manuscript preserves the exact wording of any lost original. The task of modern textual criticism is therefore reconstructive: to identify, through comparison of all witnesses, the most plausible ancestral wording.

 

By the fourth century, with the adoption of parchment and the consolidation of Christianity within the Roman Empire, the text appears in the large uncial codices: Vaticanus (c. 325–350 CE), Sinaiticus (c. 330–360 CE), and Alexandrinus (early fifth century). These luxury volumes, written in careful capital letters on fine vellum, mark the moment when Christian Scripture took on a form recognisable as a “Bible.” Their production coincides with the legalisation of Christianity under Constantine and the emperor’s commissioning of new copies for the imperial churches (Eusebius, Vita Constantini IV.36). These codices show a high level of textual uniformity and editorial control, implying that by this stage the process of selection and standardisation had largely been completed.

 

The manuscript evidence, therefore, establishes several empirical conclusions.

First, the earliest physical witnesses to any New Testament text date no earlier than the second century CE. Second, there exists an approximate one-and-a-half-century gap between the presumed first-century compositions and the earliest surviving copies.

Third, all early manuscripts are written in Greek, confirming the Hellenistic cultural environment of early Christianity. Fourth, numerous textual variants prove that the text developed through human copying and redaction rather than miraculous preservation. Finally, by the fourth century, the entire corpus existed in a relatively stable form within the institutional framework of imperial Christianity.

 

At the same time, the manuscripts do not prove who the authors were, when or where the originals were written, or whether any divine intervention was involved. They cannot bridge the chronological and evidential gap between the life of Yeshua and the appearance of the first Greek codices. What they provide instead is a clear, physical record of how Christian writings were transmitted, transformed, and ultimately canonised across three centuries of historical development.

The New Testament, as revealed by its manuscript evidence, is thus not the product of a single authorial moment but of a long, cumulative process of textual evolution within a specific cultural and historical setting.

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Section 3 – Authorship and Language

The question of authorship stands at the centre of critical New Testament research. Unlike classical Greek or Roman works, the writings later gathered into the Christian canon do not survive with verifiable authorial signatures, contemporary attestations, or official publication records. Every name associated with a New Testament book, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Paul, Peter, James, or Jude, is a traditional attribution assigned long after the texts were written (Ehrman 2011). The earliest manuscripts of the Gospels and Epistles contain no authorial titles; these appear only in copies from the late second century onwards. From a documentary perspective, all New Testament books are therefore anonymous Greek compositions.

 

1. The Anonymity of the Gospels

The four canonical Gospels are presented today as distinct biographies, yet none claims authorship internally. Modern textual comparison demonstrates that the Gospel of Mark was the earliest of the four and that both Matthew and Luke adapted Mark’s material, supplemented by other oral or written sources, notably the hypothetical sayings collection designated “Q” (Goodacre 2002). The Gospel of John differs in language and theology, representing a later, more reflective stage of development within a separate community. These relationships show that the Gospels evolved through editorial redaction rather than eyewitness dictation.

 

All four were written in Koine Greek, the everyday lingua franca of the eastern Roman Empire.

Their vocabulary and syntax align with documentary papyri from the first and second centuries CE, demonstrating that the authors were literate members of a Greek-speaking urban culture (Deissmann 1910; Porter 1992). The retention of certain Aramaic phrases, such as Talitha koum (“little girl, arise”) and Eloi Eloi lema sabachthani (“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”), indicates that earlier oral traditions circulated in Aramaic or Hebrew before being translated. However, these scattered Semitic remnants appear as linguistic fossils within a wholly Greek literary composition. No known Gospel originated as an Aramaic manuscript, and no first-century Aramaic Gospel survives.

 

The anonymity of the Gospels did not trouble early Christian readers, but by the late second century, church leaders sought to attribute the texts to authoritative figures. Irenaeus of Lyon (c. 180 CE) is the first writer to name the Four Gospels as the exclusive and divinely sanctioned accounts of Jesus, linking each to a figure of apostolic authority (Against Heresies 3.11.8). His purpose was polemical, to define orthodoxy against competing groups who used alternative narratives such as the Gospel of Thomas or the Gospel of Peter. The ascription of authorship, therefore, reflects a process of theological legitimation, not historical documentation.

