02 The New Testament

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The New Testament is read more than the Old Testament because it was written by Christian believers rather than believers in Judaism. This does not make it superior but does make it informative. There was never a great plan in the early church to write “The New Testament”; it came together for a number of reasons. The earliest book of the New Testament is probably Paul’s letter to the Galatians. The last book to be completed was no doubt the Book of Revelation. There was possibly half a century between the two. Paul had been martyred many years before Revelation was even thought about. The 27 books and letters of the New Testament were written by around 10 different authors for a variety of reasons. The way the New Testament came together was indicative of the belief expressed earlier: ‘the bible is the book which God intended us to have’.

authors

There are other early writings which were not included in the New Testament because they weren’t judged to be authentic. Some of the New Testament authors are clearly mentioned in their work but others are anonymous. Views have changed on authorship over the centuries. In very old bibles, for instance, Paul is down as the writer of the Letter to the Hebrews; this is not widely believed now. There are five titles attributed to John. But not only was John a very common name, they appear by their style to have been produced by different people. Since John was one of the Apostles, he has often been considered the author of these works. But now this is also disputed and sometimes by very genuine believers in the divine inspiration of scripture. In more modern times, some have doubted that Paul wrote all the letters attributed to him; but this also is disputed. However, I shall write on the basis that Paul was their author and used different writing styles in his letters.

It is helpful to consider why the New Testament was produced since there was never a human plan to produce “New Testament scripture”. However, the fact that God was working through His own choice to give us scriptures with the same authority which Jesus gave to the Old Testament, is evidenced here:

Bear in mind that our Lord’s patience means salvation, just as our dear brother Paul also wrote to you with the wisdom that God gave him. He writes the same way in all his letters, speaking in them of these matters. His letters contain some things that are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the other Scriptures, to their own destruction. (2 Peter 3:15-16)

The Apostle Peter was familiar with the letters of Paul and here attributes to them the same authority as the Old Testament scriptures. It does appear that some of Paul’s writings were lost which is all the more reason to see that the New Testament did not come into being through planning but was compiled and copied by those who acknowledged God speaking His wisdom through the writers.

The Synoptics and Acts

Matthew, Mark and Luke are called the “Synoptic Gospels”. This word comes from Greek meaning “having a common view”. It is clear from studying them that they have used shared material. It is thought that Matthew and Luke used Mark’s work and added or amended some of it to create longer accounts. It is possible that they also had access to other works, but this cannot be proved. Gospel means “good news” and they are accounts of the life of Jesus who preached good news. There is a range of views about how much time elapsed between the life of Jesus and the first Gospel being written. Jonathan Bernier suggests that Mark could have been written as early as AD 45 (Rethinking the Dates of the New Testament p129). The more commonly accepted date is between AD 60-70. There are a couple of reasons for this: Mark appears to have used Peter’s eyewitness account as his main source material, and he wrote down the prophecy of Jesus that Jerusalem would be destroyed. This occurred in AD 70 but Mark did not mention specific details of that historical tragedy which might prove that the prophecy had been fulfilled. Whichever date we choose, it makes the Gospel record very early in historical terms. Applying this same time difference to my lifetime would mean that writing about events like the Challenger Shuttle disaster, the fall of the Berlin Wall or the destruction of the twin towers in New York, would be in the same time frame as Mark writing his Gospel.

In the section on the Old Testament, I advised caution on reading and interpreting those writings by the standards and styles of modern writing. The same applies to the Gospels and Acts. We expect historical writing now to acknowledge chronology. We give dates and tend to write about history in a chronologically ordered way. There were no common dating arrangements in the first century such as our BC and AD. Consequently, the writers mentioned specific events or people as historical references. So, we read that Jesus was born in the time of the Census under Caesar Augustus. Jesus was crucified under Pontius Pilate. Paul was at Corinth when Gallio was proconsul of Achaia. There does appear to be some attempt to create a chronology of time in Acts as the writer, Luke, was one of Paul’s team and travelled with him.

