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Introduction to the New Testament
PART I: What is the New Testament?
1. New Testament Writings
There are 27 writings in the NT. What holds the whole collection together? They are not 27 chapters in a single book. The
most general answer you could give would be to speak of a common belief shared by all the writers: Jesus of Nazareth
represents a decisive turning point in God’s relationship to humanity. Or as Acts 4:12 says: “There is salvation in no one
else, for there is no other name under heaven, given to human beings by which we must be saved.”
This common belief in Jesus Christ is expressed in many different ways in the NT. In this brief introduction we’ll try to
look at how each way of expressing the message speaks to the situation of Christians the author is writing for. The NT
gives us a window into the emergence of Christianity.
The 27 books of the NT include:
 4 Gospels: Mark, Matthew, Luke, John
 The Acts of the Apostles
 13 Letters of St. Paul
 7 “Catholic” letters of John, Peter, James, Jude
 The Letter to the Hebrews
 The Book of Revelation or “Apocalypse”
As in the OT, we have here a “library” of diverse styles & purposes:
 The clear simplicity of the Synoptics (Mt, Mk & Lk);
 The mystical depth of John;
 The ardent personal witness of Paul;
 The excitement of a growing church in Acts;
 The practicality of apostles’ advice given in letters;
 The quiet contemplation of Christ our Priest in Hebrews;
 The serenity of a people faithful in persecution in Revelation.
2. The Gospels
Like the books of the OT, the NT writings are equally concerned with facts & faith. The Gospels are not cold, impartial
history (if such exists), but the announcement of salvation through Jesus. The writers make no bones about stressing the
importance of Jesus & they are more concerned about the meaning of his life than a tape-recorded account. They want to
inform us, but they are more concerned to inspire us. They want to shout out their own faith & arouse it in us. It doesn’t
really matter to them whether “scientific” history, archaeology or whatever gives us evidence that Jesus actually had a
home in Nazareth or was crucified on a hill outside the walls of Jerusalem or left the imprint of his body on a shroud.
Faith, in the end, does not rest on any “proofs.” The NT writers let faith colour all their narratives. Their concern is to
show the working of God in history.
2.1 Background of the word “Gospel”
It occurs in the OT & is found in Deutero-Isaiah. Israel is in exile, far from home, temple & land. The gospel is the good
news that God is going to take pity on them & lead them home:
How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of the messenger who announces peace, who brings Good News, who
announces salvation, who says to Zion, your God reigns (Is 52:7)
First found in the NT in the writings of Paul. It defines the oral content of his message:
For I am not ashamed of the gospel; it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who has faith, to the Jew first & also
to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed through faith for faith; as it is written, the one who is
righteous by faith, shall live (Rom 1:16-17).
2.2 The Four Written Gospels
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These are the best sources for knowing about Jesus’ life. Paul tells us how Jesus instituted the Eucharist & about his
Resurrection (1 Cor 11:23; 15:3-5), but little else. Other literature of the time (Josephus, the Jewish historian & Tacitus
the Roman historian) say very little about Jesus. The Gospels have been treasured from the start of Christianity. But they
are its product, not its origin. They come from its second or third generation. A whole generation or more of Christians
lived without them. The earliest NT writings are the letters of Paul, especially 1 Thess, Galatians, 1 & 2 Cor, Philippians,
Philemon & Romans. Other gospels (termed apocryphal gospels), some of which survive, were also written. But these
were never accepted by Christians as a whole. They may edify & even entertain us, but they don’t give a true picture of
the Christian faith.
2.3 The Communities Behind the Gospels
Behind our gospels are communities of believers who lived in various cities of the ancient Greek world & the Roman
Empire. In their eagerness to build up & understand their faith, they appealed to the life & teaching of Jesus. The
information about Jesus which they used over the years in their worship, in their teaching of converts, in controversies
with opponents, provided the basic material for the written gospels. This is why we say the gospels reflect the concerns of
the communities which produced them.
3. Stages of NT Formation & Transmission
The original Gospel heralded by Jesus was a spoken word. Jesus was a voice, not a writer; he was a preacher, not a scribe.
He used direct speech & deeds of power (what we call miracles) to communicate his message. In the apostolic
proclamation there is a dramatic shift from Jesus the preacher to Jesus the preached, concentrating on what pertained to
Jesus’ proclamation about God.
