23 - New Testament - Early Church Fathers
Early Church Fathers
Now let's take a look at some of the early Christian writings, outside of the Bible, to see if they confirm what the Bible that we are holding today says.
Interestingly, the early church fathers, men of the 2nd and 3rd centuries AD, men like Justin Martyr, Clement of Alexandria, Irenaeus, Origen, Tertullian, etc. quoted from the New Testament document that we have today 36,289 times.
Why is this important?
This shuts down the skeptic's assertion that the canon of our New Testament, the books we have today, were just added in hundreds of years later by some religious council.
It also proves that these books that we now have, the New Testament, were written early, if the early Christians who lived in the 2nd and 3rd centuries were already quoting them.
Clement, writing from Rome in AD95, quotes from Matthew, Mark, Luke, Romans, 1 Corinthians, Ephesians, 1 Timothy, Titus, Hebrews, James and 1 Peter.
Ignatius, writing from Smyrna in Asia Minor in AD107, quotes from 24 of the 27 books that we currently have in our New Testament today.
Polycarp, the disciple of John, who lived from AD69-155, writing from Smyrna in Asia Minor in AD110, quotes from 18 of the 27 books that we currently have in our New Testament.
Polycarp and his disciple, Irenaeus, collectively quote from 23 of the 27 books that we currently have in our New Testament today.
I think you get the point.
They were quoting from these books because these books were first of all already written, and secondly, because they were authoritative.
Since Clement was in Rome, and Ignatius and Polycarp were hundreds of miles away in Smyrna, this shows that the New Testament documents that they were referring to, must have been written much earlier.
Otherwise, they could not have been circulated across the ancient world at that time.
Here is a video we put together that goes over some more information on the reliability of the New Testament.
In our final section, we will show you the greatest archaeological discoveries which corroborate and validate the biblical account.
