Understanding the New Testament
Lecture Notes for 1.1 - 1.3
Religion 102
Last revised: 1/18/05
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What is the New Testament?
Literature? A novel? A collection of ancient historical documents? This
question has spared a mirad of answers over the centuries as various individuals
have examined this sacred writing of the Christian religion. In this lecture
we shall explore a definition of the New Testament and its relationship
to other similar religious writings.
1.1
Definition of the Term. If you were asked
to define the New Testament (hereafter abbreviated as NT), what answer
would you give? Typically an initial activity would be to look up the term
in a dictionary. For example, the online Meriam-Webster
dictionary defines New Testament as "the second part of the
Christian Bible comprising the canonical Gospels and Epistles and also
the book of Acts and book of Revelation." But how is this a definition?
It contains two elements: (1) a designation as the second part of the Christian
Bible (character) and (2) specifies its contents. A very limited description
of ancient writings that have inspired thousands of people to devote their
entire lives to their study. More detailed and helpful is the Encyclopedia
Britannica article on the New Testament with its definition of the New
Testamant as
"The New Testament consists of 27
books, which are the residue, or precipitate, out of many 1st-2nd-century-AD
writings that Christian groups considered sacred. In these various writings
the early church transmitted its traditions: its experience, understanding,
and interpretation of Jesus as the Christ and the self-understanding of
the church. In a seemingly circuitous interplay between the historical
and theological processes, the church selected these 27 writings as normative
for its life and teachings--i.e., as its canon (from the Greek kanon, literally,
a reed or cane used as a measuring rod and, figuratively, a rule or standard)."
Now we understand that the NT consists of 27 books
with a two century time frame for their origin. In viewing these as 'sacred'
the early church, through the NT writings, reflected on its self-perception
as a religious movement growing out of the work of Jesus Christ and the
apostles. As sacred these writings became authoritative expressions guiding
belief and practice.
This compares to
the definition of Stephen Harris in The New Testament: A Student's Introduction
(1): "The New Testament consists of twenty-seven Greek documents -- Gospels,
a church history, letters, and an apocalypse (revelation) -- which the
early Christian community added to the Hebrew Scriptures (Old Testament)."
The brief introductory sentence in the New Oxford Annotated Bible: New
Revised Standard Version (NT, iii) is more like the dictionary definition
above: "The New Testament comprises the twenty-seven books that constitute
the second of the two portions into which the Bible is naturally divided."
What can be gleaned
from a comparison of these four depictions of the New Testament? Indications
of character, time of origin, extent of content, and role are reflected
in these. How would you elaborate on these four elements? Do these definitions
reflect a perspective that a Muslim would agree with? A Jew? Why?
1.1.1
Testament. According to the online Meriam-Webster
dictionary the word 'testament' has various meanings:
Main Entry: tes·ta·ment
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, from Late Latin
& Latin; Late Latin testamentum covenant with God, holy scripture,
from Latin, last will, from testari to be a witness,
call to witness, make a will, from testis
witness; akin to Latin tres three & to Latin stare to
stand; from the witness's standing by as a third party in a litigation
Date: 14th century
1 a archaic : a covenant between God
and the human race b capitalized : either of two main divisions
of the Bible
2 a : a tangible proof or tribute b : an expression
of conviction : CREDO
3 a : an act by which a person determines
the disposition of his or her property after death b : WILL
- tes·ta·men·ta·ry
adjective
From this one can understand that the English
word 'testament' has its origin in the Latin 'testamentum.' Historically,
this word came into English translations of the Bible because early English
translators, including the KJV translators, simply transliterated the Latin
Vulgate 'testamentum' into English, rather than translated it. With the
wide spread influence of the KJV on the English speaking world the word
'testament' became lodged into our reference to the two segments of the
Bible. Which one of the three definitions is appropriate? Why is
definition one termed 'archaic'?
Very helpful is the
use of the word 'testament' in English translations of the Bible. Quite
interesting is a comparison of the translations that use the word 'testament'
and those that choose an alternative word, using the Bible
Study Tools online concordance to look up the word 'testament.' There
are approximately thirteen places in the New Testaments where this translation
issue surfaces. The word 'testament' is used with different meanings that
can be grouped under the above M-W dictionary definition. Can you group
these uses according to the correct meaning?
Quite often responding
to such a question would generate a listing
of synonyms of the term 'testament.' Certainly this can suggest ways
the word is used today. The Miriam-Webster
Thesaurus gives several synonyms of the word 'testament' but none of
them relate to our use of the term. Can you identify why this is so? There's
a very significant, valid reason that is connected to the dictionary definition
of the word 'testament.'
