Structure of the Bible. Old and New Testament
As you know, the Bible is not a homogeneous book, but a collection of a number of stories. They reflect the history of the Jewish (God's chosen) people, the work of Jesus Christ, moral teachings and prophecies about the future of humanity.
When we talk about the structure of the Bible, there are two main parts: the Old Testament and the New Testament.
The Old Testament is the common scripture for Judaism and Christianity. The books of the Old Testament were created between the 13th and 1st centuries BC. The text of these books has come down to us in the form of lists in a number of ancient languages: Aramaic, Hebrew, Greek, Latin.
In Christian doctrine there is the concept of “canon”. Canonical writings are those scriptures that the church has recognized as inspired by God. Depending on the denomination, a different number of texts of the Old Testament are recognized as canonical. For example, Orthodox Christians recognize 50 scriptures as canonical, Catholics – 45, and Protestants – 39.
This section of the Holy Letter tells about the first days of mankind, the Flood and the subsequent history of the Jewish people. The narrative “brings” the reader to the last days before the birth of the Messiah - Jesus Christ.
The New Testament plays a much more important role in the lives of Christians.
The New Testament is the second part of the Bible. It consists of the four canonical Gospels. The first manuscripts date back to the beginning of the 1st century AD, the latest - to the 4th century.
In addition to the four canonical Gospels (Mark, Luke, Matthew, John), there are a number of apocrypha. They touch upon previously unknown facets of the life of Christ. For example, some of these books describe the youth of Jesus (canonical ones - only childhood and adulthood).
In addition to the Gospels, the New Testament contains the book of the Acts of the Apostles, the Epistles and the Revelation of John the Theologian (Apocalypse).
Acts tells the story of the birth and development of the church after the resurrection of Jesus Christ. In essence, this book is a historical chronicle (real personalities are often mentioned) and a geography textbook: the territories from Palestine to Western Europe are described. Its author is considered to be the Apostle Luke.
The second part of the Acts of the Apostles tells the story of Paul's missionary activities and ends with his arrival in Rome. The book also answers a number of theoretical questions, such as circumcision among Christians or observance of the Law of Moses.
The Apocalypse is the visions recorded by John that the Lord gave him. This book tells about the end of the world and the Last Judgment - the final point of the existence of this world. Jesus himself will judge humanity. The righteous, resurrected in the flesh, will receive eternal heavenly life with the Lord, and sinners will go into eternal fire.
The Revelation of John the Theologian is the most mystical part of the new testament. The text is filled with occult symbols: the Woman clothed with the sun, the number 666, the horsemen of the Apocalypse. For a certain time, it was precisely because of this that the churches were afraid to include the book in the canon.
Abstract “The Bible and its structure. The spiritual meaning of the Old and New Testaments."
Content
Introduction
- Origin of the Bible
- Structure of the Bible
- Spiritual meaning of the Old and New Testaments
Conclusion
Introduction
Bible means book in Greek. It is the basis of three world religions: Islam, Christianity and Judaism.
Despite the fact that the Bible is the Holy Scripture for Christianity and Jews, it is also considered a world landmark.
As you know, atheism was widespread on the territory of the Soviet Union, so the distribution and study of the Bible was prohibited. However, since the mid-1980s the ban has been lifted. Today the Bible is the most widely circulated book in the world. It has different interpretations of its name: Book of books, book of salvation, word of God, etc. The Bible consists of the Old and New Testaments. These books differ from each other: Firstly, they were written at different times, and secondly, they were written by different people, with different professions (Moses, Peter, Solomon, Matthew, Paul).
Object of work – the Bible as a whole
Subject of work: contents of the Bible
Purpose of the work: to study the structure of the Bible, the meaning of the Old and New Testaments.
In connection with this goal, the following tasks can be identified:
- Talk about the origins of the Bible
- Reveal the structure of the Bible
- Consider the spiritual meaning of the Old and New Testaments
This work can be used in lessons at schools and at lectures in other educational institutions.
The work consists of an introduction, three parts, a conclusion and a list of references.
1. Origin of the Bible
The Bible was given to people by God himself. One might wonder: did He write it himself? Of course not. The Bible was written over the course of 1600 years by approximately 40 people. God is the author of the book, but He wrote it through a righteous man, that is, God is also the inspirer.
Another question can easily arise: why did God give humanity the Bible? In the texts of the Bible, God reveals to us the “rules” of a worthy and righteous life, those canons that will help a person lead a correct and worldly life. This is how He himself speaks about it: “Do not add to what I command you, and do not subtract from it; keep the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you.”1
The Creator carefully ensured that His thought was accurately presented in the Book. Scientists have found that when studying the Old Testament, God divides the history of the world into three periods.
I
: Adam – Moses.
In this passage of time, we see how God conveys his messages: first Adam was awarded this opportunity, by the way, it was here that God first began to appear to people. In the future, Adam passes on the Knowledge to his descendants. We know a few: Enoch, Methuselah, Noah, Abraham and Moses. The events that happened to these righteous men are mentioned in the books of the Old Testament and the entire Bible.
II
: generations throughout the life of Moses.
These events begin in the book of Exodus. Here is a description of the acts of Moses at the command of God, an interpretation of His laws, and a presentation of what was written to the people.
III
period: Joshua – Malachi.
In this period, God calls upon all His righteous to write down all His words—the laws—for Him. They said that everyone should help each other, regardless of origin. God made sure that his Book reached the next generations and beyond, teaching humanity goodness and truth.
Considering this issue, you can see that God did not force His words to be written down, but through revelation and with the help of the Holy Spirit, and only holy people - righteous people - could receive such an honor.
Let us ask the question: what is the difference between the Orthodox faith and the Protestant faith?
Protestants believe that if a person accepts Jesus Christ as the Most High and Savior, then he immediately becomes saved and holy, and practically no special things need to be done to achieve the desired result. And Orthodox Christians, right after the Apostle James, believe that: “ faith, if it does not have works, is dead in itself”1. And Christ Himself answered: “Not everyone who says to Me: “Lord!” Lord!” will enter the Kingdom of Heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in Heaven.”2
It follows from this that if you read the opinion of Orthodox Christians, if you want to prove your faith in the Lord, then you must observe all those commandments that express His will.
Another distinctive feature of the protostants is that they do not have monasteries or monasteries. There are monks in our Orthodox Church, and they work hard to fulfill all the commandments of Christ.
In addition to this, monks take three vows: celibacy, non-covetousness, obedience to the spiritual leader (as the Apostle Paul did). This path of a monk is more spiritual and righteous than the path of an ordinary layman.
- Structure of the Bible
The Bible is a rather complex book in structure. It consists of independent books. But basically it can be divided into the Old and New Testaments.
Old Testament.
The Old Testament is a part of the Bible that describes events from the creation of the world to the Birth of Jesus Christ (XIII - I century BC). This part describes the events in the life of the Jewish people. From this we can conclude that part of the Bible is common to Christianity and Judaism.
Originally the word "covenant"
came from Moses when the Lord gave him 10 commandments carved on tablets. People had to follow these rules, and the Lord gave them love and mercy - thereby a covenant (agreement) was concluded between people and God.
Structure:
- Torah: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy – Moses
- Books of the Prophets
- "Scriptures"
All the events in this book may seem cruel. Large numbers of sacrifices, fratricides, sin - and that’s not all...
Humanity itself has abandoned life in paradise, depriving itself of eternal life, adding illness. But the Lord did not turn away from them. He sends them the righteous in the person of Moses, and with him the commandments by which people must live. And after him the Savior comes to earth, who at the end of his life delivers all the righteous from hell and takes away people’s sins.1
“In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God” - this is how the Old Testament begins its story for us.
New Testament
The New Testament consists of 4 blocks. The first block includes the collection of the Gospels from various apostles, who tell us about the coming of the Son of God to earth. The second block follows the Epistles of the Apostles. The third block is the Epistles of the Apostle Paul. Well, block 4 is the revelations of John the Theologian.
Jesus Christ was born a poor man, but despite this he healed people and gave them faith in the Almighty. However, people did not appreciate this and crucified Him on the cross, calling Him the King of the Jews. The main feature of the New Testament is that despite the fact that people treated Jesus Christ so cruelly, He forgave them their sins. Christ appeared on earth to save humanity from sin, to restore people’s connection with God.
Structure.
The New Testament begins with the four Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John). The word gospel means good news. Jesus Christ appeared with this good news. His coming gave humanity new hope for a righteous life, that for the sins that a person has committed during his life, one can ask God for forgiveness through prayers and confession
The next block of the New Testament is the Epistles of the Apostles. These apostles were James, Peter, John and Jude. In their messages, the apostles address people, telling them how to live righteously, as Jesus teaches them.
The third component of the New Testament is the Epistle of the Apostle Paul.
His messages are divided into 4 categories:
1. Epistles that were written during the period of evangelistic travel: 1st and 2nd Thessalonians, Romans, 1st and 2nd Corinthians and Galatians.
2. Epistles that were written during his imprisonment in prison: Ephesians, Philistines, Colossians and Philemon.
3. Pastoral Epistles: 1st and 2nd Timothy and Titus.
4. Epistle to the Hebrews.
The very last book of the New Testament is Revelation. It was written by John the Theologian. This book is also often called the book of the Apocalypse. Here John recorded his conversation with God about the future of humanity, about its future fate, and your fate after death depends on how you live.
- Spiritual meaning of the Old and New Testaments
The history of the Old Testament contained the lives and stories of people with their subsequent falls and the selection of God's chosen persons for their further salvation. In this case, by fall we mean people losing faith in God and committing sin, and by salvation I mean their salvation from God’s wrath (for example, Noah). God granted salvation to those people who lived in accordance with His covenants.
There were plenty of such falls in the Old Testament: the loss of paradise, the murder of Abel by Cain. This is just the beginning. After the death of Abel, people try to forget God, replace Him in forging metals or in idleness. However, one important thing plays a role here too - people could not live in harmony with God. The flood occurs, and again there is a chosen one - Noah. And Noah becomes the continuer of the human race. But here, too, everything did not go smoothly - people decided to build the Tower of Babel in order to capture the sky. The punishment is multilingualism and chaos of nations. This time, God chooses not just one person among the chosen ones, but an entire people - the Jews (descendants of Shem).
