"Is the New Testament Reliable?" by Paul Barnett

http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/05/24/030516.php

[BlogCritics.org] May 24, 2005--Is the New Testament an historically reliable source of information about Jesus and the early church?

According to a number of contemporary scholars, the answer to that question is no. For example, Robert Funk and the members of the Jesus Seminar argue that Jesus did not say or perform a majority of the words and actions attributed to him in the Gospels. Elaine Pagels and Bart Ehrman argue that multiple versions of Christianity competed for the allegiance of the faithful in the early centuries of the church. The books of the New Testament — and the history and theology they communicate — are simply the documents of that competition's winners, who went on to forcibly suppress alternative Christianities. Even popular media debunk the New Testament. Last year, just in time for Christmas, both Time and Newsweek ran cover stories that expressed skepticism about the veracity of details of Jesus' birth.

But these voices represent only one side an ongoing debate. Paul Barnett's Is the New Testament Reliable? is a representative of the other, affirmative side. Barnett is a churchman and a scholar — the former Anglican bishop of North Sydney, Australia, and currently a teaching fellow at Regent College in Vancouver, Canada, and a visiting fellow in ancient history at Macquarie University in Australia. He is the author of Jesus and the Rise of Early Christianity and Jesus and the Logic of History, among other books. The first volume of his trilogy, The Birth of Christianity: The First Twenty Years will be published in April by Eerdmans.