Aww yisss. Finally, the New Testament. I
know... so far I haven't written very
much on that portion of the Bible which directly has to do with Jesus Christ. But
in my defense, it takes awhile to get through the Hebrew Scriptures – the Old Testament is nearly four times as long as the New. Furthermore, its breadth
of history and literary development spans over a thousand years. The New
Testament (NT), on the other hand, was composed in probably less than a
century. Compared to the Hebrew Scriptures, the Christian Scriptures look like
a weekly newspaper, and, all things considered, the NT was literature in a hurry.
But where did it come from?
We can pretty
much assume that Jesus' ministry, death, and resurrection probably took place sometime
around the year 30 CE. But writings about Jesus did not come about immediately.
After the resurrection, the followers of Christ began to spread the Good News
of Christ orally, and the movement grew rapidly. I'm rather surprised it grew
at all, considering its leader had just died a horrific execution, and it
wasn't long before his followers were likewise persecuted. But as the 2nd
century Church father, Tertullian, says "The blood of the martyrs is the
seed of the Church." How this religious movement not only survived but flourished
in its first hundred years is a real testament
to its credibility (pun absolutely intended).
One of the
persecutors of the early Church was a Pharisee named Saul of Tarsus, who was later more commonly known as Paul. As the story goes, he was on his way to
Damascus to bring back to Jerusalem in chains any followers of the "the
Way." The term Christian, by the way, had not been coined yet, and so they
were simply called followers of the Way. Seeing a bright light, Saul fell to
the ground. Then a voice spoke to him saying, "Saul, Saul, why are you
persecuting me?" Theologically, this is incredibly significant, for the
risen Christ had identified himself to Saul with his followers and disciples whom
Saul was persecuting. This close association of Christ with his followers (i.e.
the Body of Christ, the Church) is central to St. Paul's writings. You can
read about his conversion in several passages of the NT: Acts 9:1-19; Galatians1:12-19; 1 Timothy 1:12-14.
Parmigianino, The Conversion of St. Paul (1527-1528), Oil on Canvas
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| FYI, nowhere in the NT does it say Paul was riding a horse... Mr. Parmigianino. |
Paul became
one of the most influential apostles of the early Church, spreading the Gospel (i.e. Good News) throughout the Mediterranean. He kept correspondence with the Christian
communities which he either founded or had visited. Thus we have the letters of
Paul to the Corinthians, or Thessalonians, or Galatians etc. These funny names simply refer to the church communities to whom he was writing in
Corinth, Thessalonica, Galatia, and so on. I bring up Paul before mentioning the
four Gospels because his letters (a.k.a. epistles)
to these churches are probably the earliest of the NT Scriptures. His first
letter to the Thessalonians was likely the earliest of his epistles that we
have in Scripture, making it possibly the oldest of any of the NT writings.
But things
get kind of dicey from here. Scholars are pretty certain that Paul wrote the
letters to the Galatians, Corinthians, Philippians, Philemon, Romans, and the
first letter to the Thessalonians, but they are not so sure about 2
Thessalonians, Colossians, Ephesians, or the letters to Timothy and Titus. The
letters that are undisputedly from Paul all had to have been composed before his
death in the mid 60s CE. So dang, check that out... hardly 30 years after Jesus'
death and resurrection and at least seven letters of the NT have already been
composed!
The dating of
the disputed letters varies. Some fair arguments can be made that 2 Thessalonians and maybe even Colossians might
very well have been written by Paul during his career. In any case, all of
these disputed letters were most likely composed before the year 100 CE, the
latest probably being the Pastoral Letters, 1 & 2 Timothy and Titus. If the
disputed letters were not written by Paul himself, they were probably composed
by his disciples or those who were in line with Pauline thought. Ephesians, for
example, seems to have been written by one who was very good at summarizing and
getting to the heart of Paul's theology.