The most serious picture, in my opinion, is the scene of Abraham and Isaac. Abraham was ready to kill his son at the command of God. And why? Yes, because God was looking for an answer - is He ready to give His Son if humanity gives its own.
Thus, the essence of the Old Testament is the reflections of God - whether humanity is ready or not ready to accept Christ.
New Testament.
The meaning of the New Testament is that humanity is not able to change itself with the help of God's laws. It's vicious. After his death, Jesus Christ took people’s sins upon himself, giving them an incentive for a healthy life, for a life without vices.
His example was supposed to teach that the path to God is thorny and dangerous. That one must follow His teaching to the end, without renouncing Him (which is what Jesus Christ did). Of course, this path will not always be so difficult. But if they meet on a person’s path, it means they were sent by God in order to test faith in Him.
Conclusion
Summing up the results of this work, we can note the following: The Old Testament is a preparation for the coming of the Mission. God tested people, checked whether people were worthy for the Savior to come to them. And He came. However, he was killed. But His death did not mean the end of everything. On the contrary, she opened people’s eyes to many things: to mercy, to virtue, to the path that you must follow in order to achieve the Kingdom of Heaven. And the most important thing is that despite all the difficulties and trials, a person must believe in God, because God sends us trials because He knows that we can cope with them... This is the test of faith.
Today we are awaiting the Second Coming of Christ. However, not all people see this as completely new. We increasingly turn to God only when we need something, and do not thank us when we receive it. Evil, self-interest, and envy are being sown more and more in humanity. And this is how we remember the vices of humanity. And the outcome of the Second Coming of Christ depends on how deeply this all gets stuck in us.
But let's be optimistic, I hope that humanity will still turn away from vices. After all, you can show your love not only through prayers, but through help. This is what Jesus Christ taught us – mercy.
The objectives of the work were completed in full, the task was achieved.
(Deuteronomy 4.2)
(James. 2, 17)
(Matt. 7:21)
[Electronic resource] URL: https://fb.ru/article/157212/zavet—eto-chto-znachit-istoriya-vethogo-zaveta (access date: 04/03/2017)
What is the Gospel?
As is already known, the Gospel is a description of the life path of Christ.
Why did some of the Gospels become canonical, and others not? The fact is that these four Gospels have practically no contradictions, but simply describe slightly different events. If the writing of a certain book by the apostle is not questioned, then the church does not prohibit familiarization with the apocrypha. But such a Gospel cannot become a moral guide for a Christian.
How the New Testament arose and the New Testament canon of the Bible was formed
Frederick Bruce
blagovestnik.org
How did the New Testament itself come into being with its specific collection of texts? Who selected the texts and for what reasons? What were the circumstances that led to the fixation of a particular list, or canon of books called upon?
Historical Christianity believes that the Holy Spirit, who directed the writing of individual books, also guided their selection and selection, thus continuing to fulfill the communication of the Lord, that He would guide His disciples in the paths to all possible truth. This guidance, however, is something permeable only to the gaze of a spirit seer, but not to a historian-researcher. Our purpose is to show what historical research has revealed about the formation of the New Testament canon. Others will say that the twenty-seven books of the New Testament were given to us by the authority of the church, but even in this case, the question remains, how did the church decide to recognize these twenty-seven books, and no others, to be worthy in their inspiration and authority of the level of the Old Testament canon?
The sixth of the thirty-nine Dogmas oversimplifies the answer to this question by saying: “In the name of Holy Scripture we acknowledge these canonical Books of the Old and New Testaments, whose authority has never been subject to any doubt in the Church.” For, leaving aside the question of the canon of the Old Testament, it would not be entirely true to say that there was never any doubt in the church regarding any of the books of the New Testament. Some of the shorter Epistles (for example, 2 Peter; 2 and 3 John, James, Jude) and Revelation were accepted much later in some church communities than in others, and in other places books were included in the New Testament that are now missing from it . Thus the Codex Sinaiticus includes the Epistle of Barnabas and the Shepherd of Hermas, a Roman work of about 110 AD or somewhat earlier, while the Codex Alexandrinus contains texts known as the First and Second Epistles of Clement, whose placement among the biblical texts most likely means that they to some extent was attributed canonical status.
The earliest list of the books of the New Testament for which we have accurate information was compiled in Rome by the heretic Marcion around 140. Marcion distinguished the lower Creator God of the Old Testament from God the Father revealed through Christ, and believed that the church should reject everything , related to the first. This “theological anti-Semitism” resulted not only in the denial of the entire Old Testament, but also those parts of the New Testament that seemed to him to be infected with Judaism. Marcion's canon thus consisted of two parts: (1) a purified version of the Gospel of Luke, the least Jewish in spirit of the Gospels written by a former pagan, and (2) the ten Epistles of Paul (with the omission of the three Pastoral Epistles). Marcion's list, however, does not reflect the views of the church of that time, but a conscious deviation from them.
The following ancient list, also of Roman origin, dates from about the end of the second century. It is known as the Muratorian Fragment because it was first published in Italy in 1740 by the antiquities collector Cardinal Muratori. Unfortunately, its beginning is damaged, but it apparently mentioned Matthew and Mark, since Luke is listed third. Further mention is made of John, Acts, nine letters of Paul to churches and four to individuals (Philemon, Titus, 1 and 2 Timothy) [To this it is added that other letters distributed under the name of Paul are not recognized by the church. These were mainly forgeries compiled by heretics.], Jude, two Epistles of John [In this place the Wisdom of Solomon is curiously added.], Apocalypses from John and from Peter. [The Apocalypse of Peter, later rejected by the church as apocryphal, according to the Fragment, others refused to read in church. We know, however, from Clement, Eusebius and Sozomen that in some churches it was still read.] “The Shepherd Hermas” is mentioned as worthy of reading (i.e. by the church), but not to be included among the prophetic and apostolic texts.
The first steps towards the establishment of a canon of authoritative Christian books, worthy to stand alongside the canon of the Old Testament, which was the Bible for our Lord and His apostles, were apparently taken at the end of the first - beginning of the second centuries, when, according to some evidence, two collections of Christian texts were in circulation in the church.
The four Gospels were probably combined in one collection at a very early period. This must have happened very soon after the Gospel of John was written. This collection was known as "the Gospel" - in the singular, not in the plural. There was only one Gospel, set out in four texts, distinguished as “Matthew”, “Mark”, etc. About 115 Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch, speaks of the "Gospel" as the authoritative scripture, and since he knew more than one of the four Gospels, it is quite obvious that by "Gospel" he meant the collection of all four texts that existed under by this name. [This tradition has been preserved in the Orthodox Church. (Note from the translator).]
Around 170, the Assyrian Tatian turns the four-part Gospel into a single story, or “Harmony of the Gospels,” which for a long time became, if not the official, then the favorite form of the Gospel in the Assyrian Church. The latter differed from the four-part Gospel of the Old Syriac Version. It remains uncertain whether Tatian composed his Harmony, commonly known as the Diatessaron, originally in Greek or in Syriac, but since this work was apparently done by him in Rome, its original language was probably Greek, especially that in 1933 a Greek fragment from his Diatessaron was found at Dura-Europos on the Euphrates. At any rate, the Assyrian Christians received the text in Syriac when Tatian returned home from Rome, and the Syriac Diatessaron remained for them the "Authoritative Version" of the Gospel until it was replaced by the Peshitta, or "simple" recension, in the fifth century.
By the time of Irenaeus, who, although a native of Asia Minor, became Bishop of Lyon in Gaul about 180, the idea of the fourfold Gospel had become so self-evident to the whole Christian Church that he could mention it as an established and accepted fact, equally obvious , like the four cardinal directions or the four winds:
“For just as there are four corners of the world in which we live, and four world winds, and as the Church is spread over the entire face of the earth, and the Gospel is the pillar and foundation of the Church and the breath of life, it is just as natural that it should have four pillars , exuding immortality from every corner and rekindling life in people. From which it appears that the Word, the creator of all things, sitting on the cherub and holding all things together, having been revealed to men, has given us the Gospel in a fourfold form, but held together by one Spirit.” [Adv. Haer. 3:11, 8.]
When the four Gospels were collected into one book, this broke the two parts of Luke's narrative. The division of Luke and Acts seems to have required one or two changes in the text at the end of the Gospel and at the beginning of Acts. Initially, Luke apparently postponed any reference to the ascension of Christ until the second part of his story. Now the words “and ascended into heaven” were added to Luke 24:51 to round out the narrative, just as the corollary “ascended up” was added to Acts 1:2. Thus, the discrepancies found by some authors between the ascension accounts in Luke and Acts most likely resulted from these changes in the text of the two books when they were separated from each other. [FF Bruce, "The Acts of the Apostles", Tyndale Press 1951 pp. 66 ff.]
The Acts, however, were naturally not inferior to the authority and prestige of the third Gospel, as belonging to the same author, and were apparently accepted as canonical by all except Marcion and his followers. Indeed, Acts occupied a very important place in the New Testament canon as its turning point, as Harnack put it, connecting the Gospels with the Epistles, and also because of its message about the conversion, calling and missionary activity of Paul, clearly demonstrating the weighty apostolic authority behind The Epistles of Paul.
The Corpus Paulinum, or collection of Paul's writings, was compiled around the same time as the four-part Gospel. [Ignatius and Polycarp (writing around 115) were apparently familiar with the collection of Pauline Epistles. 2 Peter at 3:15ff clearly indicates a collection of at least several of Paul's epistles (the dating of 2 Peter is a matter of debate, but if we accept that the Epistle of Barnabas refers to it, this points to an earlier date). ] Just as the gospel collection was designated by the Greek word Evangelion, Paul's collection became known by the title consisting of the single word "Apostolos", where each letter began to be distinguished as addressed to the Romans, First Corinthians, etc. Soon afterwards the anonymous Epistle to the Hebrews was added to the Pauline collection. Acts, for reasons of convenience, was combined with the “General Epistles” (Peter, James, John and Jude).
