An Investigation into Scripture, Eyewitness Testimony, Manuscripts, and Interpretation
The Question Behind the Question
In Part One, Would I Have Recognized Jesus?, we considered how people living in first-century Judea and Galilee responded to Jesus of Nazareth. Some believed He was the Messiah. Others regarded Him as a prophet or teacher. Some questioned His authority, while others rejected His claims.
But we face a different problem.
We were not standing among the crowds when Jesus taught. We did not witness His healings, hear His exchanges with religious leaders, or accompany His disciples through Galilee.
Everything we know about those events comes to us through testimony preserved in ancient writings.
That raises a question I believe every Christian should be willing to investigate:
How do I know what to believe when the evidence I am examining has passed through centuries of copying, translation, teaching, and interpretation?
I am not asking whether Scripture is valuable. I am asking how we distinguish Scripture’s testimony from the explanations people have attached to it.
And perhaps an even more difficult question follows: Have I placed my confidence in what Scripture actually says, or in what I have always been told it means?
Before There Was a New Testament
When Jesus began His ministry, the New Testament was not yet complete.
His Jewish contemporaries had the sacred writings of Israel, commonly identified as the Law, the Prophets, and other writings.
Jesus repeatedly appealed to those Scriptures.
In Luke 24:44 (CSB), He refers to what was written about Him in the Law of Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms.
The apostles likewise drew upon Israel’s Scriptures when explaining Jesus’ identity, death, and resurrection.
This matters because the earliest Christian proclamation did not begin with a complete collection of Christian books. It began with testimony concerning Jesus, interpreted in light of Israel’s Scriptures.
The writings that became the New Testament emerged within that setting.
Paul’s letters addressed actual communities and their circumstances. The Gospels presented accounts of Jesus’ ministry. Other apostolic writings instructed, encouraged, corrected, and warned believers.
These writings were subsequently copied, circulated, collected, and recognized by Christian communities.
Therefore, when we speak of the Bible as a single book, we should remember that it is a collection of writings composed across different periods, in different circumstances, and for different audiences.
The collection has a history.
Understanding that history does not diminish Scripture. It helps us recognize what kind of evidence we are examining.
Luke Investigated the Testimony
One of the New Testament’s most revealing introductions appears in Luke 1:1–4.
Luke explains that others had already written accounts of events that had occurred among them. He refers to information handed down by eyewitnesses and servants of the word from the beginning.
He then describes his own careful investigation and orderly presentation so that his reader, Theophilus, might know the certainty of what he had been taught.
Notice what Luke does not say.
He does not simply ask Theophilus to accept an account because someone has declared it authoritative.
Luke appeals to prior testimony, eyewitnesses, investigation, and an orderly written account.
This does not mean Luke personally witnessed every event he records. His introduction distinguishes the earlier eyewitnesses from his own investigation and presentation of their testimony.
That distinction matters.
The Gospel itself invites us to consider the relationship between the events, the witnesses, and the written account.
But another question remains: How can we assess Luke’s claim that he investigated carefully?
His introduction is evidence of his stated method. It is not, by itself, independent verification of every event in his narrative.
That requires further examination.
What About the Other Gospel Writers?
The four canonical Gospels are traditionally associated with Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. However, their relationships to eyewitness testimony are not presented in precisely the same way.
Luke explicitly describes gathering and investigating testimony.
John 21:24 identifies the disciple associated with the preceding testimony and its written preservation. The verse also contains a statement affirming the truthfulness of that testimony.
Mark does not open with a comparable explanation of his research method. Early Christian tradition connects Mark’s Gospel with Peter’s preaching, but that historical tradition must be distinguished from what the Gospel itself explicitly states.
Matthew likewise does not begin with a formal declaration explaining how it gathered its material. Its traditional attribution to the apostle Matthew is part of the early church’s testimony about its authorship, although scholars still debate the Gospels’ authorship.
These distinctions do not settle the question of reliability.
They show what evidence is available.
