The New Testament

Introduction to the Hebrew Bible has provided me with a critical analysis of the Hebrew Bible and introduced a wide variety of interpretive strategies, including African American, anthropological, feminist, historical-critical, Jewish, and literary perspectives. These approaches were presented by our author’s, L. Juliana M. Claassens, Peter Enns, Walter Brueggemann, and John L. Collins. Each author provides a unique interpretation to help us comprehend how the text is an expression of one’s interpretive understanding. Having said that, the biggest influence has been how I will seek to present Old Testament scriptures more effectively while remembering the context and the audience in which I am presenting. For example, I believe the greatest lessons that I have been reminded of are, the Old Testaments Scriptures from my childhood, which have become a big part of my relationship with God and are based on a childlike faith, which must now grow in the richness of the different interpretations, it is this message that I can apply to life.

The Old Testament is the largest part of the bible nestled behind the leather binding in the front of the book. Unlike most books, told from one-person or even two this is comprised of multiple, some stories even having two different versions in another point of view; over time it has become a large collection of ancient texts written and re-written by different authors and editors over the many years. The stories show the ancient Israelites, they show the laws, and rituals, which make up their religion and the small embers, which will one day, turn to a flame that is Christianity. The Jewish people view these stories as collected in what they call the Torah, is the collection for what makes up their history and the promise that God gave to them, as well as their laws and what they worship today. For the Christians the Old Testament is still seen as sacred, but most place a stronger importance to the New Testament.

Ch. 1: What is the New Testament? In this chapter, Ehrman discusses the origins of the New Testament. He starts off with the diversity of early Christianity and the large amount of Christian documents that were written during the second century. Ehrman also discusses which Christian literature became canon, including the gospels written by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, as well as the epistles and book of revelation.

The purpose of the Old Testament is to give historical background as well as to give prophesies to the world and also to look towards the birth, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Jesus came to transform and replace old laws with his sacrifice and free gift. He took the Mosaic divorce law and the law regarding the Sabbath. Jesus was tested by the Pharisees and he won every time. He knew how to answer, many times in the form of a question, parable or story; he always had a response.

The most known books of the New Testament are the Gospels. These four books are written by four different people, yet they all align with the same content. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John present the good news as eyewitnesses. Although the canon was not yet formed, the agreement by the four men on the actual occurrence of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus aligned to the others. The Gospel had been known in the churches. Alexander Souter states, The Gospel was something well known in the churches, a document or body of documents, to which it was sufficient to appeal without further specification.” The letters written by Paul in the New

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.

Matthew, Mark, and Luke were inserted into the Canon as they each gave several accurate stories of Jesus’ life (Strobel, 1998). Matthew focuses on the background and historic setting of Jesus’ time before transferring over to the teachings of Jesus. This format allows for Christians to have a quick, historical based introduction to Jesus before the author includes significant moments such as the Parable on the Mount and the Great Commission. The first Gospel targeted Jews and tried to convince God’s people that Jesus was the Messiah. Mark offers little introduction and almost immediately by jumping into the description and events of Jesus’ ministry. This book earned its spot in the Bible by addressing the persecution Christian people will face. Luke targeted the Gentiles of the Christian faith and by using Jesus’ teachings, the author tried to convince people that Gentiles hold an important role in the spread of the Christian faith. The last Gospel, John, approaches the writing much differently. John provides more of the facts and signs that Christians may use in a more statistical approach to the story of Jesus (Walvoord, 1983). For several hundred years, the Canon of the Bible developed and the Church leaders eventually settled on the four Gospels known now, to help represent

Jesus was born, lived, died, and resurrected and the New Testament was written during the 1st Century CE. All this happened in the Middle East or the surrounding Mediterranean Sea area and amid various cultures. The New Testament must be distinguished from all human cultures as it is divine revelation, not human speculation. Since it belongs to no one culture, it can be adequately expressed in all of them. The New Testament writers wrote in a social, political, and religious environment. This is not to say that the authors merely mirrored their environment or accepted cultural perceptions. They often wrote against prevailing customs and practices. However, they did use standard conventions of language, literary forms, and vocabulary. An example of that could

The names “Old Testament” and “New Testament” are inherently theological in nature. Because there is a difference distinctly built into giving them different notations, it implies that there are differences between each the Old Testament and the New Testament, whether it is subtle in nature or obvious in nature. To Christians, the difference means that the Old Testament contains dealings between God and the world and even some of the rules made are made irrelevant by the interactions of Christ Jesus with the world. One of the differences between the New Testament and the Old Testament is the way each of the Testaments describe God and God’s nature. The Old Testament describes an angry God, one who only created the world and was obsessed with laws and rules. The New Testament describes a loving God who redeemed the world. The different ways the Old Testament and New Testament describe God and his nature are very much influenced by their perspective of God. By the rules, actions, and laws God made, the early writers of the Old Testament made their judgements about God and wrote those perspectives into the books of the Old Testament. The writers of the Old Testament did the best they could with the information they had and got some things about God right, but also got things wrong. The writers of the New Testament and therefore, Christian believers understand God better.

Utilizing the understanding of the later definition make is extremely easier to incorporate the narrative of the Old Testament and the New Testament into one chronicle event moving along the time line to teach and understand the mission of the church. It follows the events of “knowing the story” and where the church came from and where it is headed. Clearly the church is not complete as Jesus has not returned so the work is still on going. The story continues to be written. Christians today, just as the Jewish people did back during the times of the Old Testament, need to know the story and to do that we need to know the scriptures.

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).

Christians see Jesus as continuous with the God of Judaism. A collection of Christian writings was added to the Jewish scriptures known as the Old Testament, or Hebrew Bible. The Christian writings, called the New Testament, record the life and teachings of Jesus. They also describe the development of the early church and explain what faith in Jesus means. The Christian Bible includes both the Old and New Testaments. Some Christian groups also accept as part of the Bible a collection of writings called the Apocrypha.

The New Testament is a collection of books which contains the writings concerning the significant events in the life of Jesus of Nazareth. These books appeared after the physical death of Jesus Christ. In this regard, Jesus had left no records concerning him, and all that is written about him depends wholly on what other people have written about him. The first four books of the New Testament are part of the several biographies of Jesus which were written by the end of the first century of the era of Christianity. Then before any of these biographies have been drafted, there were Christian communities which were being instructed through epistles on how to live like Jesus and how to solve their problem like Christians. A good number of these letters were written by a man called Paul. After Paul death, some other new leaders of the Christian movement continued to write letters to the churches to encourage and strengthen them. As Christians grew in number persecution arose, and some letters have been drafted to support them and also to counter the false doctrines. These letters are part of the New Testament. The twenty-seven books of the New Testament were selected from the list of writings in that period (Bruce, 1988)

The Old Testament is made up of forty six books while the New Testament is made up of twenty seven books, with a total of seventy three books in all. The Bible was written by forty different authors from all walks of life, who wrote this with the inspiration about God and God’s people. Moses and Apostle Paul were the two main contributors in writing the bible. Moses wrote the first five books in the Bible and referred to it as the Pentateuch while Apostle Paul wrote fourteen books in the New Testament.

There are twenty-one books following the Gospels, excluding Acts. The first 14 are called ‘the Letters of Paul,’ as they are largely accredited to St. Paul in Christian tradition.