The only books about which significant doubt remained after the middle of the second century were some of those coming towards the end of our New Testament. Origen (185-254) mentions the four Gospels, Acts, thirteen Pauline Epistles, 1 Peter, 1 John and Revelation as universally accepted, but reports that others reject the Epistle to the Hebrews, 2 Peter, 2 and 3 John, the Epistles of James and Jude, along with the Epistle of Barnabas, the Shepherd of Hermas and the Didache, and the Gospel of the Hebrews. Eusebius (about 265-340) mentions as universally accepted all the books of the New Testament, except for the Epistle of James, Jude, 2 Peter, 2 and 3 John, which were disputed by some, but accepted by the majority. [Eusebius himself would have liked to reject the Apocalypse, since he doubted the idea of the thousand-year kingdom of God on earth.] Athanasius in 367 affirms the twenty-seven books of our New Testament as the only canonical ones. He was soon followed in the West by Jerome and Augustine. In the East this process was slower. It was not until about 508 that 2 Peter, 2 and 3 John, Jude and Revelation were included in the next edition of the Syriac Bible in addition to the other twenty-two books.
For many reasons, it was necessary for the church to know exactly which books were endowed with divine authority. The Gospels, which record “all that Jesus did and taught from the beginning,” could not be considered one hair lower in authority than the books of the Old Testament. The teaching of the apostles, as set forth in Acts and Epistles, was also regarded as endowed with His authority. Naturally, then, the apostolic testimony of the New Testament was revered to the same extent as the books of the prophets of the Old Testament. Thus, Justin Martyr puts the Memoirs of the Apostles on a par with the books of the prophets, reporting that both are read at meetings of Christians. For the church, despite the break with Judaism, did not reject the authority of the Old Testament, but, following the example of Christ and His apostles, accepted it as the Word of God. In fact, the Septuagint, the translation of the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek, made by seventy interpreters for the Greek-speaking Jews of the pre-Christian period, became the property of Christians to such an extent that the Jews were forced to abandon this translation, thus compromised, for them and make a new one.
It was especially important to determine which books could be used to establish Christian doctrine, and which ones should be appealed to with the greatest confidence when arguing with heretics. In particular, when Marcion composed his canon around 140, it was necessary for the orthodox church to know exactly which canon was true, and thus the process of defining that canon, already beginning, was accelerated. It is therefore erroneous to say that the church first began to compile a canon only after Marcion published his own.
Other circumstances that required a clear definition of which books had divine authority included the need to decide what texts should be read during church services (although certain books suitable for this purpose could not be used to resolve doctrinal disputes), and the need to clarify , which of the texts could be given out at the request of the imperial police during periods of persecution of Christians, and which could not be given out without committing sacrilege.
One thing in particular should be emphasized. The books of the New Testament acquired their authority not because the church formally canonized them. On the contrary, the Church included them in its canon because it already regarded them as divinely inspired, recognizing for them its own ueHiijCTb and direct or indirect general apostolic authority. Both of the first church councils to determine the canonical books took place in North Africa - at Hippo Regius in 393 and at Carthage in 397 - but what was accomplished at these councils was not the imposition of anything new on Christian communities , but an affirmation of what has become their common practice.
The history of the canon raises many theological problems which we cannot deal with here, but to see clearly that the church has made the right choice it is sufficient to compare the books of our New Testament with the various ancient documents collected by M. R. James in his " Apocrypha of the New Testament" (1924), or even with the works of the Apostolic Fathers [The level of these latter is lower than the canonical New Testament, but much higher than the apocryphal Gospels and Acts.] in order to realize the superiority of the texts of our New Testament over all those indicated.
Perhaps a few words should be added regarding the Gospel of the Hebrews, which, as mentioned above, Origen names among the books rejected by some Christians. This work, circulated in Transjordan and Egypt among Jewish-Christian communities called Ebionites, bears some similarities to the canonical Gospel of Matthew. Perhaps this was an independent expansion of the Aramaic text associated with our canonical Matthew. Some of the ancient Church Fathers were familiar with it from the Greek translation.
Jerome (347-420) identified this Gospel of the Hebrews with a text called the Gospel of the Nazarenes, which he found in Syria, and at first mistakenly considered the Hebrew (or Aramaic) original of Matthew. Perhaps his identification of this text with the Gospel of the Hebrews was also a mistake. The Nazarene Gospel he found (and which he translated into Latin and Greek) could simply be an Aramaic, not very skillful translation of the canonical Matthew, compiled in the original in Greek. At any rate, both the Gospel of the Hebrews and the Nazarene Gospel are to some extent related to Matthew, and must be distinguished from the many apocraphic Gospels also circulating in those days, which have no bearing on the present historical study. The latter, along with some of the apocryphal books of Acts and similar texts, are almost entirely fictitious. One of the books of the apocratic Acts is almost entirely fictitious.
One of the books of the apocratic Acts, the Acts of Paul, although it appears to be a fiction of the second century, still deserves some attention due to the verbal portrait of Paul it contains. The expressive and unusual character of this description led Sir William Ramsay to the assumption that it embodies the memory of the actual appearance of this apostle, preserved in Asia Minor. Paul is depicted as “a man of small stature, with fused eyebrows, with a rather large nose, bald, bow-legged, strongly built, full of grace, for at times he looked like a man, and at times his face became like an angel.”
Frederick Bruce, The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable?
Publishing house Slavic Gospel Press
Newspaper Protestant.ru
So what's the difference
Considering the above, it is not difficult to determine how the Old Testament, New Testament and Gospel differ. The Old Testament describes events before the birth of Jesus Christ: the creation of man, the Flood, Moses receiving the law. The New Testament contains a description of the coming of the Messiah and the future of humanity. The Gospel is the main structural unit of the New Testament, directly telling about the life path of the savior of mankind - Jesus Christ. It is because of Jesus' sacrifice that Christians now do not have to adhere to the laws of the Old Testament: this obligation has been atoned for.
Source
New Testament: history of creation, content analysis.
The New Testament is a collection of books that is one of two, along with the Old Testament, parts of the Bible. In the second, although much smaller in volume, but more significant for Christians, part of the Bible
, is the New Testament.
The final list of books included in it was approved at the Council of Carthage in 419. The term “New Testament” itself appears in the prophet Jeremiah
(Jer. 31: 31 – 35).
Then it served as the self-name of the Qumran community of the Essenes (2nd century BC - 1st century AD), which was the direct predecessor of Christianity. Christianity lived by the belief that the new union of God with people was realized as a result of the reconciling mission and sacrificial death of Jesus Christ
.
In contrast to the Qumran community, Christians began to apply the term “New Testament” not to the community itself, but to the sum of canonical texts, in which they saw new commandments that largely replaced the “old” Mosaic Law - the Torah
in the broad sense of the word.
At the same time, Christian theology is based on the unity of the Bible. In the Old Testament,
the coming coming of the savior - Jesus Christ is announced, and in the New Testament he himself and
the apostles
preach about the approach of the Kingdom of Heaven.
The New Testament includes 27 writings. First of all, these are the four Gospels
(Greek “good news”). The first and fourth - from Matthew and from John - are written on behalf of
the apostles
(Greek “messenger”) - the disciples
of Jesus
, the second is attributed to Mark - the companion of the Apostle Peter, the third - to Luke - the companion of the Apostle Paul.
The word " Gospel"
"applies to the preaching of Christianity in general.
Adjacent to the Gospels are the “Acts of the Holy Apostles” (tradition considers the author of this work to be the Evangelist Luke), 21 Apostolic Epistles (14 of them belong to the Apostle Paul), and, finally, “The Revelation of John the Theologian”, or the Apocalypse - visions of the end of the world revealed to the Apostle John . The first three Gospels (“synoptic”, that is, brought together) present a generally similar picture of the life of Jesus Christ
.
In none of them was Jesus, either by himself or by his disciples, directly identified with God, although he was called the Son of God and the messiah
(
Christ
).
The Gospel of John is distinguished not only by its setting (Judea and Jerusalem
, and not primarily Galilee, as in the first three Gospels), but also by the fact that it actively emphasizes the divinity of Jesus Christ.
In the Gospel of John, already at the very beginning, we speak about the “Word” (Logos) - “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1), existing before the beginning of time and incarnate in Jesus Christ. Here the contours of the Christian dogma of the Trinity
, later formulated by the Christian
Church
.
The first three Gospels in modern scientific literature date back to 70 - 90 years. AD, Gospel of John - beginning of the 2nd century. AD The creation of other New Testament works, despite the complexity of dating, should be attributed to the 1st century. AD In addition to the four Gospels, the early Christians also had other Gospels in circulation, which later became known as “apocryphal” (Greek: “secret”). After the compilation of the New Testament canon (the final list of books was approved at the Carthage Church Council in 419), many Christian authors made the word “apocryphal” synonymous with the concepts of “fake” and “false.” The language of the New Testament works is Greek. Only individual phrases are given in Aramaic, the spoken language of Palestine at the turn of the millennium. It is possible that the Gospels were first written in Aramaic, but only the Greek texts have survived.
29. Early Christianity. Formation of the Christian Church.
Christianity arose in the 1st century. AD on the territory of the Roman Empire. There is no consensus among researchers about the exact place of origin of Christianity. Some believe that this happened in Palestine, which was at that time part of the Roman Empire; others suggest that it happened in the Jewish diaspora in Greece.
Palestinian Jews were under foreign dominion for many centuries. However, in the 2nd century. BC. they achieved political independence, during which they expanded their territory and did a lot to develop political and economic relations. In 63 BC. The Roman commander Gnaeus Polteus brought troops into Judea, as a result of which it became part of the Roman Empire. By the beginning of our era, other territories of Palestine had lost their independence; administration began to be carried out by a Roman governor.
