Loading...I have decided to add an “Introduction” to my textbook, The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings. I is very similar (indeed!) to the introduction that I have now in my Introduction to the entire Bible. The whole idea is to get students to see why taking an academic course on the NT is very important. Here is the new Introduction, in full:
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Introduction
Why Study the New Testament?
The New Testament is the most commonly purchased, widely read, and deeply cherished book in the history of Western Civilization. It is also the most widely misunderstood, misinterpreted, and misused. These facts alone should make it worth our time to study it. But there are other reasons as well – religious reasons, historical reasons, and literary reasons.
Religious Reasons
Most people who study the new Testament do so, of course, for religious reasons. Many people revere the Bible as the word of God, and want to know what it can teach them about what to believe and how to live. In this book we will not study the New Testament in order to promote any particular religious point of view or theology – Baptist, Lutheran, Catholic, Jewish, agnostic, atheist or anything else. We will instead be approaching the New Testament from a historical point of view. But even from this alternative perspective, there are solid religious reasons for studying the New Testament — even for those people who are not themselves religious or interested in becoming religious. That is because in order to understand our world, and the religious people in it, we need to have a firmer grasp on the book that stands at the heart of the Christian religion.
Historical Reasons
Arguably the most important reason for studying the New Testament – especially from a historical point of view — is because of its importance for the history of Western Civilization.
The dominant religion of Europe and the New World for the past 2000 years has been Christianity. This religion continues to assert an enormous influence on our form of culture. This is true not only on the individual level, as people are guided in their thoughts, beliefs, and actions by what they learn in this religion. It is true on the broadest historical scale imaginable. Christianity has had the single greatest impact on Western civilization of any religion, ideology, or world view, whether looked at culturally, socially, politically, or economically. There is no other institution that can even come close. And at the foundation of Christianity –at its heart, one could argue – stands the New Testament. If one does not understand the New Testament, one cannot fully understand the course of the history of the world we inhabit.
And more than that, there can be no doubt that…
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Great introduction! But there will be more proofreading before publication, right? I caught this: “do unto others as you would have them to unto you,” – the word “to” where there should have been a second “do.” And just for the sake of neatness and consistency – there are some missing spaces after dashes.
You know I never criticize typos in posts. I make plenty of them myself! I’m just concerned when there’s a chance they may wind up in a published book.
Yes, I haven’t even proofed it a final time myself. It will go through several proof reading stages. But thanks for the corrections.
Do you ever get a student in your class who doggedly insists upon the inerrancy of the Bible? If so, and if they write their term papers in support of Biblical inerrancy, is it possible for them to get a passing grade in your class?
Yes, some of my students hold to inerrancy. But they do not have any assignments involving the discussion of their theological views. My purpose in the class is not to change their views, but to get them to see what scholars have said adn the evidence that they use to support their views. Maybe I’ll post on this.
“When Americans are asked to name their favorite books of the Bible, eight books are mentioned by 2% or more of those interviewed, split equally between Old and New Testament books. Psalms is the most popular, named by 13%, followed by Genesis (9%), Matthew (7%), John (6%), Revelation (6%), Proverbs (3%), Job (2%), and Luke (2%). The book of Mark is the only one of the four Gospels in the New Testament not mentioned by 2% or more of Americans.”
Poor Mark! He never gets the respect he deserves. I suspect that if someone filmed the gospel as written it would turn out to be the most controversial Jesus movie ever made, without changing a thing! In many ways a weird, disturbing book. It’s fascinating to think how different christianity would be if no other gospel had ever been composed.
A question. Do you think the writer of the gospel intended his audience to see any relatonship between the “young man” of 14:51 and the “young man” of 16:5?
thanks
I don’t think we have any access to his intentions. Some scholars think there is a connection, others not. I tend to be among the latter; I think the first figure is a secret follower of Jesus and the second is an angelic being.
When it’s claimed that 16% of Americans read the bible everyday, do we know whether they tend to start at the beginning of Genesis, and gradually work their way through to Revelation?. I’m guessing they are more likely to pick out there favourite passages and re-read them. There are some excellent passages in the bible, but there is also a lot of what i would term very turgid stuff that borders on the unreadable.. lists of long hard to pronounce names etc.
No, I think that means they read something here or there in the Bible.
Hi Bart:
I see you are getting there…as per an earlier e-mail, just a reminder that I, and I suspect others, would be quite interested in the differences between your various editions. I have the 2nd for instance. I note you are on the 6th.
Thanks,
Yes, I’ll be talking about my most current changes anon.
That is very good. Please let us know when the new test is available for purchase.
I am listening to your Great Courses series on the “Greatest Controversies.” Ties in to your post, I think. One of the puzzling things about the long-standing traditional views of Matthew and John as being written by two of Jesus’ Twelve is that they were chosen to be witnesses of Jesus’ ministry, death and resurrection. Yet when they write their testimonies they refuse to identify themselves as eyewitnesses, which to me seems like crucially important information. How do believing scholars account for the fact that these two “witnesses” write as if they were not really eyewitnesses?
Lots and lots of believing scholars think that they were *not* eyewitnesses. I suppose those who think they were imagine that they were simply trying to downplay their own significance and to keep themselves out of the story.
A great piece of writing. You captured succinctly so much of the big picture about the NT and the entire Bible.
“A second literary reason for studying the Bible is that it is impossible to understand a good deal of Western literature without it, as many of its stories and themes and phrases are cited, alluded to, paraphrased, reworked, and explored in many of the greatest authors of our civilization: Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Dickens, Tolstoy, T. S. Elliott, and hundreds of others.”
A better understanding of the stories of the Bible will allow for a deeper understanding of the works of numerous authors. Most great authors of the modern era were readers of the Bible. Mark Twain was to have said of the Bible, “It is full of interest. It has noble poetry in it; and some clever fables; and some blood-drenched history; and some good morals; and a wealth of obscenity; and upwards of a thousand lies.”
– Letters from the Earth
Zeroing in on those works that allude to the Bible will allow students to “connect” their future readings ( or their past readings) to the study of the Bible. In that way, the Bible will be much more relevant to them. What do you think?
Yes, that is certainly a terrific approach.
Having been raised Catholic, I find it so hard to understand all these people’s voluntarily reading the Bible, and having parts of it they think of as “favorites”! I admit I still think opening a Bible is like having teeth pulled. And I *really* can’t imagine people checking out anything beyond the Gospels. Especially Revelation!
BTW, about Jesus’s apocalypticism… I remember reading in some Catholic publication, when I was very young, that people get the false impression he predicted the Last Judgment’s coming within his listeners’ lifetimes because they’re confusing it with what he said about the destruction of the Temple. I know better now, of course! But I suspect that’s what most lay Catholics believe. They don’t read the Bible, just accept what they’re told about it.
Unfortunately, I believe most people read the Bible that way. They just accept what they’re told by some authoritative minister and don’t study anything out for themselves or read anything controversial for fear of being wrong. I suspect 90% of what we all accept as correct is actually wrong.
Does your book go into detail about reasons for thinking a book is pseudonymous (number of infinitives, number of words unique to the book)?
I think I answered that already. I don’t go into lots of detail, no, not in this textbook for 19 year olds. I do give all teh key data though in my scholarly monograph, Forgery and Counterforgery. If you’re interested in the hard-core evidence, that would be the place to turn.
Thank you Doctor