1.1.2.
Covenant. The
NOSB (NT, iii) asserts
that "a more appropriate word than 'testament' to designate the character
of these books is 'covenant'." The NOSB (NT, iii) suggests a good reason
for this: "This [covenant] is the word that the Bible uses referring to
the relationship that God established with his people." Although outdated
in many respects Easton's
Bible Dictionary online does provide additional help in understanding
the preference for the word 'covenant':
"Covenant:
a contract or agreement between two parties. In the Old Testament the Hebrew
word berith is always thus translated. Berith is derived
from a root which means 'to cut,' and hence a covenant is a 'cutting,'
with reference to the cutting or dividing of animals into two parts, and
the contracting parties passing between them, in making a covenant (Genesis
15; Jeremiah 34:18,19).
The corresponding
word in the New Testament Greek is diatheke, which is, however,
rendered 'testament' generally in the Authorized Version. It ought to be
rendered, just as the word berith of the Old Testament, 'covenant.'"
Thus the NT writers, writing in ancient Koine
Greek, used the word diatheke to express the OT idea of berith
which virtually every English translation, including the KJV, render as
'covenant' rather than as 'testament.' A careful analysis of the uses of
both words in the Bible uncovers the reality that the Greek and Hebrew
words are virtually the same in meaning when referring to the religious
agreement God made with Israel (OT) and with humanity (NT) as reflected
in Jeremiah 34:18,19. Thus the same English word should be used in both
the OT and NT, as is the case in the vast majority of more recent English
translations. This is the basic reason why most recent English translations
do not use the word 'testament' in the NT occurrences of the Greek word
diatheke.
1.2
Relation to Hebrew Bible.
Quite obviously the New
Testament implies the existence of an Old Testament. This way of refering
to the Bible reflects a Christian view of these sacred scriptures.
The revelation of God
contained in the New Testament in some way replaces/supplements the revelation
found in the Old Testament. Which of these verbs -- replaces / supplements
-- is correct has been a source of difference of Christian opinion since
the second Christian century and the views of Marcion. Even in modern times
since the Protestant Reformation in the 1500s, Christians have differed
over the connection of the Old Testament to the New. For some Christian
traditions the Old Testament is a necessary part of the Christian Bible
only to provide historical background for understanding the New Testament.
The divine revelation that Jesus brought, however, replaces what is found
in the Old Testament so that nothing found in the Old Testament is binding
on Christians. But many other Christian traditions believe that all of
the Bible contains divine revelation that remains binding on Christians
today. Thus, many struggle to find ways to apply parts of the Old Testament
like the dietary food laws to Christian practice in our world. A wide range
of viewpoints can be found among various Christian approaches here.
Quite fascinating is
the issue of how Jesus and the apostles used
the Old Testament. When OT verses are cited somewhere in the NT and
the reader turns to the passage in the OT, the two expressions of the same
scripture text seldom read exactly the same way. For example, look at Matt.
3:3 --(NRSV) "This is the one of whom the prophet Isaiah spoke when he
said, 'The voice of one crying out in the wilderness:
'Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight'
'" . The OT passage is introduced as coming from Isaiah, but with
careful study or the use of the marginal references in the NRSV, one discovers
that the passage comes from Isa. 40:3, which reads, "A
voice cries out: 'In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord,
make
straight in the desert a highway for our God.'" The wording
of the quote in Matthew is similar to, but not exactly like its source
in Isaiah 40:3 What's going on here? Did Jesus and the apostles not know
their Bible well? A variety of reasons exist to account for these differences.
First, and perhaps most importantly, the definition of 'quote' is a modern
Western understanding not shared by the ancient world, or even many other
places in our world today. Additionally, careful study of the original
language texts uncovers that often the NT writers were 'quoting' from the
LXX, which frequently reflects a different understanding than the original
Hebrew text. Most modern English OT translations use the original Hebrew
text as foundational to their translation. Once in a while the NT writer
will quote from the Hebrew text, or at least one of the manuscript traditions
of the Hebrew text with which we're familiar. The apostle Paul also cites
from the rabbinic text tradition which he memorized as a Pharisee. Then,
on a few occasions, his citation of an OT text bears little resemblance
to anything we know about in any of the available OT text traditions. This
issue of the 'use of the OT in the NT' is very enlightening on how sacred
scriptures were viewed and treated at the beginning of the Christian era.