John’s Gospel

The Gospel of John stands on its own and according to Bernier was produced as early as AD 60-70. Traditionally it was viewed as being produced as late as AD 90. John does not rely on the Synoptic Gospels for material and at times seems to assume that its readers are familiar with the other Gospels. John only really overlaps with them for the feeding of the five thousand and the Passion Week. John’s account projects a very different style of the teachings of Jesus and His sayings, especially in His interactions with the religious leaders. This is no doubt connected to the fact that John records events which took place mainly in the Judean and Jerusalem area. Generally, the Gospels group events together in themes and do not concern themselves with strict chronology. This was a common style of writing biography in the 1st century and had several features:

We should bear this in mind when we read the Gospels since they were not written to provide a timeline of the life of Jesus but rather to elaborate on His unique character and mission.

narratives

When we read about someone in more recent history, we are used to lists of biographical details with dates and so on. But we must not judge the Gospels by that standard. Nowadays we see videos of famous characters and make visual judgments about them too. I like to think of the Gospel accounts being written by ancient writers who were trying to stimulate our visual imagination by recording the vivid stories and narratives of the life of Jesus. We see that at work if we watch something like the film series “The Chosen” in which Jesus has a very outgoing and warm character. This film particularly creates emotional scenes involving the people mentioned in the Gospels to embellish the actual Gospel accounts. However, the Gospels do not try to create that kind of emotional response in the reader but to inform the reader about Jesus and His purpose. Details such as the trial of Jesus and His death by crucifixion were not included to elicit our sympathy. We are far too swayed nowadays by emotional reaction and ought to take that into account. Emotional thinking has meant that some people get the Gospels wrong or even give them the wrong meaning. One of the most egregious examples of this was Dan Brown in the Da Vinci Code who deliberately ignored the Gospel records in order to make Mary Magdalene “the disciple whom Jesus loved”!

I ought to say a word about the discourses in the Gospels. It is probable that Jesus spoke in the Aramaic language. The Gospels were written in Greek, hence there was translation involved. This means that when we read that Jesus said something, they are not his literal words, but a translation or a descriptive account of the message Jesus was bringing. We can be confident that some of His memorable phrases will be almost word-for-word such as “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life”. Other discourses may give the sense and purpose of what Jesus said. Sometimes this might be apparent in slight differences between the Gospels such as Matthew writing “Blessed are the poor in spirit” and Luke writing “Blessed are you poor”. Of course, it may also have been true that Jesus repeated the same teaching many times on different occasions and used a different form of words Himself. I have full confidence that the Gospel writers sought to communicate the discourses of Jesus in as accurate a way as possible.

The Letters (or Epistles)

The letters in the New Testament were mainly written by the Apostle Paul. Some people dispute their precise authenticity since his letters have different styles. I am happy to accept Paul’s authorship particularly since we can change the style of our writing according to whom we are addressing and our reasons for writing. Letters such as Galatians and Philippians were written in a hurry and mainly give correction to the Christians because of things that had happened. Letters such as Romans, Ephesians and Colossians were written to teach and encourage the believers. The Pastoral Letters to Timothy and Titus were written to friends and are much more personal. The letter to the Hebrews is by an unknown author, but one who was extremely well-versed in the Old Testament scriptures. The letters of James and Jude were written by brothers of Jesus and sons of Mary. Peter wrote two pastoral letters to churches he knew. The three letters by John are corrective letters to people he knew well. No one is entirely sure which John wrote them.

There were no doubt other letters written which were lost. Paul seems to refer to another letter to the Corinthians which he must have written. We have to accept the sovereignty of God over all this and believe that the bible is the book which God intended us to have. The recipients of the letters must have realised what a treasure they were and then made many copies of them and copies of the Gospels too. The earliest fragment of the New Testament found seems to be a portion of John’s Gospel written around AD 125. Copies would have circulated amongst the first Christians and have been widely shared. As we saw earlier, Peter equates Paul’s letters with the other scriptures – that is, the Old Testament. Even in the first century there was the recognition that Paul was writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

interpretation

Much of what is in the letters was written to correct errors in teaching and practice. Some of those errors were things common to all people since we are all sinners. Some things were very specific to the first century. There was early opposition to believing in the divinity of Jesus. Much of John’s Gospel is devoted to emphasising that Jesus was Lord and God, Creator of all things. Some letters deal with strange ideas such as whether or not Jesus had a real human body. Some wrong ideas suggested that because the body was sinful and would die that only the inward person or soul was important. Some people got hung up on worshipping angels instead of seeing Jesus as pre-eminent over all things. There is no doubt that some instructions given were only applicable to social situations in the first century. Instructions to slaves and slave owners would be one example of this. The place of women in society in those days was another subject. Even though some of the instructions may not be directly applicable to today, it is very important that we understand the spiritual principles which were involved in the instructions the readers were given. There are social spiritual principles found in the scriptures which can help us negotiate the very different societies in which we live now. However, this does lead to sharp differences between Christians on how we should interpret these in church life. Some of these differences would be the role of women in leadership, the nature of Christian worship services, our responsibilities to civic society, as well as many other things.