 

2. The Pauline Letters

The letters attributed to Paul of Tarsus constitute the earliest stratum of New Testament writing, yet their authorship also remains uncertain. Critical scholarship divides them into three categories: the “undisputed” seven letters (Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, 1 Thessalonians, and Philemon); the “disputed” letters (2 Thessalonians, Colossians, Ephesians); and the later “Pastoral Epistles” (1 and 2 Timothy, Titus), which are widely regarded as pseudonymous (Metzger and Ehrman 2005).

 

The disputed and pastoral letters differ markedly in vocabulary, syntax, and ecclesiastical structure from the undisputed group, implying composition by later followers writing under Paul’s name to lend authority to evolving doctrines.

 

None of the Pauline letters survives in its original form.

The earliest copies, preserved in Papyrus 46 and other second-century papyri, are already several generations removed from any putative autograph. Internally, the letters show signs of editorial compilation; for instance, 2 Corinthians appears to combine multiple shorter letters, and Romans contains a displaced doxology (Romans 16:25–27) found in varying positions in different manuscripts (Parker 2008).

 

These features illustrate the organic nature of textual transmission: letters were collected, edited, and circulated as a body of authoritative writings long before a formal canon existed.

 

3. The Remaining Epistles and Revelation

Beyond the Pauline corpus, the other epistles, 1 and 2 Peter, James, Jude, 1–3 John, and Hebrews, display diverse origins and uncertain authorship. Linguistic evidence reveals a sophisticated Greek style inconsistent with the backgrounds of the Palestinian disciples described in the Gospels.

For example, 1 Peter opens by acknowledging the use of a secretary (dia Silvanou), suggesting dictation to a more educated scribe (1 Peter 5:12). The Letter to the Hebrews, though later attributed to Paul, is anonymous; its refined rhetorical Greek and Platonic imagery point to an Alexandrian intellectual milieu, possibly related to the circle of Philo (Attridge 1989).

The Book of Revelation, by contrast, is written in a deliberately Semitic Greek filled with Hebraisms, indicating a Jewish-Christian prophet steeped in apocalyptic traditions, probably in Asia Minor under Domitian’s reign (Collins 1998).

 

These stylistic and regional differences confirm that the New Testament represents the work of multiple authors and schools, not a single coherent voice.

 

4. Language and Cultural Milieu

The linguistic profile of the entire New Testament situates it within the Greek-speaking diaspora rather than in the Aramaic heartland of Judaea. Koine Greek functioned as the common medium of trade, administration, and intellectual discourse across the eastern empire. The authors’ command of this language, coupled with their use of the Greek Septuagint rather than the Hebrew scriptures, demonstrates that early Christianity developed in a Hellenistic environment (Hengel 1974). Even the quotations of Jewish scripture in the New Testament follow the Septuagint wording, not the Hebrew Masoretic text, confirming that the writers’ scriptural reference point was already translated Greek literature.

 

Philological studies of vocabulary reveal further cultural integration. Terms such as ekklesia (assembly), charis (grace), and soteria (salvation) carry strong connotations from Greek civic and philosophical usage. The authors employ rhetorical techniques, chiasmus, parallelism, and diatribe—found in contemporary Greek moral and Stoic literature (Malherbe 1989).

 

These stylistic features show that early Christian texts participated fully in the Greco-Roman literary world, even while retaining Semitic theological concepts.

 

5. Pseudonymity and Authority

Writing under another’s name was not considered forgery in antiquity if done to preserve a tradition or honour a revered teacher.

In the Jewish and Greco-Roman worlds, texts attributed to Moses, Enoch, or Pythagoras served precisely this purpose. Many New Testament writings likely arose within such schools of thought, where disciples composed texts reflecting their master’s teachings (Ehrman 2011). Pseudonymity thus functioned as a means of continuity and legitimacy, not deception in the modern sense.

 

The later church, however, interpreted these attributions as literal, transforming literary convention into dogmatic authorship.