Should this
bother us that Paul didn't write some of the letters we attribute to him? Not
really. Here's the thing about writings in the ancient world. For one, people
back then didn't have the kind of hang-ups we do today about academic honesty. Nowadays
we have this neurotic, individualistic obsession with "intellectual
property." It's abhorrent not to cite your sources, to plagiarize or forge,
to attribute work to someone who didn't do it. (FYI, my last name is spelled
B-r-e-m-a-r if you'd like to cite
this post in your next term paper.)[1]
But for the ancients, writing in someone else's name was not frowned upon like
it is today. Back then, wisdom was a communal matter; it belonged to everyone, not
to individuals. Secondly, wisdom derived from the past, not so much the present or future. Today our knowledge is oriented
toward future prospects. We seek discoveries in technology and the sciences that
will advance us even further into the future. Our ancestors of antiquity,
however, believed that in order to understand the present and discern the
future one needed to understand the past. Not surprisingly, elders were more respected back then than they are today.
Given this
kind of attitude toward wisdom and the past, putting a wise leader's name on
your work doesn't seem to be that big of a deal. I only bring this up because
there was a lot of pseudonymous literature (writings in another person's name)
in the ancient world, and there are examples of it in both the Old and New
Testaments, as well as many books which never made it into the Bible.
Furthermore, this brings me to the four Gospels. Yay, everyone's favorite!
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| Not quite the Good News I'm talking about. Photo courtesy of www.patheos.com |
The first
Gospel of the NT to have been written was the Gospel according to Mark. It was
probably composed sometime around the devastating destruction of the Temple by the Romans in the year 70 CE – perhaps between 68-73 according to renowned
NT scholar, Raymond Brown.[2] It
was likely written for a persecuted community of Christians living in Rome. Was it written by the John Mark of Acts who was a follower of Peter and
Paul? I don't know; pseudonymous writing was common back then. Does it really matter? Nah, I don't think so.
The Gospel
according to Matthew was likely written next, probably sometime in the 80s. It
borrows heavily from Mark as well as from some lost or undiscovered source scholars call Q. This
Gospel was perhaps written in or around Antioch to a community of very Jewish
Christians. Was the tax-collector, Matthew, the actual author? I doubt it, but
that isn't to say some of the details contained within it could not have
derived from the apostle himself.
Next we have
the Gospel according to Luke. This is the longest of the four Gospels and the
most exquisite in style. It also was probably written in the 80s, and I would
venture to say that it was composed after Matthew. It too borrows from Mark and
from that Q source that Matthew used. But some of our favorite Gospel stories,
like the Prodigal Son and the Good Samaritan, are only found in Luke. Since
these three Gospels are so closely related due to Luke and Matthew's dependence
on Mark, they are known as the synoptic
Gospels - synoptic (another fancy-schmancy word you can use to impress your
friends) meaning that they can be looked
at together. Was it written by Luke, the physician and follower of Paul? Eh. Who can say for certain? What is
clear is that the author was a well-educated Greek and an absolutely fabulous
writer! Luke, by the way, also wrote the Acts of the Apostles as a sequel to
his Gospel – the only sequel found in the NT.
And then
there's John. Many Christians who have read (or even haven't read) the four
Gospels will tell you that John is their favorite. It was even the favorite of
St. Francis of Assisi. Indeed, it's a beautiful Gospel, so don't get me wrong,
but I'm more of a fan of the three synoptics. The Gospel according to John
differs greatly in style and narrative than the others, but the essentials are
all there: Jesus' ministry, death, and resurrection. The date of its
composition could be as early as the 80s with some parts edited as late as 110.
Was it written by John the son of Zebedee? Of all of the names attributed to
the Gospels, I have the hardest time believing that John, the disciple of
Jesus, actually wrote this one. The author seems to have been someone from a
particular community of Christians, referred to as the "Johannine community," which may
have been influenced very early on from one of Jesus' disciples. The three
letters of John were written after the Gospel, and also derive from this Johannine
Christian community. The book of Revelation appears to reflect some Johannine
influence, though was not composed by the same authors of the Gospel or Johannine
letters. Revelation (not Revelations with and 's', one professor was very adamant to point out) was written toward the end of the
first century, probably around 92-96 CE.[3]
It's a crazy-fascinating book, and many people have questions about it, so I
hope to devote a post to Revelation sometime in the future.