The loss of political independence was perceived by part of the population as a tragedy. Political events were seen to have a religious meaning. The idea of divine retribution for violations of the covenants of the fathers, religious customs and prohibitions spread. This led to a strengthening of the position of Jewish religious nationalist groups:
Hasidim - devout Jews;
the Sadducees, who represented conciliatory sentiments, they came from the upper strata of Jewish society;
Pharisees - fighters for the purity of Judaism, against contacts with foreigners. The Pharisees advocated compliance with external standards of behavior, for which they were accused of hypocrisy.
It is the first century AD that dates back to the oldest book of the New Testament - the Apocalypse, in which the idea of \u200b\u200bretribution on enemies for the unfair treatment and oppression of Jews was so strongly manifested.
Origins of Christianity
The emergence of Christianity was prepared not only by the prevailing historical conditions, it had a good ideological basis. The main ideological source of Christianity is Judaism. The new religion rethought the ideas of Judaism about monotheism, messianism, eschatology, chiliasm - faith in the second coming of Jesus Christ and his thousand-year reign on earth. The Old Testament tradition has not lost its meaning; it has received a new interpretation.
The ancient philosophical tradition had a significant influence on the formation of the Christian worldview. In the philosophical systems of the Stoics, Neo-Pythagoreans, Plato and Neoplatonists, mental constructs, concepts and even terms were developed, reinterpreted in New Testament texts and the works of theologians. The Neoplatonism of Philo of Alexandria (25 BC - c. 50 AD) and the moral teaching of the Roman Stoic Seneca (c. 4 BC - 65 AD) had a particularly great influence on the foundations of Christian doctrine. AD). Philo formulated the concept of Logos as a sacred law that allows one to contemplate existence, the doctrine of the innate sinfulness of all people, of repentance, of Being as the beginning of the world, of ecstasy as a means of approaching God, of logoi, among which the Son of God is the highest Logos, and other logoi - angels.
Seneca considered the main thing for every person to achieve freedom of spirit through awareness of divine necessity. If freedom does not flow from divine necessity, it will turn out to be slavery. Only obedience to fate gives rise to equanimity and peace of mind, conscience, moral standards, and universal human values. Seneca recognized the golden rule of morality as a moral imperative, which was as follows: “Treat those below as you would like to be treated by those above.” We can find a similar formulation in the Gospels.
Seneca’s teachings about the transience and deceitfulness of sensual pleasures, caring for other people, self-restraint in the use of material goods, preventing rampant passions, the need for modesty and moderation in everyday life, self-improvement, and the acquisition of divine mercy had a certain influence on Christianity.
Another source of Christianity was the eastern cults that flourished at that time in various parts of the Roman Empire.
The most controversial issue in the study of Christianity is the question of the historicity of Jesus Christ. In solving it, two directions can be distinguished: mythological and historical. The mythological trend claims that science does not have reliable data about Jesus Christ as a historical figure. The Gospel stories were written many years after the events described; they have no real historical basis. The historical direction claims that Jesus Christ was a real person, a preacher of a new religion, which is confirmed by a number of sources. In 1971, a text from the Antiquities of Josephus was found in Egypt, which suggests that it describes one of the real preachers named Jesus, although the miracles he performed were spoken of as one of many stories on this topic, those. Josephus himself did not observe them.
Stages of the formation of Christianity as a state religion
The history of the formation of Christianity covers the period from the middle of the 1st century. AD until the 5th century inclusive. During this period, Christianity went through a number of stages of its development, which can be summarized as follows:
1 - stage of current eschatology (second half of the 1st century);
2 - stage of adaptation (II century);
3 - stage of the struggle for dominance in the empire (III-V centuries).
During each of these stages, the composition of believers changed, various new formations emerged and disintegrated within Christianity as a whole, and internal clashes constantly raged, which expressed the struggle for the realization of vital public interests.
Stage of actual eschatology
At the first stage, Christianity had not yet completely separated from Judaism, so it can be called Judeo-Christian. The name “current eschatology” means that the defining mood of the new religion at that time was the expectation of the coming of the Savior in the near future, literally from day to day. The social basis of Christianity became enslaved, dispossessed people suffering from national and social oppression. The hatred of the enslaved for their oppressors and the thirst for revenge found their expression and release not in revolutionary actions, but in the impatient anticipation of the reprisal that would be inflicted by the coming Messiah on the Antichrist.
In early Christianity there was no single centralized organization, there were no priests. Communities were led by believers capable of receiving charism (grace, the descent of the Holy Spirit). Charismatics united groups of believers around themselves. People were singled out who were engaged in explaining the doctrine. They were called didaskals - teachers. Special people were appointed to organize the economic life of the community. Initially, deacons appeared to perform simple technical duties. Later, bishops appear - observers, overseers, as well as presbyters - elders. Over time, bishops occupy a dominant position, and presbyters become their assistants.
Adjustment stage
At the second stage, in the 2nd century, the situation changes. The end of the world does not occur; on the contrary, there is some stabilization of Roman society. The tension of expectation in the mood of Christians is replaced by a more vital attitude of existence in the real world and adaptation to its orders. The place of general eschatology in this world is taken by individual eschatology in the other world, and the doctrine of the immortality of the soul is being actively developed.
The social and national composition of communities is changing. Representatives of the wealthy and educated strata of the population of various nations inhabiting the Roman Empire began to convert to Christianity. Accordingly, the doctrine of Christianity changes, it becomes more tolerant of wealth. The attitude of the authorities towards the new religion depended on the political situation. One emperor carried out persecution, the other showed humanity if the internal political situation allowed it.
Development of Christianity in the 2nd century. led to a complete break from Judaism. There were fewer and fewer Jews among Christians in comparison with other nationalities. It was necessary to solve problems of practical cult significance: food prohibitions, the celebration of the Sabbath, circumcision. As a result, circumcision was replaced by water baptism, the weekly celebration of Saturday was moved to Sunday, the Easter holiday was converted to Christianity under the same name, but was filled with a different mythological content, just like the Pentecost holiday.
The influence of other peoples on the formation of the cult in Christianity was manifested in the borrowing of rituals or their elements: baptism, communion as a symbol of sacrifice, prayer and some others.
During the 3rd century. The formation of large Christian centers took place in Rome, Antioch, Jerusalem, Alexandria, in a number of cities in Asia Minor and other areas. However, the church itself was not internally unified: there were differences among Christian teachers and preachers regarding the correct understanding of Christian truths. Christianity was torn apart from within by the most complex theological disputes. Many trends emerged that interpreted the provisions of the new religion in different ways.
Nazarenes (from Hebrew - “to refuse, to abstain”) - ascetic preachers of ancient Judea. An outward sign of belonging to the Nazirites was the refusal to cut hair and drink wine. Subsequently, the Nazirites merged with the Essenes.
Montanism arose in the 2nd century. The founder of Montana, on the eve of the end of the world, preached asceticism, a ban on remarriage, and martyrdom in the name of faith. He regarded ordinary Christian communities as mentally ill; he considered only his adherents spiritual.
Gnosticism (from the Greek - “having knowledge”) eclectically connected the ideas of ancient philosophy, borrowed mainly from Platonism and Stoicism, with the ideas of Eastern religions. The Gnostics recognized the existence of a perfect deity, between whom and the sinful material world there are intermediate links - zones. Jesus Christ was also included among them. The Gnostics were pessimistic about the sensory world, emphasized their chosenness of God, the advantage of intuitive knowledge over rational knowledge, did not accept the Old Testament, the redemptive mission of Jesus Christ (but recognized the saving one), and his bodily incarnation.
Docetism (from the Greek - “to seem”) is a direction that separated from Gnosticism. Corporality was considered an evil, lower principle, and on this basis they rejected the Christian teaching about the bodily incarnation of Jesus Christ. They believed that Jesus only appeared to be clothed in flesh, but in reality his birth, earthly existence and death were ghostly phenomena.
Marcionism (named after its founder, Marcion) advocated a complete break with Judaism, did not recognize the human nature of Jesus Christ, and was close to the Gnostics in its basic ideas.
The Novatians (named after the founders - Roman Novatian and Carthian Novat) took a tough position towards the authorities and those Christians who could not resist the pressure of the authorities and compromised with them.
The Four Gospels: Similarities and Differences between the Four Texts
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Gospels
(
Greek
- “Good News”) - four sacred books that are part of the New Testament.
The Gospels tell about the earthly life of Christ, His suffering, death and resurrection, and also reveal His teaching about salvation and the Kingdom of Heaven.
The Gospels were written by the apostles Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. They are often depicted next to tetramorph
- a winged four-faced creature from the vision of the prophet Ezekiel (Ezek
1
:1–28).
The Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke are called synoptic ,
since in terms of the events described in them they coincide quite strongly. The Gospel of John was written later than the others.
All four Gospels differ in who they are addressed to.
What is the difference between canonical texts and apocrypha
Already in the first centuries of Christianity, books appeared about the life of Jesus Christ, which claimed absolute truth and authenticity. They also appeared at a later time, right up to the present day. These are the “gospels” of Peter, Thomas, Philip, Nicodemus, Judas, Barnabas, Mary (Magdalene) - so to speak, “alternative stories” of Jesus of Nazareth, the authorship of which is attributed to various characters in the New Testament. But hardly anyone today takes such claims to authorship seriously. In these “gospels,” as a rule, one can clearly trace an ideological or theological scheme that is alien to Christianity. Thus, the “Gospel of Judas” sets out a Gnostic view of the events of the New Testament, and the “Gospel of Barnabas” is a Muslim one. It is obvious that the texts were not written by the apostles to whom they were attributed, but by adherents of one or another religious school, and in order to give weight to their works they declared them to be the authors of other people.
In addition to these books, many other texts that do not contradict the New Testament itself are often classified as New Testament apocrypha. These are the acts of individual apostles (Barnabas, Philip, Thomas), some epistles, including those attributed to Paul (Laodiceans and 3rd Corinthians), and the very books that in ancient times were sometimes included in the New Testament. However, it makes more sense to talk about them as post-biblical works in the Christian tradition.
