New Testament is the second part of the Christian Bible. Testament means covenant or agreement. The first part of the Christian Bible includes the books (individual writings) that became the Jewish Bible, also known as the Hebrew Bible. Christians call these writings the Old Testament. The Old and New Testaments together make up the Christian Bible.
Contents.
The New Testament consists of 27 books. These books are known as the canon of the New Testament—that is, the books that Christians officially accept as scripture. The books of the New Testament were written from about A.D. 50 to about 125. All of them were composed in the Greek language widely used at that time. Jesus Christ himself spoke Aramaic. At first, the books circulated separately. Later, they were gathered together.
Gospels.
The first four books of the New Testament are the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. The word gospel comes from an Old English word meaning good news. It refers to a kind of literature that contains stories about Jesus’s words and deeds. The four Gospels tell the story of Jesus in different ways. Scholars do not know who actually wrote them. Mark probably was written in the A.D. 60’s. Matthew, Luke, and John were written sometime between about A.D. 70 and 100.
The Acts of the Apostles
follows the Gospels. This book is a continuation of the Gospel of Luke. It also is called simply Acts. It tells of the expansion of the early Christian church. Because Acts begins where Luke ends and was composed by the same author, scholars often refer to the two books together as Luke-Acts.
Letters.
The next 21 books are documents called Epistles, meaning letters. The first 13 Letters claim to be written by the early Christian leader Paul. However, many scholars doubt that Paul wrote all of them. They believe that some of them are pseudonymous. Pseudonymous Letters are ones credited to one person but written by another. The Letters written by Paul were composed in the A.D. 50’s and early 60’s. They are the oldest books of the New Testament.
A Letter called Hebrews follows the Letters credited to Paul. It is called an anonymous Letter because its author is not named. After Hebrews come three Letters that claim to be from the early church leaders James and Peter but probably were written by other people. The three Johannine Letters, 1-3 John, come next. They were written by the same community that composed the Gospel of John. The final Letter claims to be written by Jude, but some scholars believe it is pseudonymous.
Revelation,
also called the Apocalypse, is the last book of the New Testament. It provides visions of God’s judgment of the world and of the creation of a new heaven and earth.
Other early Christian writings.
Besides the 27 books that make up the canon of the New Testament, early Christians produced many other writings. These include additional gospels, as well as letters and accounts of acts credited to the apostles. Such writings are called apocryphal or noncanonical writings. One of the most important noncanonical writings is the Gospel of Thomas, which preserves early sayings of Jesus.
Early church leaders wrote letters, defenses of the Christian faith, and works that sought to disprove beliefs that were not officially accepted by the church. By A.D. 400, the books that now comprise the New Testament had been widely accepted as scripture. Church councils later ratified (formally approved) the canon.
Critical studies.
Scholarly study of the New Testament sometimes is called criticism of the New Testament. Used this way, the word criticism does not have an unfavorable meaning. Instead, it means the use of academic disciplines, such as history and literary studies, that are not directed by Christian teachings.
Redaction criticism
looks at how authors of Biblical books used and redacted (edited) various sources to compose certain books. Some redaction critics study and compare the four Gospels.
The Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke are called the Synoptic Gospels. The word synoptic comes from two Greek words meaning seen together. These three Gospels tell many of the same stories about Jesus, often in the same order and with nearly identical words. The similarity is so striking that most scholars think the authors of Matthew and Luke used Mark as a source.
Matthew and Luke also share certain similarities that do not extend to Mark. Scholars think the authors of Matthew and Luke might have used another common written source called Q, which is short for the German word Quelle (source). The writers of Matthew and Luke also added stories that are not in the other Gospels.
Historical Jesus research.
The Gospels’ writers told the story of Jesus in different ways, adding and leaving out certain teachings to meet their communities’ needs. Some scholars compare and contrast the different Gospels. They also look to gospels and other sources that are not in the New Testament to reconstruct what the historical Jesus did and taught. This kind of research is called historical Jesus research.
Jesus and his early followers were Jews. Jesus was born during the time of King Herod the Great, who ruled Palestine from 37 B.C. to 4 B.C. Jesus grew up in a town in Galilee called Nazareth. The Gospels of Matthew and Luke claim that Jesus was born in Bethlehem, the hometown of King David. The Hebrew Bible says that the king of Israel should come from David’s family.
According to Luke, Jesus was about 30 years old when he began his public ministry of healing and teaching. The Gospels suggest that his ministry lasted about one to three years. Jesus’s followers believed that Jesus was the Christ or the Messiah. Christ and Messiah come from Greek and Hebrew words that mean anointed (rubbed with oil). In the Hebrew Bible and early Judaism, people who acted on behalf of God were actually anointed or considered to be anointed. They included the king, priests, and prophets.
Jesus was crucified just outside Jerusalem by the Roman authorities who ruled Judea. Death by crucifixion was the Roman punishment for revolutionaries. Christians commemorate Jesus’s Crucifixion on Good Friday. Jesus’s followers claimed that Jesus rose from the dead three days after the Crucifixion. Christians commemorate Jesus’s Resurrection on Easter Sunday.
Christianity began as a movement within Judaism. But as Christianity spread beyond Palestine and throughout the Roman Empire, many Gentiles (non-Jews) began to join the Christian movement. Several New Testament documents address the problem of what requirements Gentiles had to meet to become Christians.
Authorship
is another issue that Biblical critics study. For example, questions about the authorship of the 13 Letters credited to Paul existed as early as the A.D. 100’s.
The Letters that all scholars agree Paul wrote are called the “undisputed” Pauline letters. They are Romans, Galatians, 1-2 Corinthians, Philippians, 1 Thessalonians, and Philemon. The other Letters credited to Paul differ in language, style, and theology from the undisputed Pauline letters. These “disputed” Pauline letters are Ephesians, Colossians, 2 Thessalonians, 1-2 Timothy, and Titus. Scholars who think that Paul did not write these letters call them Deutero-Pauline, meaning that Paul’s followers wrote them. Most scholars consider 1-2 Timothy and Titus, also called the Pastoral Epistles, to be Deutero-Pauline letters. There is more debate about who wrote Ephesians, Colossians, and 2 Thessalonians.
Textual criticism.
The original manuscripts written by the authors of the New Testament all have been lost. Only copies of them remain. Scholars called textual critics try to reconstruct the original form of the books of the New Testament. The earliest copies of these books date from the A.D. 100’s. Thousands of later copies exist. Many variations of wording occur in the different copies. The people who made copies of the manuscripts are known as scribes. Some scribes accidentally made errors while copying the original manuscripts. Others intentionally changed the texts to address issues in the church at the time the scribes were making the copies.
The books of the New Testament were translated from Greek into other ancient languages. Some of the most important early translations were in the Latin, Syriac, and Coptic languages. Textual critics study variations between such early translations, as well as quotations from New Testament books used by early church leaders. With much research and comparison, scholars have combined the various wordings from different copies of the Greek New Testament to form the basis for most English translations of the Bible.
