Audio Reading
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Module Overview Video,
Stu Talené
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What is the New Testament?
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The New Testament is a collection of twenty-seven writings from the first century of the Common Era. The collection forms the second half of the Christian Bible, the first half being what Christians call the Old Testament and what people of the Jewish faith call the Tanakh (an acronym for the Hebrew rendering of the Torah, the Prophets and the Writings).
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For Christians, both Testaments are regarded as sacred scriptures and as such they are believed to reveal God and his plan of salvation from the dawn of time to the end of time - but the two Testaments have not operated on an equal level in Christianity. The New Testament has tended to take precedence over the Old Testament for two primary reasons.
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First, the New Testament has been viewed as the fulfillment and final interpretation of the Old Testament. It is in the New Testament that we find the “new” covenant between God and his people. Thus, for many Christians, the Old Testament is to be interpreted through the lens of the New Testament.
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Second, the New Testament is believed to be the revelation of Jesus Christ, through whom God has reconciled the world to himself and in whom he has established the new covenant. Apart from being sacred scripture, or the “inspired word of God” to Christians past and present, it has also served as an important historical and literary artifact that has influenced the development of Western culture.
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The Aim of this Site Lab
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The chief aim of this Site Lab is to introduce university students to the writings of the New Testament within their historical and literary contexts. In the process, students will be introduced to the field of modern biblical studies, which has thrived as an academic discipline since the end of the European Enlightenment. In the last two centuries we have learned a great deal about early Judaism and Christianity, the writings of the New Testament, and the cosmopolitan world in which a new religion was born. New insights from archaeology, philology, literary studies, social sciences, history, and religious studies have informed and continue to inform our understanding of the twenty-seven writings that we call the New Testament.
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In contrast to other introductions to the New Testament, many of which are excellent educational resources, the uniqueness of this book largely lies in its digital format. Alongside the written content, the student has access to:
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HD photography of artifacts, sites, inscriptions, scrolls, manuscripts, architecture and artwork
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digital videos of lectures, commentary, and interviews with scholars
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digital and interactive maps, diagrams, charts, timelines and primary source texts
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hyperlinks to related resources, such as biblical references, and websites for remedial and advanced information
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recommended bibliography for further research
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self-assessments for each chapter, comprehensive reports and analytics sent to instructors
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Coming soon: audio readings of each chapter - not a computer, but a real human voice
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The Structure
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The text is divided into four major sections. The first section, entitled “New Testament Contexts” opens up the political, social, and religious contexts within which these writings emerged. The second section, “Origins of Christianity and the New Testament,” introduces students to a variety of early Christian groups, the early manuscript history of the New Testament writings, and the process that led to the canonization of an anthology that we today call the New Testament. The third section, “Jesus, the Gospels, and the Acts of the Apostles,” focuses on the narratives of the New Testament. In this section, students are introduced to some of the most controversial and interesting areas in New Testament studies today, such as the relationship between “the Jesus of history” and “the Christ of faith,” the development of the Gospels, their varied portrayals of Jesus, and the first theological history of the church. The last section, “The Letters,” introduces students to the Apostle Paul, the letters (or epistles) attributed to him, and all the remaining writings of the New Testament. Since the letters comprise most of the writings of the New Testament, ranging dramatically in size and content, most introductory textbooks have arranged them into categories, such as “Paul’s Early Letters,” “The Pastoral Letters,” and “The Catholic Letters.” This approach has alleviated ascribing each letter a separate chapter and preserves well known designations. While it is recognized throughout these chapters that these traditional categories face considerable challenges in light of modern research, they are nevertheless retained for purposes of convenience and familiarity.
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Icon of St. Mark, Albanian National Archive, c. 12th century.
Why is a Historical Study of the New Testament Important?
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There is no question that these writings have brought peace, freedom, happiness, healing, meaning and identity to millions for almost two millennia, but the New Testament has also seen the negative side of religion. In the last five hundred years, since the dawn of the Protestant Reformation, it has been at the center of controversies, divisions, discrimination, bigotry, violence and even wars. With the rise of each new group or denomination came a new interpretation of some portion of the New Testament that legitimized its formation.
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Today there are between 20,000 and 25,000 denominations—each claiming to have the correct interpretation. For example, some groups rely on the interpretation of their founders, distrusting competing options. Others simply rely on the “leading of God” and find the legitimacy of their interpretations in phenomena that are viewed as supernatural acts. Whatever the reason, most would argue that all of the interpretations cannot be correct. As soon as one tries to answer why one denomination’s interpretation differs from that of another, one is cast into the intellectual realms of history, literature, religion, and the field of interpretation. Herein lies another problem: many denominations have been distrustful of scholarship and have regarded the intellectual pursuits of the Bible as threatening. The reality that these ideas are in the form of sacred literature and are grounded in history cannot be avoided.