A Gospel’s traditional attribution, its internal statements, its literary characteristics, and external historical testimony are related sources of information, but they are not interchangeable.
If we are going to investigate honestly, we should not claim that a Gospel explicitly says something about its author when that information actually comes from later Christian testimony.
Does Historical Evidence Matter?
Suppose an ancient document describes a ruler, a city, a religious custom, or a political event.
If other historical sources confirm that those people, places, or practices existed, does that establish that every event described in the document occurred?
No.
It shows that certain historical details align with independently available evidence.
That is valuable, but it has limits.
Archaeology, inscriptions, coins, administrative records, and other ancient writings can help us reconstruct the historical world of the New Testament. They may support particular details, expose mistaken assumptions, or leave questions unresolved.
But confirmation of a city’s existence does not automatically confirm every conversation said to have taken place there.
Likewise, the absence of independent confirmation does not automatically establish that an event never happened.
Ancient evidence is incomplete.
Consider Pontius Pilate. The Gospel narratives describe him as the Roman governor involved in Jesus’ trial. His existence and official position are supported by evidence outside the New Testament, including an inscription discovered at Caesarea Maritima.
That corroboration helps establish the historical setting.
It does not independently verify every exchange between Pilate and Jesus recorded in the Gospels.
The distinction is straightforward: Historical corroboration can strengthen confidence in particular claims without proving every claim associated with them.
An investigation should recognize both the value and the limits of its evidence.
How Did the Words Reach Us?
The original physical manuscripts written by the biblical authors are not known to survive.
What we possess are copies, translations, quotations, and other witnesses to the textual history of Scripture.
For the New Testament, these include Greek manuscripts copied across many centuries, early translations into other languages, and quotations preserved in Christian writings.
The abundance of surviving material allows scholars to compare different witnesses and investigate how the text was transmitted.
But it also reveals differences.
Ancient copying was performed by human beings. Scribes could accidentally omit words, repeat phrases, substitute similar expressions, or rearrange material. Some differences also appear to reflect deliberate attempts to clarify wording, harmonize accounts, or expand a passage.
These differences are called textual variants.
Some involve spelling or word order. Others involve entire phrases, verses, or longer passages.
This raises a question that deserves more attention than it sometimes receives.
If two manuscripts contain different wording, which reading most likely represents the earlier text?
The answer cannot simply be that the reading familiar to us must be original.
Nor can we assume that the shortest, oldest, or most widely represented reading is automatically correct in every instance.
Textual criticism evaluates several kinds of evidence, including manuscript age, geographical distribution, relationships among witnesses, and the likelihood of particular copying changes.
The purpose is not to rewrite Scripture according to modern preferences. It is to investigate the surviving evidence for the text’s wording.
When Entire Passages Differ
Two familiar New Testament examples illustrate why manuscript evidence matters.
The first is Mark 16:9–20, commonly called the Longer Ending of Mark.
Many Bibles include these verses and note that some of the earliest surviving manuscripts do not contain them.
The second is John 7:53–8:11, the account of the woman brought before Jesus after being accused of adultery.
This passage has a complicated manuscript history. It is absent from many early witnesses and appears in different locations in some manuscripts.
These are not merely differences in punctuation or English wording.
They concern the presence and placement of substantial portions of text.
We should not pretend these questions do not exist. Nor should we assume that acknowledging them means the entire New Testament is unreliable.
The existence of textual variants is one question. Resolving particular variants is another. The theological significance of a disputed passage is yet another.
Each deserves examination on its own terms.
For example, if a teaching is found in a disputed passage, we should ask whether that teaching is also supported by passages whose textual transmission is less disputed.
But we should not quietly treat an uncertain passage as though its textual history were beyond question.
An honest investigation identifies the evidence rather than concealing it.
Is the Old Testament Different?
The Hebrew Scriptures’ textual history has its own complexities.
The Masoretic Text forms the primary Hebrew textual basis for many modern Old Testament translations. Other important witnesses include the Dead Sea Scrolls, the ancient Greek Septuagint, and the Samaritan Pentateuch.
