The New Testament is basically the second part of the Christian Bible, put together in the 2nd century CE after Christianity broke off from Judaism. It includes the Old Testament, which has Jewish scriptures, to back up the new beliefs centered around Jesus Christ. The New Testament features four gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, letters from Paul the Apostle aimed at non-Jews, and the Book of Revelation.
Etymology
The term “Testament” ended up being the English way to describe a common religious and cultural idea from ancient times, which is the concept of a covenant. Basically, a covenant was like a legal agreement that people made, often backed by oaths and rituals. You can find examples of these agreements between rulers and their subjects.
In all ancient religions, there were contracts between gods and humans that outlined how they interacted. These contracts explained the relationship between society and the divine. There were two main parts to covenants: first, the god promised to help the community thrive in exchange for worship, which usually involved sacrifices; second, there were laws that laid out expected behaviors and gender roles. These laws were enforced through governance, initially by kings, and were considered legit because they were believed to come from the gods. The Jewish scriptures include detailed covenants between God and His people.
In Hebrew, the word for covenant is beriyth, which means a promise or pledge. When the Hebrew scriptures were translated into Greek, beriyth became diatheke, a term used in Greco-Roman law that referred to a last will and testament. The King James version of the Bible used “testament” to refer to God’s everlasting covenants.
The Emergence of Christianity
Back in the 1st century CE, when the Christian movement was getting started, Jewish followers who believed Jesus of Nazareth was the messiah promised by the prophets looked to the Jewish scriptures for support. At that time, the Septuagint Bible was the go-to collection of Jewish texts. The Ptolemaic Dynasty in Alexandria, Egypt, had commissioned a translation of Hebrew writings into Greek since Greek was widely spoken in the area. The Septuagint included 51 books and was what Paul the Apostle and the gospel writers referred to.
The term “canon” comes from Greek and originally meant measurement; it later came to refer to which books were considered sacred. The gospel writers used various scriptures as they saw fit, but there wasn’t an official canon in early Christianity. Luke, who wrote the third gospel and the Acts of the Apostles, referenced many other books from the Septuagint that ultimately didn’t make it into the official Jewish scriptures or the New Testament.
Roman Persecution of Christians
At the end of the 1st century CE, Roman Emperor Domitian (who ruled from 83-94 CE) started cracking down on Christians, accusing them of atheism and not taking part in Rome’s state-sponsored religious practices. There wasn’t really a difference between religious laws and civil laws back then. Angering the gods was a big no-no; going against the mainstream beliefs was seen as treason, which could get you killed. The Jews had a bit of a pass when it came to Roman cults thanks to Julius Caesar’s decision in 45 BCE, where he allowed them to keep their traditions because of their service as mercenaries. But there was an unspoken rule that Jews shouldn’t try to recruit others or mess with the dominant culture outside of their synagogues.
As for Christianity’s growth in the Roman Empire, it’s worth noting that while Jews had distinct markers like circumcision and specific dietary rules, early Christians shared many beliefs with Judaism but were mostly made up of former pagans rather than ethnic Jews. Early Christian groups decided that pagan converts didn’t need to get circumcised (as mentioned in Acts 15), so they couldn’t claim the same exemptions as the Jews. At the same time, Christians were actively encouraging pagans to convert and abandon their traditional idol worship.
The Church Fathers of the 2nd Century
In the 2nd century CE, Christian bishops started writing letters and arguments to Roman leaders, urging them to stop persecuting Christians. These guys are now known as the Church Fathers and are celebrated for laying down the foundations of Christian beliefs. There were a bunch of these writings, but the main voices came from Justin Martyr (100-165 CE), Irenaeus of Lyons (around 130-202 CE), Clement of Alexandria (around 150-215 CE), and Tertullian (155-220 CE).
The Church Fathers were former pagans who converted to Christianity and had a solid background in Greek philosophy. They didn’t have any ethnic ties to Judaism, but they were pretty knowledgeable about Jewish scriptures, using them to argue that Jesus was the messiah the prophets talked about. They tackled various issues and used different writing styles in their arguments. Scholars usually break down their work into three categories:
- Apologies The term apologia doesn’t mean saying sorry; it’s more about explaining and defining a topic. Historically, these apologies were the first serious attempts to present Christianity as a complete belief system and lifestyle. The Roman Empire wasn’t too keen on new religions, especially those from the East that often featured miracle workers. Some Roman philosophers even slammed Christianity as a fake philosophy. In response, the Church Fathers used Greek philosophy to show that Christianity shared similar ideas with classical thought. They referenced Plato’s idea of the logos, which is about rationality being evident in the physical world. Paul introduced the idea of a pre-existing Christ in Philippians 2, suggesting that Christ was there at creation, took on a physical form, and then ascended to heaven after rising from the dead. The philosophers missed the point that Plato’s logos was actually referring to Christ.
