NEW TESTAMENT DOCUMENTS : ARE THEY RELIABLE ?

English edition 1943; French edition Work from 1974; Publisher: Operation Mobilization France; 160p

PREFACE TO THE FRENCH EDITION: This book was first published in English in 1943. At that time, I was teaching the history and literature of ancient Greece and I had gotten into the habit of placing the New Testament in its historical context.

I have often been asked to give lectures in high schools and colleges on the credibility of the New Testament texts and the Gospels in particular. What reasons can lead us to trust these texts? They are numerous when compared to those that the authorities in classical literature have defined to establish the authenticity and credibility of other texts. This is what I was trying to show. And this book was born from these conferences.

It has been pointed out, and rightly so, that if we are interested in the New Testament, the question of its historical validity is not everything. Indeed, Christian doctrine affirms that the story recorded in the New Testament is the summit of God's revelation to man and that Jesus Christ, who is the center of interest, is the incarnation of the truth. eternal. But this book cannot prove it. For this, a demonstration of another kind is necessary.

Yet I have found that most students are more willing to consider this doctrine if the New Testament is a historically authentic work than if it is not. And I think they're right. In the gospel, history and theology are inseparably linked because all its power depends on the historical facts that took place in the Middle East in the first century AD. I would like to take this opportunity to thank my friends who published this book in French and to express my best feelings to all readers.

October 1974 F. F. BRUCE

Frederick Fyvie Bruce FBA (1910–1990), usually cited as F. F. Bruce, was a Scottish biblical scholar who supported the historical reliability of the New Testament. His first book, New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable? - English title of the work we presented - (1943), was elected by the American evangelical periodical Christianity Today in 2006 as one of the 50 best books "that shaped evangelicals"

TABLE OF CONTENTS Preface to the French edition 3

I What does it matter ? 5 II New Testament documents: dates and certification 9

III The New Testament canon . 23 IV The Gospels 33

V The miracles of the Gospel 76 VI Paul's testimony 94

VII Luke's writings 99 VIII The contribution of archaeology 115

IXThe testimony of ancient Jewish writings . 124 X The testimony of pagan writings 140

General index 151 Index of biblical references ..155

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