THE NEW  TESTAMENT  

 

                                                       I. INTRODUCTION

                                                            October 5, 2005

                                                         Charles P. Poole, Jr.

 

1.  Prefatory Remark

2.  Inspiration,  Inerrancy  and Canonicity  of  the Scriptures

3.  Manuscripts

4.  Geography of the Holy Land and the Mediterranean Region

5.  Historical Background 

6. Aids for Learning About the Scriptures

 

                                                       1. Prefatory Remark  

 

          The object of this short course is to survey the messages in the twenty-seven books of the New Testament (NT).  Before embarking on this program we will say a few words about the inspiration of the various authors, the inerrancy of the Word of God, biblical manuscripts, the geography of the Holy Land, background history, and some other miscellaneous topics. 

 

                       2. Inspiration,  Inerrancy  and Canonicity  of  the Scriptures

 

          The Bible is the inspired word of God written under the Inspiration of the Holy Spirit; God is the real author.  The Dogmatic Constitution on Revelation of the Second Vatican Council, Dei Verbum, Section 11, made clear that the writers of the sacred books were true authors making use of their abilities and literary skills while they served as instruments of God, the primary and divine author, who directed them and inspired them as they composed their works.  Hence the scriptures teach “firmly and faithfully, and without error, that truth which God wanted to be put into the sacred writings for the sake of our salvation.“  God furnishes the message itself which is inspired and unerring, while the writers provide the style.  Because of the limitations of the writers there are some grammatical, geographical, and historical errors which do not compromise the message in any manner. 

                  

          Some books of the Bible, such as the first five books of the Old Testament (the Pentateuch or Torah), were initially an oral tradition written down later.  Others such as the letters of St. Paul were written by the author or dictated to a secretary or scribe.  Some of the books of scripture were assembled and compiled by disciples or students of the original writer, and many of them underwent redaction or editing by members of the faith community before reaching their final form that we have in our Bibles today.  The Lord was guiding all of these individuals who participated in fashioning the final product, the Bible that Christians have read and meditated on down through the centuries.  Surely the Holy Spirit was also present at the fourth century North African councils convened at Hippo (393 AD) and Carthage (397 AD) that decided which of the contested books (such as the Epistle of James) were part of the scriptures, and which contested books (such as the Didache) did not belong there. These councils established what is called the canon or the collection of books that constitute authentic scripture. Since the Church ascribes inerrancy to the final product, the process of inspiration involves many in the faith community, in addition to the initial human writer. 

         

                                                            3. Manuscripts

 

          Many ancient manuscripts of the Bible were written on  papyrus, the ordinary stationery of antiquity.  It was made from stems of a tall, reed like plant found along the Nile river. Sheets were formed by pressing together layers of papyrus which were dried and then glued to each other to form a scroll typically twelve yards long. Usually these were stored rolled around a stick.  Another technique was to sew sheets together to form a book called a codex.  A later technology used parchment or vellum made by scraping and then drying skins of sheep or goats.  Papyrus was less expensive, but became brittle with age, whereas vellum was more expensive and much more durable.  Occasionally a manuscript called a palimpsest has been written on twice, with the first writing erased or rubbed off. 

 

          The earliest manuscripts were written using large, block-like capital letters called uncials, and the manuscripts themselves are also known as uncials.  In the ninth century AD minuscule manuscripts came into wide use in which cursive script equivalent to handwriting was used instead of printed capital letters.  These manuscripts were much faster to transcribe by the monks,  but the resulting minuscule was more difficult to read. The language of the NT manuscripts was almost always Greek. 

