The Epistles are not detailed histories of events covering many years—as are the Gospels and the book of Acts—and were generally composed by one person over a short period of time. Mary, the Mother of Jesus, and Mary Magdalene: After the twelve apostles, perhaps the most important eyewitness was Mary, the mother of Jesus—contributing the account of her visit with Elizabeth; Elizabeth’s salutation to Mary; Mary’s hymn to God; the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem; the shepherds’ visit as Jesus lay in the manger; and the words of Simeon and Anna when Mary and Joseph presented Jesus at the Temple after Mary’s purification (Luke 1:39–2:35). Since Jesus is “the way, the truth and the life,” He was and is a true Witness of God. His Epistle shows that many believers were following ungodly men who had stealthily crept in and had established themselves in positions of authority—and were perverting the grace of God by granting license to sin. Matthew; James, the son of Alpheus, and Simon the Zealot; and Jude, the brother of James [the eleven apostles]. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. In both, the language is simple and direct, revealing the spiritual love and power of God the Father and Jesus Christ. It wasn't Jesus or anybody who knew Jesus. 86-87). Through preaching, miracles, and wonders, the authority of the apostles was fully established. Interviews with biblical scholars with varying views as well as examinations of historical artifacts uncovers what is currently known about the history behind the New Testament. It was universally received as an acknowledged part of the Christian Scriptures” (Hiebert, An Introduction to the New Testament, vol. Without question, the apostles realized the magnitude of their work. He begins his Second Epistle as he began his first, by identifying himself: “Simon Peter, a servant and an apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who have obtained the same precious faith as ours by the righteousness of our God and Savior, Jesus Christ” (II Pet. 17:1-9). Beginning in 44 AD, Mark worked with Paul and Barnabas before returning to Jerusalem. 12th-13th century depiction of evangelists Luke and Matthew writing the Gospels. Every author of the New Testament was Jewish except for Luke. And he was with them, coming in and going out in Jerusalem, and speaking boldly in the name of the Lord Jesus. The Church was greatly affected by these events. Growing up in Tarsus, he must have been educated in the Roman schools and by the local rabbis as well. Therefore, we can have full confidence and assurance that those who wrote the New Testament wrote the truth and nothing less. Re: Who REALLY Wrote The "New Testament" And Why? 3, pp. Wiley-Blackwell. The language of some New Testament books has been influenced by the fact that the mother tongue of Jesus and his first disciples was not Greek but Aramaic. ... Luke is credited with writing not only his gospel but the New Testament Book of Acts as well. The Old Testament, or Hebrew Bible, narrates the history of the people of Israel over about a millennium, beginning with God’s creation of the world and humankind, and contains the stories, laws and moral lessons that form the basis of religious life for both Jews and Christians. Even after nearly 2,000 years of its existence, and centuries of investigation by biblical scholars, we still don’t know with certainty who wrote its various texts, when they were written or under what circumstances. Yet nearly from the beginning, readers of the Bible observed that there were things in the so-called Five Books of Moses that Moses himself could not possibly have witnessed: His own death, for example, occurs near the end of Deuteronomy. Since the name of the author cannot with unquestioned certainty be deduced from the contents of his work, the uniform traditional ascription of it to Luke must represent information known from the first century” (Hiebert, An Introduction to the New Testament, vol. Note Peter’s powerful answer, for example, in Acts 4:5-12 when he and John were brought before the Sanhedrin for healing a man. Because believers have a personal, family relationship with the Father and Christ, God inspired that His love and instructions for them be conveyed in the form of epistles written by the apostles. “But these titles are later additions to the Gospels, provided by editors and scribes to inform readers who the editors thought were the authorities behind the different versions.”