The oldest Christian preaching about Jesus concerned his death & resurrection, & the earliest writings in the NT (the
letters of Paul) focused on the same central theme. Given that the events surrounding Jesus’ death were the central focus
of the whole of the whole public ministry, the early preachers were bound to have first formed a standardised sequence of
the last days of Jesus for their hearers.
Their claims about the identity & mission of Jesus rested, above all, on an interpretation of what happened during his last
days. Since their first listeners were all Jews, this interpretation also needed to show how these events corresponded with
scriptural prophecy. This sequence can be seen in the formula Paul uses in 1 Cor 15:3-4:



Jesus’ identity asserted: “Christ”
His mission interpreted: “died for our sins…was raised on the third day”
Consistent with prophecy: “in accordance with the scriptures.”
The evangelists developed the proclamation of Jesus’ death & resurrection by prefixing the ministry material to the
passion accounts.
To help us to understand the development of the Gospels, the Church has given us a number of helpful guides:
Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation (Dei Verbum [1965]) nn.18-19
The Catechism of the Catholic Church (1992; revised 1997) n.126
These set out an account of the stages of formation of the gospels. A fuller account of the process is to be found in the
documents of the Pontifical Biblical Commission (PBC) on The Historical Truth of the Gospels, entitled Sancta Mater
Ecclesia (1964) & in The Interpretation of the Bible in the Church (L’interprétation de la Bible dans l’Église (1993). A
brief description of the process is given in The Gift of Scripture (2005) n.43 by the Bishops Conferences of England &
Wales & Scotland.
The substance of The Historical Truth of the Gospels (1964) was incorporated into Vatican II’s Dei Verbum (1965). The
document tells us “To judge properly concerning the reliability of what is transmitted in the Gospels, the interpreter
should pay diligent attention to the three stages of tradition by which the doctrine & the life of Jesus have come down to
us” (VI,2).
The 3 stages of tradition are:
Stage 1: The public ministry of Jesus of Nazareth: What Jesus did & said during the public ministry that was witnessed
by his chosen followers.
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Stage 2: The apostolic preaching about Jesus: What the apostles preached about Jesus in the light of his resurrection
from the dead.
Stage 3: The evangelists’ written Gospels: What the “sacred authors” committed to writing, “taken from the many things
handed down.”
Stage 1: The public ministry of Jesus of Nazareth (c. 30-33 AD)
The PBC in The Historical Truth of the Gospels (1964) limits the first stage of the tradition to the public ministry,
excluding from consideration Jesus’ infancy & early years. When the PBC refers to “the beg inning” it specifies the
moment Jesus “joined to himself chosen disciples” (VII). Even considering the public ministry, the PBC makes no claim
that what we have in the Gospels is an exact record of that time.
We have no resources available to us that were written at the time of Jesus’ ministry: the only words written about Jesus
during his lifetime were those ordered to be written by Pontius Pilate. The public ministry of Jesus lasted 2-3 years, &
traditionally we have referred to the major part of his lifetime as the hidden years. That acknowledgement warns us how
much we do not know about Jesus.
Jesus lived as a Galilean Jew in the first third of the 1st cent., a relatively peaceful period under the Roman occupation. He
spent most of his life as a minor artisan, someone who worked with his hands, living in the small hill village of Nazareth.
These years are not only unknown to us but also unknowable.
For the last three years of his life, however, much of what Jesus did & said was available to the public, especially to his
disciples who travelled with him around Galilee, Judea & elsewhere. What Jesus did & said, including the ways he chose
to express himself, would help his followers to be witnesses of his public life & teaching. Many of the details of ordinary
existence – about what Jesus looked like, how he remembered his own upbringing etc. – are not included as they would
normally be in a biography.
Stage 2: The apostolic preaching about Jesus (c.33-70 AD)
The second stage of the tradition refers to what the apostles & disciples preached about Jesus after the first Easter. As the
PBC says, the content of their proclamation was “above all the death & resurrection of the Lord, as they bore witness to
Jesus” (VII). Examples of this can be seen in 1 Cor 15:3-4; Acts 2:23-32; 3:14-15; 10:39-40. The earliest preached
Gospel began where our written Gospels finish – which is why we can say that the written Gospels developed backwards.
As a result of their Easter experience & their enlightenment in the Spirit, the early preachers came to a fuller
understanding of who Jesus was (cf. Jn 2:22). Their new experiences enabled them to re-interpret the past & bring it up to
date.