It is difficult to give any formal criteria by which the first Christians accepted some books and rejected others. But we see a clear continuity of tradition: there may have been some fluctuations on the periphery of the list, but the most important texts speaking about the foundations of the Christian faith (such as the four Gospels or the Epistle to the Romans) were recognized by everyone, immediately and unconditionally, while no “ alternative" versions were not recognized by any of the early Christians. Such versions could be Scripture for Gnostics or Manichaeans - but only for them.
At the same time, numerous manuscripts of the canonical texts of the New Testament have reached us, starting from the 2nd century. They, too, may differ in small details, but it is impossible to deduct any sensational revelations from them.
Findings of new apocrypha continue, and there is no sensation in this. Christians have always recognized that, in addition to their own Scripture, there are other texts that are revered by other people. In the end, in our time, people continue to write down their “revelations” and assign them sacred status - this is how, for example, the “Book of Mormon” was born in 1830, which the followers of this teaching include in their Holy Scripture. Well, that's their business.
Christians insist only that their Scripture is identical with the Scripture of the early Church, and they do have evidence to support this claim. We can firmly say: the existing canonical text reflects what the witnesses of Christ’s earthly life—his disciples, the first preachers of Christianity—believed.
What is the Gospel: meaning
The Gospel is a book of the New Testament. Translated, the word “Gospel” means good news. For us this is the message about Christianity. Figuratively speaking, the Gospel is a new “agreement” between God and man, which fulfilled what was said in the Old Testament and began a new era of humanity’s relationship with God. It is from the events described in the Gospel that we learn about the earthly life of Christ and the apostles. The books of the New Testament were written in the second half of the 1st century. The first of the New Testament books were written by the epistles of the holy apostles, caused by the need to strengthen the newly founded Christian communities in the faith; but soon the need arose for a systematic presentation of the earthly life of the Lord Jesus Christ and His teachings. Taking the Gospel and reading passages from the New Testament is an important part of worship in all Christian denominations. During the reading of the Gospel in the Western European tradition, where it is allowed to sit during some parts of the service, parishioners always rise from the pew as a sign of reverence for the Word of God.
How the canon came to be
Opening the New Testament today, the reader discovers 27 books under its cover. And indeed, if you look at the early history of the Church, the first Christians did not have such a list of canonical texts. There was not even the very concept of “canon” - in relation to the Bible, this word means a closed list of books included in it. But this is not surprising: Christianity did not immediately arise in a ready-made form, as totalitarian sects sometimes arise, with a completely ready-made list of rules and regulations for all occasions. It developed naturally, and it was not immediately that a definitive list of the books of Holy Scripture appeared.
The earliest lists that have reached us are found in the works of the Church Fathers who lived in the 2nd, 3rd and 4th centuries - Justin the Philosopher, Irenaeus of Lyons, Clement of Alexandria, Cyril of Jerusalem and others. There is also an anonymous list of books, called the “muratorian canon” (after the name of the person who discovered it in modern times), dated to the end of the 2nd century.
The important thing is that in all these lists, without exception, we will find the four Gospels known to us, the book of Acts and almost all of the Epistles of Paul. They may lack the Epistle to the Hebrews, the book of Revelation and part of the Council Epistles. At the same time, they may include some other texts that are not today part of the New Testament: the Epistles of the Apostle Barnabas and Clement of Rome, the “Shepherd” of Hermas, the “Didache” (otherwise called the “Teaching of the Twelve Apostles”) and the Revelation of Peter. All of these texts were written shortly after the New Testament books, and they give us much valuable information about the history of the early Church.
The canon that we know today, as well as the expression “canonical books” itself, is found for the first time in the Easter Epistle of St. Athanasius of Alexandria in 367. Nevertheless, small discrepancies in the lists of canonical books were encountered until the 5th–6th centuries, but this mainly concerned the recognition of the book of Revelation of John the Theologian, full of mystical images and difficult to understand.
However, all these discrepancies do not change the overall picture in any way - what Christians believed in, what they told about Jesus.
Who wrote the Gospels
The authors of the Gospel are the apostles, disciples of Christ (formally), it is believed that Scripture was created by Divine inspiration. The apostles described those events that they personally witnessed and participated in. The history of the creation of the New Testament also speaks in favor of the truth of what is written in the Gospel. After the crucifixion of Christ, His disciples were absolutely broken and depressed. Everything they believed in collapsed in one moment. It would be logical to lead a quiet and calm life, admitting defeat. They might even have to go into hiding. But, having received the news of the Resurrection of Christ, they risked their lives to preach His word and, without agreement, risked themselves by accepting martyrdom.
Cup of Two Testaments
Deacon Vladimir Vasilik, a regular contributor to our magazine, talks about the connection between the two Testaments, their deep unity and the difference between them.
What does the Old Testament mean to us? The word "covenant" (Hebrew "berit") meant "agreement." But the phrase Old Testament has two meanings. Firstly, this is precisely a contract, specifically a contract between God and people. Initially - personal agreements with the ancient patriarchs and righteous people - Noah, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. God demanded from them faith, devotion only to Him and obedience to His commands. For this, He granted them salvation (as, for example, Noah and his family) and blessing (as, for example, Abraham). This is the personal guidance of God, contained in His commandments, which were transmitted and preserved orally. The sign of the covenant was circumcision.
Then there is a covenant or agreement concluded through Moses at Sinai with the entire people of Israel. It was that God would be the only God of Israel, and Israel would be His people. This agreement is in detailed form and is recorded in writing in the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Old Testament - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy; Genesis, however, reflects events before the covenant of Moses). The purpose of the Covenant is to distinguish the people of Israel from among humanity and make them chosen, so that the seeds of true faith can be preserved in them and then spread to all humanity. The Lord Jehovah (Jehovah, or Yahweh) becomes the invisible, spiritual king of the Israeli people, who thus receives a special form of government - theocracy, or government by God. The law implied a special way of life, special, “clean”, so-called kosher, food, and prescribed in detail the ritual of sacrifices and sacred rites.
The second meaning of the phrase “Old Testament” is a collection of sacred books, the first, pre-Christian part of the Bible. There are two canons of the Old Testament - the Protestant, based on the Jewish, and the Orthodox, based on the Alexandrian. The first includes the Pentateuch of Moses (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy), historical books - the Book of Joshua, four Books of Kings, two Books of Chronicles (priestly chronicles), two Books of Ezra, the Book of Esther, educational books - Psalms of David, Proverbs Solomon, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, Book of Job; great prophets - Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel, Ezekiel and twelve small ones - Hosea, Joel, Amos, Jonah, Obadiah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Haggai, Zephaniah, Zechariah, Malachi. The Orthodox, or Alexandrian, canon also adds to them books that have come down to us only in Greek: the three Books of the Maccabees, the Book of the Wisdom of Solomon, the Book of Judith, the Book of Jesus, son of Sirach. What is the significance of these books and how do they relate to the New Testament?
Let us immediately note that the New Testament cannot be read deeply and correctly without at least a superficial knowledge of the Old Testament. As St. Augustine so wonderfully said, “The Old Testament is hidden in the New. The New is incomprehensible without the Old.” There are 82 references to the Book of Deuteronomy alone in the New Testament. There are many references to the Book of the Prophet Isaiah. The constant refrain of the Gospel of Matthew is that the Scripture may be fulfilled, for example, in the story of the Nativity of Christ: And all this happened, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet, who says: Behold, the virgin is with child and bears a Son, and they call His name Emmanuel, which means : God is with us (Matthew 1 :22–23). This prophet is Isaiah, who foresaw the birth of Christ from the Virgin (see: Is. 7 , 14). As the holy martyr Justin the Philosopher says, “there were once blessed and righteous people, pleasing to God, who spoke by the Holy Spirit and predicted the future, which is now coming true. They are called prophets. They alone knew and proclaimed the truth to people... they spoke only what they heard and saw when they were filled with the Holy Spirit. Their writings still exist today, and whoever reads them with faith receives much instruction about the beginning and end of things. The very events that have already happened and are now still happening are forced to accept their testimony. Also, for the sake of the miracles that they performed, they deserve faith, because they glorified the Creator of all and proclaimed Christ His Son sent from Him; what the false prophets did not do” (Justin Martyr. Conversation with Tryphon the Jew).
The books of the New Testament are filled with joy because ancient prophecies are being fulfilled, which anticipate all the miracles and deeds of our Lord Jesus Christ - from Christmas to Pentecost, which is also the fulfillment of what the prophet Joel predicted: And it shall come to pass after this that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh, and your sons and your daughters will prophesy; Your old men will dream dreams, and your young men will see visions. And also on the male and female servants in those days I will pour out My Spirit. And I will show signs in heaven and on earth: blood and fire and pillars of smoke. The sun will turn into darkness and the moon into blood before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes. And it shall come to pass that whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be saved (Joel 2, 28–32).
Understanding the New Testament is unthinkable without the Old Testament books, as well as our church life. Especially without the Psalter, in which, in the words of Blessed Augustine, the Lord Jesus Christ Himself and His Church sing, weep and rejoice. We constantly hear the Psalter during divine services: these are kathismas at Vespers and Matins, and psalms of the hours. Other books of the Old Testament are read at Vespers on the indicated days; these readings are called proverbs. Their reading is especially solemn on Christmas Eve, Epiphany and Holy Saturday, when their number can reach 15.
But what about the Old Testament as the Law?
