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What is the Kurzgefasste Liste der griechischen Handschriften des Neuen Testaments?

November 23rd, 2019Paul Gibson

In my last article, Where are Manuscripts Found?, I briefly mentioned scholars use published lists to keep track of the New Testament manuscripts which have been cataloged. The list used by most New Testament manuscript scholars is Kurzgefasste Liste der griechischen Handschriften des Neuen Testaments (Short List of Greek Manuscripts of the New Testament), produced by the Institute for New Testament Textual Research, University of Munster, Germany. Fortunately for...

What is a Manuscript?

October 26th, 2019Paul Gibson

What is a Manuscript?

The word manuscript comes from the Latin words manu, meaning hand, and scriptus, meaning write. Historically, a manuscript is a handwritten document, or a handwritten copy of a document. In modern times, a manuscript could be made on a typewriter or computer, but then refers to the original document created by the author, as opposed to mass-produced copies of the same document.

Manuscripts are a...

What is the Q Source Hypothesis?

July 6th, 2019Paul Gibson

In my last two articles I've researched What is the Synoptic Problem? and Which Gospel was Written First?. It is frequently accepted by modern scholars that Mark was written first, and the Gospels of Matthew and Luke used Mark as a primary source.

There is material common to both Matthew and Luke which is not in Mark, so where did they get that material? It is generally believed Luke was written third, so either Luke copied the...

Which Gospels was Written First?

June 29th, 2019Paul Gibson

(This post was supposed to go out last Saturday, but I realized yesterday it hadn't.)

The order of the Gospels in the New Testament is Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, however, scholars typically believe they were written in a different order. How did they come to this conclusion?

In my article What is the Synoptic Problem?, I showed there is so much in common between the Synoptic Gospels that the later...

Can We Trust the Gospels?

June 8th, 2019Paul Gibson

Christianity is based on historical events. Throughout the Bible, there were eyewitnesses to events, and those people reported what happened. The Gospels, in particular, have extra-Biblical sources which help confirm their accuracy. First century non-Christian historians who refer to events in the Gospels include Josephus, Pliny the Younger, Suetonius, Tacitus, Thallus, and Emperor Trajan.

Ancient Historians

The testimonies...

What are the Gospels?

June 1st, 2019Paul Gibson

I wrote several articles about the Torah, which is comprised of the first five books of the Old Testament. Now I want to move several hundred years later and research the Gospels, the first four books of the New Testament.

The word Gospel comes from an Old English translation of the Greek word euaggelion (εὐαγγέλιον; Strong's G2098), from which we get the English words evangelize, evangelist and Evangelical. Gospel means "good...

Where did Moses get His Information? Part 2

May 25th, 2019Paul Gibson

This is part two of a series, Where did Moses get His Information?. In part one, I briefly discussed how Moses could have written Exodus 1 (ESV) since it took place before he was born. I also mentioned Deuteronomy 34 (ESV), which was written after he died. The likely answers are pretty simple, so it was a short article.

Now I want to discuss how Moses received the information he wrote in the book of Genesis, the first book of the Bible....

Where did Moses get His Information? Part 1

May 18th, 2019Paul Gibson

The first five books of the Bible are Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy, and are traditionally attributed to Moses (see the articles Did Moses Write the Torah? Part 1, Part 2). Most of the events in the last four books happened during Moses' life, and he was, in fact, the key person during those events.

Exodus chapter 2 records Moses's birth, so obviously he wasn't an eyewitness to the events in...

Did Moses Write the Torah? Part 2

May 11th, 2019Paul Gibson

Last week I posted the article Did Moses Write the Torah? Part 1, and I showed other Biblical authors clearly attributed the first five books of the Bible to Moses, in both the Old and New Testaments. In this article I want to make the case that the books we have in our Bibles may not be exactly what Moses wrote, but they are accurate representations of what Moses, and God, were communicating to the Israelites, and to us.

Editors may...

Did Moses Write the Torah? Part 1

May 4th, 2019Paul Gibson

Modern skeptics have
doubts that Moses wrote the first five books of the Bible: Genesis, Exodus,
Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. These books are core teachings for three of
the worlds major religions: Judaism (Hebrew Torah),
Christianity (Greek Pentateuch) and
Islam (Arabic Tawrat). These three religions all have
traditions of the same author, despite their significant theological
differences. Could Moses have written the first five...