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New Testament — General

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New Testament — General

The course “Holy Script of the New Testament” is intended for students of the preparatory department of Orthodox theological educational institutions and is meant to give a complex knowledge about the content and Orthodox comprehension of the Bible.

WHAT ARE WE STUDYING?

New Testament. A collection of twenty-seven documents, the second part of the sacred Scriptures of the Christian church, the first part being called by contrast the Old Testament. In the name “New Testament,” apparently first given to the collection in the latter half of the second century, the word “testament” represents Greek diathēkē, variously translated “testament,” “settlement,” “covenant”. The new covenant is the new order or dispensation inaugurated by the death of Jesus (compare his own designation: “the new covenant in my blood” in Lk. 22:20; 1 Cor. 11:25). It was so called because it fulfilled the promise made by God to his people in Jer. 31:31-34 that he would “make a new covenant” with them whereby the desire and power to do his will would be implanted within them and all their past sins would be wiped out. By contrast, the earlier covenant established by God with Israel in Moses’ day came to be known as the “old covenant” (cf. 2 Cor. 3:14; Heb. 8:13). The foundation documents of the covenant instituted by Jesus are accordingly known as “the books of the new covenant (testament),” while the earlier Scriptures, which trace the course of the old dispensation, were known as “the books of the old covenant [testament]” from the time of Melito of Sardis (A.D. 170) onward.

Dear friends!

Let me represent you our course concerning the Holy Scripture of the New Testament that includes two large units: the Gospels and the Apostles’ writings. You will be proposed to pass the test after every thematic section for being able to start the next one.

The Four Gospels unit is based on the Synopsys principle. It means that the Four Gospels’ narrations

are considered synchronously; the facts described by four evangelists have their historical sequence and every event will be discussed according to all the four Gospels at once, if possible. This approach is seemed to be the most effective for the primary step.

The reading of the Holy Scripture passages, pointed out with the references in every thematic section. It is also necessary to study the explanations presented according to the archbishop Averkii Taoushev’s manual.

And now let me say a few words about the subject of the first semester – that is about the four Gospels themselves.

The word Gospel means good message or news. This name designates the first four books of the New Testament which narrate the life and teachings of the incarnate Son of God, our Lord Jesus Christ.

Until the coming of the Son of God on earth, people perceived God as the almighty Creator, the stern Judge

residing in unapproachable glory. Jesus Christ gave us a new understanding of God: that of a close, compassionate, and loving Father. Christ ministered to all. He cleansed the conscience of sinners, healed the weak and the blind, comforted the despairing, and exorcised those possessed by demons. And simultaneously, when the circumstances required, He displayed His divine and sovereign power. Then, everything – nature and the death itself – obeyed His almighty Word.

All the Sacred books of the New Testament were written in the vernacular Greek, an Alexandrian dialect, called koine. This language was spoken, or at least understood, by all the educated inhabitants of the Eastern and Western parts of the Roman Empire. It was the language of all the cultured people of that time.

At that time only the capital letters of the Greek alphabet were used in writing, without diacritics, punctuation, or separation between words. Lower case letters appeared only in the ninth century, together with spacing between words. Punctuation marks were introduced only with the invention of the printing press in the fifteenth century. The present separations of chapters was introduced by Cardinal Hugo in the thirteenth century, and the separation into verse was done by the Parisian typographer Robert Stephen in the 16th century.

Through its learned bishops and priests, the Church always concerned itself with preserving the texts of the Sacred Books in their original purity. This was especially important before the introduction of the printing press, when the texts were copied by hand, and errors could easily infiltrate the new copies. It is known that several Christian scholars of the 2nd and 3rd centuries labored with great diligence over the amendment of the Biblical texts.

With the invention of the printing press, careful attention was given to the reproduction of the Sacred New Testament Books to ensure that they were copied according to the most ancient and reliable manuscripts.

The NT English Translations you can use. Despite the many English translations of the Bible in whole or in part undertaken during the Middle Ages.

The New Testament of William Tyndale, published in 1525, was translated directly from the Greek original.

The Hampton Court conference in 1604 proposed a new translation of the Bible, and 54 translators were invited to undertake the work at Oxford, Cambridge and Westminster. Their translation, dedicated to King James I, was published in 1611. This translation, known also as the Authorized Version, has so embedded itself in the religious and literary history of the English-speaking peoples.

Revisions of KJB came in the British Revised version of 1885, followed by the American Standard Version of 1901.

This later was more drastically revised by the Revised Standard Version (1946).

The Amplified Bible (1954) is a literal translation with multiple expression using associated words to convey the original thought. This version is intended to supplement other translations.