The early preachers then turned their attention to the deeds & words of Jesus, & thus collections of sayings, parables, &
miracles grew. This attention to the ministry of Jesus would have been particularly useful for new converts who wanted to
know about the earthly life & teaching of the one they professed as Lord. More importantly, attention to the ministry of
Jesus would save the event of death & resurrection from evaporating into mythology.
The death & resurrection are inseparably attached to Jesus, the one who came from Nazareth, called named disciples,
preached the kingdom of God in Galilee & Judea, healed the sick & disabled, told parables, challenged people to think &
act differently. Rooting the significance of Jesus in the particular world of time & place was essential to a historical
proclamation.
Although the testimony of the preachers was suffused with faith in Jesus as Lord, as the PBC says: “their faith rested on
the things Jesus did & taught” (VIII). The apostolic preachers who followed Jesus during his public ministry were in a
unique position to witness to the fundamental continuity between Jesus of Nazareth & Jesus the risen Lord.
The preachers did not just chronicle what Jesus did & said, but “interpreted his words & deeds according to the needs of
their listeners,” using “catecheses, stories, testimonia, hymns, doxologies, prayers, & other literary forms of this sort”
(VIII). Already, in this pre-literary stage, oral tradition was recasting stories about Jesus according to various needs, for
by this time the Gospel was being preached in different languages & in different contexts (e.g. Antioch, Corinth, Ephesus,
Rome).
Stage 3: The evangelists’ written Gospels (c.70-100 AD)
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The stories & sayings about Jesus’ passion & ministry that circulated in Stage 2, which were already modified in the light
of an Easter faith, provided the evangelists’ source material. Sections of that tradition, such as an outline passion narrative
& brief collections of material relating to different subjects, were probably already in writing before the evangelists
composed their own accounts. The PBC stated that the evangelists wrote, “for the benefit of the Churches, with a method
suited to the peculiar purpose which each one set for himself. From the many things handed down, they selected some
things, reduced others to a synthesis, (still) others they explicated as they kept in mind the situation of the Churches”
(IX).
The PBC is silent about the identity of the evangelists & makes no claims that any of them was an apostle-eyewitness.
Given the PBC’s statement that the evangelists’ source material was handed down from Stage 2, Joseph Fitmyer
comments on the text: “This means, then, that none of the evangelists was an eyewitness of Jesus’ ministry. They heard
about Jesus & his ministry from others who were “eyewitnesses” & who had become ‘ministers of the word’ (Lk 1:2)”
(Christological Catechism, p.25).
Raymond Brown makes a similar point: “The wide recognition that the evangelists were not eyewitnesses of Jesus’
ministry is important for understanding the differences in the Gospels. In the older approach wherein eyewitness
testimony was directly involved, it was very difficult to explain differences in the Gospels… The evangelists, who were
not eyewitnesses, had a task that the preachers of Stage Two never had, namely, to shape a sequential narrative from
Jesus’ baptism to his resurrection” (Reading the Gospels with the Church, pp.16,17). Mt & Lk add the infancy
narratives. They are a later development prefixed to the main body of the Gospel material, with the same message: Jesus
is the Son of God. The birth of Jesus is now seen in the same salvific light as his death & resurrection.
Summary
What is important is the PBC’s acknowledgement of the threefold process of Gospel formation. The Gospels are not
Stage 1 documents: they are not a record of the deeds & words of Jesus from the first stage of the tradition. Neither are
they Stage 2 documents: they are not examples of Gospel preaching by those who had direct experience of Stage 1. The
evangelists are authors of Stage 3 documents. While they were faithful to the tradition they received from the intervening
generation, clearly the evangelists compiled their own narratives about Jesus. The recognition of the consequences of
human authorship is repeated in the 1993 document from the PBC when it writes about all biblical authors as people “who
employed both their own capacities for expression & the means which their age & social context put at their disposal”.
It’s practically certain that the Synoptic Gospels are inter-related. Mt & Lk are revisions of Mk for different needs &
circumstances. For various reasons, they considered his work inadequate or even unsuitable for their circumstances. The
same can happen today. We may find one gospel writer more relevant to ourselves than another.
To sum up, the gospels can help us to a knowledge of:
 Jesus himself, his teaching & his works;
 The communities, their lives & interests that preserved the knowledge of Jesus before this was written down in
the gospels.
 The authors (evangelists): each has his own understanding of Christ & the demands of Christian life &
discipleship.
