I've noticed when engaging people in real life (more so than on the internet) about anything having to do with Christianity or the New Testament, it's hard to really have a deep discussion about anything because they don't even know the basics. The issue may be whether Jesus existed, whether anything in the New Testament has historical value, whether gnosticism or any of the various dozens of gospels outside the New Testament have an equal claim to validity or historicity with the documents in the New Testament, or whether we can know what Jesus taught or what his apostles taught, or whether anything in our modern Bible translations can get us in touch with what the originals said, etc. I've found that it's hard to discuss these topics with people if they don't at least know a few basic things about the New Testament.
I thought I'd write a blog entry explaining what I take to be the basics. These are the things I wish were common knowledge among anybody who wants to argue about Christianity, Jesus, orthodoxy, etc. I'm going to try to do this without inserting too much of my own opinion.
There are 27 distinct books in the New Testament. The New Testament (and the Bible) is not one monolithic book by one author written at one time. It's a library of different works by different authors writing at different times using different genres.
There are four gospels - Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. These are accounts of the ministry of Jesus, including his death and resurrection. There is wide agreement among New Testament scholars that the gospels fall under the genre of ancient biography (or more specifically, Greco-Roman biography). When scholars say these gospels are anonymous, they mean that the author is not named in the body of the writing. It has nothing to do with whether we know who the authors were. None of these gospels ever circulated without the names we attribute to them today. However, there is much debate and disagreement about the actual authorship.
While the four gospels have different authors, most scholars think there is a literary relationship between the three synopic gospels--Matthew, Mark, and Luke. The problem of figuring out how they are related is called The Syoptic Problem. There are different proposed solutions to the synoptic problem. The most widely believed view is called the Two-Source Hypothesis (2SH). According to the 2SH, Mark was written first. Matthew and Luke wrote their gospels independently of each other, but they both used Mark as their primary source. Since Matthew and Luke share some material that is not found in Mark, it is thought that there was another source they also shared that has been lost to history. The other source is called Q, from the German world, quelle, meaning "source."
To a lesser degree, many scholars subscribe to the Farrer hypothesis. According to this hypothesis, Mark was written first. Matthew used Mark as a source. Luke used both Mark and Matthew as a source. Since Luke used both Mark and Matthew as a source, Q is unnecessary to explain the material found in both Matthew and Luke but not in Mark.
There are other views, but they are not very common. An older view that used to be more common was the Griesbach hypothesis. According to this hypothesis, Matthew was written first, then Luke, then Mark. Mark used both Matthew and Luke as a source. There are some adherents to this hypothesis today, but it's a minority position.
John was written independently of the synoptic gospels, but there has been some debate over whether John was familiar with any of the other gospels.
Most scholars date the composition of Mark somewhere around 66 to 70 CE. Matthew and Luke are dated in the 80's, and John in the 90's. There is a small minority of scholars who think Luke can be dated as late as 120 CE. Some conservative scholars date all the gospels before 70 CE.
The book of Acts comes after the gospels. It was composed by the same person who authored Luke's gospel. It contains a history of the church beginning with the appearances of Jesus after his death and ending in the mid-60's, just before the first Jewish war against Rome, which began in 66 CE.
There are 13 letters in the New Testament that are all attributed to the apostle, Paul. Of those thirteen letters, seven are typically called "the undisputed letters" because there is nearly unanimous agreement that they were all written by Paul. These letters include Romans, 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, Galatians, 1 Thessalonians, Philippians, and Philemon. These letters are dated from the late 40's to the mid to late 50's CE. With the exception of Philemon, they were all written to churches. Philemon was written to an individual.
The fact that there are seven "undisputed" letters does not mean scholars dismiss the others as forgeries. What it means is that there is not as wide of a concensus about the authorship of the other letters. The other letters are accepted/rejected to varying degrees by different scholars. Many scholars think Paul wrote Ephesians, Colossians, and 2 Thessalonians. The pastoral epistles - 1 and 2 Timothy and Titus - are generally thought to be pseudonymous, though there are some scholars who think they are authentic.
Most scholars do not think Peter wrote 1 and 2 Peter. Some date 2 Peter as late as the second century. Nobody knows who wrote Hebrews, though there is speculation about it. Since there were multiple people in the early church named John, there is quite a bit of dispute about which John wrote 1, 2, and 3 John. Many scholars consider James to be wisdom literature rather than a conventional letter/epistle. Some, but not many, think James, the brother of Jesus, wrote it. Revelation is an example of apocalyptic literature. It is attributed to John, but is not clear which John is meant. Jude is attributed to "the brother of James," which has lead many to think it refers to another one of the brothers of Jesus, but this is uncertain.
Most of the books of the New Testament show up in all the earliest canon lists. Some, like Jude and Revelation, were disputed. None of the gnostic gospels were ever included in any canon lists.
While the primary language of Jesus was likely Aramaic, the entire New Testament was originally written in Greek. There are a small number of people who think Matthew was originally written in Hebrew or Aramaic because of a quote by Papias found in one of Eusebius' works. There are hints of an Aramaic substratum in the New Testament where certain words and phrases in Aramaic are preserved.
All of the original autographs of the New Testament are lost. All we have left are copies. Most of the ancient copies we have are fragments. The earliest fragment we have is P52, also called the John Rylands Papyri. It is a fragment from the gospel of John that dates to between 100 and 150 CE.
