How do you deal with the lack of original manuscripts, which leaves you only copies that cannot be compared to originals for accuracy?
How do you deal with the lack of an unbroken chain of transmission between the New Testament authors and today’s Christians? By lack, I mean an unbroken chain cannot be demonstrated, but merely assumed from deduction, based on the premises that “absence of evidence is not evidence of absence” and such.
How do you deal with the anonymity of the authors within the Gospel writings and the lack of detail, especially when compared to other ancient historical writings.
1 - We have complete manuscripts from the early 4th century, we have bits and pieces from the 2nd and 3rd centuries. We also have bits and pieces and a few full manuscripts from the 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, and 9th centuries. We have full manuscripts from the 10th, 11th, 12th, 13th, 14th, and 15th centuries. These manuscripts exist in several languages (Greek, Syriac, Latin, Georgian, Ge’ez, Gothic, Slavic, etc) and have a vast geographic distribution spanning 3 continents.
And guess what? The bits and pieces from the 2nd and 3rd centuries are in substantial conformity with each other, which are in turn in agreement with the full manuscripts from the 4th century which are in substantial agreement with those of the 14th century.
Most variants in said manuscripts are in orthography, word order, etc. Minor variants do exist, but the majority of the manuscripts and substance of the texts are in agreement.
What does that tell you?
2 - See answer to 1.
3 - The anonymity of the Gospels is a modern scholarly premise which began in the 19th century. The fourfold Gospel has been attributed to the Apostles Matthew, Mark, Luke and John since at least the 2nd century.
Even if the Gospels weren’t written by those Apostles, it is an article of Catholic Faith that the fourfold Gospels are both accurate witnesses to the Apostolic Preaching, and that the Holy Spirit is the primary author of them.
So long as a Catholic holds to the belief that the Gospels are accurate representations of Apostolic teaching and are inspired of God, the Church gives her children the freedom to believe a multitude of theories regarding the human authorship of said Gospels.
The traditional idea that the Gospels were written by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John is still widely held in the Church, and it is even a common minority position of Catholic biblical scholars of the highest eminence (such as Dr. Scott Hahn).
For what it’s worth, I personally hold to the traditional belief and subscribe to either the Augustinian hypothesis or the Independence hypothesis proposed by Eta Linnemann.
Cross reference John A.T. Robinson and his excellent book “Redating the New Testament,” which forcefully, convincingly, and eloquently argues for the position that all 27 canonical New Testament books were written prior to A.D. 70.
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