The Christian Bible, Part II
The New Testament
Dr. Craig Ho
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OT and NT: the story of God’s salvation
• The OT ends with the Jews living under foreign rule.
• The Jews longed for the coming of a new king (the
messiah) who would restore their national fortune
(Haggai 2:20-23). => Religio-political and collective
salvation
• The NT begins with the Jews being ruled by the Roman
Empire.
• Some Jews believed that Jesus was the long awaited
king and they were the first Christians.
• The NT tells the story of how this new “king” rules the
hearts of his followers in a spiritual kingdom (the
kingdom of God), the church (Luke 17:21). => Spiritual
and personal salvation. BibleNT
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Lecture Objectives
• To get an overview of the organisation of the
New Testament (NT) Canon
• To learn about the historical process from
which the NT has emerged
• To discuss the main issues to which the NT
authors were addressing
• To get to know the basics of the of the synoptic
problem
• To survey the main themes of the Paul’s letters
• To survey the main themes of the non-Pauline
letters
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Structure of the NT Canon
• Gospel books
• History book
• Letters written by
St. Paul
• Letters written by
other leaders of
the early Church
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The three stages in the formation of the New
Testament
• Jesus of Nazareth (6 BC-AD30)
– preached the Kingdom of God
– killed and resurrected
• The Christian communities (30 - 70)
– preached Jesus as Christ and saviour
– collected sayings and stories about Jesus
– Paul and other Christian leaders wrote letters to the
churches to deal with their problems
• The Redaction of writings (70 - 100)
– the passing away of the disciples
– the need to produce written records about Jesus
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Problems faced by early Christians
• Problem of Identity
– What is the relationship between Jews and Christians?
(or between Moses and Christ, or Judaism and
Christianity)
• Theological Problems
– Is Jesus just a man, a half-god half man, a god?
– Why is Jesus late in returning to earth?
• Organisational Problems
– How should the Church be organised?
• Political Opposition
– How to face persecution from the Roman government?
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The Gospels
• The Synoptic Gospels: the first three gospels
– “Synoptic” seeing from similar points of view
– “Gospels” means good news
• Matthew
– written for Jews (AD 80-90)
• Mark
– written for the Romans (AD 70)
• Luke
– written for well educated Gentile Christians (80-90)
• The Fourth Gospel: John
– a meditation on Jesus as the Word of God
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What is a gospel?
• Not a biography.
• A literary form used to announce great events
in the life of the emperor.
• Borrowed by gospel writers to announce the
arrival of salvation through the person and
work of Jesus of Nazareth.
• The earliest gospel (Mark) begins with adult
Jesus at about 30 and ends with his
resurrection.
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The phenomenon of synoptic Gospels
• Why are the first three Gospels so similar?
• What is the literary relationship among them?
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The two source hypothesis for the
synoptic problem
A source called Q
(material found only
in Matthew and Luke)
Mark
Matthew
Luke
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There are 13 letters written by St. Paul
• Romans - a theological treaty on justification by faith
alone
• 1 & 2 Corinthians - dealing with church discipline
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
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Galatians - Justification by faith, freedom in Christ
Ephesians - Church organisation
Philippians - Christian unity
Colossians - the all-sufficiency of Christ
1 & 2 Thessalonians - the delay of Christ’ s return
1 & 2 Timothy - Advice to his successor
Titus - Advice to a Church leader
Philemon - A personal letter
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Other NT writings
• Hebrews - to Jewish Christians: do not return
to Judaism because of persecution
• James - good work is as important as faith
• 1 & 2 Peter - encouraging the suffering
Christians to face persecuation
• 1, 2 & 3 John - the message of love
• Jude - warning against false teachers
• Revelation - how to face Roman persecution
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Overview of this lecture
• All NT writings were produced to address specific needs
of the earliest Christians.
• The Gospels are good news and not biographies.
• The similarity of Synoptic Gospels (Matt., Mark, and
Luke) is best explained by the two-source hypothesis.
• The Acts of the Apostles addresses issues of Christian
relationship with Jews, nature of the Christian
movement and the cause for the expansion of the church
etc.
• Paul wrote to tackle theological, disciplinary and
organisational issues faced by the early churches.
• Other letter writers addressed the issues of religious
persecution and signs of heretic development in the
church.
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