The New Testament (NT) is the second division of the Christian Bible. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus, as well as events relating to first-century Christianity. The first division, known as the Old Testament (based primarily on the Hebrew Bible), together with the New Testament constitutes the sacred scripture of Christianity.
The New Testament is a collection of 27 Christian texts written in Koine Greek by various authors. It includes four gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, epistles attributed to Paul and other authors, and the Book of Revelation. The New Testament canon developed gradually over the first few centuries of Christianity through a complex process of debate, rejection of heretical texts, and recognition of writings deemed apostolic, culminating in the formalization of the 27-book canon by the late fourth century. It has been widely accepted across Christian traditions since Late Antiquity.
Literary analysis suggests many of its texts were written in the mid-to-late first century. There is no scholarly consensus on the date of composition of the latest New Testament text. The earliest surviving New Testament manuscripts date from the late second to early third centuries AD, with the possible exception of Papyrus 52.
The New Testament was transmitted through thousands of manuscripts in various languages and church quotations and contains variants. Textual criticism uses surviving manuscripts to reconstruct the earliest recoverable text and to trace the history of its transmission. It has varied reception among Christians today. It is regarded as inspired holy scripture by the Catholic Church,"The Transmission of Divine Revelation". Catechism of the Catholic Church. 2nd ed. 1997. Eastern Orthodoxy, evangelicals and many other Protestants. Catholics and Orthodox receive the New Testament together with sacred tradition as a source of divine revelation, whereas Protestants hold that doctrine is to be derived from scripture alone, without tradition. Evangelicals and some other Protestants believe the New Testament, as the written word of God, to be inerrant.
Etymology The word testament 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. While Christianity traditionally even claims this Christian new covenant as being prophesied in the Jewish Bible's Book of Jeremiah, Judaism traditionally disagrees:
The word covenant means 'agreement' (from Latin 'to agree', literally '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 () describing it, which only means 'alliance, covenant, pact' and never 'inheritance instructions after death'.Definition of ברית in Brown-Driver-Briggs's lexicon: https://biblehub.com/hebrew/1285.htm
Hebrew uses an unrelated word for testament: (). This use comes from the transcription of Latin testamentum 'will (left after death)', a literal translation of Greek () 'will (left after death)', which is the word used to translate Hebrew in the Septuagint.
The choice of this word , by the Jewish translators of the Septuagint in Alexandria in the 3rd and 2nd century BC, 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: in contrast to the Jewish usage where was the usual Hebrew word used to refer to pacts, alliances and covenants in general, like a common pact between two individuals, and to the one between God and Israel in particular, in the Greek world was virtually never used to refer to an alliance or covenant (one exception is noted in a passage from Aristophanes) and referred instead to a will left after the death of a person. There is scholarly debate as to the reason why the translators of the Septuagint chose the term to translate Hebrew , instead of another Greek word generally used to refer to an alliance or covenant.
The phrase New Testament as the collection of scriptures The use of the phrase New Testament (Koine Greek: , ) to describe a collection of first- and second-century Christian Greek scriptures can be traced back to Tertullian in his work Against Praxeas."If I fail in resolving this article (of our faith) by passages which may admit of dispute out of the Old Testament, I will take out of the New Testament a confirmation of our view, that you may not straightway attribute to the Father every possible (relation and condition) which I ascribe to the Son." – Tertullian, Against Praxeas 15 Irenaeus uses the phrase New Testament several times, but does not use it in reference to any written text. In Against Marcion, written c. 208 AD, Tertullian writes of:Tertullian. "Chapter XIV". Against Marcion, Book III.
And Tertullian continues later in the book, writing:Tertullian. "Chapter VI". Against Marcion, Book IV.
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):Lactantius. "Chapter XX". "The Divine Institutes, Book IV".
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.
Books
The Gospels
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 (rarely godspel), meaning "good news" or "glad tidings"; its Greek and Hebrew equivalents are euangélion (εὐαγγέλιον) and besorah (בְּשׂוֹרָה), respectively. The gospel was considered the "good news" of the coming Kingdom of God's own Messiah, and the redemption through the life and death of Jesus, the central Christian message.
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,Irenaeus, Against Heresies III.11 who promoted the four canonical gospels in his book Against Heresies, written around 180.Due to its reference to Eleutherus as the current bishop of Rome, the work is usually dated . Schaff, Philip (2001) [] "Introductory Note to Irenæus Against Heresies", Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume I, Against Heresies, William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company. The Gospel of Matthew, ascribed to the Apostle Matthew. This gospel begins with a genealogy of Jesus and a story of his birth that includes a visit from magi and a flight into Egypt, and it ends with the commissioning of the disciples by the resurrected Jesus. The Gospel of Mark, ascribed to Mark the Evangelist. This gospel begins with the preaching of John the Baptist and the baptism of Jesus and ends with the Ascension of Jesus. The Gospel of Luke, ascribed to Luke the Evangelist, who was not one of the Twelve Apostles, but was mentioned as a companion of the Apostle Paul and as a physician. The Gospel of John, ascribed to John the Evangelist. This gospel begins with a philosophical prologue and ends with appearances of the resurrected Jesus.
These four gospels that were eventually included in the New Testament were only a few among many other early Christian gospel traditions; the existence of such traditions, both written and oral, is even mentioned at the beginning of the Gospel of Luke. Various non-canonical gospels, such as the so-called "Jewish-Christian Gospels" and the Gospel of Thomas, were also written after the canonical gospels became widely known and used among early Christian communities, advocating for differing theological views, in particular Gnostic ones. In modern scholarship, the Synoptic Gospels are the primary sources for reconstructing Jesus Christ's ministry.
Acts of the Apostles
The Acts of the Apostles is a narrative of the apostles' ministry and activity after Jesus 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. Church tradition identified him as Luke the Evangelist, the companion of Paul, but critical views at the end of the 20th century were evenly divided about whether Luke the physician wrote it 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. The most probable date of composition is around 80–90 AD, although some scholars date it significantly later. The earliest witnesses for Luke fall into the Western and the Alexandrian text-types and the dominant view is that the Western text represents a process of deliberate revision in the second century, as the variations seem to form specific patterns.
Epistles
Pauline letters to churches
The Pauline letters are the thirteen New Testament books that present Paul the Apostle as their author. 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).Bassler, Jouette M. (2010). "Paul and his Letters". In Aune, David E. The Blackwell Companion to the New Testament. Wiley-Blackwell. p. 388. . 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.Roetzel, Calvin J. (2009). The Letters of Paul: Conversations in Context (5th ed.). Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox. p. ix–x Epistle to the Romans First Epistle to the Corinthians Second Epistle to the Corinthians Epistle to the Galatians Epistle to the Ephesians* Epistle to the Philippians Epistle to the Colossians* First Epistle to the Thessalonians Second Epistle to the Thessalonians* [Disputed letters are marked with an asterisk (*).]
Pauline letters to persons The last four Pauline letters in the New Testament are addressed to individual persons. They include the following: First Epistle to Timothy* Second Epistle to Timothy* Epistle to Titus* Epistle to Philemon [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.
Hebrews