Often an Orthodox Christian hesitates between two maxims: behold, I am making everything new (Rev. 21 :5) and Do not think that I came to destroy the law or the prophets: I did not come to destroy, but to fulfill (Matt. 5:17 ). And moreover, the Savior says: For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one jot or one tittle will pass from the law until everything is fulfilled (Matthew 5:18 ). But how does Christ fulfill the Law? By deepening and spiritualizing it. If the Law forbade killing, then Christ commands not to be angry: You have heard what was said to the ancients: do not kill; whoever kills will be subject to judgment. But I tell you that everyone who is angry with his brother without cause will be subject to judgment; whoever says to his brother: “raqa” is subject to the Sanhedrin; and whoever says, “You fool,” is subject to fiery hell (Matthew 5 :21–22). If the eighth commandment commands not to commit adultery, then Christ says that anyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart (Matthew 5:28 ). In other words, if the Law prohibited only external sinful actions, then the Savior goes inside and cuts off the spiritual, psychological roots of sin. Let us note, however, that when speaking about the Law in the Sermon on the Mount, the Savior means primarily the Ten Commandments and does not say a word about ritual or legal regulations. It should be mentioned that even in the Old Testament there was a prophetic tradition according to which a moral law was given at Sinai, not a ritual one. It is present, in particular, in the holy prophet Jeremiah: for I did not speak to your fathers and did not give them a commandment on the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt about burnt offerings and sacrifices; but he gave them this commandment: “Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and you will be my people, and walk in every way that I command you, that it may go well with you” (Jer. 7 :22-23).
Much was given to Israel by Moses because of the hardness of the hearts of the Israelites, and not because of the goodness of God, therefore the original commandment must be preferred to the subsequent one. When the Pharisees tell Christ that Moses allowed them to divorce, they receive a harsh rebuke: He says to them: Moses, because of your hardness of heart, allowed you to divorce your wives, but at first it was not so; but I say to you: whoever divorces his wife for reasons other than adultery and marries another commits adultery; and he who marries a divorced woman commits adultery (Matt. 19, 8–9).
Let's give another example: the Old Testament law forbade taking interest from one's fellow tribesman, but allowed it to be taken from a pagan. In the New Testament, and then in church law, extortion is prohibited altogether.
So, Christ gives a deeper and more perfect moral law based on grace and love.
The question arises: how to relate to the ritual regulations of the Law - about clean and unclean food, about sacrifices, etc.? They are abolished by Christ. The Apostle Paul in the Epistle to the Hebrews explains that the Old Testament sacrifices were imperfect and could not cleanse the conscience. They had the meaning of a prototype of the best and perfect sacrifice of Christ, which He offered with His blood. She is an image of the present time, in which gifts and sacrifices are offered, which cannot make the offerer perfect in conscience, and which, with food and drink, and various washings and rites [relating] to the flesh, were established only until the time of correction. But Christ, the High Priest of future blessings, having come with a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is, not of this kind, and not with the blood of goats and calves, but with His own blood, one day entered the sanctuary and acquired eternal redemption. For if the blood of bulls and goats and the ashes of a heifer, through sprinkling, sanctify the defiled, so that the body may be pure, how much more will the Blood of Christ, Who through the Holy Spirit offered Himself spotless to God, cleanse our conscience from dead works, to serve the living and true God! (Heb. 9, 9–14).
Question: Should a Christian observe the regulations related to clean, or kosher, food? The answer is obvious: no. A vision to the Apostle Peter speaks about this: The next day, as they walked and approached the city, Peter, about the sixth hour, went up to the top of the house to pray. And he felt hungry and wanted to eat. While they were preparing, he went into a frenzy and sees the open sky and a certain vessel descending towards it, like a large canvas, tied at the four corners and lowered to the ground; in it were all four-legged creatures of the earth, animals, reptiles and birds of the air. And a voice came to him: Arise, Peter, kill and eat. But Peter said: No, Lord, I have never eaten anything bad or unclean. Then another time a voice came to him: what God has cleansed, do not consider unclean (Acts 10 :9-15). The only food prohibition within the framework of the Apostolic Council of 51 was to abstain from sacrifices to idols, blood, and strangled meat (Acts 15:29 ).
There is also no need for circumcision, since you are in Christ and circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the sinful body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ; Having been buried with Him in baptism, you were also raised again in Him through faith in the power of God, who raised Him from the dead (Col. 2, 11–12).
A special situation with Saturday. The Church abolished the commandment about Sabbath rest, remembering the words of Christ: My Father works until now, and I work (John 5:17 ). At the same time, Orthodoxy maintains respect for the Sabbath day; it is removed from fasting; even during Great Lent, the Liturgy is celebrated on Saturday. Holy Saturday is especially revered. This is the most blessed Saturday, in which the Only Begotten Son of God rested from his work, looking at death (stichera on the Praise of the Great Saturday for And Now).
The attitude towards the Old Testament and the Law in the Church is like the choice of a wise scribe, who takes out old and new from his treasury and chooses what is useful for salvation and eternal life. Both Testaments are inextricably linked. As St. Ambrose of Milan says, “the cup of wisdom is in your hands. This is a double cup - the Old and New Testaments. Drink them, because in both you drink Christ. Drink Christ, for He is the fountain of life.”
Journal "Orthodoxy and Modernity" No. 28 (44)
Source
Part I Text, Canon, and Language of the New Testament
Some of the most important manuscripts of the New Testament will be examined here, beginning with the uncial codices.
Codex Sinaiticus (K) includes the entire New Testament, as well as the epistle of Barnabas and the Shepherd of Hermas. The manuscript dates back to the 4th century, is written in four columns and comes from Egypt or Caesarea in Palestine. This codex was discovered in the mid-19th century (1844) in the Sinai monastery of St. Catherine by the German scientist Konstantin Tischendorf, who, after lengthy negotiations, presented it as a gift from the monastery to the Russian Tsar Alexander II. In 19, the Codex Sinaiticus was purchased by the English government and has since been in the British Museum in London, except for 43 leaves (parts of the books of the Old Testament: 1 Chronicles, Jeremiah, Nehemiah and Esther), which are kept in the university library in Leipzig, where Tischendorf worked as an assistant professor. Single leaves (12 leaves from the Old Testament books of Numbers, Leviticus, Deuteronomy, Judges) were discovered among many other manuscripts in the Sinai monastery of St. Catherine in 1975.
The text of the Codex Sinaiticus was apparently edited by several censors, both immediately after its writing and in later times (in the 6th–7th centuries). According to the account of one colophon, which is placed at the end of the books of Ezra and Esther, the last corrections were made from an ancient manuscript, corrected by Pamphilus himself, the priest and martyr. Pamphilus, as is known, enriched the library of Caesarea in Palestine with many ancient manuscripts.
The Codex Alexandrinus (A) dates back to the 5th century and originates from Egypt. The Gospel text of this manuscript belongs to the Byzantine text type, the remaining New Testament books are one of the main representatives of the Alexandrian text type, along with the Vatican and Sinaiticus codes. The manuscript is written in three columns and contains almost the entire New Testament, except for some gaps in the Gospels of Matthew and John, as well as in the Second Epistle to the Corinthians. In addition to the New Testament books, the First and Second Epistles of Clement (second to 12:5) are also placed here.
This codex was presented in 1627 by Patriarch Cyril Lucaris to King Charles I of England and is currently on display in the British Museum in a glass case next to the Codex Sinaiticus.
Codex Vaticanus (B) also comes from Egypt and is considered the most ancient codex of the New Testament (early-mid 4th century).
The text breaks off at Hebrews 9:14a; the ending of Hebrews is missing, as well as First and Second Timothy, Titus, Philemon, and the Apocalypse. Hebrews is placed after Second Thessalonians. The division of the text into chapters in the Vatican Code does not coincide with any of those accepted in ancient manuscripts. The letters of the Apostle Paul have continuous chapter numbering, starting with the Epistle to the Romans. This codex has been in the Vatican Library since the 15th century.
The Codex of Ephraim the Syrian (C) is one of the most important palimpsests, dating from the 5th century and belonging to the Byzantine text type. Contains passages from almost all the books of the New Testament, except the Second Epistle to the Thessalonians and the Second Epistle of John. The text of this codex was erased in the 12th century and recorded as a Greek translation of 38 conversations of St. Ephraim the Syrian. After much effort, with the help of modern technical means, Tischendorf managed to read the original text. This codex is currently housed in the Bibliothèque Nationale de Paris.
Codex Beza (D), 5th or 6th century, written in two languages: Greek text on the left page and a Latin translation on the right. The codex consists of two manuscripts. The first contains the Gospels (in the order of Matthew, John, Luke, Mark), the Acts of the Apostles and a short excerpt from the Third Epistle of John. This manuscript is called the Codex Bezae Cantabrigiensis because it was given to the University of Cambridge in 1581 by Theodore Bezae, Calvin's friend and collaborator. The second includes the letters of the Apostle Paul and is called Codex Claromontanus, from the monastery of Clermont in France, where this manuscript was formerly located. It is currently kept in the Bibliothèque Nationale de Paris. The text of both manuscripts belongs to the so-called Western type and has many differences, additions and omissions in comparison with the known New Testament text, especially in the Acts of the Apostles. It is worth mentioning one unrecorded saying of the Savior (agrafu), which is found in the Gospel of Luke, chapter 6 between verses 4 and 5: “The same day, when he saw a man working on the Sabbath, [Jesus] said to him, “A man, if you know what you are doing, then you are blessed, but if you do not know, then you are under a curse and a transgressor of the law.”20 There is also an addition in the Gospel of Matthew after 20, 28: “And you try to increase with little and decrease with what is greater. And when you go to the one who invited you for dinner, do not rush to recline in places of honor, so that it does not happen that someone more famous than you comes, and when the one who invited you says to you: take a lower place, and you will be ashamed; But if you lie down in a low place and someone smaller than you comes, then the one who invited you to dinner will say to you, “Come up higher,” and that will be better for you”21 (cf. Luke 14:8-10). In the Gospel of Luke. 23:53: “...and having laid Him down, he rolled a stone against the tomb, which twenty [men] could hardly move”22. In Acts 12:10: the Apostle Peter and the angel, leaving prison, “went 7 steps”23; and in Acts 19:9: the Apostle Paul taught in Ephesus at the Tiran school “from the fifth to the tenth hour of the day”24 – and others.