 

6. Empirical Assessment

From a strictly evidential standpoint, the authors of the New Testament cannot be historically verified. No external inscription, administrative record, or contemporary literary source identifies any of them. What can be observed is a spectrum of Greek writings produced by educated individuals within the urban Hellenistic world between the mid-first and early second centuries CE.

Their anonymity and linguistic form demonstrate that the New Testament was the product of a multilingual Jewish-Hellenistic environment, not a collection of eyewitness Palestinian testimonies.

 

The earliest material evidence, Greek papyri dated more than a century after Yeshua’s lifetime, confirms only that by the second century these writings were being copied, disseminated, and revered as authoritative texts.

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Section 4 – The Pauline Corpus

Among all New Testament writings, the letters attributed to Paul of Tarsus are of unique historical importance. They are the earliest Christian documents that can be dated with reasonable confidence, the foundation of Christian theology, and the first to be systematically collected and circulated. Yet even here, empirical evidence reveals a complex textual evolution rather than the straightforward preservation of a single author’s words.

 

1. Composition and Attribution

Thirteen letters in the New Testament bear Paul’s name. Critical linguistic and stylistic analysis divides them into three groups:

• The seven “undisputed” letters—Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, 1 Thessalonians, and Philemon;

• The three “disputed” letters—2 Thessalonians, Colossians, and Ephesians; and

• The three “Pastoral Epistles”—1 and 2 Timothy and Titus—are regarded by most scholars as later pseudonymous compositions (Metzger and Ehrman 2005).

 

The disputed and pastoral letters display vocabulary, grammar, and church organisation inconsistent with the seven undisputed letters. For example, Ephesians and Colossians describe a developed hierarchical church structure and a cosmic Christology that reflect the concerns of the late first or early second century rather than the charismatic missionary environment of the 50s CE (Parker 2008). The Pastoral Epistles employ over one-third of their vocabulary in words never used in the undisputed corpus, strongly suggesting later authorship (Ehrman 2011).

 

2. Historical Context of the Undisputed Letters

The undisputed letters are normally dated between 48 and 60 CE, based on internal references to political and social circumstances under the Roman Empire. For instance, 1 Thessalonians presupposes persecution of believers in Macedonia, attested in Acts 17, while Romans was written to a mixed Jewish-Gentile community before Paul’s final journey to Jerusalem (Metzger and Ehrman 2005). These letters portray a travelling Jewish missionary operating within a network of Greek-speaking diaspora synagogues. They also reflect an eschatological expectation of the imminent return of Christ, a feature that fades in later writings.

No material autograph from this period exists. The earliest surviving witness, Papyrus 46 (c. 175–225 CE), contains nine letters arranged in a specific order, demonstrating that by the late second century an established Pauline collection was circulating (Charlesworth 2004). The 120- to 150-year gap between composition and the first extant copy underscores how little can be said with certainty about the original form of the texts.

 

3. Editorial Compilation and Redaction

Internal textual evidence shows that even the undisputed letters were subject to editing. The abrupt changes of tone in 2 Corinthians suggest that it is a composite of at least two separate letters later combined by an editor (Parker 2008). Romans appears to have circulated in multiple recensions; some manuscripts place the doxology (Romans 16:25–27) after chapter 14 rather than at the end, and a shorter version of the letter without chapter 16 may have been used in certain communities. These phenomena demonstrate a process of collection and redaction before the letters achieved their canonical form.

 

By the early second century, editors had arranged the Pauline correspondence into a corpus, possibly modelled on collections of classical letters such as those of Cicero or Seneca. This collection functioned both as theological instruction and as a means of establishing apostolic authority. The order of letters by descending length—Romans first, Philemon last—follows Greco-Roman epistolary convention rather than chronology. Such editorial shaping reflects the gradual institutionalisation of early Christianity.

 

4. Linguistic and Cultural Features

The language of the Pauline letters is pure Koine Greek, but it reveals a writer steeped in Hellenistic Judaism. The author or authors quote the Greek Septuagint rather than the Hebrew Bible and employ terms from Stoic and rhetorical discourse. Concepts such as charis (grace), pistis (faith), and sōtēria (salvation) draw on both Jewish covenant theology and Greek moral philosophy (Malherbe 1989). The letters follow established rhetorical structures, exordium, probatio, and peroratio, consistent with education in Greco-Roman schools of rhetoric (Witherington 1994). This linguistic profile situates the Pauline writings firmly within the Greek-speaking intellectual world of the eastern Roman Empire.

