What is the New Testament?

 What I prefer to start with is 27 pieces of writing that were collected into a library of books for the Christian Bible. The term Bible comes from the Greek byblos (books).

 This collection has four basic parts: the four Gospels, a history of the very early church called Acts of the Apostles, 22 epistles attributed to various apostles, and the Book of Revelation (or Apocalypse of John). 

 The Gospels and Acts are primarily historical in the sense that they tell the story (or "good spell") of Jesus and his principal followers. The letters or epistles are a series of didactic about moral and organizational issues within the apostolic church. Revelation is the apocalyptic book, concerned with predicting the end of the world as we know it.

 We have no original manuscripts, but scholars generally agree that the books were written between about the year 50 of our era to as late as 115 -- with many, many opinions in between. The earliest complete list of the 27 books is found in a letter written by Athanasius, a 4th-century bishop of Alexandria, dated 367 AD.

 Adding to the confusion are the plethora of writings of a similar era and nature by purported followers of Jesus. For example, there are 15 gospels that are not included in the traditional list of New Testament books. There is also considerable debate concerning the authorship of the Letter to the Hebrews and Revelation -- not to mention the other books. 

 This is all due to two facts. First, the historical Yeshua bar Yosif of Nazareth, along with his closest followers (and all but two of the NT authors), were very likely illiterate. Second, the oral stories told to scribes and followers went through revisions; there was no notion of "copyright," let alone formal authorship.

 In sum, it is essentially a collection of 27 books recognized, by usage and reputation, to reflect the most genuine story and rendering of the earliest Christian teachings.

"Did Paul Think the Corinthians Were Bad People?"

 A thoughtful listener of the New Testament readings in church asked precisely this question.

 After all, Paul writes to the Corinthians things such as:

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. (1 Cor 13:1-3)

 Sounds to me that Paul was speaking about the average group of churchgoers. People who are prone to think that lining up to receive a wafer (and sometimes a sip of wine} makes you holy. Most churchgoing Christians today don't speak in tongues nor do they claim prophetic powers, as they did back then, but the effect is the same: the trend is to think that the point is to show off churchiness.

 Bad people? No. But certainly hypocritical.

 This is why I don't like to start talking about the New Testament speaking of Paul, or about today's professed Christians.

 That's not the beginning of the New Testament story at all.

 Paul was not the first apostle, nor were Corinthians the first followers of the Way preached by a Nazarene woodworker who rose from the dead.

 Although Paul may have written what were chronologically the first texts that collected into what came to be known as the New Testament, the ideas presupposed a gospel story and preaching that had not yet been committed to paper.

 That's why I like to start with the gospels. To which I shall turn in my next entry.