The Jerusalem Bible (1966) is a translation form the Hebrew Masoretic text, the Greek Septuagint, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and accepted Greek and Aramaic New Testament texts.

In making the New American Bible (1970), a Catholic translation, all the basic texts were consulted, and the work was 26 years in the making.

The Living Bible (1971) is a popular paraphrase edition and is the work of a single translator, Kenneth L.Taylor.

The New American Standard Bible (1971) was translated by an editorial board of 54 Greek and Hebrew scholars and required nearly 11 years to complete.

The New King James Bible (1979) is a version in conformity with the thought flow of the King James Bible. It is based on the Greek text used by Greek speaking churches for many centuries, known presently as the Textus Receptus.

There are more than a dozen English Bible translations available today, each with its merits and its weaknesses. Some of them are more literal and, consequently, more difficult to understand; while others are much more readable and understandable, but less accurate. A serious Bible student might want to compare several of these translations in order to get a better understanding of the original text. The great variability among modern Bible versions testifies to the fact that translating is essentially interpreting!

The translator must understand the subject, and, what is extremely important, grasp the idea the author intended to convey and the sense in which he intended it to be conveyed. And since the ultimate author of Sacred Scripture is the Holy Spirit, the translator needs His illumination and inspiration to correctly convey His message. St. Peter pointed to this requirement when he wrote: “No prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation, for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit” (2Pet 1:20–21). And here lies the main problem with of some of the modern Bible translations. The scientists who did them, with all their knowledge of ancient languages and sincere efforts to do the best job, were often far from the Church and hence never understood its teaching.

So at the present time, the King James Bible and its more contemporary version, the New King James Bible, although neither is perfect, seem to convey most accurately the original meaning of the Bible

as it was always understood by the Church.

The precise time at which each of the books of the New Testament was written cannot be exactly determined. However, there is no doubt that they were written during the second half of the first century.

This is evident from the fact that a series of second-century writings make numerous references to the books of the New Testament. The Gospel of St. Matthew was written prior to the others and no later than 50-60 years after the birth of Christ. The Gospels of Sts. Mark and Luke were written somewhat later, but in any event, before the destruction of Jerusalem, that is, before 70 A.D. St. John the Theologian wrote his Gospel later than the others, and most probably at the end of the first century.

Mutually supplementing and clarifying each other, all four Gospels represent a single, whole book,

without contradictions in essentials and fundamentals.

Besides our four Gospels, there were up to 50 other similar writings during the first centuries which referred to themselves also as “gospels” and claimed to be of Apostolic origin. The Church designated these as apocryphal – that is, non-credible, repudiated books. These books contain distorted and dubious narratives. Such apocryphal gospels include: “the first gospel of Jacob,” “the story of Joseph the carpenter,” “the gospel of Thomas,” and others. In these “gospels” one finds most of the oldest legends relating the childhood and youth of Jesus Christ.

The Relationship of the Gospels. Of the four Gospels, the content of the first three, those of Matthew, Mark and Luke, conform closely to each other in format and content. In this respect, the fourth Gospel, that of John, remains unique, significantly distinguishing itself from the first three. For this reason,

it is customary to refer to the first three Gospels as synoptic, stemming from the Greek word synopticos - meaning, viewed with the same eye, concordant.

The fundamental difference between the synoptics and St. John lies in their documentation of the Lord’s speeches. In the synoptics, these speeches are simple and easy to understand, while St. John’s are deep, mysterious and often difficult to understand, as if they were not intended for the multitude but for a more select circle of listeners.

If the synoptics bring out the more human aspect of Christ and St. John predominantly His Divine nature, it does not mean that the synoptics lack the Divine side, or that St. John fails to show the human side.

In the synoptics, the Son of Man is also the Son of God, to whom was given all power in heaven and on earth. Equally, the Son of God, according to St. John, is also a true man. Thus, the synoptics and St. John mutually enhance and complement each other, and only in their unity do they reveal Christ’s personality as a perfect God and a perfect Man.

The Orthodox teaching has always maintained that while the Holy Scriptures were a result of Divine inspiration given to the writers, imparting to them thoughts and words, the Holy Spirit did not restrain their individual intellects or suppressed their personal attributes. The descent of the Holy Spirit did not stifle the human spirit, but rather cleansed and elevated it above its ordinary limits.

Therefore, while representing in themselves a single unity in interpretation of God’s truth, the gospels differ from each other in the personal characteristics of each evangelist, distinguishing themselves in structure, style and form of expression.

I wish you a successful study of the New Testament

PATER NOSTER

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Video lesson available in the offline course archive (not hosted online).

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