 

5. The Question of Paul’s Historicity

Outside the New Testament, no contemporary source mentions a missionary named Paul.

Jewish historian Flavius Josephus, who wrote extensively about first-century Judaea, never refers to him. Roman records and inscriptions likewise provide no trace. The Acts of the Apostles, our only narrative source for Paul’s life, was composed decades later and often conflicts with the letters themselves in chronology and theology (Ehrman 2011). Consequently, while a historical individual behind the letters cannot be ruled out, there is no archaeological or documentary evidence to verify his existence. What can be demonstrated is the existence of a corpus of writings attributed to him by the early second century, circulated, edited, and treated as authoritative scripture.

 

6. The Function of the Letters in Early Communities

The Pauline letters are occasional documents, written to address specific crises of belief, ethics, and organisation within local assemblies. Their preservation suggests that the communities considered them instructive beyond their immediate context. By the end of the first century, collections of these letters were being read publicly in worship, as implied by 2 Peter 3:15-16, which refers to “all his letters” and warns of their misinterpretation. This reference, itself part of a later text, confirms that the Pauline corpus was already recognised as a distinct body of literature within early Christianity.

 

7. The Transmission and Textual Stability

Analysis of the second- and third-century papyri indicates that the Pauline text was relatively stable by that time. Papyrus 46 agrees closely with fourth-century codices such as Vaticanus, showing that the basic text had been fixed long before the imperial canon (Parker 2008). Nonetheless, scribal alterations, expansions, glosses, and harmonisations occur throughout, revealing an ongoing attempt to clarify doctrine and adapt language to new audiences. The pastoral letters, emerging from this environment, reflect an ecclesiology far removed from the charismatic assemblies of the early missionary phase.

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Section 5 – The Gospels and Other New-Testament Writings

1. The Chronology of Composition

The four canonical Gospels, Mark, Matthew, Luke, and John, are the core narrative texts of the New Testament, yet all are anonymous and were written decades after the events they describe. Historical-critical consensus dates Mark, the earliest, to around 65–70 CE, likely in the aftermath of the Roman destruction of Jerusalem. Matthew and Luke followed between 80 and 90 CE, while John emerged last, between 90 and 110 CE (Brown 1997; Ehrman 2004). None was written by an eyewitness to the life of Yeshua; each represents a theological interpretation shaped by a particular community’s experience and worldview.

 

2. The Synoptic Relationship

The close literary parallels among Mark, Matthew, and Luke form what is known as the Synoptic Problem. Comparative analysis shows that over ninety per cent of Mark’s verses appear in Matthew and more than half in Luke, often verbatim in Greek (Goodacre 2002). This pattern demonstrates Markan priority: Mark was used as a written source by the other two. To account for shared material not found in Mark, scholars postulate an additional source, a sayings collection dubbed “Q” (from Quelle, “source”), though some propose oral traditions instead (Kloppenborg 2000). The evidence indicates that the Synoptic Gospels are literary expansions of an earlier narrative rather than independent testimonies.

 

3. The Gospel of Mark

Mark is a compact, urgent narrative composed in unpolished Koine Greek, lacking the birth and resurrection appearances found in later Gospels. Its abrupt ending at 16:8 and the later addition of a longer conclusion (16:9–20) in subsequent manuscripts show that the text itself underwent post-composition revision (Metzger and Ehrman 2005). The author demonstrates knowledge of Roman culture and uses Latin loanwords, implying composition within a Hellenistic environment such as Rome or Syria. The apocalyptic tone suggests a response to the trauma of the Jewish War and the destruction of the Temple.

 

4. The Gospels of Matthew and Luke

Both Matthew and Luke build upon Mark while integrating additional teachings and narrative material. Matthew, likely written for a community of Jewish believers in Syria, reinforces continuity with Jewish Law and prophecy, repeatedly citing the Septuagint with formulae such as “that it might be fulfilled.” Its polished Greek and structured discourses show careful literary craftsmanship.