4. Key Concepts for Understanding the Bible
4.1 Inspiration
The Bible is a unique book. It is, literally, God’s word in human words. To say that the Bible is inspired is to say that God
had more to do with this book than with any other writing in history, even the loftiest flights of mysticism or the most
ardent outpourings of the saints. Somehow, God is behind this book. God chose the authors; their writing fulfilled God’s
intention (cf. CCC #106).
This doesn’t mean that God “dictated” words or thoughts to the minds of the writers. They remain themselves – with their
own literary style, their particular purpose, their opinions, temperament & background - & these all come through.
What does it mean, then, to say that God is the “principal author”? Firstly, it means that God comes to people through
many avenues of revelation: through the events of God’s relationship with them from Abraham through the life, death &
resurrection of Jesus through all the experiences of the Church. The people of God are aware of God’s presence, but they
can’t put all the facts & ideas & feelings into words very well. Among them & of them is the poet/prophet, one of those
who in any culture speaks what the heart knows. This speaker-for-God comes to a more explicit understanding of the
meaning of all God is doing & saying, especially in Jesus. Under the guidance of the Spirit & the whole believing
community, this prophet finally gets the truth into words.
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The words have such power that the meaning keeps on unfolding for generation after generation. Gradually, such writings
were recognised as fitting expressions of what the faith was all about. Eventually they were “canonised” by the church as
inspired. They are not inspired because the church says they are; they are called inspired because the church’s faith
recognises them as such.
There were many spiritually uplifting documents current in the early church, even other “Gospels.” Why did the church
not include them in the sacred list? In some of them the instinct of faith saw error or a false direction; others made no
claim to being part of the original proclamation. It may be a surprise to some to know that the “canon” or official list of
books of the Bible, wasn’t explicitly defined by the church until the 16th century, though there was a clear listing as early
as the 4th century.
4.2 Revelation
Revelation is not concerned only with truth, but with God’s personal self-giving. God does give a message, but more
importantly gives the divine self to the people. We have a knowledge of God’s acts & purposes, but we also have this
very God given to us out of infinite love. The raw material of revelation is the everyday life of chosen people, beginning
with the first human beings & developing in the children of Abraham. The biblical authors understood God’s actions &
helped us realise & accept not just a meaning but also a Person. Finally, God communicated perfectly in Jesus. He is the
full revelation of God-truth, but also eternal life within us.
4.3 Tradition
But Catholic faith is not just a biblical religion. It doesn’t just depend on ancient words but also on the living Word, Jesus,
who continues to open our hearts to understanding. We call this ongoing communication Tradition (cf. CCC, #78, 108).
In Fiddler on the Roof Tevye’s song should be written with a small t: tradition. Small-t traditions are customs that may be
a century old or more, but are transitory. There is a tradition of jostling jollity at the Last Night of the Proms or New
Year’s Eve on the banks of the River Thames, but this is hardly something essential to the spirit of England.
In the church there are many traditions. To mention a non-controversial few: it is small-t tradition to have pews in church,
for bishops to wear special headgear called “mitres”, to use white smoke to indicate that a pope has been elected or to
make the Sign of the Cross.
It is big-T Tradition, on the other hand, that Jesus is truly God & man, that his passion, death & resurrection are made
present to us in the Eucharist, that he gathered a visible people around him & appointed Peter & the other apostles to
guide & sanctify them. Sacraments, prayer, mission – it’s a long list.
Tradition literally means “handing on”; it also refers to what is handed on. After the last of the apostles died, their
successors – right down to today’s pope & bishops – handed on the Good News of Jesus (CCC #77).
Tradition is expressed in (& grows from) the Church’s creeds, the records of the church’s liturgy, the writings of the great
teachers, the decrees of popes & councils, the prayer & faith of the people.
In the polemics of the Reformation, now softening, Protestants rejected what they thought was undue Catholic emphasis
on Tradition & relied on Scripture alone (sola scriptura). Catholics asserted all the more firmly that, although Tradition is
under the judgement of the inspired word, it nevertheless existed before the NT, the words & acts of Jesus were not
mechanically transmitted by tape recorder or digital camcorder. Tradition is the way the essentials of Christianity are
lived by the Church throughout the centuries.
Tradition develops in the sense that the Church probes more deeply into the meaning of all that has been handed on. The
Holy Spirit guides its growth & explanation. Each age must express the age-old Tradition of the Church in the forms of its
day. The essentials remain; the application & form may change.
The Church is a living organism; in each generation it must respond to God through the language, culture, problems &
opportunities of its own day. The Church remembers its experience & listens to the living word of Jesus in the Bible & is
thus led by the Spirit to show Christ to the world.
