100 Reasons to Believe New Testament History
20. The Witness Test – Were the Writers Honest?
The presumption that an ordinary person will speak the truth unless there is prevailing motive or inducement to the contrary is applied in a court of law, even when the witness’ integrity is not wholly free from suspicion. It must be reasonable to apply this to the authors of the New Testament, whose witness went against their worldly interests. History records that they were willing to, and did, die for their testimonies.
The testimony Pliny the Younger (Governor of Bithynia in Asia Minor AD 112) to the Emperor Trajan regarding Christians and Christianity is of interest. Note that these conclusions were based information gleaned from two Christian women whom had tortured, presumably to death.
“They affirmed, however, that the whole of their guilt, or their error, was, that they were in the habit of meeting on a certain fixed day before it was light, when they sang in alternate verse a hymn to Christ as to a god, and bound themselves to a solemn oath, not to do any wicked deeds, but never to commit any fraud, theft, adultery, never to falsify their word, not to deny a trust when they should be called upon to deliver it up” Pliny theYounger, Epistles X, 96
Based on both internal and external evidences, we must suppose that those who wrote and propagated the New Testament were strongly committed to the truth A.
20. The Witness Test – Were the Writers Honest? - Notes and References
A. Concerning the resurrection story being propagated by the early church, Montgomery observes, “[For the disciples to have fabricated] detailed accounts of Jesus’ resurrection would have been to fly in the face of the ethic their master preached and for which they ultimately died.” John Warwick Montgomery, “History and Christianity”, Downers Grove, Illinois, Intervarsity Press, 1971, p. 77