http://www.equip.org/free/DJ028.htm



BOOK REVIEWS

Eyewitness to Jesus:
Amazing New Manuscript Evidence about the Origin of the Gospels


by Carsten Peter Thiede and Matthew d'Ancona


When I first read in the Los Angeles Times in early 1995, that an
expert had reevaluated some papyrus fragments of the Gospel of Matthew
and dated them to the first century, I realized this could have
far-reaching ramifications for biblical scholarship. For the past two
centuries, liberal higher critics have used literary arguments and the
lack of manuscripts from the first century to support their assumption
that the Gospels were written long after the events they describe.

If hard artifacts verify the dating of Matthew's Gospel as far back
as A.D. 60, these artifacts would destroy the foundation of liberal
higher criticism. Since some of these same scholars argue that Mark
wrote the first Gospel, this discovery would push the composition of
Mark to within 20 years, at most, of the events his Gospel describes.
Taken together, the synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) and
Luke's second volume, Acts, would give us a record of the events of
Jesus' life, death, and resurrection indisputably written within the
lifetimes of those who were eyewitnesses and who, therefore, could have
disputed any untrue assertions. There would be no time for fabrications
to develop, no time for a "Jesus of faith" to replace the "Jesus of
history," no time for the church to evolve a supernatural story from a
simple inspiring teacher, and no time for Christians to transform
first-century events into second or third-century pseudohistory.

Although the literary arguments and philosophical presuppositions of
the liberal higher critics have their own fatal flaws, their subjective
nature sometimes makes them difficult to refute clearly. For example, a
common liberal presupposition is that Jesus Himself never claimed to be
God, so any deity statements attributed to Him in the Gospels must be
later composition inserted in His name. A discovery that depends, not
on changing theories of literary interpretation, but on empirical
evidence from paper, ink, and penmanship, would refute the liberal
theories with unmistakable finality.

I found another report of the discovery in a biblical archaeology
magazine and realized that, if it could be verified, it would provide
an even more important historical context for the New Testament than
that provided for the Old Testament by the 1948 discovery of the Dead
Sea Scrolls. This is because it affirms eyewitness authorship.

Carsten Peter Thiede's work first appeared in a professional journal
on which the London press reported. Shortly thereafter, Thiede
collaborated with Matthew d'Ancona, the London Times editor who broke
the story. The result is the very readable, clearly written Eyewitness
to Jesus. Although the book is not overtly a Bible apologetic, it
certainly lends itself to that. Those who want to learn more about this
fascinating subject will also appreciate the book's helpful
footnotes, glossary, and extensive bibliography.

In addition to Thiede's well-argued redating of the Matthew
fragments, chapter six, "Scribes and Christianity," contains
fascinating auxiliary information for understanding the literary and
historical background of the New Testament. In this chapter Thiede
discusses the multilingual society of first-century Israel; Jesus'
childhood exposure to Greek culture in Sepphoris, the capital of
Galilee, less than four miles from Nazareth; Jesus' use of Greek
literary terms; Jesus' and Paul's familiarity with Greek drama;
first-century scribal techniques; first-century "shorthand," especially
customary religious abbreviations called nomen sacrum; and a summary of
traditions regarding Peter's final days before his martyrdom. The
contents of this chapter alone will enrich anyone's understanding and
appreciation of the New Testament.

The Matthew fragments redated by Thiede are at Magdalen College
(Oxford). They are called The Magdalen Papyrus (listed as Greek 17 and
p64). There are three fragments written on both sides, together
representing 24 lines from Matthew 26:7-33. Two of the three fragments
are a little larger than 4 x 1 cm.; the other is smaller, 1.6 x 1.6 cm.
Another two fragments, located in Spain, are called the Barcelona
Papyrus (P. Barc. inv. 1/p67) and contain portions of Matthew 3:9, 15;
5:20-22, 25-28.

The Magdalen Papyrus surfaced in the modern world in 1901, when Charles
B. Huleatt purchased it from an antiquities dealer in Luxor, Egypt.
Nothing is known of the fragment's preservation before that time.
Huleatt donated the fragments to Magdalen College, where they were
given a cursory examination by Magdalen scholar Arthur Hunt, who
tentatively dated them to the fourth century. In 1953, Colin Roberts
redated the Magdalen Papyrus to the later second century and
established their connection to the Barcelona fragments.

More than 40 years later Thiede reexamined the fragments, using
state-of-the-art electronic scanners with close analysis of the
paper, ink, letter formation, line length, and other factors to redate
the fragments to around A.D. 60. Thiede's tests and skill appear to
be well within responsible papyrology, although his conclusions have
met with strong opposition from critics.

I have examined most of the critical articles and have found their
criticisms less convincing than Thiede's conclusions. A layperson's
paraphrase of one common criticism is that the papyrus must not be from
the first century because there weren't any codexes (book-leafs) in
first-century Jewish/Christian literature but only scrolls, even though
the papyrus has all of the physical characteristics of a first-century
document. As Thiede rightly points out, the argument against
first-century codexes is an argument from silence - of the small
percentage of recovered early manuscript portions, no indisputable
first-century codex portion has been identified. If, however, the
Magdalen/Barcelona codex is first century, then we do have an example
of a first-century codex. Moreover, if critical assumptions are
reconsidered, and cutting-edge papyrology tests are applied to other
previously dated fragments, we may well find other early examples of
codexes.

Time and careful scholarship will tell whether Thiede's redating is
sound. If it is (and the more I study the issue, the more confidence I
have in Thiede), we will have valuable affirmation of the eyewitness
nature of the Gospel records, the uninterrupted and unchanging
preservation of those testimonies, and our twentieth-century
inheritance of "the faith that God has once for all entrusted to the
saints" (Jude 3) by those who "did not follow cleverly invented
stories," but "were eyewitnesses of his majesty" (2 Pet. 1:16).



- Reviewed by Bob Passantino