Preface to the Fifth Edition of The New Testament Documents

The New Testament Documents Are They Reliable? 'Reliable as what?' asked a discerning reviewer of the first edition of this little work by way of a comment on the title. His point, I think, was that we should be concerned with the reliability of the New Testament as a witness to God's self-revelation in Christ rather than with its reliability as a record of historical fact. True, but the two questions are closely related. For, since Christianity claims to be a historical revelation, it is not irrelevant to look at its foundation documents from the standpoint of historical criticism. When the first edition of this book (my literary firstborn) appeared in 1943, I was a lecturer in classical studies and had for long been accustomed to viewing the New Testament in its classical context. When I was invited from time to time to address audiences of sixth-formers and university students on the trustworthiness of the New Testament in general and of the Gospel records in particular, my usual line was to show that the grounds for accepting the New Testament as trustworthy compared very favorably with the grounds on which classical students accepted the authenticity and credibility of many ancient documents. It was out of such talks that this book originally grew. It has (I am told) proved its usefulness to the readers for whom it was intended, not only in English-speaking lands but in German and Spanish translations as well.