INTRODUCTION TO THE NEW TESTAMENT

When the risen Jesus was taken up into heaven (Acts 1:9), he left behind eleven apostles and a group of about a hundred and twenty believers. Their expectations were high. Jesus had promised that after he left he would send them the Holy Spirit from the Father (John 15:26).

When the Spirit descended on the apostles on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2), those present were convinced that this was not only a fulfilment of Jesus’ promise but also a fulfilment of the prophecy of Joel that the Spirit would be given to one and all (Joel 2:28-32). Filled with the Spirit, the disciples bore witness to their faith in Jesus and to his resurrection. More and more people came to believe that Jesus of Nazareth was the long-awaited Messiah, who had been wrongfully put to death by the Jewish and Roman authorities and whose authority had been vindicated by his resurrection. In defence of this position, the disciples pointed to texts in the Jewish Scriptures that referred, they believed, to a Messiah who would die vicariously for his people.

The believers constituted a small segment of Jewish society. But as they studied the Scriptures and proclaimed the implications of their belief for the temple and the Jewish law, they attracted opposition.

One of the early preachers who spelled out this message was Stephen, a Jewish believer from a Greek background. His preaching so enraged the Jews that they stoned him to death (Acts 7). Persecution followed, and the disciples began to scatter from the region of Jerusalem and Judea. As they travelled, they bore witness to their faith in Jesus as the Messiah. People from other communities – Samaritans, Gentiles who worshipped the Jewish God, and finally, Gentiles who had previously shown little interest in Judaism – began to join the community of believers.

One of those who spearheaded the persecution was a young and determined member of the Jewish Council named Saul, who hailed from the town of Tarsus in the province of Cilicia (now part of Turkey). He was dramatically confronted by the risen Jesus while pursuing the fleeing disciples. Not only did he become a disciple, he also became a pioneer missionary (Acts 9:1-30). His initial base was the town of Antioch in Syria, and from there he and his colleagues set off to preach the good news of salvation in West Asia and Eastern Europe, where he was known by his Roman name, Paul (Acts 13:1-3).

As people responded to his preaching and put their faith in Jesus, he organised them into local communities of believers, instructed them in the faith and its implications for everyday life, and then moved on.

However, he made a point of keeping in touch with each community, visiting them when he could and writing to give them further instruction, advice on practical issues and answers to their questions.

These pastoral letters are the earliest of the documents that were later collected and included in the NT canon, where they are arranged according to length. The first nine letters are addressed to communities in towns that Paul regarded as under his pastoral oversight; the remainder are addressed to individuals. We can normally deduce his reasons for writing from the letters themselves.

For example, the letter to the Romans was written towards the end of Paul’s missionary career, when he was planning to visit Rome on his way to Spain. As part of his preparation for the visit, Paul wrote to introduce himself and the message that he normally preached to Gentile audiences. But he also addressed the situation in Rome at the time, for it appears that the Christians there, whose Jewish and Gentile backgrounds were very different, were finding it difficult to maintain unity. Similarly, in his first letter to the church in the city of Corinth, he dealt with various problems in the church – some of which had been reported to him, and others that the Corinthians themselves had written to ask him about. By the time he wrote his second letter to the same church, however, relations between him and the church had deteriorated. Knowing this helps one to appreciate what Paul has to say about such matters as the hardships of ministry, Christian giving and the like.

The NT also contains letters written by Peter, John, James and Jude, and a letter addressed to Jewish Christians who were not living in Israel and were under pressure to return to Judaism. Reading these letters, we can deduce something about the context of their readers.

In the period immediately following Jesus’ resurrection and ascension, the disciples remembered his teaching and deeds and referred to them in their preaching and teaching. Thus Paul’s letters contain allusions to the words and deeds of Jesus. It is clear that the apostle saw himself as both recalling and building upon the Jesus tradition by drawing out its implications for everyday life. As long as the original eyewitnesses were alive and present in the communities around the Roman Empire, it may be safely assumed that any appeal to the tradition would have been subject to their scrutiny.

With the passing of the years, and then decades, two developments took place. First, the expectation that Jesus would soon return began to dim; secondly, the original apostles and disciples began to pass away. The church became aware of the need for th Jesus tradition to be put down in writing, and this need was met in the writing of the gospels. The gospels tell the Jesus story. All four of the gospels included in the NT deal with the public ministry of Jesus and what is called the Passion Narrative, that is, the narrative of Jesus’ final days in Jerusalem and his suffering and death, followed by the narrative of the empty tomb and the appearances of the risen Jesus to individuals and groups of disciples. The gospels have different emphases and were written for different groups of readers, but all share the same evangelistic purpose – that the readers might come to faith or confirm their faith in the messiahship of Jesus of Nazareth and have life in his name.

The Gospel according to Mark was probably written somewhere in the late sixties and focused on Jesus’ deeds. This was followed, possibly ten to twenty years later, by gospels according to Matthew and Luke that covered the same ground as Mark but included more of Jesus’ teaching. Finally, the Gospel according to John represents still another form of the Jesus tradition.

The evangelist Luke, a Gentile disciple, was one of Paul’s colleagues. From the prologue of his gospel we gather that he wrote it for the benefit of a person called Theophilus, who was probably a Roman officer of some rank. But having written the gospel, Luke proceeded to write a second volume, the Acts of the Apostles, in which he told of the ongoing spread of the faith across the Roman Empire.

The first century AD was a period of Jewish hostility and opposition to the new faith and of persecution by the Roman state that peaked under certain emperors, particularly Domitian in the sixties and Nero in the nineties. The last book of the NT canon, called Revelation or the Apocalypse, was probably written during the latter part of the emperorship of Domitian. The book has some unique features, but clearly belongs to a genre called apocalyptic writing.

Books in this genre are intended to comfort readers who were being persecuted for their faith. The message is contained in a series of visions of the future when the period of persecution has come to an end and those who have persevered are vindicated. The visions of parallel happenings in heaven and on earth are intended to underline the truth that God is sovereign and that he will vindicate those wh remain faithful in spite of persecution.

As the Christian faith spread across the Roman Empire, various interpretations of the person and work of Jesus arose and were reflected in writings of various kinds. Faced with this situation, the church in the second century recognised that heretical teaching could confuse believers, and thus it had to make a decision regarding what writings would be considered as presenting orthodox doctrine – especially in relation to Jesus the Messiah.

One of the criteria used was apostolicity, which means that the books must have been written by an apostle or someone closely associated with an apostle. A second criterion was the importance of the community to which the book or letter was addressed. A third criterion was the conformity of the letter or book to the accepted beliefs of the Christian communities.

These criteria were used by the church to determine which of the many works in circulation could be regarded as normative or canonical – that is, works that were truly God-breathed and Spirit inspired.

By the fourth century AD, twenty-seven books were selected and put together to constitute the New Testament as we have it today.

Brian Wintle