These witnesses sometimes preserve differences in wording, arrangement, or length.
For example, the Greek form of Jeremiah differs substantially in length and arrangement from the Hebrew Masoretic form.
This demonstrates that the history of biblical transmission is not identical for every book.
It also reminds us that the Scriptures read and quoted in the first-century Mediterranean world were not limited to one uniform manuscript edition.
When New Testament authors quote Israel’s Scriptures, their wording sometimes resembles the Greek Septuagint more closely than the Hebrew text familiar to modern readers.
That does not automatically establish an error in either text.
It means we must identify which textual witness we’re using before drawing conclusions from a difference.
The original-language evidence matters.
Translation Is Not the Same as Transmission
Now we arrive at another problem.
Even if we determine the most likely wording of an ancient manuscript, we still have to translate it.
The Old Testament was written primarily in Hebrew, with portions in Aramaic. The New Testament was written in Greek.
English translations must convey those ancient expressions to readers whose language, culture, and assumptions differ considerably from those of the original audiences.
That requires decisions.
A Hebrew or Greek word may have several meanings depending on its context. An expression may function as an idiom. A grammatical construction may not have a direct English equivalent.
Consequently, two translators working from the same Greek text may produce different English sentences without either intentionally changing the underlying message.
But translation choices can also influence how readers understand a passage.
A translator may select a familiar theological term where a more literal expression would preserve an important connection to another passage.
A translator may rearrange a sentence for readability, making a relationship between words less visible.
Or an ambiguous expression in the original language may be rendered in English in a way that favors one interpretation.
These are reasons to compare translations, not reasons to dismiss translation altogether.
We should also distinguish differences caused by translation from differences caused by the underlying manuscripts.
If a verse appears in one English Bible but is absent or bracketed in another, the reason may be textual evidence rather than a translator’s preference for particular English words.
That distinction should be established before accusing a translation of adding or removing Scripture.
What Does It Mean to Call Scripture Inspired?
Second Timothy 3:16 (CSB) identifies Scripture as God-inspired and describes its usefulness for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness.
The Greek term commonly discussed here is theopneustos, often rendered “God-breathed” or “inspired by God.”
The passage makes an important claim about Scripture.
But we should ask precisely what it establishes.
Paul’s statement concerns Scripture and its divine origin and usefulness. It does not provide a technical explanation of every stage through which biblical writings would later be copied, translated, printed, and interpreted.
Nor does the verse, by itself, define every theological formulation subsequently developed around the terms inspiration, infallibility, and inerrancy.
Those terms are related, but they are not identical.
Inspiration concerns the divine origin or character of Scripture.
Infallibility is commonly used to express the conviction that Scripture does not fail in accomplishing its intended divine purpose, although theological traditions define the term differently.
Inerrancy generally refers to the claim that Scripture is without error, with significant differences among Christians concerning the scope and qualifications of that claim.
These formulations deserve serious consideration. But we should distinguish the biblical statements themselves from the theological definitions developed to explain them.
A further question arises: Does a claim about the inspiration of Scripture automatically make my interpretation of Scripture inspired?
Surely not.
If two Christians read the same passage and reach conflicting conclusions, they cannot both establish the correctness of their interpretations merely by affirming that the passage is inspired.
The authority attributed to Scripture must not be confused with the authority claimed for a particular explanation of Scripture.
When Interpretation Becomes Tradition
This brings us to an issue that reaches into nearly every Christian community.
Many believers learn Scripture through sermons, Sunday school lessons, commentaries, confessions, catechisms, and theological books.
These can be valuable sources of instruction.
But they are also interpretations.
Over time, an interpretation may become so familiar that people no longer recognize it as an interpretation.
They hear a biblical passage and immediately associate it with the explanation they were taught.
Eventually, the explanation may become more familiar than the text’s wording.
That is where investigation becomes especially important.
Consider the distinction between four statements:
Scripture states: The wording explicitly appears in the biblical text.