- *Adversos Literature***Adversos refers to adversaries, specifically in the context of writings against Jews and Judaism, who were seen as the “enemies” of Christians. Christians argued that they deserved protection from persecution because their beliefs weren’t something new; they believed in the same one God as Judaism, which had a long-standing history. Justin Martyr even claimed that Christians were the true heirs of God’s original promises. These writings consistently accused Judaism of being corrupt, suggesting that this was why God sent Christ to preach against it. They pointed to the destruction of the Temple by Rome in 70 CE during the Great Jewish Revolt as proof of this corruption.
Now, onto Heresiologists. A heresiologist is someone who studies heresy, but the term is often used to describe early Church Fathers looking back at these issues. In the 2nd century, there were tons of different gospels, many of which are grouped together as Gnostic gospels. The term Gnostic comes from gnosis, meaning knowledge, and it referred to secret insights about Jesus and salvation. In response to this, the Church Fathers came up with the ideas of orthodoxy (correct belief) and heresy (incorrect belief). The word heresy actually comes from a Greek term for a philosophical school, haeresis. The Church Fathers declared that anyone who didn’t align with their beliefs and practices was guilty of heresy.
The longest piece written against the Jews is Justin Martyr’s Dialogue with Trypho the Jew. It’s supposedly a conversation between Justin and Trypho, a Jewish refugee who ended up in Rome after the failed Bar-Kokhba Revolt (132-136 CE). Scholars debate whether Trypho was a real person or if the whole conversation was just made up, as ancient writers often created characters to represent opposing views so they could argue against them.
In his dialogue, Justin used the recent Jewish rebellion to show Romans that Christians were peaceful and loyal citizens of the Empire. He contrasted this with the Jewish Scriptures, claiming that Jews had always been disobedient and stubborn, even against God’s commandments.
Allegory
Justin really made a big impact on how the Christian Bible came together by using allegory. He wanted to show that Christianity wasn’t something brand new, so he used this literary technique to highlight its ancient roots. Allegory involves giving a symbolic twist to stories or events to reveal deeper meanings in texts. When looking at Jewish scriptures, he found figures and types that pointed towards Christ.
For example, the lamb that God commanded to be sacrificed during Passover (which Paul refers to in 1 Corinthians 5:7) was seen as a symbol of Christ. Just like people would mark their homes with the lamb’s blood based on their faith, Justin believed that this foreshadowed the future when Jerusalem would fall to enemies and sacrifices would end. The lamb being roasted whole represented the suffering Christ would endure on the cross, especially since it was prepared in a way that resembled the shape of a cross.
Justin also drew parallels between the binding of Isaac and Christ being bound to the cross, suggesting that this time, God accepted the ultimate sacrifice. He pointed out that when the Israelites fought tribes in the wilderness, Moses raised his arms for victory; when he lowered them, they lost. This was a metaphor for salvation coming through Christ’s raised arms on the cross.
Having been educated in Greek philosophy, Justin depicted the God of Israel as the ultimate abstract deity—the highest power who created everything. This view of monotheism emphasized worshiping one God above all others.
He argued that God didn’t literally come down to Earth to chat with people. Instead, he thought that the Jews misunderstood their own history. It wasn’t actually God speaking to Moses from the burning bush but rather Christ in his pre-existent form as the logos. Whenever the Scriptures mention God, Justin believed it was really Christ before he became human. He claimed that all the prophets of Israel had predicted Jesus of Nazareth as the messiah through various analogies.Jeremiah was a prophet during the time when Babylon took over and destroyed Jerusalem and Solomon’s Temple back in 587 BCE. The Christian New Testament quotes him directly 40 times. In Jeremiah 31:21-34,
“The days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and with the people of Judah. It will not be like the covenant I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they broke my covenant, though I was a husband to them,” declares the Lord. “This is the covenant I will make with the people of Israel after that time;” “I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.”
So, Christians keep the Old Testament as part of their faith because it backs up what’s in the New Testament and shows how Jesus brought a new way. Plus, this idea of a covenant written on hearts allowed for former pagans to join in without needing to identify as ethnic Jews. Christianity turned into its own distinct religion within the Roman Empire, separate from both Jews and pagans.