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With so much variation among Christians, there is an urgent need to step back and try to understand these ancient writings in their own contexts. This is not to discredit cherished interpretations or beliefs, or even some of the fears. The aim, instead, is to treat these writings with deep respect.
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This means that since they are writings, attention needs to be paid to their literary character, such as genre, plot, rhetoric, themes, just to mention a few. Since they are ancient writings, written almost two thousand years ago, they need to be considered along with their original historical context, with all the cultural, social, and political dimensions that characterized the Roman Empire. And since they are religious writings, they need to be interpreted within the religious dynamic of the first-century Mediterranean world, especially Judaism, which was the cradle of Christianity.
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The Forum, Rome
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A historical reading allows each of the New Testament writings to stand on its own. This means that in this book they are not interpreted as a collection, but as individual writings. Reading the writings as a collection is a "theological" or "canonical" approach and is often aimed at achieving theological cohesion. In a historical approach, differing points of view, no matter how controversial and difficult, emerge on occasion. For example, we will see that for the historical Jesus, and the Jesus portrayed in the synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke), the central message is “the Kingdom of God.” Yet in John’s gospel the Kingdom of God is hardly mentioned (3:3, 5). Instead, the central message of Jesus in John’s gospel seems to be “eternal life.”
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In a historical approach, this difference is allowed to stand, whereas in a canonical approach, there tends to be a concerted effort to reconcile these into a single meaning. The first approach does not necessarily negate the second (that is a faith decision), but it can often increase the richness and depth of biblical understanding both for Christians and for those interested in the New Testament for other reasons.
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The Tension between Scholarship and Faith
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The historical approach to the New Testament is not regarded as the final or the only kind of reading for most Christians. A historical approach has tremendous benefits, but it is limited. While it can open up the world of the first century to the modern reader and reveal valuable information about the writings, it cannot theologically unify the ideas in the writings or explain how these writings are spiritually relevant to the modern Christian. Relying only on a historical reading alone can result in fragmentation, potentially turning “the Bible” into a set of individual texts - and that is not how Christianity views the Bible.
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However, a historical approach should be appropriated as the initial step in the development of a foundational knowledge of the New Testament. The search for what the writings meant should be an indispensable part in the spiritual search for what they are taken to mean today.
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Recounting vs Retelling,
Prof. Thomas R. Hatina
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The tension between historical knowledge and belief is a conflicting issue for many Christian university students who encounter biblical scholarship for the first time in their lives. The main reason that the writings of the New Testament have been subjected to so much investigation is because they are believed to be religiously authoritative; yet it is often this characteristic that is suspended in historical investigation. We can be assured that if these writings were not regarded as sacred scripture (as is the case with other early Christian writings like the Shepherd of Hermas, the Epistle of Barnabas, and the Didache of the Twelve Apostles) introductions like this one would probably not be written, at least not as often. Likewise, most universities would not offer introductory courses on the New Testament.
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The study of the Bible in scholarship has traditionally differed from its use within the context of Christian devotion and worship (the same can be said about the Torah in Judaism). Rarely do the two merge; and when they do, conflict tends to erupt, because in each case the Bible is approached from an entirely different set of assumptions. In scholarship, the books of the Bible are studied like other ancient books. Each book is read within its historical and literary context. Historians collect and evaluate sources that are publicly attainable and available to anyone, not just a particular group. On the basis of those records, they try to reconstruct the past. Reconstructions, however, are only probable and thus they are called theories. These theories or scenarios are presented publicly and are open to scrutiny. Thus, they are what scholars call “falsifiable” or “testable” conclusions. As a result, theories can be altered as new evidence is presented. Nothing is hidden.
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P46, early 3rd century Greek manuscript of Romans on papyrus. Chester Beatty Library, Dublin. Courtesy of the Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts.
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For example, a historian can demonstrate how one religion differs from another, but he or she cannot prove or disprove which religion is true or false, if either. Nor can a historian prove or disprove whether God inspired the Bible, the Koran, the Vedas, or any other sacred writing. Similarly, historical knowledge can be used to explain why Jesus was arrested and executed, but it cannot tell us whether his death atoned for the sins of the world. Finally, Isaiah’s prophecies are interpreted within political, cultural, linguistic, and religious contexts, and so the prophecies are understood to be referring to events in the prophet’s day – context determines the meaning.
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This is quite different from the way that most devout Christians read their Bibles. Putting it simply in order to clarify the difference, when the Bible is read in Christian devotion, the assumption is that it is eternally true in what it says because it records the words of God. The writing is perfect, containing no contradictions – and anything that looks like a contradiction can be explained with the right inspiration, revelation or interpretation. The task of the reader (or reading community) is to decode the Bible to see how God is speaking to us in our time.