Luke displays an even more sophisticated Greek style and includes a prologue written in the manner of Hellenistic historiography (Luke 1:1–4). The author writes for a Gentile audience, universalising the message of Yeshua and continuing the narrative in Acts of the Apostles. The Luke, Acts pair emphasises the expansion of the movement from Judea to Rome, mirroring the historical spread of Christianity across the empire. Both Gospels reflect theological evolution; Yeshua is no longer portrayed primarily as an apocalyptic prophet but as a divine saviour whose mission encompasses the world.

 

5. The Gospel of John

The Gospel of John stands apart in style, theology, and chronology. Written between 90 and 110 CE, it presents an elevated “Logos Christology” identifying Yeshua with the pre-existent divine Word. The Greek is fluent and philosophical, echoing Hellenistic Jewish writings such as Philo’s On the Creation (Philo of Alexandria, De Opificio Mundi 20). Its narrative diverges sharply from the Synoptics: miracles become “signs,” parables vanish, and long theological discourses dominate. This Gospel reveals a Hellenised reinterpretation of the earlier Palestinian message within a diaspora community, probably in Asia Minor. Its emphasis on belief rather than apocalyptic expectation situates it at the threshold of early Christian theology’s engagement with Greek metaphysics.

 

6. Acts of the Apostles

Acts, written by the same author as Luke, is both a sequel and a theological apology. It provides the earliest sustained narrative of the expansion of Christianity, but is not a neutral chronicle. Its smooth Greek, idealised speeches, and harmonising of contradictions between Pauline and Jerusalem traditions reveal it as a literary-theological construction (Pervo 2009). Archaeological and historical cross-checks confirm some geographical details but expose chronological and political inaccuracies, demonstrating that Acts is a second-generation interpretation of earlier events rather than eyewitness testimony.

 

7. Other New-Testament Writings

Beyond the Gospels and Acts, the New Testament includes epistles and apocalyptic literature reflecting the growing diversity of the movement. Hebrews is anonymous, stylistically polished, and deeply influenced by Platonic and Alexandrian ideas, reinterpreting sacrificial imagery in allegorical terms (Attridge 1989). James and Jude display Jewish moral and wisdom traditions in fluent Greek. 1 Peter uses elevated rhetoric inconsistent with a Galilean fisherman’s background, likely composed by a Hellenised Christian using Peter’s authority to address suffering communities. The Johannine Epistles extend the theology of the Fourth Gospel, combating emerging internal schisms.

The Book of Revelation (Apocalypse) differs radically from all others: written in rough Semitic Greek, saturated with imagery drawn from Ezekiel and Daniel, it reflects a persecuted minority under Roman rule, probably in the reign of Domitian (81–96 CE) (Collins 1998). Archaeological evidence from Asia Minor supports a late-first-century context. Its symbolic visions of divine judgment show that apocalyptic expectation persisted alongside the more philosophical theology of John.

 

8. Language and Translation

Every canonical Gospel and accompanying text was composed in Koine Greek, not Aramaic or Hebrew. The authors used the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible, for all Old Testament quotations (Hengel 1974). This linguistic dependence confirms that the writers were educated members of the Greek-speaking Jewish diaspora or sympathetic Gentiles. Occasional Aramaic expressions survive as vestiges of oral tradition, but the dominant idiom, syntax, and rhetorical structure are wholly Greek. The transmission of the message of Yeshua from Aramaic-speaking Palestine into Hellenistic Greek prose marks the decisive cultural transformation of early Christianity.

 

9. Textual Development and Diversity

The comparison of early papyri, P45, P66, P75, and fourth-century codices demonstrates both diversity and convergence. Differences in order, wording, and interpolation show that the Gospels circulated in multiple textual forms before stabilisation. Yet the general outline of each narrative remained recognisable, suggesting that communities valued the stories’ theological meaning more than verbatim accuracy. The appearance of variant endings, harmonisations, and explanatory glosses illustrates the dynamic transmission of the text through living tradition rather than static preservation.