For Jewish people, on the other
hand, the term 'Bible' simply means what Christians call the Old Testament,
and nothing more. Yet, when one would pick up an English translation of
the Hebrew Bible, the Tanak in Hebrew, and first check the Table of Contents
page, he/she would discover that the documents found in the Bible are not
all named with the same
names nor listed in the same sequence as in a Christian translation
of the Old Testament. The books in the Hebrew Bible are grouped around
three categories: (1) TORAH (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy);
(2) PROPHETS (Former Prophets -- Joshua, Judges, Samuel [1 &
2], Kings [1 & 2]), (Latter Prophets -- Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel),
(The Twelve -- Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum,
Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi); (3) WRITINGS (Psalms,
Job, Proverbs, Ruth, Song of Solomon, Ecclesiastes, Lamentation, Esther,
Daniel, Ezra-Nehemiah, Chronicles [1 & 2]). This threefold way of referring
to the Hebrew Bible is very old. In fact, this is the division that Jesus
often used (cf. Matt. 5:17, 7:12) when referring to the Old Testament.
How did this grouping of the books of the OT come about? Why are they different
in the Christian OT?
1.2.1
Hebrew Text. The Old Testament was originally written in either
Hebrew
(the vast majority of the OT) or in Aramaic, which were the languages that
the Israelites used during that period of time. The ancient language was
a semitic language, that is, similar in many ways to other languages of
the ancient middle east. Some noticeable traits emerging from this semitic
background include writing from the right to the left side of the page,
the use of characters rather than letters for consonants along with dots
(pointing) underneath the consonants for vowels. The language is very concrete
in its expression of ideas, and contains almost no abstract nouns. For
example, the Hebrew word for covenant transliterated
into English is berith and literally
means cutting.
The documents of the
Old Testament were still being put together during Jesus' day with only
the first two divisions, the Torah and the Prophets, being in relatively
fixed form. The third division, the Writings, was not yet established in
terms of the content of documents viewed as authoritative. During the time
of the writing of the books of the Old Testament, at least in the form
familiar to us today, in the Babylonian exile and afterwards, the documents
were written in Hebrew and copies of the texts began to be made. During
the Middle Ages Jewish scribes developed the Masoretic text which serves
until today as the basis of the Hebrew text of the Old Testament for both
Judaism and Christianity.
1.2.2 LXX.
By the second century
before the birth of Christ large numbers of Jewish people were living outside
the Promised Land, in part as an outgrowth of the Babylonian Exile in the
500s B.C.E. After the conquest of the eastern Mediterranean world by Alexander
the Great in the 300s B.C.E., the Greek language became the universally
used and understood language of that world. Jews living outside Palestine
increasingly used Greek rather than Aramaic as their mother language. In
the 170s B.C.E., the movement arose to translate the Hebrew scriptures
into Greek so that a larger number of scattered (Diaspora) Jews could read
the Bible. Thus was born the Septuagint,
symbolized by the Latin number 70, the LXX. The Letter
of Aristeas contains a legendary story about the supposed translation
of the LXX by seventy two Jewish scribes (six from each tribe) who worked
independently for seventy two days to produce seventy two identical translations
of the Hebrew Bible. This translation not only contained the documents
found today in the Hebrew Bible, but also a set of documents known as the
Old Testament Apocrypha, which are called the Deuterocanonical documents
in Roman Catholic tradition.
By the beginning of the
Christian era, the LXX was widely used among Jewish people all over the
Mediterranean world, and quickly became the Bible of early Christians who
mostly spoke Greek and not Hebrew or Aramaic. By the end of the first Christian
century the LXX was so identified with Christianity that it fell into disfavor
among Jewish people and eventually was banned from usage among Jews. Most
of the OT citations found in the New Testament are based on a LXX reading
of the text, rather than on the Hebrew text.
1.3 Relation to world religions scriptures.
Judaism and Christianity
are not the only world religions who claim to posses sacred scriptures.
The other world religion that also traces its origin back to Abraham, Islam,
possesses the Koran as its sacred scriptures. Eastern religions such as
Hinduism and Bhuddaism make use of sacred scriptures, although not always
viewing them quite the same way as Christianity does its Bible. Many other
religious groups claim sacred
texts as foundational to their religious traditions as well.
1.3.1. Koran
(Qur'an)
The scriptures of Islam
are known in English as the Koran.
Originally composed in the Arabic language, these writings of the prophet
Muhammad in the seventh century AD are regarded as the sole authoritative
base of the Muslim religion.
