The New Testament is a collection of writings in which different people set forth their convictions concerning the meaning and significance of the earthly life of Jesus of Nazareth. No one of these writings appeared until some years after Jesus’ physical death. He left no written records concerning himself, and any information about him must be gleaned from what other people have written. By the end of the first century of the Christian era or thereabouts, several biographies of Jesus had been written, four of which are now part of the New Testament. Before any of these biographies were written, Christian communities—what was later known as churches—had been established, and letters instructing the members about the Christian way of life and telling them how to deal with local problems were sent to them. Some of these letters were written by a man named Paul, who, although raised in the strict traditions of the Jewish religion, had converted to Christianity, and who spent the remainder of his life as a missionary, founding new churches and nurturing members in their newly acquired faith. After Paul’s death, other leaders of the movement continued to write letters to churches; in this way, they hoped to strengthen the organization and prepare its followers for any emergencies.
As the number of Christians increased and their influence was felt in various parts of the then-known world, opposition to the movement arose from different quarters. Jews deeply resented the fact that many of their own people were forsaking Judaism and becoming Christians, but the most severe opposition came from the Roman government, which tried in various ways to suppress, if not to annihilate, the whole Christian movement on the grounds that it constituted a danger and a threat to the security of the empire.
When persecution of the Christians became extreme, messages were sent to them by church leaders. These messages, usually in the form of letters or public addresses, encouraged the sufferers and advised them concerning the ways in which they should respond to the demands that were being made upon them. Some of these messages are now part of the New Testament. Other letters, several of which have been preserved, were written to counteract false doctrines that arose within the churches. However, these writings were not intended by their respective authors to be regarded as sacred literature comparable to that of the prophets of the Old Testament. Eventually, Christians did come to think of these writings in this way, but the transition from a collection of writings originally designed to meet certain local problems to the status of sacred Scriptures either replacing or else being added to the Old Testament required a comparatively long period of time.
The twenty-seven writings in the New Testament of today were selected from a larger list of writings, and not until the fourth century of our era was any general agreement reached among the Christian churches as to the exact number and selection of writings that should be included. The Gospels and Paul’s letters generally were accepted prior to that time, but other writings’ inclusion was a matter of serious controversy.
In view of these facts, an adequate understanding of the books in the New Testament cannot be had without some knowledge of the historical background from which they were written, but just how this knowledge can be obtained presents something of a problem. Our chief source of information is the New Testament itself, but there are some references to Jesus and the Christian movement in Roman history and in Jewish literature pertaining to the period in which he lived. However, these non-Christian sources are very meager, and we have good reasons for believing that they are somewhat biased. Christian sources are no doubt biased too, but in the case of both Christian and non-Christian sources, we know the direction in which each of them is biased, and we can make proper allowances. Because only in the Christian sources do we have any detailed account of the life and teachings of Jesus and the general character of the early Christian movement, we need to center our attention on them.
The New Testament biographies of Jesus, usually referred to as the Gospels, contain the most extensive records of what Jesus did and of what he taught. But it is also in connection with these same biographies that readers of the New Testament encounter difficult problems. How are these records to be evaluated? To what extent do they reveal what actually happened, and to what extent do they merely indicate what the author believed to have happened? Answering these questions by asserting that these are all inspired writings and are therefore infallible in every respect will not do. Divine inspiration is always and necessarily a two-fold process involving both a giving and a receiving. The giving may well be regarded as the divine part, but the receiving or the understanding of whatever it is that has been revealed is the human part, and that which is human is never infallible. Anyone who is at all sympathetic with the meaning and message of the New Testament will not be hesitant about regarding it as a divinely inspired book, but the intellectually honest person will also recognize that a human element is involved in the receiving and the interpreting of that revelation. And the human element must be understood first, for it is the medium through which the divine element is communicated.