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Section 6 – Non-Canonical Writings

1. Purpose and Historical Importance

Alongside the texts that later formed the New Testament, a substantial body of early Christian literature emerged between the late first and third centuries CE. These works, often called non-canonical or apocryphal, were composed by communities that shared many ideas with what would become mainstream Christianity but expressed them in different forms. Far from being marginal curiosities, they provide vital external evidence for the diversity of early Christian belief and for the existence and circulation of New-Testament-like writings long before the canon was fixed (Koester 1990; Ehrman 2003). Archaeologically and textually, they bridge the century-long gap between the supposed first-century compositions and the earliest surviving Greek manuscripts.

 

2. The Apostolic Fathers

The earliest layer of non-canonical writing is represented by texts collectively known as the Apostolic Fathers, produced between 90 and 150 CE. They stand chronologically between the New Testament and the later Church Fathers, often quoting or adapting passages recognisable from the canonical writings.

 

The Didache (“Teaching of the Twelve Apostles”) is a short Greek manual of ethics, ritual, and community order dated 80–120 CE. It shares sayings also found in Matthew and Luke, including the Lord’s Prayer and moral precepts, confirming that such traditions circulated independently before the Gospels reached their final form (Milavec 2003). 1 Clement, written from Rome to Corinth around 95 CE, cites both Old-Testament passages and Pauline epistles, even paraphrasing Hebrews, which implies that a Pauline collection was already known in Rome before the close of the first century (Holmes 2007).

 

Ignatius of Antioch, executed c. 110 CE, wrote seven letters in polished Greek to churches in Asia Minor. These letters refer to Matthew, Luke, John, and several Pauline letters, proving that multiple Gospel traditions were in circulation decades before the earliest papyri (Ehrman and Holmes 2007). Polycarp of Smyrna, writing c. 120–135 CE, likewise quotes extensively from the Pauline corpus. Collectively, these works confirm that by the early second century, certain writings later deemed canonical were already treated as authoritative in geographically distant communities.

 

3. The Shepherd of Hermas and the Epistle of Barnabas

Two substantial second-century works, the Shepherd of Hermas and the Epistle of Barnabas, reveal the fluid boundaries of early Christian Scripture. The Shepherd, a lengthy apocalyptic allegory composed in Rome between 120 and 150 CE, was included in Codex Sinaiticus, demonstrating that fourth-century scribes still regarded it as sacred (Metzger and Ehrman 2005). The Epistle of Barnabas interprets Jewish law allegorically and quotes sayings of Yeshua similar to those in Matthew and Luke, showing theological engagement with the same traditions. Both texts illustrate that the concept of a closed canon did not exist in the early second century; rather, Christians read and transmitted a variety of writings according to local custom and theology.

 

4. The Gospel of Thomas and Other Apocryphal Gospels

The Gospel of Thomas, discovered in 1945 among the Nag Hammadi codices, is a collection of 114 sayings attributed to Yeshua, many of which parallel the Synoptic tradition while others reflect distinct Gnostic or mystical themes. Written originally in Greek and preserved in Coptic translation, it is generally dated to c. 100–140 CE (Pagels 2003). Its independence from the canonical narrative structure demonstrates that diverse communities preserved oral teachings without narrative context, forming a sayings tradition separate from the passion and resurrection stories.

Other non-canonical gospels, the Gospel of Peter, the Gospel of the Hebrews, the Gospel of the Egyptians, and the Infancy Gospels, show similar experimentation. The Gospel of Peter, known from a fragment found at Akhmim in Egypt, presents a passion narrative in which Yeshua emerges from the tomb as a giant figure flanked by angels, a clear theological expansion upon the Synoptic account (Koester 1990). Such imaginative elaboration reflects the process of mythic amplification by which oral and textual traditions evolved.

 

5. The Nag Hammadi Library and Early Gnostic Texts

The discovery of the Nag Hammadi Library in Upper Egypt provided forty-six Coptic translations of Greek Christian works, buried in sealed jars around 370 CE. Among them are treatises such as The Apocryphon of John, The Gospel of Truth, and The Tripartite Tractate, which blend Christian terminology with Platonic cosmology.