One very different
view toward sacred scripture among Muslims that sets them apart from
Christianity is the view that the Koran is sacred scripture only in its
original Arabic language text. Translation of the original Arabic text
into another language such as English means that the translation version
of the Koran ceases to be sacred scripture and becomes an ordinary book
with no religious authority. On the other hand, Christians all over
the world refer to their favorite translation in their native language
as the Bible with the same level of religious authority as the original
Hebrew and Koine Greek texts, if not more so in some view points.
Another difference
relates to the view of 'inspiration' of the Koran. According to Islamic
belief, its words were dictated directly by Allah to the prophet who recorded
them exactly as told by Allah. Thus the Koran was produced at one time
through a single person. Christianity, however, understands that spiritual
insights were given a variety of individuals over several hundred years
in different cultures and these insights were written down originally by
numerous persons in multiple languages -- Hebrew, Aramaic, and Koine Greek
-- only gradually over time to be brought together into a collection of
sacred documents through the providential guidance of God.
1.3.2 Vedas
In Hinduism the Vedas are regarded as sacred scriptures providing a basis
for understanding life and spiritual matters. For Hindus these are essential
documents to their religious faith as described in the following:
"The
Srutis
are called the Vedas, or the Amnaya. The Hindus have received their
religion through revelation, the Vedas. These are direct intuitional revelations
and are held to be Apaurusheya or entirely superhuman, without any
author in particular. The Veda is the glorious pride of the Hindus, nay,
of the whole world!
"The
term Veda comes from the root 'Vid', to know. The word Veda means
knowledge. When it is applied to scripture, it signifies a book of knowledge.
The Vedas are the foundational scriptures of the Hindus. The Veda is the
source of the other five sets of scriptures, why, even of the secular and
the materialistic. The Veda is the storehouse of Indian wisdom and is a
memorable glory which man can never forget till eternity.
"The
Vedas are the eternal truths revealed by God to the great ancient Rishis
of India. The word Rishi means a Seer, from dris, to see.
He is the Mantra-Drashta, seer of Mantra or thought. The thought
was not his own. The Rishis saw the truths or heard them. Therefore, the
Vedas are what are heard (Sruti). The Rishi did not write. He did not create
it out of his mind. He was the seer of thought which existed already. He
was only the spiritual discoverer of the thought. He is not the inventor
of the Veda."
As becomes clear from just the above quote, Christianity and Hinduism have
significantly different views about their individual sacred scriptures.
The Vedas are very philosophical in nature and are not rooted in a historical
narrative. The Christian Bible moves along opposite directions, although
the common goal of dealing with issues of living in this world and coping
with the reality of eternity is shared by both.
1.3.3 Upanishads
Also in Hinduism additional sacred writings are known as the Upanishads.
These writings provide perspectives on the mystical
side of Hinduism, as is reflected in the following quote from Atma
Up. 3, p. 242.
"The
supreme Self is neither born nor dies. He cannot be burned, moved, pierced,
cut, nor dried. Beyond all attributes, the supreme Self is the eternal
witness, ever pure, indivisible, and uncompounded, far beyond the senses
and the ego... He is omnipresent, beyond all thought, without action in
the external world, without action in the internal world. Detached from
the outer and the inner, This supreme Self purifies the impure."
1.3.4
Bhagavad
Gita
These Hindu
writings present another perspective on spiritual insight supposedly
from the Hindu god Krishna. Very quickly the enormous difference between
these writings and the Christian scriptures becomes quite apparent, as
the following quote illustrates:
"It
[the Bhagavad Gita] is the divine discourse spoken by the Supreme Lord
Krishna Himself and is the most popular and well known of all the sacred
scriptures from ancient India. Always being revered as a true source of
spiritual knowledge it reveals the purpose and goal of human existence.
In conjunction to this we will be presenting precise Vedic verification
of the Supreme Lord Krishna's divine incarnations as evidence confirming
His supreme position. In Bhagavad- Gita, chapter 10, verse 20, the Supreme
Lord reveals that He manifests as the immortal soul within each and every
living entity. No where else within any other religious scripture is this
information available."
Again the philosophical nature
and the mystical view of life are the prevailing orientation of these writings,
in contrast to the Christian scriptures being rooted in history and culture.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Freed, Edwin D. The New Testament: A
Critical Introduction. Third Edition. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth/Thomson
Learning, 2001. (Abbreviated as Freed)
Harris, Stephen. The New Testament: A
Student's Introduction. Third Edition. Mountain View, CA: Mayfield
Publishing Company, 1999. (Abbreviated as Harris)
Metzger, Bruce M. and Murphy, Roland E.,
editors. New Oxford Annotated Bible: New Revised
Standard Version. Revised edition. New York: Oxford University Press,
1994. (Abbreviated as NOSB)
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