Some of the church fathers who confirmed the accuracy of the authorship and the events were men such as Polycarp, who was a student of the Apostle John (the Gospel writer). Others such as Irenaeus in the second century, and Tertullian, a church apologist in the third century, also affirmed from historical documentation the accuracy of the claims of authorship and the content of what we now know as the New Testament text.

It is often said that if there were no other manuscript copies of the original New Testament texts prior to the fourth century, that the New Testament could almost entirely be reconstructed from the writings of the Apostolic fathers of the first three centuries. Once again the New Testament documents stand out in a class all their own, when it comes to meeting the standard tests of authenticity given to all other historical documents.           

When it comes to the Christian faith and the recognized and accepted Scriptures of the New Testament that Christians adhere to, it is hard for anyone to deny the viability and recognizable positive impact that the words of the New Testament have had on people’s lives, their culture and the societies in which they live in and have experienced historically for the last two millennia. 

The message of the Gospel transforms people’s lives who believe it is true. History bears that fact out continuously. This does not mean that the message of the Bible perfects people who believe in its centrally focused theme of the Gospels. The New Testament message of salvation has made the difference in the lives of countless people from every nation, culture and sociological background..

There is no doubt that many have interpreted the words of the New Testament incorrectly and thus their theology and their actions have caused malice and harm under the authority of the Church and even using the name of Jesus Christ as their reference. Unfortunately, that sort of thing will always take place until the Lord Jesus Christ literally returns to this earth.

However, any realistic, honest and viable historian, secular or faith-based, will tell you that the Christian faith has done more positive things to enhance, develop and promote positive spiritual life and increase the quality and value of human life and existence on this planet more than any other movement, government, institution or religious organization ever has, before or since it. 

The important thing to remember is that the textual reliability of the Bible and specifically the text of the New Testament is a verifiable fact. We don’t have to guess or wonder if what we believe about Jesus Christ is really the truth. The evidence prove that it is, if we are willing to take a serious look at it. Thus, we also can believe the message of Scriptures and know it to be true. This requires that we place our faith in the one true living God who inspired the Scriptures that we have accepted as His Word to us.     

Historically, we have no original autograph text in the New Testament Scriptures. An autograph is the original document that Matthew or any other accepted New Testament author sat down and put his pen to. They no longer exist. All we have now are manuscript copies of these original documents. It is easy to wonder why God just didn’t just provide a way for these original gospel documents to be preserved for us today. Why couldn’t we just use technology to prove the actual dating of the original gospel accounts, and even the letters of Paul that are in the New Testament? 

The obvious conclusion to this problem is that it is a matter of preserving our ability to express a realistic faith in God. This is a realistic faith that the originally God inspired Gospel accounts have been conveyed to us in an accurate manner by men and women of the Christian faith who understood from the very beginning the importance of the Scriptural validity for the generations to follow. Because of this Godly orchestration, the New Testament documents can be considered reliable even to those who are questioning who Jesus really was, and also the evidence of His resurrection.

It is when these documents can be proven to hold a certain level of validity and reliability in the mindset of the non-believer that believing Christians can quote them as a viable source of evidence for the claims we make about the person of Jesus Christ.