These texts reveal that early Christianity was not monolithic but consisted of multiple philosophical and mystical interpretations of the same traditions. Linguistic and codicological analysis shows that they were copied by the same class of Egyptian scribes who produced the canonical papyri (Hurtado 2006). Thus, the boundary between “orthodox” and “heretical” literature was porous until the late fourth century.

 

6. Chronological and Archaeological Correlation

Radiocarbon testing and palaeographic analysis of several non-canonical papyri align their dates with the canonical corpus. Fragments of the Gospel of Thomas from Oxyrhynchus (P.Oxy. 1, 654, 655) are palaeographically dated to around 200 CE, while the Egerton Gospel fragment (P.Egerton 2) predates 150 CE (Nongbri 2018). The use of nomina sacra and codex format in these texts matches that of canonical manuscripts, confirming a shared scribal culture. Archaeologically, they demonstrate that early Christians did not distinguish sharply between what later became canonical and apocryphal texts. Both circulated, copied by the same hands, read by the same audiences.

 

7. Theological and Literary Diversity

The non-canonical writings display a remarkable variety of theological perspectives. Some, like The Didache, emphasise moral instruction and communal practice; others, like The Apocryphon of John, reinterpret creation and salvation through elaborate metaphysical frameworks. This diversity attests to the plurality of early Christianities rather than a single unified movement. The later church’s suppression or exclusion of these works from the canon reflects institutional consolidation, not the absence of these texts from the early tradition.

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Section 7 – Patristic Citations

1. The Function of Patristic Evidence

In the absence of original autographs or first-century manuscripts, the writings of the early Church Fathers, collectively known as the patristic corpus, provide the most valuable external evidence for the existence and recognition of early Christian texts. By analysing how these authors quoted or paraphrased the New Testament, historians can determine when and where particular books were in circulation. Each verifiable citation acts as a terminus ante quem, the latest possible date by which a given text must have existed. When correlated with archaeological and manuscript evidence, patristic citations help reconstruct the textual landscape of the second and third centuries CE (Parker 2008; Metzger and Ehrman 2005).

 

2. Clement of Rome

The earliest surviving Christian writing after the New Testament is the Letter of Clement to the Corinthians (1 Clement), composed in Rome around 95 CE. This text paraphrases or echoes at least a dozen passages found in Romans, 1 Corinthians, and Hebrews. Clement’s exhortations to unity, discipline, and charity closely follow Pauline vocabulary and structure. Although he does not cite these works by title or author, the verbal parallels are unmistakable, proving that a collection of Pauline letters was already circulating in Rome by the end of the first century (Holmes 2007). The presence of these texts within a Roman ecclesiastical letter confirms that they were used as authoritative moral instruction decades before the first physical papyri appear.

 

3. Ignatius of Antioch and Polycarp of Smyrna

By the early second century, Ignatius of Antioch (c. 110 CE) had written seven letters en route to his martyrdom in Rome. These letters quote or allude to Matthew, Luke, John, and numerous Pauline epistles, and they employ the distinctive Christological language of John, for example, the Logos motif and the emphasis on unity between Father and Son. Such references indicate that multiple Gospel traditions were already being read as sacred writings across Syria and Asia Minor (Ehrman and Holmes 2007).

 

gnatius’s contemporary Polycarp of Smyrna composed a letter to the Philippians around 120–135 CE, quoting verbatim from Romans, Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, 1 Timothy, and 1 Peter. Polycarp’s usage demonstrates both the early spread and authoritative use of Pauline material in the Aegean region. The cumulative evidence from Ignatius and Polycarp shows that by the first quarter of the second century the core of the New Testament corpus was already functioning as scripture within multiple, geographically dispersed communities.

 

4. Justin Martyr

Justin Martyr (c. 150 CE), a philosopher and apologist active in Rome, refers to “the Memoirs of the Apostles,” which he describes as being read publicly in Christian assemblies alongside the writings of the prophets (First Apology 67). Detailed comparison of his quotations demonstrates that these Memoirs correspond to the Synoptic Gospels, particularly Matthew and Luke. Justin’s writings thus supply the earliest explicit testimony to the liturgical use of Gospel texts in worship, more than a century before the fourth-century codices (Skarsaune 1987). His quotations also reveal that the Gospels were already conceptualised as a unit distinct from other Christian literature.

