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Second division of the Christian biblical canon From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The New Testament[lower-alpha 1] (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus, as well as events relating to first-century Christianity. The New Testament's background, the first division of the Christian Bible, is called the Old Testament, which is based primarily upon the Hebrew Bible; together they are regarded as Sacred Scripture by Christians.[1]
| New Testament Part of the Bible | |
|---|---|
| Information | |
| Religion | Christianity |
| Language | Koine Greek |
| Chapters | 260 |
| Verses | 7,957 |
The New Testament is a collection of Christian texts originally written in the Koine Greek language, at different times by various authors. While the Old Testament canon varies somewhat between different Christian denominations, the 27-book canon of the New Testament has been almost universally recognized within Christianity[2] since at least Late Antiquity. Thus, in almost all Christian traditions today, the New Testament consists of 27 books:
The earliest known complete list of the 27 books is found in a letter written by Athanasius, a 4th-century bishop of Alexandria, dated to 367 AD.[3] The 27-book New Testament was first formally canonized during the councils of Hippo (393) and Carthage (397) in North Africa. Pope Innocent I ratified the same canon in 405, but it is probable that a Council in Rome in 382 under Pope Damasus I gave the same list first. These councils also provided the canon of the Old Testament, which included the deuterocanonical books.[4]
There is no scholarly consensus on the date of composition of the latest New Testament texts. John A. T. Robinson, Dan Wallace, and William F. Albright dated all the books of the New Testament before 70 AD.[5] Many other scholars, such as Bart D. Ehrman and Stephen L. Harris, date some New Testament texts much later than this;[6][7][8] Richard Pervo dated Luke–Acts to c. 115 AD,[9] and David Trobisch places Acts in the mid-to-late second century, contemporaneous with the publication of the first New Testament canon.[10]
The New Oxford Annotated Bible claims, "Scholars generally agree that the Gospels were written forty to sixty years after the death of Jesus. They thus could present eyewitness or contemporary accounts of Jesus's life and teaching."[11][12] The ESV Study Bible claims the following (as one argument for gospel authenticity): Because Luke, as a second generation Christian, claims to have retrieved eyewitness testimony (Luke 1:1–4), in addition to having traveled with Paul the Apostle (Acts 16:10–17; arguing for an authorship date of c. AD 62[13]), which is corroborated by Paul's Letter to the Colossians (Col. 4:14), Letter to Philemon (Philem. 23–24), and Second Letter to Timothy (2 Tim. 4:11),[lower-alpha 2] the gospel account of Luke "was received as having apostolic endorsement and authority from Paul and as a trustworthy record of the gospel that Paul preached" (e.g. Rom. 2:16, according to Eusebius in Ecclesiastical History 3.4.8).[14]
The word testament in the expression "New Testament" refers to a Christian new covenant that Christians believe completes or fulfils the Mosaic covenant (the Jewish covenant) that Yahweh (the God of Israel) made with the people of Israel on Mount Sinai through Moses, described in the books of the Old Testament of the Christian Bible.[15] While Christianity traditionally even claims this Christian new covenant as being prophesied in the Jewish Bible's Book of Jeremiah,[16] Judaism traditionally disagrees:[17][18]
Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah; not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; forasmuch as they broke My covenant, although I was a lord over them, saith the LORD. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the LORD, I will put My law in their inward parts, and in their heart will I write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people; and they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying: 'Know the LORD'; for they shall all know Me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the LORD; for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin will I remember no more.
The word covenant means 'agreement' (from Latin con-venio 'to agree' lit. 'to come together'): the use of the word testament, which describes the different idea of written instructions for inheritance after death, to refer to the covenant with Israel in the Old Testament, is foreign to the original Hebrew word brit (בְּרִית) describing it, which only means 'alliance, covenant, pact' and never 'inheritance instructions after death'.[19][20] This use comes from the transcription of Latin testamentum 'will (left after death)',[21] a literal translation of Greek diatheke (διαθήκη) 'will (left after death)',[22] which is the word used to translate Hebrew brit in the Septuagint.[23]
The choice of this word diatheke, by the Jewish translators of the Septuagint in Alexandria in the 3rd and 2nd century BCE, has been understood in Christian theology to imply a reinterpreted view of the Old Testament covenant with Israel as possessing characteristics of a 'will left after death' (the death of Jesus) and has generated considerable attention from biblical scholars and theologians:[24] in contrast to the Jewish usage where brit was the usual Hebrew word used to refer to pacts, alliances and covenants in general, like a common pact between two individuals,[lower-alpha 3] and to the one between God and Israel in particular,[lower-alpha 4] in the Greek world diatheke was virtually never used to refer to an alliance or covenant (one exception is noted in a passage from Aristophanes)[15] and referred instead to a will left after the death of a person. There is scholarly debate[25][24] as to the reason why the translators of the Septuagint chose the term diatheke to translate Hebrew brit, instead of another Greek word generally used to refer to an alliance or covenant.