More Affairs
Marcion of Sinope (85-160 CE)
Sinope was located in the Pontus region, right on the southern coast of the Black Sea. Marcion was the son of Sinope’s bishop, who happened to be a rich shipbuilder. Apparently, his dad kicked him out of the church because of his beliefs. His main work, Antithesis, which had five books, is now lost but got quoted a lot by early Church Fathers. Tertullian even called him the “wolf of Pontus” in a whole piece he wrote (Adversus Marcionem). Around 140 CE, Marcion moved to Rome with his followers, all of whom were celibate Christians. He covered their travel and living expenses and even brought a hefty donation of 140,000 sesterces to the Roman church, which the Church Fathers turned their noses up at and rejected. After getting excommunicated from Rome, he was labeled a heretic.
Unlike other Gnostic groups that just set up schools, Marcion started his own church complete with its own bishops, priests, and deacons. This helped him attract more followers than other teachers, so much so that ten years after he was kicked out, Justin Martyr noted that he led many people from various nations to speak against traditional beliefs.
He believed that Jesus’s humanity and suffering were just illusions. According to him, Jesus wasn’t born from the Virgin Mary; he just kind of popped up in the Capernaum synagogue. Marcion saw Jesus as a representation of a higher god, one of love. He kept up the human appearance until dying on the cross, which he thought redeemed souls from the creator God of Judaism.
Now, the God of Judaism was all about justice—rewarding good and punishing evil. This God seemed pretty inconsistent, changing his mind often (like regretting creating humans or sending the flood) and punishing both the innocent and guilty with disasters. He was quick to anger and jealous of other powers. But Jesus preached forgiveness: love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, and pray for those who mistreat you (Luke 6:27-28). The Jewish view of the Messiah was mainly about being a warrior king who would benefit only the Jews. In contrast, Jesus offered salvation to everyone, making the history of the Jews and their scriptures, the Old Testament, no longer relevant.Marcion thought that Christians needed their own holy texts. He was a big fan of Paul and believed that Paul’s account of a heavenly experience in 2 Corinthians helped him understand the real essence of God and Jesus. Marcion’s version of Christian scriptures included ten letters from Paul and just one gospel—Luke’s. He argued that Luke was the only author who really got what Jesus was all about.
On the flip side, he wasn’t happy about how some people had added loads of references to the prophets in Paul’s letters (especially Isaiah) and in Luke’s writings about Israel’s history. So, he decided to cut those parts out. It probably wasn’t a huge edit, though. Plus, Marcion was the first one to call it the “New Testament.”
Formation of the New Testament Canon
Marcion’s suggested scriptures really got the Church Fathers thinking. Between 140 and 200 CE, as they were figuring out what would become the New Testament, they were pushing back against Gnosticism and Marcion’s canon. While Marcion had ten letters from Paul, the Church Fathers ended up with 14. Instead of just one gospel, they went with four, arguing that these were not only the oldest but also tied to the earliest Christian communities through something called apostolic tradition. Basically, Jesus taught his disciples, who then picked the first bishops, so the core beliefs stayed the same.
During this time, they started assigning names to the four gospels and came up with backstories for their authors. Irenaeus defended the exclusion of other gospels by saying it was God’s plan, pointing out the significance of the number four in relation to cardinal points and seasons.
Most New Testament scholars agree that Paul wrote seven letters, while the others are up for debate, often referred to as Deutero-Paul. These are letters written by his followers pretending to be Paul to gain some authority.
The Christianization of the Roman Empire
When Constantine converted to Christianity, he made it legal for Christians to gather starting in 313 CE with the Edict of Milan. Since there were still arguments about how Christ related to God (thanks to the Aryan controversy), he decided to hold a big council in Nicaea in 325 CE. This First Council of Nicaea came up with the idea of the Trinity and created the Nicene Creed, which laid out what all Christians should believe. If anyone disagreed with the emperor, who was now Christian, they could be accused of heresy and face the death penalty.
After Constantine the Great’s conversion, he embraced the teachings of the Church Fathers. According to Eusebius’ Life of Constantine, he had 50 copies of the gospels distributed throughout the Empire. We can’t say for sure which ones were included back then, but eventually, four of them became the accepted gospels.
The earliest known list of the New Testament canon is found in something called the Muratorian Fragment, which dates anywhere from 170-200 to the 4th century CE. A bishop named Athanasius from Alexandria (around 296-298 CE) put together a list of 27 books. Today’s New Testament also has 27 books: four gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, some letters, and one apocalypse.
Over the years, there have been ongoing discussions about which Jewish Scriptures should be included in the Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox communities, and various Protestant denominations. Most disagreements revolve around the books in the Septuagint and other apocryphal texts. The Catholic canon has 46 books, the Orthodox churches include 49, while Protestants stick to 39.
