100 Reasons to Believe New Testament History
72. Justin Martyr (A.D. 100 –160)
Justin was born to pagan parents in Samaria, and embraced Christianity around A.D. 130. For some time he taught at Ephesus, and recorded a lengthy debate he had with a certain Jewish apologist, Trypho, in about A.D. 130. He later moved to Rome where he founded a Christian school A. Justin authored numerous works including two great apologies, the second of which was addressed to the Roman senate.
It is clear from Justin’s writings that he regarded the New Testament as truthful and authoritive. Throughout Justin’s written works we find not less than 330 citations from the New Testament B. Soon after writing his second apology Justin was denounced by the anti-Christian cynic Crescens, whom he had defeated in debate years before. Justin was tried before Q. Junius Rusticus and was beheaded for the faith he had so brilliantly defended C.
72. Justin Martyr (A.D. 100 –160) - Notes and References
A. Colin Hemer article “Justin Martyr” in the “Eerdmans’ Handbook to the History of Christianity”, Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1987 reprint, p.108
Norman L.Geisler, “Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics”, Baker Books, 1999, p.395
B. Josh McDowel, “The New Evidence that Demands a Verdict”, Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1999, p. 43
“The agreement between Justin’s account of Jesus’ life and teaching taken from the Memoirs and our Synoptic Gospels often extends to small particulars – and this is of significance. Thus his account of Jesus’ infancy is identical with the Synoptic account apart from the statement that the Christ was born in a cave and that the Magi came from Arabia. The soberness of Justin’s narrative is in marked contrast to the accounts of the second-century Apocryphal Gospels which go in for many embellishments. Justin refers to the enrolment under Cyrenius, Jesus’ growth from infancy to manhood, he names the son’s of Zebedee, he records Jesus’ silence at his trial, Pilate’s sending him to Herod, and the Jewish story that his body was stolen from the tomb by his disciples. These coincidences in details, together with the general tenor of his account, suggest that Justin’s Memoirs were in substance identical with our Synoptic Gospels whatever else they may have contained.” “Justin Martyr: His Life and His Thought”, by L.W. Barnard, Cambridge University Press, 1967, pp. 59-60
“The uncanonical material found in Justin is of small compass compared with his agreements with the Canonical Gospels. The marvel is that so little legendary material appears in his works when we compare them with the fanciful accounts of the second-century apocryphal Gospels and even with traditions contained in other of the early Fathers. To compare Justin’s sober account of the Magi with the account given by Ignatius of the Star of Bethlehem some forty years before is most instructive. Justin always gives the simple, unadorned story rather than fanciful embellishments. His few differences from our Gospels are due to lapses of memory, a desire to show a fulfillment of prophecy, the use of traditional Jewish-Christian oral material and possibly certain apocryphal books.” Ibid. p. 66
C. “After Jesus: The Triumph of Christianity”, Readers Digest Association, 1992, p. 140