Of the uncial codes, in addition to those listed above, the following deserve special mention:
The St. Petersburg Codex Purple (Ν), 6th century, is written on luxurious parchment in silver letters, and only the abbreviations of the names God and Jesus are written in gold letters. Sheets of this codex are scattered across libraries in different countries: 182 sheets in St. Petersburg, 33 on the island of Patmos, 6 in the Vatican, 4 in the British Museum in London, 2 in Vienna, 1 in the Byzantine Museum of Athens, 1 in the Byzantine Museum in Thessalonica and 1 in New York.
Codex Sinope (O), 6th century, written in gold ink on luxurious parchment. This is one of the first manuscripts in which artistic decorations (miniatures) already appear, although the illustrations here are of somewhat later origin than the manuscript itself. Located in the Bibliothèque Nationale de Paris.
Codex W, which is housed in the Freer Museum in Washington, was found at the beginning of the 20th century. This manuscript dates back to the end of the 4th - beginning of the 5th century and contains the Gospels in the same order as the Beza Codex (Matt., John, Luke, Mark). One of the most interesting features of this codex is the insertion, approximately at the end of the Gospel of Mark (after 16, 14), of a dialogue between the Savior and his disciples. This is the so-called Frier fragment (Freer-Logion), which was partly known already to Blessed Jerome.
The Rossan Codex (Σ), 6th century, written on purple parchment in silver letters. Contains the Gospels of Matthew and Mark, with the first three lines of each Gospel written in gold letters. This is the oldest manuscript, decorated with miniatures contemporary with the manuscript itself.
The Athos Codex of the Great Lavra (Ψ), 9th century, is kept in the monastery of the Great Lavra on Athos and contains the Gospels (starting with Mark 9), Acts of the Apostles, Council Epistles (in the order of 1, 2 Pet., James, 1, 2, 3 Mn., Jude), the epistles of the Apostle Paul, including the Epistle to the Hebrews.
Codex Ω (codex Athous Dionysious) is also located on Athos (Monastery of St. Dionysius), contains the Gospels (except Luke 1, 15–28) and dates from the 9th century. In addition to Ψ and Ω, uncial manuscripts 049, 051, 052, 063, 0617, etc., as well as many minuscules, numbering about 1000, are stored on Athos, as noted above.
Of the New Testament manuscripts that are most unique in their form, the following three can be mentioned:
1. Codex 047, the text of which follows the shape of a cross on each page (located in the Princeton University Library). 2.
Minuscule Codex 16, dating from the 14th century, is written in four colors of ink: the narrative part is done in cinnabar (i.e., dark red), the words of the Savior and angels are painted in bright red, quotes from the Old Testament, speeches of the apostles, Zechariah, Elizabeth, Mary, Simeon and John the Baptist are written in blue and, finally, the sayings of the Pharisees, Judas Iscariot and Satan are written in black. 3. Code 0169 is the smallest of all. The dimensions of one single page found in the Egyptian city of Oxyrhynchus are 9.5 x 7.25 cm (pocket edition). By the way, the largest manuscript in size is the Latin Gigantic Codex, located in Stockholm, which will be discussed below in the chapter on ancient Latin translations.
A brief description of the New Testament manuscripts (serial number, dating, storage location, contents) can be found in addition to the Kurt Aland catalog of manuscripts in the critical 27th edition of Nestle-Aland, which has been published since 1993 (Appendix I).
New Testament
The New Testament in the Christian religion is usually understood as one of the two main parts of the Bible. As anyone who considers himself a Christian knows, the Bible does not contain a single narrative line, but is only a collection of religious texts created in various historical periods. For example, the so-called Old Testament, according to historical sources, was created over a huge period of time: between the 13th and 1st centuries BC.
Reference. The Old Testament is sacred not only for Christians, but also for Jews. Aramaic, Hebrew, Greek and Latin versions of this Holy Scripture have fallen into the hands of historical researchers.
If we draw temporal parallels, we can call the New Testament chronologically the second part of the Bible, since it tells about the life and deeds of Jesus Christ from the moment of his birth until his ascension into heaven. The New Testament deals in part with the events leading up to the birth of Christ, as well as his preaching and the miracles he performed during his travels.
Structurally, the New Testament consists of four Gospels (Matthew, Luke, John and Mark), recognized among Christians as corresponding to the canons. Only that scripture that the official church community recognizes as inspired by God can be called canonical; therefore, depending on the denomination, not all texts can be considered canonical.
Reference. In addition to the Gospels approved by the church, there are so-called apocrypha. Some of them even tell about the youth of Jesus Christ, while the “official” religious scriptures skip this period of his life in their narrative.
In addition to the texts and writings already described, in the New Testament you can find the texts of the book “The Acts of the Apostles,” as well as the revelations of John the Theologian, which, by the way, describe the end of earthly life for all humanity and the so-called Judgment Day, when every person will be obliged to answer for your earthly sins.
As for the book “The Acts of the Apostles,” it combines historical and geographical information about the development of church life after Jesus ascended to heaven. The second part of the work is devoted to the missionary work of the Apostle Paul in Rome and other cities. The author of the book is considered to be the Apostle Luke.
Features of the New and Old Testaments
It makes no sense to consider the provisions of the New Testament in isolation from the content of the Old Testament, since then much of what is written in the New Testament will be incomprehensible to the reader. The Old Testament scriptures provide the foundation for the teachings and prophecies found in the New Testament.
These two parts outline events and teachings that relate to the destinies of different people who lived in different historical eras. And, if we talk about the difference between these two parts of the Bible, then it should be noted that they are not opposite, but different, and not in essence, but in time parameters.
Important! The New Testament does not cancel, but deepens the commandments that were given in the Old Testament, and is a logical continuation of it. Thus, the unifying feature of the two Testaments is the promise of the inevitable and fair judgment of God.
If a person immediately started reading the text of the New Testament, he would not understand why the Jews were waiting for their Messiah, why he had to come. Without the Old Testament part, it would be impossible to identify Jesus Christ as the Messiah, since the Old Testament contains many prophecies about him. The reader would not understand the customs that were observed among the Jewish people, and it would also seem incomprehensible that the Savior was angry when he drove the money changers out of the temple courtyard.
The New Testament contains 27 canonical books
New Testament Differences:
- The New Testament records mainly historical events from the life of Christ and testifies to the fulfillment of prophecies.
- It contains teachings and explains how the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ replaced the Old Testament animal sacrifices.
- The New Testament also tells how paradise was returned to humanity and how it will be restored.
As a conclusion, we can say that the Old Testament became the preparation of the Israelites for the coming of the Messiah, whom they never accepted, but would accept a second time. The New Testament explains to all humanity how they should accept the gift of eternal life from Jesus Christ and instructs that they need to live with gratitude in their souls for everything that the Son of God has done for people.
On a note! According to the clergy, both Testaments contain everything that a person needs for salvation and eternal life. In them the Lord reveals himself to people.
Why are there two Testaments mentioned in the Bible?
The Old Testament appeared much earlier than the New and was written over many centuries. Researchers attribute its appearance to the period from the 13th to the 1st centuries BC. e. Thus, this collection of commandments was improved and expanded with the spiritual growth of the person himself.
The Old Testament is the common holy book of Christians and Jews
The texts of the Old Testament describe many events illustrating how humanity first came to God, then again moved away from him. But good deeds in themselves cannot be considered a guarantee of salvation, no matter how proud a person is of them.
Important! The Old Testament teaching is only the foundation. Salvation is possible only through the New Testament, which the Messiah gave to people, making an atoning sacrifice and opening the doors to paradise.
The New Testament was written after the birth of Christ and includes descriptions of his life, ministry, death and resurrection. Also included here are the texts of the apostolic acts and the apocalypse.
Read about Christ:
- The Suffering of Christ
- Death of Jesus Christ
- Resurrection of Jesus Christ
Gospel
This term in religious studies refers to a sacred text telling about the birth, life, death or ascension of Christ. Each of the canonical Gospels describes different events related to Jesus. Why are some of the Gospels considered canonical, while others are rejected by the church?
The answer to this question is quite simple: different confessions interpret the same texts differently, and recognition or non-recognition of the same scriptures as canonical depends solely on the individual characteristics of a particular branch of Christianity. Apocrypha that does not fit the church canons cannot become moral guidelines for true Christians, but at the same time, reading them is not strictly prohibited.
Reference. Translated from Greek, the word “Gospel” means “good news.” In the Bible itself, the word “Gospel” is used in precisely this meaning, for example, when Christ, addressing his disciples, calls on them to go throughout the world and spread the news of the coming of the Kingdom of God.
Authors
All the authors who worked on the books of the New Testament, except Luke, were Jews. Three were among the Apostles: Matthew, Peter, John.
Mark, Jude, and James were active in the early Church or had connections with the apostolic group during Jesus' lifetime.
Luke and Paul, although not eyewitnesses to the life of Jesus, were well known to those who were, and could certainly exchange impressions with them if necessary.
The author of Hebrews is unknown.
Periods of writing of the New Testament
The books of the New Testament, of course, were not written in the same chronology as they appear in the Bible. In addition, enough time could have passed between the writing itself and the period that was described.
Mark, for example, tells the life of Jesus, which took place during the last part of the third decade of the 1st century, but his Gospel was not known until 65 - 70 AD. AD
In order to make it easier to study the history of the 1st century, it should be divided into two periods.
- Origin period
It covers the lifespan of Jesus from 6 BC. to 29 AD This period is well described in the four Gospels, which convey the importance and completeness of certain events in the life of Christ and only slightly touch on other historical facts.
- Distribution period
From 29 to 60 AD – was a period of development of missionary activity. Groups of preachers traveled in different directions, evangelizing and planting new churches in various important centers.
The Book of the Acts of the Apostles speaks specifically about the missionary activity of the Apostle Paul among the pagans and only occasionally mentions the acts of other apostles and preachers.
It was during this period that the Gospel spread not only to Israel, but also to Rome. Also during this period falls a large number of letters of the Apostle Paul, written during his missionary processions. From them one can reveal the rapid growth of the pagan church.