 

          The oldest manuscript of the NT is the John Rylands Papyrus called P52 which contains only five verses from the Gospel of  John (18:31-33, 37-38).  There is one papyrus ( P52) dating from the second century, one from the second or third, and about 35 papyri dating from the third century.  The total number of papyri listed in the Nestle-Aland NT is 116, most of them having only a few verses of the NT.  There are two fourth century manuscripts of the NT in existence. The Codex Sinaiticus (‘Bible of Sinai’) now at the British Museum in London contains the entire New Testament, as well as the Old Testament, plus the Epistle of Barnabas and the Shepherd of Hermas.   The Codex Vaticanus at the Vatican Library originally contained the complete Old and New Testaments, but the letters of Timothy, Titus and Philemon as well as the last 4½ of the 13 chapters of Hebrews have been lost.   The fifth century Codex Alexandrinus, also housed at the British Museum, was originally complete in both Testaments,  but some parts have been lost.  The fifth century Codex Bezae now at the Cambridge University Library contains the Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles written in Latin on the right hand  pages and in Greek on the left hand pages.  It is the oldest known bilingual manuscript. 

 

          There are several versions or types of NT manuscripts which differ somewhat from each other in wording, but in unimportant ways that do not effect doctrinal questions.  The oldest (4th century) codices Vaticanus and Sinaiticus are very close to each other, and referred to as Alexandrian types.  The Codex Alexandrinus has Alexandrian type Pauline epistles, but Byzantine type Gospels.  The Codex Bezae represents a third type called Western Text.  The 27th edition (1993) of the Nestle-Aland Greek New Testament (Novum Testamentum Graece) is widely accepted by both Catholic and Protestant scholars as the most reliable text of the NT in its original language.  It is a critical edition, meaning that it contains footnotes referred to as a critical apparatus which indicate the variant readings in different manuscripts for various verses of the New Testament.  For example, the text of the Our Father (Matth 6:9-13) is the same in the Vaticanus and Sinaiticus codices, while Codex Bezae replaces the phrase “on earth” by “on the earth.” The doxology “Thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory” is absent in the Vaticanus, Sinaiticus and Bezae codices, but it appears in the Washington (W), Paris (L) and Tbilisi (1) codices.  In the fifth century a monk may have added the doxology as a marginal note to the W codex, and it was subsequently inserted into the text to appear later in the 8th and 9th century L and 1 manuscripts, respectively. 

 

          The first English language Bible, called the Great Bible, appeared in print in 1539.  The Douai-Rheims Bible was translated by English Catholics exiled in northern France and Belgium.  The New Testament was completed and published in Rheims in 1582, and the Old Testament was completed at Douai in 1609.  A Presbyterian convert Richard Challoner compiled a revision of the Douai-Rheims Bible in 1749-50.  The King James Bible appeared in print in 1611. 

 

                     4.  Geography of the Holy Land and the Mediterranean Region

 

          The Holy Land is about 175 miles long from the southern shore of the Dead Sea to the northern shore of the Sea of Galilee, and it varies in width (measured from the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River) from 60 miles wide in the south to 40 miles in the north.   It is about the size of the state of Vermont, with an area of 10,000 square miles.  It consists of a southern region referred to as Judea or Judah, a central region Samaria, and a northern region Galilee.  The main city of Judea is walled-in Jerusalem, with Bethany and Bethlehem several miles away, Jericho 20 miles to the northeast, Hebron 25 miles to the south, and Gaza 60 miles to the southeast.  The city of Samaria (Sebaste), the capital of ancient Israel, is in the region also called Samaria.  Jesus spent his hidden life in the town Nazareth of Galilee; he began his public ministry at the marriage feast in nearby Cana, and was baptized by John the Baptist in the Jordan River to the East.  Much of his preaching was done near the Sea of Galilee (Sea of Tiberias) which has the towns Bethsaida, Capernaum, Gamala, Magdala and Tiberias on its shores.   North of Galilee are Caesarea-Philippi, Phoenicia (Lebanon) with the seacoast cities of Tyre and Sidon, and Syria with its Capitol Damascus.  Across the Jordan River from Samaria and Galilee are the ten Greek cities that constitute the Decapolis. 