 

5. Irenaeus of Lyon

The most decisive patristic evidence for the establishment of the canonical Gospels comes from Irenaeus, bishop of Lyon, writing around 180 CE. In Against Heresies (3.11.8), he explicitly names the four Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and declares that “it is not possible that there can be either more or fewer than four.” This statement presupposes a period of debate and competition among rival texts. Irenaeus’s argument, based on symbolic analogy rather than evidence, reveals a theological rather than historical rationale for limiting the canon. Nonetheless, his citation proves that by the late second century, the fourfold Gospel was widely recognised across the western and eastern Mediterranean (Ehrman 2004).

His extensive quotations also include Acts, Paul’s letters, and Revelation, showing that the majority of the modern New Testament was known and used in his time.

 

6. Tatian and the Diatessaron

At roughly the same period, the Syrian writer Tatian, a student of Justin Martyr, composed the Diatessaron, a continuous narrative harmonising all four Gospels into one Greek or Syriac text (c. 170 CE). This work, widely used in the Syriac-speaking churches for over two centuries, demonstrates that the four canonical Gospels had already achieved textual authority and functional unity by the mid-second century (Koester 1990).

Surviving Syriac fragments confirm that Tatian’s text predates the earliest surviving Greek Gospel manuscripts, providing indirect verification of their earlier existence.

 

7. Other Second- and Third-Century Fathers

Clement of Alexandria (c. 190 CE) and Tertullian of Carthage (c. 200 CE) quote nearly every book of the New Testament. Clement, a highly educated Alexandrian theologian, cites from the four Gospels, the Pauline corpus, Hebrews, and several Catholic Epistles, integrating them into philosophical discourse with Platonic terminology (Koester 1990). Tertullian, writing in Latin, quotes directly from Greek texts and argues against the Marcionite canon, which contained a truncated version of Luke and ten Pauline letters. His detailed refutations demonstrate that by 200 CE, a defined corpus of New Testament books already served as the measure of orthodoxy in North Africa.

 

By the early third century, Origen of Alexandria (185–253 CE) produced commentaries on nearly all the New Testament books, distinguishing between those universally accepted and those disputed (Eusebius, Hist. Eccl.. 6.25).

This classification prefigures the later canonical lists formalised in the fourth century.

 

8. Correlation with Manuscript and Archaeological Evidence

The pattern of citations across these writers correlates closely with the dates of our earliest surviving papyri. By 200 CE, the authors who quote the Gospels and Pauline letters, Justin, Irenaeus, Tatian, Clement, and Tertullian, are contemporaneous with P46, P66, and P75, the earliest physical manuscripts. The congruence between textual readings in these papyri and quotations in the Fathers confirms that the core New Testament text was already stabilised by this time.

The geographical range, from Rome to Syria, Alexandria to Carthage, demonstrates the rapid diffusion of these writings across the empire, a phenomenon best explained by organised copying and exchange among Greek-speaking Christian networks.

 

9. What Patristic Evidence Demonstrates

Empirically, the patristic citations provide measurable evidence that:

1. The principal writings later included in the New Testament, Gospels, Pauline epistles, Acts, and Revelation, were all in circulation by the mid-second century CE.

2. Early Christians already treated these writings as authoritative scripture, reading them in liturgy and using them to define doctrine.

3. The process of canon formation was underway at least 150 years before Constantine, driven by local usage and theological polemic rather than imperial decree.

4. The citation patterns mirror the textual readings preserved in early papyri, showing that the text was largely stable by c. 200 CE.

 

10. Limitations of the Evidence

Despite its value, patristic evidence cannot verify the original form of any text. Quotations are often paraphrastic or harmonised, and some authors appear to cite from memory. Moreover, the patristic corpus represents only literate, urban Christianity; it tells us little about oral traditions or the beliefs of rural communities. Nevertheless, as a chronological framework, these citations provide the strongest external confirmation that a collection of writings corresponding to the modern New Testament was both known and revered well before the fourth century.