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Orthodox Priest, Jerusalem
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Historical or literary contexts do not affect the meaning because the meaning is believed to be eternal. In a devotional reading, the prophecy of Isaiah, for example, is inevitably pointing to Christ – even though there is no explicit mention of this anywhere in Isaiah.
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This kind of reading is not new. It has, in fact, been the standard practice of reading sacred texts in both Judaism and Christianity since their inception. It is the kind of reading that we see practiced among the New Testament writers. The practice is pervasive, but it is explicitly described only in a handful of passages (e.g. Luke 24:27; John 5:39, 46; 2 Tim 3:15). What we see is a complete disinterest for the original context of the scriptures (the Old Testament for today’s Christians) because the underlying assumption was that all scripture points to Christ, who is the fulfillment of the hopes expressed in the Old Testament. The “sacredness” of the writings lies within the realm of faith, which has its own tools of evaluation, but these are not the tools of the historian. Claims and beliefs about the New Testament being the “word of God” or “inspired by God,” are neither theories nor are they falsifiable. They can be neither proven nor dis-proven using the tools and methods available to the historian.
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Orthodox Jew, praying at the Wailing Wall.
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Both the historian and theologian have valuable information and perspectives, and neither should be discarded. They can be mutually beneficial and their areas of study can overlap, but the student should be aware of their distinctive quests. Moreover, maintaining a distinction (not a separation) between history and theology does not mean that the historian cannot have religious faith, or that the person of faith cannot be a good historian. Contemporary biblical studies is replete with historians who are either Jewish or Christian. Even so, most recognize that the collection and evaluation of data must be accessible to all peoples, no matter what their religious presuppositions.
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How is Our Culture Different?
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Perhaps the most important point that needs to be communicated to many modern readers of the New Testament is that these writings emerged in a vastly different world from that in the West. At the root of these differences lies a cultural divide. Modern Christians in the West live in a secular age, whereas the earliest Christians lived in an age that seamlessly fused the supernatural with the natural. In his valuable book A Secular Age, Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor is guided by the question “why was it virtually impossible not to believe in God in, say, 1500 in our Western society, while in 2000 many of us find this not only easy, but even inescapable?”
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The question can easily incorporate the first century. Taylor, like the well-known sociologist Max Weber before him, argues that over the span of five hundred years we have passed from a view of the world that was “enchanted” to one that is “disenchanted.” What he means by this is that the enchanted world of our predecessors fused the natural world with divine purpose and action to the extent that natural and personal disasters as well as prosperity and progress (e.g. agricultural success or degree of personal health) were viewed as acts of God.
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The fusion also extends to the social sphere whose authority structure (e.g. law, morality, and political structure) was viewed as divinely sanctioned. In the enchanted world, meaning was understood as being present in objects and/or agents independent of us. The individual was “porous” in the sense that she or he was vulnerable to agents (e.g. spirits) and/or objects (e.g. relics) by virtue of the intrinsic causal power of these beings. The distinctions between sin and sickness, and health and holiness, were often blurred. In other words, that which made one holy was often the same force that made one physically well.
Jesus’ healing of a bleeding woman (Mark 5), 4th century. Catacomb of Marcellinus and Peter, Rome.
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Absolution, for instance, was believed to clear up certain physical and emotional conditions. The Lateran and other councils warned against using ordinary medicine in place of spiritual remedies, and even forbade the sick from visiting infidel (e.g. Jewish) doctors.
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By contrast, today we make distinctions that were unthinkable prior to 1500 CE. Most people today do not view natural events as direct acts of God. Our societal structures are democratic with many more built-in accountability and human rights variables that have emerged out of past human struggle against traditional authoritative structures. The sciences and social sciences have completely altered the way we view the universe, the earth, our societies, and each other. The three-tiered universe of the ancient world, in which earth is encompassed by the heavens above and netherworld below, has been replaced by a cosmos that is infinitely greater and more awe-inspiring than could have been imagined.
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Today, meaning is viewed as stemming from the mind in the sense that events and objects awaken a variety of responses in us, often based on past experiences. Even religious belief today is situated within a plurality of options that are constantly bumping up against one another. As a result, doubt, argumentation for or against faith, and even mediating explanations are part of the contemporary life of faith. Just as today’s alternatives were unthinkable prior to 1500, so it is unthinkable that the secularism of Western culture might return to its enchanted roots.
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As a result, this text is aimed at a wide audience. Students who profess religious faith will find this text to be a helpful resource that supplements their devotional reading of the New Testament by bringing the biblical text into another contextual sphere; and students who do not profess religious faith will find that the writings will come to life as they are placed back into the time and culture from which they emerged. For everyone who is new to modern NT studies, this Site Lab will hopefully deepen and enrich your understanding of these ancient Christian sacred writings that have not only influenced countless lives spiritually, but have also shaped the ideas, culture, ethics and laws of the Western world.
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There is no quiz for the Introduction Section;
click 'Next' below to continue on to Module 01.
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