Making of the New Testament
Origin, Collection, Text And Canon
Making of the New Testament
Origin, Collection, Text And Canon
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Paperback / softback
£14.99
Publisher: Inter-Varsity Press
ISBN: 9781844745128
Number of Pages: 256
Published: 18/03/2011
Width: 15.5 cm
Height: 22.9 cm
The story of the making of the New Testament is one in which scrolls bumped across cobbled Roman roads and pitched through rolling Mediterranean seas, finally finding their destinations in stuffy, dimly lit Christian house churches in Corinth or Colossae. There they were read aloud and reread, handled and copied, forwarded and collected, studied and treasured. And eventually they were brought together to make up our New Testament.
This revised and expanded edition of The Making of the New Testament is a textbook introduction to the origin, collection, copying and canonizing of the New Testament documents. Like shrewd detectives reading subtle whispers of evidence, biblical scholars have studied the trail of clues and pieced together the story of these books.
Arthur Patzia tells the story, answering our many questions:
- How were books and documents produced in the first century?
- What motivated the early Christians to commit teaching and narrative and vision to papyrus?
- How were the stories and sayings of Jesus circulated, handed down and shaped into Gospels?
- What do we know about ancient letter writing, secretaries and copy shops?
- Why were four Gospels included instead of just one?
- How were Paul's letters, sent here and there, gathered into a single collection?
- Who decided - and by what criteria - which documents would be included in the New Testament?
Explore these questions and more about these Scriptures whose everyday, gritty story rings true to their extraordinary message: the palpable mystery of the Word made flesh.
Part 1: the Literary WorLd of the NeW testameNt . . 23
1.1. General Considerations
1.2. The Hebrew Scriptures
1.3. The Septuagint (lxx)
1.4. The Old Testament Apocrypha
1.5. The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha
1.6. The Dead Sea Scrolls
1.7. Greco-Roman Literature
Pa rt 2: the makiNg of the gosPeLs
2.1. Jesus of Nazareth
2.2. From Oral to Written Gospel
2 2 1 early christian Kerygma
2 2 2 Form criticism
2.3. Why the Gospels Were Written
2 3 1 to Meet the needs of the early church
2 3 2 the expansion of the church
2 3 3 the Passing Away of eyewitnesses
2 3 4 the need to educate Believers
2 3 5 new challenges for the Faith
2.4. How the Gospels Were Written 66
2 4 1 the Synoptic Problem 68
2 4 2 Source criticism 72
2 4 3 Redaction criticism 76
2 4 4 Additional criticisms 82
2.5. The Gospel Genre 83
2.6. The Fourfold Gospel Collection 88
2 6 1 the need for a collection 89
2 6 2 the Stages of collection 91
2 6 2 1 Papias 91
2 6 2 2 Justin Martyr 92
2 6 2 3 tatian 93
2 6 2 4 irenaeus 94
2 6 2 5 the Muratorian canon/Fragment 96
2 6 2 6 Final Stages 97
2 6 3 the Authority of the Written Gospels 98
Part 3: the makiNg of PauL's Letters 100
3.1. Paul 100
3.2. Paul and Greco-Roman Literature 102
3.3. The Form of Paul's Letters 106
3.4. The Content and Context of Paul's Letters 107
3.5. The Writing of Paul's Letters 111
3 5 1 Paul as Sole Author 112
3 5 2 Paul’s Use of a Secretary 113
3 5 3 Paul and His coworkers 115
3 5 4 Pseudonymity and the deutero-Pauline Hypothesis 116
3 5 5 editors and interpolators 123
3.6. Dispatching, Receiving and Reading Paul's Letters 125
3 6 1 the Letter carriers 126
3 6 2 Reading Paul's Letters to the churches 128
3 6 3 the Letter Readers 128
3.7. The Collection of Paul's Letters 129
3 7 1 From Paul to clement 129
3 7 2 theories of collection 130
3 7 2 1 the "Gradual collection" theory 130
3 7 2 2 the "Big Bang" theory 133
3 7 2 3 Paul as collector and editor 134
3 7 3 From clement to Justin 136
3 7 4 Marcion 137
3 7 5 Manuscript P46 139
3 7 6 the Muratorian canon/Fragment 140
3 7 7 Some Later church Fathers 141
3.8. Summary and Reflections 142
3.9. The Canonicity of Paul’s Letters 144
Part 4: the makiNg of other NeW testameNt Literature 147
4.1. The Acts of the Apostles 147
4.2. The Catholic Epistles 151
4 2 1 1 Peter 152
4 2 2 2 Peter 153
4 2 3 Jude 155
4 2 4 James 156
4 2 5 Hebrews 158
4 2 6 the Johannine Literature 160
4 2 6 1 the epistles of John 160
4 2 6 2 the Revelation to John (the Apocalypse) 161
4.3. Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164
Part 5: the makiNg of the NeW testameNt CaNoN 166
5.1. Review 166
5.2. The Authority of Jesus 168
5.3. Apostolicity 168
5.4. Usage in the Church 170
5.5. Orthodoxy 171
5.6. Inspiration 172
5.7. Excursus: The Arrangement of the New Testament Books 176
5.8. Postscript: Contemporary Dialogue on the Canon and Related Issues 183
5 8 1 The Da Vinci Code 185
5 8 2 contributions and controversies from Bart d ehrman 186
Part 6: the makiNg of NeW testameNt maNusCriPts: WritiNg, CoPyiNg aNd traNsmittiNg 192
6.1. Paleography 192
6.2. Materials for Writing 193
6 2 1 Papyrus 193
6 2 2 Parchment 196
6 2 3 Pens 198
6 2 4 ink 198
6 2 5 desks 199
6.3. The Form of Books 199
6 3 1 the Roll 199
6 3 2 the codex 201
6.4. Writing New Testament Manuscripts 204
6 4 1 Uncials/Majuscules 204
6 4 2 Minuscles 207
6 4 3 Abbreviations/contractions 208
6 4 4 Aids for the Readers 210
6 4 5 the Authors of the text 211
6 4 6 the copiers of the text 212
6.5. Transmitting the New Testament 215
6 5 1 Lectionaries 215
6 5 2 Versions 216
6 5 3 the Greek text 220
Part 7: makiNg seNse of textuaL VariaNts aNd the PraCtiCe of textuaL CritiCism 229
7.1. Unintentional Variations 230
7 1 1 errors of Sight 231
7 1 1 1 confusing Letters Similar in Appearance 231
7 1 1 2 Faulty division of Words Within a Sentence 231
7 1 1 3 Haplography 231
7 1 1 4 Parablepsis 232
7 1 1 5 dittography 232
7 1 1 6 Metathesis 232
7 1 2 errors of Hearing 233
7 1 3 errors of Writing 233
7 1 4 errors of Judgment 234
7.2. Intentional Variations 235
7 2 1 Revising Grammar and Spelling 235
7 2 2 Harmonizing Similar Passages 235
7 2 3 eliminating Apparent discrepancies and difficulties 236
7 2 4 conflating the text 237
7 2 5 Adapting different Liturgical traditions 237
7 2 6 Making theological or doctrinal changes 238
7.3. Evaluating the Evidence 242
7 3 1 external evidence 243
7 3 2 internal evidence 243