The use of the phrase New Testament (Koine Greek: Ἡ Καινὴ Διαθήκη, Hē Kainḕ Diathḗkē) to describe a collection of first- and second-century Christian Greek scriptures can be traced back to Tertullian in his work Against Praxeas.[26][27][28] Irenaeus uses the phrase New Testament several times, but does not use it in reference to any written text.[27] In Against Marcion, written c. 208 AD, Tertullian writes of:[29]
the Divine Word, who is doubly edged with the two testaments of the law and the gospel.
And Tertullian continues later in the book, writing:[30][lower-alpha 5]
it is certain that the whole aim at which he [Marcion] has strenuously laboured, even in the drawing up of his Antitheses, centres in this, that he may establish a diversity between the Old and the New Testaments, so that his own Christ may be separate from the Creator, as belonging to this rival God, and as alien from the law and the prophets.
By the 4th century, the existence—even if not the exact contents—of both an Old and New Testament had been established. Lactantius, a 3rd–4th century Christian author wrote in his early-4th-century Latin Institutiones Divinae (Divine Institutes):[31]
But all scripture is divided into two Testaments. That which preceded the advent and passion of Christ—that is, the law and the prophets—is called the Old; but those things which were written after His resurrection are named the New Testament. The Jews make use of the Old, we of the New: but yet they are not discordant, for the New is the fulfilling of the Old, and in both there is the same testator, even Christ, who, having suffered death for us, made us heirs of His everlasting kingdom, the people of the Jews being deprived and disinherited. As the prophet Jeremiah testifies when he speaks such things: "Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new testament to the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not according to the testament which I made to their fathers, in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; for they continued not in my testament, and I disregarded them, saith the Lord."[32] ... For that which He said above, that He would make a new testament to the house of Judah, shows that the old testament which was given by Moses was not perfect; but that which was to be given by Christ would be complete.
Eusebius describes the collection of Christian writings as "covenanted" (ἐνδιαθήκη) books in Hist. Eccl. 3.3.1–7; 3.25.3; 5.8.1; 6.25.1.
Each of the four gospels in the New Testament narrates the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth (the gospel of Mark in the original text ends with the empty tomb and has no account of the post-resurrection appearances, but the emptiness of the tomb implies a resurrection). The word "gospel" derives from the Old English gōd-spell[33] (rarely godspel), meaning "good news" or "glad tidings". Its Hebrew equivalent being "besorah" (בְּשׂוֹרָה). The gospel was considered the "good news" of the coming Kingdom of Messiah, and the redemption through the life and death of Jesus, the central Christian message.[34] Gospel is a calque (word-for-word translation) of the Greek word εὐαγγέλιον, euangelion (eu- "good", -angelion "message"). They were written between approximately 70 and 100 AD, and were the end-products of a long process of development.
Starting in the late second century, the four narrative accounts of the life and work of Jesus Christ have been referred to as "The Gospel of ..." or "The Gospel according to ..." followed by the name of the supposed author. The first author to explicitly name the canonical gospels is Irenaeus of Lyon,[27][35] who promoted the four canonical gospels in his book Against Heresies, written around 180.[36] Whatever these early ascriptions may imply about the sources behind or the perception of these gospels, they are anonymous compositions.
The first three gospels listed above are classified as the Synoptic Gospels. They contain similar accounts of the events in Jesus's life and his teaching, due to their literary interdependence. The Gospel of John is structured differently and includes stories of several miracles of Jesus and sayings not found in the other three.
These four gospels that were eventually included in the New Testament were only a few among many other early Christian gospels. The existence of such texts is even mentioned at the beginning of the Gospel of Luke,[41] Many non-canonical gospels were also written, all later than the four canonical gospels, and like them advocating the particular theological views of their various authors.[42][43] In modern scholarship, the Synoptic Gospels are the primary sources for reconstructing Christ's ministry. [44][note 1]
The Acts of the Apostles is a narrative of the apostles' ministry and activity after Christ's death and resurrection, from which point it resumes and functions as a sequel to the Gospel of Luke. Examining style, phraseology, and other evidence, modern scholarship generally concludes that Acts and the Gospel of Luke share the same author, referred to as Luke–Acts. Luke–Acts does not name its author.[45] Church tradition identified him as Luke the Evangelist, the companion of Paul, but the majority of scholars reject this due to the many differences between Acts and the authentic Pauline letters, though most scholars still believe the author, whether named Luke or not, met Paul. [46] [47]The most probable date of composition is around 80–100 AD, although some scholars date it significantly later,[9][10] and there is evidence that it was still being substantially revised well into the 2nd century.[48]
The epistles of the New Testament are considered by Christians to be divinely inspired and holy letters, written by the apostles and disciples of Christ, to either local congregations with specific needs, or to New Covenant Christians in general, scattered about; or "catholic epistles".