 

          The four travels of St. Paul described in the Acts of the Apostles brought him to most of the main cities in the Eastern Roman Empire bordering on the Mediterranean Sea. When a persecution arose because of Stephen, the scattered Christians fled to Phoenicia and Cyprus, and then founded a Gentile Christian community in Antioch in Pisidia which lies between Bithynia and Pamphylia.  It was here that they were first called Christians (Acts 11:26).  Soon thereafter Paul, accompanied by Barnabas, made his first missionary journey with the itinerary Jerusalem, Seleucia, Salamis, Paphos, Perga, Antioch (in Pisidia), Iconium, Lystra, Derbe, Lystra, Iconium, Antioch, Perga, Attalia, Antioch (between Cilicia and Syria), Phoenicia, Samaria, Jerusalem. Note that there are two cities called Antioch; the one in Pisidia of Asia Minor had the important Christian community.  Paul’s second missionary journey was much longer, taking him overland through Asia Minor to Philippi, Thessalonica, Athens, Corinth, and Ephesus, by sea to Joppa and ending back at Jerusalem.  His third missionary journey retraced part of the second, reaching Dyrrachium on the Adriatic Sea and Corinth in Greece.  The return trip passed through Thessalonica, Philippi, Smyrna, Ephesus and Miletus, and went by sea to Tyre, Ptolemais and Caesaria on the way back to Jerusalem.  On his final trip to Rome where he was martyred, Paul first disembarked at Sidon, then at Myra in Lycia, at Fair Havens in Crete, at Malta, Syracuse in Sicily, Rhegium on the Toe of Italy, and finally landed at Puteoli and went overland through Appii Forum and Three Taverns to Rome.  It is instructive to trace out these itineraries on a map of the Eastern Mediterranean. 

 

          Most of the cities that were prominent during the development of Christianity in the apostolic and patristic eras are now occupied by the followers of Islam, as the following table indicates.  In this Table,  EC denotes the site of an Ecumenical Council,  LP indicates received a letter or letters  from St. Paul,  Patr indicates one of the five patriarchates, Rev indicates one of the seven cities mentioned in Revelation as receiving a letter, and Other signifies another reason.  Some of the cities on this list no longer exist, or only ruins remain. 

         

          Alexandria             Patr                       Muslim  city in present day Egypt

          Antioch                 Patr                       Muslim  city in present day Turkey

          Chalcedon             EC (4)                   Muslim  city in present day Turkey

          Colossae               LP                        Muslim  city in present day Turkey

          Constantinople      EC (2), Patr           Muslim  city in present day Turkey

          Corinth                  LP                        Christian city in present day Greece

          Damascus             Other                    Muslim city in present day Syria, associated

                                                                             with conversion of  St. Paul

          Ephesus                EC (3), LP, Rev    Muslim  city in present day Turkey

          Galatia (region)      LP                        Muslim  region in present day Turkey

          Hippo                   Other                    Muslim  city in north Africa where            

                                                                             St. Augustine  was bishop

          Jerusalem              Patr                       Jewish/Muslim city in present day Israel

          Laodicea               LP (lost), Rev        Muslim  city in present day Turkey

          Nicaea                   EC (1)                   Muslim  city in present day Turkey

          Philadelphia           Rev                       Muslim  city in present day Turkey

          Philippi                  LP                        Christian city in present day Greece

          Pergamum             Rev                       Muslim  city in present day Turkey

          Rome                    LP, Patr                Christian city in present day Italy

          Sardis                   Rev                       Muslim  city in present day Turkey

          Smyrna                 Rev                       Muslim  city in present day Turkey

          Thessalonica         LP                        Christian city in present day Greece 

          Thyatira                 Rev                       Muslim  city in present day Turkey

 

                                                   5.  Historical Background  

 

          In this section some historical details will be mentioned which provide some perspective on the events recounted in various books of the New Testament.  No attempt will be made to provide a comprehensive history of the period. 

 

          In the year 63 BC the Roman general Pompey defeated the Hasmonean Dynasty that had ruled an independent Judea for eighty years, and Palestine came under Roman rule.   A Jewish revolt in 69 AD led to the destruction of the Temple by the Romans in 70 AD.  A second revolt in the years 132-135 AD was also crushed by the Romans. 

 

          Herod the Great  was appointed King of Judea by the Romans, and he ruled the Jewish territories from 37 to 4 BC.  He had an Edomite (gentile) father and a Jewish mother. He was unscrupulous and cruel, and ordered one of his wives and two of his sons to be put to death.  He was a great builder who rebuilt Samaria, founded the seaport and capital city of Caesarea, and constructed many palace-fortresses in various parts of the country, including the one at Masada where Jewish Zealots made their last stand against the Romans in 73-74 AD before committing suicide.  Herod’s greatest achievement was rebuilding an enlarged Temple just in time for Jesus to preach in it. 

