Writing the New Testament

A movement that wrote

Jesus himself wrote nothing that survives. His first followers expected him to return very soon, so writing books was not their priority. For twenty years or so after his death, Jesus' words and the stories about him were passed on mainly by word of mouth. Teachers repeated his sayings, preachers retold his deeds, and congregations recited them in worship. Historians call this the oral tradition. In a culture where few people could read, memory was trained and powerful. Even so, stories were shaped and selected as they were retold.

Gradually, though, the movement turned to writing. The reasons were practical. Churches were spreading across hundreds of miles. Apostles could not be everywhere. Eyewitnesses were dying. False teachings needed answering. The result was a collection of writings that Christians would later call the New Testament. The word "testament" here means "covenant," referring to the "new covenant" promised by Jeremiah and announced by Jesus at the Last Supper.

When the New Testament was written (approximate)

First came letters

The oldest Christian documents are letters, not Gospels. Paul's first letter to the Thessalonians, written around AD 50, is probably the earliest surviving Christian writing. Paul wrote to churches he had founded, or (in the case of Romans) to one he hoped to visit. These letters were meant to be read aloud to the gathered congregation. Copies were soon passed between churches, and by the end of the first century collections of Paul's letters were circulating.

Other letters in the New Testament carry the names of James, Peter, John and Jude, and there is the anonymous "Letter to the Hebrews." Their authorship has been debated since ancient times. Many modern scholars think some were written by followers in their teacher's name, a common practice in the ancient world. Traditional Christians often defend the named authors. Either way, these letters show the variety of early Christian voices. James stresses that "faith without works is dead." Hebrews presents Jesus as the great high priest whose sacrifice replaces the Temple's sacrifices.

Then came Gospels

The word "gospel" means "good news." It first meant the message about Jesus. Later it came to mean a book telling his story. Four of these are in the New Testament.

Mark

Most scholars think Mark was written first, around AD 65–70, perhaps in Rome. An early church leader, Papias of Hierapolis (c. 120), recorded a tradition that Mark wrote down Peter's preaching. Mark's Gospel is short, fast-moving and blunt. It shows the disciples as often confused and fearful. Almost half of it describes Jesus' last week, which is why it has been called "a passion story with a long introduction."

Matthew and Luke

Matthew and Luke, probably written in the 80s, both include almost all of Mark, often word-for-word. They also share a large body of Jesus' sayings not found in Mark, which scholars think came from a lost written source nicknamed "Q" (from German Quelle, "source"). Each also has its own material. Because Matthew, Mark and Luke can be "seen together" in parallel columns, they are called the Synoptic Gospels Gospels.

• Matthew writes for Jewish Christians. He often shows how Jesus fulfills the Hebrew prophecies and presents Jesus as a new Moses giving a new law in the Sermon on the Mount.
• Luke, traditionally Paul's companion and a physician, writes for Gentiles. He emphasizes Jesus' concern for the poor, women and outsiders, and includes the parables of the Good Samaritan and Prodigal Son. His second volume, Acts, tells the church's story from Jerusalem to Rome.

John

The Gospel of John, probably written in the 90s, is very different. Instead of short parables, Jesus gives long speeches about himself: "I am the bread of life," "I am the light of the world," "I am the way, the truth and the life." It opens with a hymn to the divine Word (Logos) who "became flesh." Tradition links it to John the Apostle, "the disciple whom Jesus loved," though many scholars think it came from a community shaped by his teaching. John's lofty picture of Christ was central in later debates about Jesus' divinity.

Revelation

The last book, Revelation (or the Apocalypse, from the Greek for "unveiling"), was written by a prophet named John, exiled on the island of Patmos, probably in the 90s. It is an Apocalyptic work, full of symbolic visions: beasts, plagues, a dragon, a great whore called "Babylon," and finally a new heaven and new earth. Most scholars read "Babylon" as a coded reference to Rome and see the book as encouragement to Christians facing pressure to worship the emperor. Revelation has fascinated and puzzled readers ever since. It has inspired great art and music, and it has also fed endless predictions about the end of the world.

How reliable are they?

This is a big and much-debated question, and people answer it partly according to their beliefs. Some points have wide agreement:

• The New Testament writings are very early compared with most ancient sources. The Gospels were written within one lifetime of Jesus.
• They are better preserved than almost any other ancient text. Thousands of Greek manuscripts survive, the oldest fragment (of John) from perhaps the early 100s.
• They are not neutral biographies. Each writer was a believer shaping his material to proclaim faith in Jesus.
• The Gospels differ in details and order, which shows the authors did not simply copy one official version.

Since the 1800s, scholars have studied these texts with the same critical methods used for other ancient documents (see Faith, Science and Liberal Theology). Their conclusions range widely, from very skeptical to quite confident about the Gospels' historical core.

From writings to Scripture

At first the only "Scripture" Christians had was the Jewish Bible, usually in its Greek form, the Septuagint. The Gospels and letters were read in worship alongside it. Gradually they came to be treated as Scripture too. By around AD 200 the four Gospels and Paul's letters were widely accepted. But some books (such as Hebrews, James, 2 Peter and Revelation) were still disputed, while others now left out (such as the Shepherd of Hermas) were read in some churches. The story of how the list was settled is told in Forming the Bible.