PART II: The Gospels
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Our main sources for the life, teaching, ministry & death of Jesus are the Gospels of Matthew (Mt), Mark (Mk), Luke
(Lk) & John (Jn). The first three give a “common view” of Jesus & so are called the Synoptic Gospels. John is different &
offers an independent vision of Jesus with a different outline, literary style & theology.
All four Gospels focus on the one Jesus. Yet each brings out different aspects of Jesus in distinctive ways. In this session
we shall look at what the three Synoptic Gospels have in common & how they differ. Then next session we will begin by
looking at Mk’s Gospel & look at:
 its historical circumstances (author, date, place, purpose, sources etc.),
 literary features (overall structure, plot, characters, techniques)
 theological interests (Christology, discipleship, Christian life).
1. The Synoptic Gospels
The Synoptic Gospels present a common outline of Jesus’ public ministry & passion: his association with John the
Baptist, his calling & instructing disciples, his ministry of teaching & healing in Galilee, his journey to Jerusalem, his
brief activity & teaching there, his passion (arrest, trial, suffering, death) & the discovery of his tomb being empty.
The Synoptic Gospels also present a common picture of Jesus as a teacher & healer, & use the same titles in reference to
him (Son of Man, Son of David, Messiah, Son of God, Lord etc.). They tell the story of Jesus in short units (pericopes):
 narratives (miracles, controversies, parables etc.)
 sayings (proverbs, beatitudes, “I” sayings etc.)
Sometimes the verbal similarities among them are so close that they cannot be attributed to coincidence or oral tradition.
There must be at least some direct dependence among the written texts.
How the three Synoptic Gospels relate to one another is called the Synoptic Problem. Some episodes & blocks of
teaching appear in all three Gospels, some in two, & some in only one. A “synopsis” of the Gospels prints the parallel
texts in three vertical columns & allows us to see at a glance what the three Gospels share & where they differ. Some
synopses include John’s Gospel as well as other pertinent early Christian texts, thus giving further parallels & showing
how different John’s Gospel really is.
The most widely accepted explanation for how the Synoptic Gospels are related is the Two Source Theory. According to
this hypothesis, Mt & Lk independently used Mk’s Gospel & a collection of Jesus’ sayings called Q (from the German
Quelle = “source”). The two main sources then are Mk & Q. Mk’s Gospel dates from c.70 CE, & Q probably arose in its
Greek form in the 50s, though it may well include earlier material from the Aramaic Jesus tradition. In form, Q was
something like the books of Proverbs & Sirach – mainly sayings without context or narrative framework, & without
infancy & passion narratives. According to the Two Source theory, Mt & Lk c.85-90 CE independently expanded Mk’s
Gospel with the help of material from Q as well as special traditions to which each had access (termed M = Matthean & L
= Lukan). The Two Source theory of Synoptic Gospel relations can be set down in diagram form thus:
MARK
M
→ MATTHEW
Q
LUKE ←
L
Though the Two Source theory is the most economical explanation of Synoptic Gospel relations, it’s not the only
hypothesis. Augustine regarded Mt as the first Gospel, Mk as a poor imitation, & Lk as a combination of the two. A
modern variation of Augustine’s approach is the Griesbach hypothesis (after the 18 th cent. German scholar who
formulated it). According to this theory, Mt’s Gospel was used as a source by Lk, & Mk then used both Gospels as his
sources. There are also other, more complicated theories that have been worked out with great detail & ingenuity by
modern scholars. Each theory has its strengths & weaknesses, its supporters & opponents. Most NT scholars today follow
the Two Source theory, while aware that it has some loose ends & some embarrassing “minor” agreements. Embarrassing
because by theory these agreements should not occur.
Although the Synoptic Gospels present a common outline & common portrait of Jesus, there are some striking
differences.
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
They address different audiences:
 Jewish Christians (Mt), & Gentile Christians (Mk & Lk).

The communities for which they were composed were in different places:
 Antioch in Syria (Mt), Rome (Mk) & Greece (Lk).

These communities were under different pressures:
 Jewish Christian identity (Mt), persecution (Mk) tensions between rich & poor (Lk).

They present different perspectives on Jesus:
 fulfilment of the Scriptures (Mt), the suffering Son of Man (Mk), & the prophet & example (Lk).

They portray the disciples in different ways:
 men of “little faith” (Mt), uncomprehending & cowardly (Mk), & the principles of continuity between Jesus &
the Church (Lk).