The Pauline letters are the thirteen New Testament books that present Paul the Apostle as their author.[lower-alpha 6] Paul's authorship of six of the letters is disputed. Four are thought by most modern scholars to be pseudepigraphic, i.e., not actually written by Paul even if attributed to him within the letters themselves. Opinion is more divided on the other two disputed letters (2 Thessalonians and Colossians).[52] These letters were written to Christian communities in specific cities or geographical regions, often to address issues faced by that particular community. Prominent themes include the relationship both to broader "pagan" society, to Judaism, and to other Christians.[53]
[Disputed letters are marked with an asterisk (*).]
The last four Pauline letters in the New Testament are addressed to individual persons. They include the following:
[Disputed letters are marked with an asterisk (*).]
All of the above except for Philemon are known as the pastoral epistles. They are addressed to individuals charged with pastoral oversight of churches and discuss issues of Christian living, doctrine and leadership. They often address different concerns to those of the preceding epistles. These letters are believed by many to be pseudepigraphic. Some scholars (e.g., Bill Mounce, Ben Witherington, R.C. Sproul) will argue that the letters are genuinely Pauline, or at least written under Paul's supervision.
The Epistle to the Hebrews addresses a Jewish audience who had come to believe that Jesus was the Anointed One (Hebrew: מָשִׁיחַ—transliterated in English as "Moshiach", or "Messiah"; Greek: Χριστός—transliterated in English as "Christos", for "Christ") who was predicted in the writings of the Hebrew Scriptures. The author discusses the superiority of the new covenant and the ministry of Jesus, to the Mosaic Law Covenant[54] and urges the readers in the practical implications of this conviction through the end of the epistle.[55]
The book has been widely accepted by the Christian church as inspired by God and thus authoritative, despite the acknowledgment of uncertainties about who its human author was. Regarding authorship, although the Epistle to the Hebrews does not internally claim to have been written by the Apostle Paul, some similarities in wordings to some of the Pauline Epistles have been noted and inferred. In antiquity, some began to ascribe it to Paul in an attempt to provide the anonymous work an explicit apostolic pedigree.[56]
In the 4th century, Jerome and Augustine of Hippo supported Paul's authorship. The Church largely agreed to include Hebrews as the fourteenth letter of Paul, and affirmed this authorship until the Reformation. The letter to the Hebrews had difficulty in being accepted as part of the Christian canon because of its anonymity.[57] As early as the 3rd century, Origen wrote of the letter, "Men of old have handed it down as Paul's, but who wrote the Epistle God only knows."[58]
Contemporary scholars often reject Pauline authorship for the epistle to the Hebrews,[59] based on its distinctive style and theology, which are considered to set it apart from Paul's writings.[60]
The Catholic epistles (or "general epistles") consist of both letters and treatises in the form of letters written to the church at large. The term "catholic" (Greek: καθολική, katholikē), used to describe these letters in the oldest manuscripts containing them, here simply means "general" or "universal", and does not imply that they are not accepted as canonical by non-Catholic Christians. The authorship of a number of these is disputed.
The final book of the New Testament is the Book of Revelation, also known as the Apocalypse of John. In the New Testament canon, it is considered prophetical or apocalyptic literature. Its authorship has been attributed either to John the Apostle (in which case it is often thought that John the Apostle is John the Evangelist, i.e. author of the Gospel of John) or to another John designated "John of Patmos" after the island where the text says the revelation was received (1:9). Some ascribe the writership date as c. 81–96 AD, and others at around 68 AD.[62] The work opens with letters to seven local congregations of Asia Minor and thereafter takes the form of an apocalypse, a "revealing" of divine prophecy and mysteries, a literary genre popular in ancient Judaism and Christianity.[63]
| Books | Protestant & Restoration tradition | Roman Catholic tradition | Eastern Orthodox tradition | Armenian Apostolic tradition [N 1] |
Coptic Orthodox tradition | Orthodox Tewahedo traditions | Syriac Christian traditions |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Canonical Gospels[N 2] | |||||||
| Matthew | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes[N 3] |
| Mark[N 4] | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes[N 3] |
| Luke | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes[N 3] |
| John[N 4][N 5] | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes[N 3] |
| Apostolic History | |||||||
| Acts[N 4] | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Acts of Paul and Thecla [N 6][65][66] | No | No | No | No (early tradition) | No | No | No (early tradition) |
| Catholic Epistles | |||||||
| James | Yes[N 7] | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| 1 Peter | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| 2 Peter | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | ||