The Bible: The First Four Books Of The New Testament

When we think of the prophetic books of The Bible, James is not one that tops the list.

The Bible is a sacred book of scriptures that Christians and people of the Jewish faith believe is the written account of the word of God. Many different authors composed the works that make up the Bible. It is said that Jesus Christ is the son God who was sent to be the Lord and Savior of all people. Many Christians and Jewish people believe the Bible is the way of life. Those who believe and follow the beliefs of the Bible and God’s word will have eternal life if they accept Jesus as their Lord and Savior. The Bible has been in print and given to others for hundreds of years. The first King James Bible was published back in the year 1611. Within the King James Version, it used to contain what are now known as the canons. A biblical canon is a set or series of related books. The canons, within the King James Version, these were called the books of the apocrypha. Apocrypha means ‘hide away’ in Greek. The apocrypha is a collection of books that were located in between the Old Testament and the New Testament. For over 270 years, the books of the apocrypha were published in the King James Version of the Bible.

According to our text, the New Testament is comprised of four primary literary forms: Gospels, History, Letters and Apocalyptic (Harris, 2014). The Gospels was made up of four books written by four separate authors who tell of Jesus from four individual viewpoints based upon their understanding of who Jesus was, yet it does not cover the lifespan of Jesus, only certain accounts. Therefore, it is not considered historical or a biography but is defined as ‘sui generis’. The historical counts of the life of Christ is noted in the book of Acts. This book tells of the history of the early church but by all accounts doesn’t use traditional criteria most often noted in historical writings. The Epistles are known as letters. These letters were thought to be written by Paul and his followers. The letters were often written to the various churches rather than people or individuals. They were also written to address issues, concerns or to offer praise for specific acts or behaviors. Thus, letters or epistles addressing sin were more of the rebuking nature to bring correction and accountability in the effort to restore the parishioners to appropriate, God-fearing behaviors. Whereas, other letters may be to praise churches for exemplifying model behaviors that could be used for strong witnessing. The latter form is known as the apocalyptic writings. This form tends to deal with the End Times and was suspected to have been written during the time of church persecution. The book of Revelation in particular, was written around the 1st century when Christians were said to have been killed for their faith. It is during this time that the question was raised regarding God’s role and whether or not he would win. It was stated emphatically that God would win and would redeem his people.ReferenceHarris, S. L., (2014). The New Testament: A Student’s Introduction (8th ed.). Dubuque:McGraw-Hill Education.

The New Testament was formed by combing oral tradition and several other written sources. Contrary to popular belief, the Canon was not formed at the Council at Nicea (at least I thought that). Instead, the Bible was put together over the centuries as new texts were slowly added. This sparked great debate about which books were ok to be added and who decided which books. Out of this period came the discovery of the Gnostic books or Gnostic gospels. These books were inaccurate and portrayed Christ in an incorrect way. So the responsibility of those deciding on which books to use as Canon was to somehow decide which books preached differing gospels. This obviously gave them great power over what books were in the Bible, but also what the overall

There are several great leaders in the Old Testament of the Bible. However, there are some that deserve additional respect, and there are others that do not even have the great appearance or qualifications of a leader. Just as there are leaders such as these, a person that is related to both of these types of leaders is our Savior, Jesus Christ. The Old Testament leaders of the Bible that deserve further respect or do not have the greatest appearances or qualifications of a leader are easily compared and contrasted to Jesus 's life and ministry.

The New Testament is the word of God, documented through scrolls, or books, and communicated and shared for man to learn and study the life of Jesus Christ (Bethel, 2017). For Christians, the word of God is sacred and authoritative; this makes it similar to other world religions. This religious documentation is similar to other religions in that it documents history and is therefore, historical. For Christians, the New Testament is unlike other historical literature. The New Testament covers the life, teachings, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the son of God. Though the teachings, examples, and miracles revealed in the New Testament, Christians receive the information they need to model their life after the Savior, Jesus Christ. The

The first four books of the New Testament are known as the Gospels. These books tell us about the life, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. They are named for their authors: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. The earliest descriptions of these books are from Justin Martyr in 155 AD which he calls them “memoirs” (Elwell and Yarbrough, 56). These are more of a biographical account of the life of Jesus. In these books God offers salvation through His son; a call to faith in light of the coming judgment.

The book of Matthew gospel is the first book of the New Testament. The theme in Matthew speaks about The Kingdom of Heaven. The phrase "The Kingdom of Heaven" occurred numerous times being spoken by Jesus. The Gospel Writer Matthew wrote to a Jewish audience expounding upon the fact Jesus was the Messiah.

“In the beginning, God created the Heauen, and the Earth. And the earth was without forme, and voyd, and darknesse was vpon the face of the deepe: and the spirit of God mooued vpon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light, and there was light.” (Genesis 1-3) So begins the first book of the Christian Old Testament, the Hebrew Torah, one of the most recognizable texts in history. At least, the text begins the King James Bible in 1611, itself arguably the most influential version or translation of the Bible today. But this is not the original text. Surprisingly, the original scripture was not written in Early Modern English in the 17th century in the British Isles, but in Hebrew and possibly Aramaic, while the New Testament was written in Koine Greek. In fact, the original Hebrew looked nothing like our Latin script of today. Hebrew is a Semitic language, and therefore an Afroasiatic one, while English is Indo-European, and you would be hard pressed to find someone who believes that the two fall into a larger, connected language family besides some Indian nationalists who believe that all languages are derived from Sanskrit, or Tamil. And although there is much borrowing and exchanging of roots and words, modern English speakers have no mutual intelligibility with Hebrew. As Ralph Waldo Emerson famously said in his Letters and Social Aims, “Language is a city to the building of which every human has brought a stone.” It’s a nice concept, and it would be hard

Finally, the Book of John concludes the Gospels within the New Testament. The Book of John is broken down into four sections. The first section serves as a prologue. Subsequently, the second section accounts for the miracles Jesus’s performed. Following the second section, the ascension to the third section entails the glory of God. Conclusively, the fourth section finishes off with epilogue, including the reappearance of Jesus after his resurrection. Similarly to the other books of the Gospels, the Book of John introduces Jesus’s baptism performed by John the Baptist and concludes with Jesus’s death and resurrection. On the contrary, the Book of John focuses on literal elements and symbolic elements. The Book of John included seven miracle

The approved books of the Hebrew Bible, that were inspired by God were called the "canon" of Scripture. The Greek word canon means rod or ruler, which is a form of measurement. The Jewish Rabbis and the Christian Community used a measurement process to select the books they thought was authoritative. Authoritative is defined as, “able to be trusted as being accurate or true; reliable” (Dictionary, 2014). The Biblical Scriptures was recorded on scrolls, a roll of parchment paper for writing.

The first five books of the New Testament, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and Acts are considered historical, (Tenney, 1961). These books tell the story of Jesus. The New Testament is a collection of writing by early Christians, believed to be mostly Jewish disciples of Christ, apart from Luke (Tenney, 1961). The New Testament is the records of Words, Works, and the Life of Jesus Christ. The New Testament is the record of the character and establishment of a new dealing of God with men through Christ (Tenney 1961). The contents of the New Testament are classified in three ways: by authors, periods, and literary character, (Tenney,

The first four books of the New Testament are called the Gospels. Four men, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, were inspired by the Holy Spirit to write down the life of Jesus. Each man had different reasons for writing and different people they were writing to so their books didn’t all have to be identical; just accurate. Many more people wrote about Jesus, but only these four testimonies made it into the canon of the New Testament. As John MacArthur’s Study Bible explains, only these four books were necessary to form “a complete testimony about Jesus Christ.”

The New Testament was canonized over a period of approximately four hundred years (Stotesberg). From AD 50-125, the books which in the end constitute the New Testament were written. Simultaneously, other books, which did not end up being included in the final canon, were produced. These books are the Epistle of Barnabas, the Didache, I Clement, the seven letters of Ignatius of Antioch, etc. (“Development of the Difficult Canon”). As more and more books were written, Christians realized that it was imperative that they gather and consolidate this material before it became lost. Sometime before AD 100, ten of Paul’s letters were gathered and combined into their own canon. The Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) were combined to form another canon soon after the canonization of Paul’s letters. The Gospels and Paul’s letters became the main body of a new group of Scriptures that would soon become the New Testament. Soon Acts, I Peter, I John, and Revelation were inserted into this body of Scripture. Following this, the rest of the books were added to the New Testament (Barker).

One of the most important books in the history of design is The Gutenberg Bible, also known as the Mazarin Bible and the 42-Line Bible. It is often considered one of the first notable books to have been printed because unlike early books, this book was printed with movable type. Invented by Johann Gutenberg, his invention changed the course of technology and the way people gained knowledge forever.