They view Christian life in the Church variously:
 God’s people through the abiding presence of Christ (Mt), life under the sign of the cross (Mk), & the Spiritguided Church (Lk).
These many differences among the Synoptic Gospels demand that we look at them in their historical, literary &
theological individuality.
2. Authorship
The four gospels claim the names of two apostles (Mt & Jn) & two prominent Christians (Mk & Lk). What do the names
tell us? We have no actual proof any of these is the author of the work ascribed to him. If Mk is primitive & not himself
an eye-witness, but was later used by Mt & Lk, we move Mt ever further away from being an apostle & companion of
Jesus in his ministry.
In fact, all the gospels were written in the post-apostolic age, at a time when most if not all the apostles were already
dead. Jn’s gospel comes from the end of the 1st cent., & is furthest from the eye-witness apostolic age. So what
significance do the names have? All the names were common & could have belonged to any early Christian. No gospel
claims to have been the work of an apostle or his companion. Only Jn makes a link between the “disciple whom Jesus
loved” & the author of the gospel (Jn 21:20-25) but the beloved disciple is not identified.
It would have been logical to link the gospels with prominent members of the early church, just as it was important to link
Moses to the Pentateuch. Also, the gospels of Mt & Jn may well have sprung from authentic traditions of these apostles
that were kept in the early church; but, that would require a period of gestation during which time the original traditions
grew & evolved over a period of decades.
The question of authorship will be treated with each gospel but is always a secondary issue. Whoever is behind any of
these writings did not give the text its definitive status. It is the gospel itself that is recognised & accredited as a work that
accurately reflects the church’s belief. As it passed into the life of the church, each gospel became a normative rule of
faith. In time they became part of the scriptural canon. It is its formal recognition that led to full acceptance as inspired &
normative.
PART III: FURTHER READING
1. Church Documents
Pontifical Biblical Commission: “Historical Truth of the Gospels” (1964)
Dei Verbum (Vatican II: “Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation”) (1965)
Catechism of the Catholic Church (§51-141) (1992; rev. 1997)
Pontifical Biblical Commission: “Interpretation of the Bible in the Church” (1993)
Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England & Wales & Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Scotland: “The Gift of Scripture”
(2005)
Pope Benedict XVI: Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation “Verbum Domini” (2010)
Pope Francis: Apostolic Exhortation “Evangelii Gaudium” (2013)
2. Selected Introductory Reading on the Gospels & the NT
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Raymond E. Brown, An Introduction to the New Testament, Doubleday, New York, 1996.
Raymond E. Brown, Reading the Gospels with the Church, St. Anthony Messenger Press, Cincinnati, 1996.
Raymond E. Brown, Responses to 101 Questions on the Bible, Paulist Press, New York, 2002.
Etienne Charpentier, How to Read the New Testament, SCM Press, London, 1982.
Frederick J. Cwiekowski, The Beginnings of the Church, Gill & Macmillan, Dublin, 1988
Joseph Fitzmyer, A Christological Catechism: New Testament Answers, Paulist Press, New York, 1991.
Gideon Goosen & Margaret Tomlinson, Studying the Gospels: An Introduction, E.J. Dwyer, Australia, 1994.
Adrian Graffy, Trustworthy and True: The Gospels Beyond 2000, Columba Press, Dublin, 1999.
Daniel Harrington, How to Read the Gospels: Answers to Common Questions, New City Press, New York, 1996.
Luke T. Johnson, The Writings of the New Testament: An Interpretation, SCM Press, London, 1994.
Pheme Perkins, Reading the New Testament, Paulist Press, New York, 1988.
Burton H. Throckmorton, Gospel Parallels: A Synopsis of the First Three Gospels, Thomas Nelson Publishers, New
York, 1979.
David Wenham & Steve Walton, Exploring the New Testament: Volume 1 – Introducing the Gospels & Acts, SPCK,
London, 2001.
3. Useful websites
Felix Just SJ: www.catholic-resources.org If you enter the site & click on “Electronic New Testament” there is a wealth
of material there – including material on each of the Gospels & the Synoptic Problem.
www.ntgateway.com
= access to various NT websites
www.vatican.va = Vatican website for Vatican II documents, Catechism, Encyclicals etc.
www.shc.edu/theolibrary = theology resources
www.catholic-ew.org.uk = English & Welsh Bishops’ website
www.nccbuscc.org = website of American bishops
Brian Purfield
Mount Street Jesuit Centre
March 2014