The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable? Paperback – April 2, 2003

In classic form, the great evangelical scholar lays out a stunning defense of the New Testament. The book, although written over a half-century from the time of this review, is still an excellent resource for those studying the topic today. The writing style is like that of a discourse and is far more readable than other of Bruce's works. His train of thought is straightforward and his vocabulary is not complex. The work is short and concise. Having attended Seminary within the evangelical tradition, some of Bruce's arguments sounded familiar, but the amount of arguments all packed into such a small volume is of inestimable value. This work is excellent for the scholar and the layman, the doubter and the believer, the casual reader and the vociferous reader, the fundamentalist and the liberal.In summary, Bruce begins the book with a question. He asks why the reliability and historicity of the New Testament documents are important. His answer is that the Christian faith is grounded in history and facts. Without a history or without the underlying facts, Christianity is not really Christianity. His arguments ring here with sounds of Machen, Chesterton, and Lewis. Moving from this argument, Bruce shows the sound textual basis for the New Testament documents and contrasts this with the weak textual basis for other unquestioned documents in history. After establishing the textual basis, the writer brings up the historicity of the historical narratives of the New Testament (The Gospels and Acts). He deals with this in three categories, namely The Synoptics, John, and Acts. Here Bruce brings to bear the weight of substantial historical evidence for the facts recorded in the books. Throughout his discussions of these books the writer brings up time and again the idea of the miracles recorded in them. He makes the point that accepting or rejecting the miracles has nothing to do with the historicity of the records (for which ample proof exists), but more to do with one's preconceived notions about Jesus Christ. This thought is followed up with an examination of the historicity of Jesus from the sources contemporary to His time. Bruce goes to great lengths to establish the fine detail of the documents of historians who make comments regarding Jesus Christ. After this segment is concluded, the author discusses the other epistles of the New Testament in brief. Bruce's point here seems to be that where they mention history, they are accurate and that they were accepted historically.In essence, Bruce's work is monumental because it removes the supposed historical roadblock to the Christian faith and leaves the reader with a simple question: if the historicity of Scripture is unquestionable, why then do you not believe the account? This nagging question drives the reader to reconsider their preconceived ideas about the supernatural and the divine. For this reason, this work deserves the highest marks of classic Christian literature.

There have been few scholars with such a breadth and depth of knowledge of the New Testament documents as F.F. Bruce. His defense here of the authenticity of the New Testament is a succinct yet powerful argument that leaves no doubt. While the New Testament documents are constantly and increasingly being attacked in the eyes of the public it is imperative that Christians come to a solid belief and understanding that the Scriptures were written during the 1st century, by men inspired by the Holy Spirit, and have come to us uncorrupted so that we can know and follow the truth. Mr. Bruce begins his discussion by establishing beyond a reasonable doubt that the New Testament Scriptures were indeed written during the 1st century and did not come from questionable sources as has become the claim of some. He then moves on and lays out a portion of evidence from the gospels and the miracles of the gospels, which he states are the central reason that acceptance of the New Testament documents as historically authentic gives scholars any pause. He uses several points of historical verification from the gospel account of Luke and the book of Acts. F.F. Bruce also covers much ground in defending the writings of Paul as authentic by examining the documentary evidence. Archaeological evidence is addressed in one chapter, but I wish this had been fleshed out a bit more. Bruce concludes the book by examining the contemporary writings of both Jewish and Gentile detractors, futher establishing early dates for the New Testament documents and several points of doctrine. By the end of the book, it's clear that for these sacred texts to have been passably faked, forged, or unreliably corrupted the bar is unreasonably high.I did not observe any of the formatting problems on my Kindle that others have reported. These appear to have been corrected. Included are three chapters for further reading (broken down chapter-by-chapter), an index of names and subjects (although this references physical pages that don't apply to the Kindle version. With text search this is not such a big deal.), and an index of the Scripture references used. The table of contents is nicely linked.I found this book to be a quick read, but rich in substance and edifying to my faith. F.F. Bruce applied his lifetime of scholarship and study to produce a defense of the New Testament's reliablity that is easily accessible to the average Christian and is so much needed in our religious environment today. Certainly in the years since its publication and latest updates new information has continued to come to light, but this book does a service for Christians that will stand the test of time as the evidence continues to mount up and suppliment what is already recorded here. I would highly recommend this book for any Christian that is about to start college or leave home. However, the evidence of the Scriptures should be the study of all Christians and this book is a great, faith-building place to start. A must read, deserving a place on every Christian's bookshelf.

This is the first book I recommend to people with questions about the historical reliability of the New Testament. Bruce devotes brief chapters to dating and attestation, to the formation of the canon, to textual criticism, and then to the Gospels, Paul, and Luke-Acts individually. He compares the New Testament documents to what we know of the first century from archaeology, classical history, ancient Jewish writing (including the Talmudim, Josephus, and the Dead Sea Scrolls), and the earliest Christian writers.All together, he makes a compelling case for accepting the New Testament writings as historically reliable accounts written by eyewitnesses and published within living memory of the events they record. I especially enjoyed the chapter analysing Luke's evocation of different places and his precision with respect to the complex and tangled matter of Roman administrative titles. Bruce manages to get a surprising amount of detail into a relatively short book (124pp). Although it was originally published in 1943 and has not been significantly reworked since 1959, it holds up remarkably well.

This work provides excellent, specific detail - just what I was looking for. I like when a book does more than just name names, but gets into specific quotes/dates.The kindle version seems to have been scanned, and the scanning wasn't successful apparently because there are many typos.Someone should really proof their scanning results before selling it.