The earliest complete copy of the entire New Testament is Codex Sinaiticus, which dates to the 4th century. The earliest complete copy of any book in the New Testament (I think) is P46, which contains some of Paul's letters. It dates to the 2nd or 3rd century.
From the second century to the 16th century, there are around 5800 copies (including fragments) of the New Testament in Greek. There are many more in other languages, including Latin, Syriac, and Coptic. There are hundreds of thousands of variants in these manuscripts. Most of the variants are small differences, like spelling, but some are differences consisting of whole verses either added or omitted.
Textual critics study and compare ancient manuscripts in order to reconstruct, to the best of their ability, what the originals said. These studies are published in critical editions of the New Testament like the Nestle Alland 28th edition and the United Bible Society 4th edition. There may be newer editions that have come out since the last time I checked. I have a copy of the Nestle Alland 26th edition.
Almost all modern translations of the New Testament were translated directly from Greek. They are not translations of translations. Most of them also include footnotes about textual variants.
The academic study of the historical Jesus and early Christianity does not assume that the New Testament is inspired by God. It applies the same historical methods to the New Testament documents as it does to any other ancient document. While there is much disagreement between scholars on what can be known about the historical Jesus and early Christianity, there are a handful of things that enjoy pretty wide-spread agreement if not concensus. They include things such as:
1. Jesus was born around 4 BCE.
2. Jesus was from Nazareth in Galilee.
3. Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist.
4. Jesus was an itinerant preacher.
5. Jesus taught about the kingdom of God (many scholars call him an apocalyptic prophet).
6. Jesus had a core group of followers (probably 12) who were appointed as apostles.
7. Jesus was crucified by the Roman prefect, Pontius Pilate, on the charge of claiming to be the king of the Jews (i.e. the messiah).
8. Pontius Pilate was prefect/governor of Judea from 26 to 36 CE.
9. Jesus died around 30 CE. Some scholars date his death as early as 26 CE, and some as late as 33 CE.
10. Some of Jesus' followers claimed to see him alive after his death and to proclaim his resurrection.
According to the New Testament, there were originally twelve apostles. An apostle is somebody who is "sent." It's kind of like a missionary. Judas was one of the original twelve, but he was kicked out because he betrayed Jesus. He was replaced by Matthias. Paul was an apostle, but he was not a member of the twelve. Some Christian theologians think he was the rightful replacement to Judas, but this is speculation and is not stated in the New Testament.
Paul was a Pharisee who opposed the Jesus movement, actively sought to end it, and gained a reputation as a persecutor. Early on (probably within the first three years), Paul was on his way to Damascus when Jesus appeared to him. This experience resulted in Paul's conversion, and he began proclaiming that Jesus was the messiah and had risen from the dead.
As far as we can tell, all of Jesus' earliest followers were Jews. When gentiles began to be admitted to the church, it caused controversy. The controvery centered around whether a gentile convert had to first convert to Judaism, undergo circumcision, and keep the Mosaic law. This controversy was allegedly resolved at a council in Jerusalem. James, the brother of Jesus, wanting to make conversion easy for the gentiles, so he gave a small list of requirements for gentile converts, saying they should abstain from blood, food sacrificed to idols, and sexual immorality, but there was no requirement that they undergo circumcision or keep the whole Mosaic law. Paul's letter to the Galatians reveals that the controversy lingered well after the Jerusalem council. Paul was against requiring gentile converts to first convert to Judaism or be circumcized, but there were some people who were disciples of James who were going to different churches telling them that they had to be circumcized. Whether James himself sent them or not is disputed.
The core message of the early Christians (sometimes called the gospel or the kerygma) was that Jesus was the messiah, that he died for sins, and that he was raised from the dead. Messiah and Christ both mean the same thing. It means "annointed." In the Old Testament, an anointed person could be a priest, a prophet, or a king. While all three offices are attributed to Jesus in the New Testament, it is primarily used to refer to Jesus' kingship. According to Acts, Jesus' followers were first called "Christians" in Antioch, which means the name probably originated with outsiders, and Jesus' followers adopted it. It was a way of referring to people who followed "Christ."
The notion that there would be a king in the end times comes from a promise God made to always have a man on the throne of Israel. God made this promise to both David and Solomon, the second and third kings of ancient Israel. After David's dynasty came to an end during the Babylonian exile (beginning in 587 BCE), the prophets, especially Jeremiah, began to say God would fulfill his promise by raising up a descendant of David in the last days who would sit on the throne of Israel and be king forever. Christians thought Jesus was the fulfillment of these prophecies. But the early Christians didn't just think Jesus would be king of Israel. They thought he would be king of kings and lord of lords. In other words, he would be a universal king and rule over all authorities.
The early Christians believed they were living in the end times and that Jesus would soon return to establish his kingdom on earth. Christians today are still awaiting his return. The return of Jesus is supposed to be associated with the resurrection of all the dead. Some will be raised to face judgment, and others will be raised to eternal life. Christians put their hope in Jesus because Jesus died for their sins. By trusting in Jesus and confessing that he is king, they are declared by God to be righteous, meaning they are pardoned for their sins and are treated as if they had none. The Christian hope is to have peace with God, to enjoy a resurrection to eternal life, and to know, experience, enjoy, and praise God forever.