A review of such literature indicates that the Church grew rapidly in the last third of the first century.
The Gospels show that the life of the Lord Jesus became an acceptable form of evangelism and resulted in a form of instruction for believers.
A simple account of the life of Jesus contributed to human history
The Acts of the Apostles, the first history of the Christian church, is a conscious attempt to explain the merging of Jews and Gentiles into a single whole on the basis of Christian experience.
The letters to the Hebrews and the writings of John show that the Church was already forced to face the claims of the law and the invasion of the “progressive” faith, deviating from the true teaching of Christ.
It is impossible to establish an exact chronology of the books of the New Testament. None of them are dated. And only a few of them contain unmistakable dates.
What is the difference between the New Testament and the Gospel
The actual difference between the Gospel and the New Testament is that the first scripture is a structural unit of the other and is included in its composition. Simply put, the New Testament is always a “collection” of the four Gospels combined with the above-mentioned sacred texts (“Acts of the Apostles”, etc.). In total, the New Testament includes 27 books.
Reference. The first three writings of the New Testament very often repeat each other and describe the same or similar events. If we compare the Gospel of John with them, it will differ from them not only in content, but also in the style of narration.
Thus, the New Testament and the Gospel are different concepts and in no case should they be confused and mutually replaced in language.
Source
New Testament: origin, composition, content
The source from which Christians receive spiritual information about God, the earthly life of Jesus Christ, his disciples and the foundations of Christian teaching is the Bible (literally, from the gr. book). The Bible includes many books of the Old Testament (before the coming of Jesus Christ) and the New Testament (the life and teaching of Christ and his disciples-apostles). The Bible is a strictly canonical (canon with gr. norm, rule) book. Christians call it Holy Scripture because they believe that, although it was written by specific authors, it was inspired by God himself (through divine revelation). Texts similar in content that are not included in the Bible are considered apocryphal (from the gr. secret, forged).
The Old Testament is considered sacred by both Christianity and Judaism. For Christians, it contains 50 books written in the original Hebrew. Later they were translated into Greek, then from Greek into Latin, Old Slavic and modern national languages. Christians include in the Old Testament and consider many more books sacred than Jews (for example, some books of the prophets). There are also differences between Catholics, Orthodox Christians and Protestants regarding the Old Testament. The Bibles published by each of these Christian movements differ somewhat in composition and text. The Bible of Catholics and Orthodox Christians includes 11 non-canonical, and according to the Catholic Church, canonical “second order” Old Testament books (Tobit, Judith, Maccabees, etc.). Protestants classify them as apocryphal. The fact is that the Hebrew original of these books has not survived.
The New Testament is primarily the four Gospels written by the disciples of Jesus Christ. The first three - from Matthew, Mark and Luke - are very similar in content, the fourth - from John - differs both in plotline and style: obviously, it was written later (from memories, and not from direct impressions, according to researchers). There are many known non-canonical (apocryphal) Gospels that are not included in the Bible. During excavations and searches by scientists in Egypt and on the shores of the Dead Sea, entire libraries of such apocrypha were found. Some of them do not contradict canonical texts and are not prohibited by Christian churches. In addition to the four Gospels, the New Testament contains 23 more books. These are descriptions of the acts of the apostles and their doctrinal messages, as well as the most mysterious and terrible book - “The Revelation of John the Theologian” or “Apocalypse”.
Composition of the New Testament. The New Testament, as we already know, is the actual Christian part of the Bible. The New Testament includes 27 works, which, according to church tradition, were written by the apostles - disciples of Jesus. All these books can be divided into four parts I. The four Gospels, called by the names of the authors - the Gospel of Matthew, the Gospel of Mark, the Gospel of Luke, the Gospel of John. II. The book of the Acts of the Apostles, traditionally believed to have been created by the Apostle Luke, whose pen is the third Gospel III. Twenty-one epistles of the apostles. Including fourteen epistles of the Apostle Paul, three of John, two of Peter, and one each written by the apostles James and Jude. IV. Apocalypse, or Revelation of John the Theologian.
Canon and Apocrypha. The works included in the New Testament are only part of the vast early Christian literature. Christian writers of the 2nd - 3rd centuries. Along with the New Testament books, many other works of similar genres are mentioned and quoted. At that time, there were other Gospels (most of them were also called by the names of the apostles to whom they were attributed - “from Andrew”, “from Peter”, “from Thomas”, etc.) and other Acts (Acts of the Apostle Peter, The Acts of the Apostle Paul), and other epistles (for example, Paul's epistle to the Laodiceans), and other apocalypses (the apocalypses of Peter and Paul), as well as works written in other genres not found in the New Testament. Some of these works have reached us in their entirety, others only in fragments and quotations, and about others we only know that they existed.
Later, some of this literature was included in the New Testament, and some was rejected. Now it is no longer possible to establish exactly who, when, under what circumstances and according to what criteria made this section. Apparently, the New Testament canon was formed gradually over a long period of time. In the selection of works for him, the tradition of venerating individual books probably played a large role - some of them were revered by only a few communities, while others, on the contrary, were widely distributed. Their content, apparently, was even more important, since often it contradicted the emerging church dogma. But rejecting certain works for such reasons, Christian theologians had to simultaneously declare them fraudulent - after all, the authorship of most of them was attributed to the disciples of Jesus Christ, and it was no longer possible to openly oppose the apostolic words at that time.
At the end of the 2nd - 3rd centuries. In different regions of the Roman Empire, lists of works appeared, recognized by local Christian communities, which mentioned most of the New Testament, as well as a number of works that were subsequently not included in it. The adoption of a single canon occurred soon after the recognition of Christianity as the state religion - the emperors needed a single church, and the existence of several significantly different lists of holy books posed the threat of schism. According to the decision of the Council of Laodicea in 363, 26 books were included in the New Testament, to which the Apocalypse of John was added somewhat later. This composition was finally approved at the Council of Carthage in 419. However, disputes continued for a very long time regarding the Apocalypse, the authenticity of which even the Ecumenical Council in Constantinople in 680 was forced to confirm.
The works included in the New Testament were recognized by the church as canonical and inspired, and those rejected were called apocryphal (from the Greek “forged”). The Church treated the apocrypha differently, dividing them into “rejected” (i.e. prohibited) and permitted for reading (but not for worship). The first group included works containing points that differ significantly from the canonical books. They were considered heretical and subject to destruction. The second consisted of books that had no dogmatic differences with church teaching, but due to their late origin could not be recognized as canonical.
They, as a rule, complement the gospel tradition, telling, in particular, about the life of the mother of Jesus.
The Gospels are the most revered part of the New Testament by Christians. The word “Gospel” itself, translated from Greek, means “good news.” The Gospels are, so to speak, earthly biographies of Jesus Christ and their content has already been briefly recounted at the beginning of the previous paragraph, since everything that is known about earthly life the founder of Christianity is known precisely from the Gospels. Naturally, other books of the New Testament speak more than once about Jesus Christ and his teaching, but they do not provide any information about his stay on earth. The four canonical Gospels, unlike a number of other books of the Old Testament, are not continuations of each other. Each of them is an independent work, which fully describes the earthly life of Jesus Christ from His birth to His Ascension to Heaven. Therefore, their content is generally the same. In the different Gospels there are many individual phrases and even small passages that are repeated almost literally.
However, the contradictions between them
The weather forecasters and John. The first three Gospels are quite similar to each other and therefore received the name synoptic in literature (from the Greek “foreseeable”). The Fourth Gospel differs sharply from them: both in the description of the earthly life of Jesus Christ, and in the presentation of His religious ideas that He preached, and in the interpretation of his image. Thus, if in the first three books the action takes place mainly in Galilee and only at the very end is transferred to Jerusalem, then in John the main place of Jesus’ preaching activity turns out to be Judea and Jerusalem, and only relatively few of its episodes are connected with Galilee. The timing of this activity also varies. According to weather forecasters, all events associated with it take place throughout the year - for them, Jesus comes to Jerusalem for Easter only once, they do not mention others. From what John reports, we can conclude that Jesus served for two or even three years, for at least three Passovers are mentioned in the fourth Gospel (and possibly four). There are many episodes described by weather forecasters that are missing from the fourth Gospel and vice versa. For example, John talks about eight miracles performed by Christ, two of which - walking on water and feeding five thousand people with several loaves - are known to weather forecasters, and the remaining six are John's personal contribution. Researchers have calculated that the original material makes up nine-tenths of the entire text of the fourth Gospel. But the point is not even the uniqueness of the information reported by John. He builds a storyline completely differently than weather forecasters. Therefore, even general episodes occupy a completely different place in John’s narrative than in the first three Gospels. For example, the episode in which Jesus expels the money changers and merchants from the temple is located closer to the final part of the narrative in all weather forecasters, but in John it is placed at the very beginning of the Gospel.
But the most significant difference between the Synoptic Gospels and the Gospel of John lies in the interpretation of the image of Jesus Christ. All four evangelists portray Jesus Christ as the God-man (as a man and the Son of God at the same time). But Matthew, Mark and Luke, to a greater extent than John, give him human features, while John, on the contrary, emphasizes His divine nature. He gives neither the genealogy of Jesus nor the story of His birth, probably so as not to draw attention to his humanity. John, as already noted, says nothing about the baptism of Jesus. He doesn’t even have a scene of temptation. Jesus in the desert described by all three weather forecasters. We must assume that, according to John, Jesus Christ, as a being of divine origin, did not need baptism, and being not subject to the Fall, devoid of human passions and weaknesses, could not be tempted by Satan.
John also discards the mention of Jesus' mental turmoil in the Garden of Gethsemane on the eve of his trial and execution. In the Synoptic Gospels, Jesus behaves at this moment exactly like a man, he “began to be horrified and sad,” and prayed to God to spare him. John has no such details. In him, Jesus behaves completely calmly. There are also many other differences between the three Synoptic Gospels and the Gospel of John.
Categories: Lectures |
Date of publication: 07/27/2010 Do you need a coursework or dissertation?