What we must be careful about is how we are to live in the world when the world has changed so much over twenty-one centuries. It is a cardinal lesson to learn which scriptures apply exactly as they did when they were written, and which scriptures give us principles by which we can make decisions on how to live now. This especially applies when reading the Old Testament. Some critics of faith think that because some scriptures should still be obeyed literally such as not committing adultery or stealing, therefore every command of the Old Testament should be obeyed literally. This is symptomatic of ignorant people trying to be clever. The Old Testament commands can be grouped into three categories as, for instance, in the Anglican Thirty-nine Articles of Faith: the Ceremonial commands, the Civic commands and the Moral commands. The ceremonial commands have to do with Temple worship, animal sacrifices and rules about what can and cannot be eaten. The civic commands were rules about how the society of Israel was to live in their day. There were rules such as respecting landmarks and property boundaries, and laws regarding slavery. The ceremonial and food laws became redundant once ceremonial Jewish worship ceased. Mark recorded this in his Gospel:

‘Are you so dull?’ he asked. ‘Don’t you see that nothing that enters a person from the outside can defile them? For it doesn’t go into their heart but into their stomach, and then out of the body.’ (In saying this, Jesus declared all foods clean.) (Mark 7:18-19)

Civic laws change with changes in society – we do not live in a Jewish Monarchical state!

morality

However, the moral laws were laws which were given to promote healthy human living and relationships between people. Since we are no different as humans now from what we were then, they still apply. That is why it is still wrong to murder or steal since both are destructive of human relationships; the same applies to adultery, or deliberately lying in court about another person. There are also moral laws which help to preserve the integrity of the soul such as not coveting what other people have and indeed giving honour to one’s parents. These principles of scripture still need to be applied when dealing with some of our modern practices such as abortion and mercy killing by the state. Perhaps the most contentious moral area involves sexual relationships. The bible has a category of sin called fornication. It is a general word to cover all kinds of sexual practice outside of the marriage of a man and his wife. The development of contraception has removed some of the natural disincentives to sexual relationships outside of marriage, and so sex outside of marriage has become a contentious topic even in churches. Since the moral laws of scripture still apply, we do need to go to them for guidance and we cannot simply dismiss them by saying that they were in the Old Testament. The New Testament is consistent with the Old Testament principles that sex outside of marriage is sin. Making appeals to “love” as though that changes that truth are disingenuous. This is a very important area in Christian life where it is important avoid thinking “emotionally”!

The Book of Revelation (The Apocalypse)

The Book of Revelation stands alone as a vision from Heaven. It relates visions given to John who had been exiled to the Island of Patmos in the Aegean Sea. Not everyone agrees about the identity of this John, and I shall not discuss it here, preferring to concentrate on the message of the book. Revelation does not have a particular audience in mind, although it does specifically mention seven churches in Asia (in present day Turkey). There are different ways of reading and interpreting Revelation, and I am presenting only one of these. These ways of reading Revelation are based on three major interpretations which hinge around the meaning of this passage in Revelation 20:

And I saw an angel coming down out of heaven, having the key to the Abyss and holding in his hand a great chain. He seized the dragon, that ancient snake, who is the devil, or Satan, and bound him for a thousand years. (Revelation 20:1-2)

There are several mentions in this chapter of ‘a thousand years’. As this is also referred to as “The Millennium”; the interpretations are based on this word. They also depend on when exactly Satan is bound.

‘Premillennialism’ is an interpretation which sees Satan as being bound at some time in the future after Christ has returned to earth. It means that at the moment Satan is unrestricted in what he can do. A second interpretation is called ‘Postmillennialism’. This way of reading Revelation means that Satan was bound at the cross and that Jesus now rules over the world from Heaven. It teaches that because of preaching the gospel message, the world is becoming a better place; and that at the end of this millennial period, Christ will return. Not many people believe in this now especially since the wholesale slaughter of people which marked the twentieth century. The final interpretation is known as ‘Amillennialism’, and this is the reading I follow. It takes the Millennium not as a literal 1000 years but as an allegorical number marking the time of this present age beginning at the Cross and ending whenever Jesus returns. During that period of time, Satan has been bound in such a way that the church is able to preach the Gospel effectively and see people come to Jesus. Some people become obsessed with interpretations of Revelation, especially in Evangelicalism. They strain to attribute things to the allegorical visions which have happened in history and especially things happening at this present time. This is a fool’s errand, and we are best served by Revelation when we see it as a book which speaks of the majesty of Jesus and His victory over all.

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