Scripture implies: A conclusion follows from the wording and context, though it is not stated directly.
Interpretation proposes: A reader offers an explanation of the text based on linguistic, literary, historical, or theological considerations.
Tradition teaches: A community has adopted and transmitted a particular understanding, sometimes over many generations.
These categories can overlap, but they should not be collapsed into one another.
A longstanding tradition may preserve an accurate understanding. A recent interpretation may be mistaken. Age alone does not establish truth or error.
The question remains: What does the evidence support?
Can Faith Survive Difficult Questions?
Some Christians may hesitate to examine manuscript variations, historical uncertainties, or interpretive disagreements because they fear such questions could undermine their faith.
But avoiding evidence does not resolve it.
The biblical writings themselves show people asking questions, investigating testimony, and reconsidering what they thought they understood.
In Acts 17:11, the Bereans receive Paul’s message and examine the Scriptures daily to see whether his teaching aligns with them.
Notice that they are not commended merely for accepting a persuasive speaker.
They investigate.
Yet their example also raises a question for us: They examined Israel’s sacred writings, not a completed New Testament.
They tested the proclamation about Jesus against the scriptural witness available to them.
That is particularly relevant to our investigation.
If the earliest proclamation about Jesus could be examined against Scripture, why should later explanations of Christianity be exempt from examination?
What Can the Evidence Establish?
We should be careful not to demand that ancient historical evidence do what it cannot do.
Historical investigation can examine the existence of people and places, the dates and relationships of writings, manuscript transmission, the credibility of testimony, and the plausibility of reported circumstances.
It can compare accounts and identify agreements, differences, and unresolved questions.
But historical methods alone cannot reproduce every event described in an ancient text.
Nor can they directly measure divine inspiration.
Those limitations do not make historical evidence useless. They show us where particular methods end.
The same caution applies to faith.
Faith should not be presented as though every historical and textual question has already been answered.
Neither should uncertainty about one passage be treated as proof that every other passage is unreliable.
An investigation follows the evidence available for each question.
A Personal Reflection
I have spent years reading Scripture, listening to sermons, studying commentaries, and examining different theological traditions.
But the more closely I examine the biblical text, the more I recognize the importance of distinguishing what is written from what has been inferred.
A familiar explanation may be comforting. A longstanding tradition may be persuasive. A respected teacher may possess considerable knowledge.
Yet none of those considerations eliminates my responsibility to examine the scriptural evidence.
That responsibility also applies to my own conclusions.
I can misunderstand a Greek expression, overlook a historical circumstance, or read a later theological assumption into an earlier biblical passage.
Recognizing that possibility does not reject faith. It acknowledges that I am a reader and investigator, not the author of Scripture.
Perhaps the most important question is not whether I can defend everything I have previously believed.
It is whether I am willing to correct my understanding when the evidence requires it.
Where Does That Leave Us?
We began by asking how we can know what to believe when we did not personally witness Jesus’ ministry.
We found that the question involves several distinct matters: the original events, the testimony about those events, the preservation of that testimony, its translation into modern languages, and the interpretations built on it.
Each contributes to our understanding, but none should be confused with the others.
We also discovered that Scripture itself presents people examining testimony rather than merely accepting every religious claim.
Yet another question now emerges.
Even if I become convinced that the biblical witness is trustworthy, what produces faith?
Is faith the result of reading Scripture? Does it arise through preaching? Is it a response to evidence? Or does the Holy Spirit have a role that cannot be reduced to historical investigation or intellectual agreement?
And if the Holy Spirit is involved, how do I distinguish His work from my own emotions, expectations, and interpretations?
That question takes us into Part Three.
Previous Investigation: Part One — Would I Have Recognized Jesus?
Next Investigation: Part Three — Where Does My Faith Come From?
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Scripture quotations and references: Christian Standard Bible (CSB). Scripture passages are discussed and paraphrased unless otherwise indicated. Greek terms are transliterated for general readers.