. This was none other than the apostle Jesus loved, the one who wrote the Gospel of John and three Epistles. But Paul was not the person who actually took a writing instrument to a sheet of papyrus and wrote the epistle from beginning to end. Beginning around 70 A.D., about four decades after Jesus’s crucifixion (according to the Bible), four anonymously written chronicles of his life emerged that would become central documents in the Christian faith. Aside from the crucifixion, death and resurrection of Christ, the Lord’s call and conversion of Saul—who became Paul, the apostle to the Gentiles—is perhaps the greatest act of grace recounted in the New Testament. In the third chapter of Acts, Peter referred to Jesus as “the Author of life Whom God has raised from the dead, whereof we are witnesses” (Acts 3:15). Jesus was the ultimate Witness, giving His life for the truth of God. 5:1-2). This is especially evident when we closely examine the Sermon on the Mount, found in Matthew 5-7. As a Levite, Matthew would have had knowledge of the Old Testament Scriptures. Location and Audience: Luke-Acts comprises about 60% of the New Testamentâs content. He is portrayed as a physician, a friend of Paulâs and even a painter, and is described as a gentile writing for a gentile audience. Copyright © 2020 A Faithful Version. The Greek word for a witness is marturos, which “signifies one that gives testimony to the truth at the expense of his life” (Cruden’s Complete Concordance, 1986, p. 754). For years, the book "The True Authorship of the New Testament" has been out and many persons have been discovering this as well. Because human testimony is sometimes fallible, God commanded that disputes and critical issues be settled on the word of two or three witnesses (see Deut. Two were brothers of Jesus Christ—James and Jude. Afterwards, James believed, as did his other half-brothers, because all of Jesus’ brothers, along with His mother Mary, were in the assembly of the original 120 disciples mentioned in Acts 1:14. Indeed, the New Testament is the only book in the world that intimately reveals God’s love for His begotten children and Jesus Christ’s love for His brethren. With the inauguration of the age of grace, the apostles wrote letters to the brethren in a spirit of loving intimacy…” (Hiebert, An Introduction to the New Testament, vol. Hiebert writes, “The book of Revelation is the true capstone of the Bible. Popular “scholarly” theories hold that the accounts of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John were written by third- or fourth-generation storytellers and are pure folklore and myth. What Other Proof Exists? Rembrandt van Rijn, painting of Moses Breaking the Tablets of the Law, 1659. As the Head of the Church, Jesus Christ did not leave the task of writing the most important book in the world to unknown storytellers living decades, or centuries after the apostles had died. The New Testament was not written all at once. 15:7). Soon after His resurrection, Jesus appeared to the disciples in Jerusalem where He “opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, and said to them, ‘According as it is written, it was necessary for the Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day. Four are called “Pastoral Epistles” because they were written to ministers who had worked with Paul: I and II Timothy, Titus and Philemon. New York: Oxford. Dr. Ernest L. Martin, a noted biblical scholar, commented on the meaning of the prophecy of Isaiah 8:16: “Christ did not mean that He would personally add to the Law and the Prophets by composing books of His own. After the Gospels and Acts, most of the rest of the New Testament was inspired to be written in the unique form of personal letters, or epistles. When we examine the writings of the apostle John, it is evident that he was moved to write more about the love of God than were any of the other apostles. Yet, in spite of this, when Jesus began His ministry, they did not become His disciples. The Gospel of Matthew: We know from the Gospel accounts that Matthew was with Jesus Christ during His entire ministry. And in His name, repentance and remission of sins should be preached to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. There are fourteen letters (Epistles) attributed to Paul. They are the ones who “keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ” and again, they are those who “keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus” (Rev. Mark lived in Jerusalem with his mother, Mary, who was also a disciple of Jesus (Acts 12:12). While strongly condemning false teachers, Peter exhorts believers to be diligent and to develop godly Christian character through faith and the understanding that they are perfected through the love of God (1:5-11). Over centuries, billions of people have read the Bible. To the one who thirsts, I will give freely of the fountain of the water of life’ ” (21:6). The letters to Timothy and Titus differ from the writing style ⦠This is an easy question to ask, but difficult to answer with authority. In spite of all this evidence for Pauline authorship, few New Testament scholars today believe Paul wrote it. “You have received the Spirit of sonship, whereby we call out, ‘Abba [Daddy], Father.’ The Spirit itself bears witness conjointly with our own spirit, testifying that we are the children of God” (Rom. The first four books of the New Testament are called âgospelsâ because they contain the âgood newsâ about Jesusâs life, death and resurrection. Do they contradict other New Testament passages, Religion and Spirituality, 35 replies It is fitting that what Genesis began, Revelation finishes. READ MORE: Why Bibles Given to Slaves Omitted Most of the Old Testament. Obviously, his Epistle was sent to believers—Jewish and Israelite—living in the various countries named in Acts 2:9-11. Therefore, there is no doubt that Matthew wrote the Gospel that bears his name. By and large, we do not know who wrote the New Testament, but we do know that the books that now form the New Testament were all written by the middle of the second century. The greatest challenge was faced by the prophets, who were often martyred for their corrective messages. 10:23). And being dubbed a “Jewish” sect meant certain persecution from the Roman authorities. 14-16). Years later—as God was opening up salvation to the Gentiles—Peter described Jesus’ ministry and works, saying, “And we are witnesses of all the things that He did, both in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem. Thus the evidence shows that this epistle, undoubtedly one of the latest of the New Testament books to be written, took an immediate and permanent position as an authoritative writing of inspiration” (Hiebert, An Introduction to the New Testament, vol. There is virtually no evidence to suggest that the New Testament Gospels ever circulated anonymously. In fact, it must have been common knowledge from the very beginning. More than half of its contents are also contained in 1 John. [It] is certain that Theophilus, the original recipient of the [G]ospel, knew the writer’s identity. All Rights Reserved. [Such a] connection naturally accounts for the ‘eyewitness vividness’ of many of Mark’s episodes….The inclusion of Aramaic expressions attributed to Jesus (5:41; 7:11, 34; 14:36), not found in the other gospels, may well be due to the fact that Mark recalled ‘vividly the tone of the Apostle in relating the Master’s solemn words.’… Peter’s traditional connection with the [G]ospel is supported by the fact that it conforms to the outline of the story as given by Peter in Acts 10:34-43. Four years later, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, Barnabas and Paul were ordained as apostles—and soon afterwards were sent on their first evangelistic tour (Acts 13:1-4). The stories using the name Elohim are classified as “E,” while the others are called “J” (for Jawhe, the German translation of Yahweh). Seeing Jesus in His glorified form was an awesome spiritual experience for John, the disciple whom Jesus especially loved. The Epistle of James: The New Testament gives some basic facts about James. St. Irenaeus and Origin (d. 253) again support this authorship. The book of Revelation, also known as the Apocalypse, is the most intriguing, mysterious and enigmatic book in the Bible. Thus, Jesus confirmed the authority He would give to Peter, James and John (as well as to the other apostles) which would later be manifested in powerful, unheard of miracles—such as those recorded in Acts 3:1-11. 111:10). One, Paul, was specially called to be the apostle to the Gentiles, and for three years Jesus Christ personally taught him in visions. The next answers to the question of who wrote the Bible come from the books of Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings, generally believed to have been written during the Babylonian captivity in the middle of the sixth century B.C. From the introduction to his Gospel, we can conclude that Luke meant that the apostles were compiling and writing down the teachings of Jesus, which later became the Gospels (Luke 1:1-2). Contrary to such theories and opinions, compilation of the Gospels actually began quite early—within one year after Jesus’ death and resurrection—not decades later. Some manuscripts indicate who wrote them (Paul, for instance), and for those that don't, church history supports the "standard" authorship of books such as Matthew and Mark. Yet, in all the commentaries that have been written about the New Testament, one obvious fact has been emphasized: God used only eight men to write the entire New Testament. Traditionally, 13 of the 27 books of the New Testament were attributed to Paul the Apostle, who famously converted to Christianity after meeting ⦠“You read along and you say, I don’t know how many animals Noah took on the ark with him,” he says. 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