 

          When Herod died in 4 BC his kingdom was divided among three of his sons.  Herod Antipas was a tetrarch who ruled (4 BC to 39 AD) Perea and also Galilee where Jesus was brought up and preached, Philip was tetrarch of Gaulanitis, Iturea and Trachonitis, and Archelaus ruled as entharch of  Samaria, Judea, and Idumea.  Archelaus was deposed in 6 AD and a Roman procurator (governor) was appointed.  Pontius Pilate was the Procurator from 26 to 36 AD during the time when Jesus was crucified.  In 36 AD he was recalled to Rome, was convicted of oppression, and was banished to Vienne where he died in 46 AD. 

 

          Herod the Great had five wives and seven children.  Four of his sons, Aristobulus, Herod Antipas, Herod Boethus, and Philip were half brothers with different mothers.  Aristobulus had a daughter Herodias who married her uncle Herod Boethus (see clarification below), a marriage forbidden by Jewish law.  John the Baptist pointed this out, and so Herod Antipas threw John into prison.  When Salome (not mentioned by name in scripture), the daughter of  Herodias, delighted Herod by dancing for his birthday he offered to grant her any request.  Her mother Herodias told Salome to ask for the head of John the Baptist on a platter, so John was beheaded in prison. 

    

          The 14th chapter of the Gospel of Matthew begins with “At that time Herod the tetrarch”, This seems strange since the kingdom of Herod the Great had been divided between three of his sons so we would expect each of them to be called a triarch.  An equal division between four sons would make each a tetrarch.  However in the present case a glance at the map indicates that Archelaus received half the kingdom, and Herod Antipas and Philip each received a quarter of the kingdom.  Therefore the latter two are called tetrarchs with a one quarter share each, and Archelaus is called an ethnarch, which means simply a ruler of a people.  Thus there is no ambiguity in the expressioon “Herod the tetrarch” since half  brother Herod Boethus did not receive any land as an inheritance, and the father Herod the Great had ruled all Palestine.  Antipas is the only tetrarch named Herod, a fact which was probably well known to the readers of the Gospel. 

 

          The scripture says (Matth 14:3) that Herod had “put him (John) in prison on account of Herodias, the wife of his brother Philip.” The Collegeville Bible Commentary and a footnote to this scripture passage (Matth 14:3) in the New American Bible both  point out that Herodias was actually married to her uncle Herod Boethus rather than to her uncle Philip.  The footnote also notes that the Jewish historian Josephus mentions in his Antiquities that Herod’s motivation for imprisoning and executing John the Baptist was his fear that John’s influence over the people would allow him to lead a rebellion.  The first part of the footnote is an example of a factual error which has no effect on the message being taught by the passage.  The second part is extra information which in no way conflicts with the story being recounted.  Thus there is no violation of the inerrancy of the scripture which involves “that truth which  God wanted to be put into the sacred writings for the sake of our salvation.“

 

                                      6. Aids for Learning About the Scriptures

 

Concordance;  an index for looking up words in the scriptures.  Some Bibles include a concordance as an appendix. 

Dictionary of scripture terms. Some Bibles include a glossary which defines such terms.

Commentary explains the meanings of scripture verses.  Footnotes play this role in Catholic Bibles, but commentaries

            are much more detailed. 

Bible discussion and study guides. 

Who's Who in the Bible: brief biographies of the personalities. 

Lectionary: scripture readings for all the Masses, used by the Lector at Mass.

Parallel Gospels which have corresponding  passages from different Gospels grouped together in parallel columns.   

Atlas of scripture geography with many maps.  

Treatises on background of the scriptures.  Some commentaries include this material in separate sections or chapters.

 

                                                    ACKNOWLEDGMENT

 

          I would like to thank Doris Christley for her critical reading of, and her thoughtful comments and recommendations concerning, the first draft of this work.