This leaves
us with the Letter to the Hebrews and the Catholic Letters. Hebrews is a
curious text, and in fact is more of a homily than a letter. Unlike the other
NT epistles, the author of Hebrews does not refer at all to himself by name. Both
the author and the audience are difficult to discern. Given its references to
Jewish religious practices and the Hebrew Scriptures, it would seem the
audience was a very Jewish rather than Gentile Christian community. Debates
abound as to when it was written, but it had to be earlier than 95 CE, because St.
Clement quotes it in a letter he wrote to Corinth around that year. Brown
suggests as early as the 60s but more likely in the 80s.[4]
The Catholic Letters get lumped under that title, not because they are "Catholic" –
as in Catholic and not Protestant or Orthodox – but catholic as in general or
universal. They were perceived by the early Church to have been for a more general
audience, rather than particular communities. The three letters of John also
fall under the Catholic Letters, but I mentioned them once already, and I won't
get into them again. This leaves us with 1 & 2 Peter, James, and Jude. Were
the authors of these letters the Peter, James, and Jude of the Gospels? Again,
I doubt it, but arguments can be made that 1 Peter, James, and Jude were
written relatively early and may have very close ties with the apostles. A
theory circulates that 1 Peter may have been dictated by the apostle to a
scribe. Then again, arguments can also be made that they were composed toward the
end of the first century (70 - 100) as well. So we can't be sure either way. 2
Peter is surely the latest, for it references 1 Peter, Jude, and Pauline literature.
Brown suggests a date as late as 130 CE ("give or take a decade").[5]
The Catholic Letters tend to be easily forgotten, as the four Gospels and the
writings of Paul dominate our New Testament imaginations. Nevertheless, they
are part of our Scriptures and are sacred. Plus, they're short letters anyway, so they're
worth our time to give 'em a gander.
So there you
have it. A whirlwind tour of the New Testament. Whew! I think I mentioned each of the 27 books of the NT at least
once. Hopefully this gives you a taste of what all is contained in the NT, who
wrote it, and when it was written. Admittedly, aside from the undisputed
letters of Paul, the precise who and when of the Christian Scriptures is a
little clouded, since many texts were written under pseudonyms. We can at least
say, though, that all of the writings were composed within about a hundred
years of Jesus' death and resurrection. Next time I hope to clarify a little
bit about why these books made it into our canon of Scripture, and why other
Christian (or some not-so-Christian) writings didn't get in.
Since we are
just over our first week in Lent, and this is usually the time that Catholics
are still kind of scrambling to figure out what they're going to do for for the season, here is a suggestion. Read an entire Gospel, anyone you'd like, from beginning
to end. It may seem like a lot, but this isn't just a suggestion for the week.
You have all of Lent, though I would recommend trying to read it in no more
than 3 or 4 sittings. It's better to get a whole story in context than just
snippets here and there. Read it like you would any other book. Get invested in
the characters, the plot, the twists. See what surprises you, or puzzles you,
or frustrates you. What brings you joy and comfort? What strengthens your
faith? What challenges you? Either way, just have fun with it. I haven't
written much on the Gospels, but it's good to read them with a blind eye at
least once anyway. Still, I like to recommend Bibles with good footnotes, like the
New American Bible, to help clarify confusing texts.
As always,
you can send me comments or questions via Facebook, Twitter, e-mail, or the
comment box below. I think I worked out some of the kinks of the comment box, so
if you've had difficulty with it in the past, it should work now. And don't forget to take the survey. Until next
time...
Peace and all good!
[1]
Speaking of citing sources, this post would not have been possible without
these texts:
Brown Raymond E. An
Introduction to the New Testament. New York: Doubleday, 1997.
Johnson, Luke Timothy. The Writings of the New Testament: An Interpretation. Revised ed.
Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1999.
And the prefaces to the books of the NT found in
The Saint Joseph Edition of the New American Bible. New York: Catholic Book Publishing Co., 1992.
[2] Brown,
127.
[3]
Ibid., 774.
[4]
Ibid, 684.
[5]
Ibid., 762.
