The New Testament
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The core of Christianity is the sacred text of the "The New Testament". It contains 27 books that were originally written in Greek. The original texts were written in the first and perhaps the second centuries of the Christian era, generally believed to be in Koine Greek, which was the common language of the Eastern Mediterranean from the Conquests of Alexander the Great (335–323 BC) until the evolution of Byzantine Greeks (c. 600). All the works that eventually became incorporated into the New Testament seem to have been written no later than around 150 AD, and some scholars would date them all to no later than 70 ADor 80 AD. It is used in religious services, read regular, and is carried out throughout the world. It is divided into four parts.
- The Gospels: describe the life and teachings of jesus, and are attributed to four early followers- Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, who are called evangelists.
- The Acts of the Apostles: tells of the initial spread of Christianity, although the historical accuracy cannot be confirmed.
- The Epistles: letters to early Christians, primarily to Paul.
- The Revelation: the most symbolic part of the Bible that foretells in very symbolic language, the triumph of Christianity, and the end of the world.
The Gospels
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The gospels are not biographies in the modern sense of the word. Rather, they are stories told in such a way as to evoke a certain image of Jesus for a particular audience. They're trying to convey a message about Jesus, about his significance to the audience and thus we we have to think of them as a kind of preaching, as well as story telling. The four gospels that we find in the New Testament, are Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. The first three of these are usually referred to as the synoptic gospels, because they look at things in a similar way, or they are similar in the way that they tell the story. Of these then, Mark is the earliest, probably written between 70 and 75AD. Matthew is second written somewhere between 75 and about 85AD. Luke is a little later still, being written between 80-95 AD. And, John's gospel is the latest, usually dated around 95AD, although it may have been completed slightly later than that, as well.
Molloy, Michael (2013). Experiencing World Religions: Tradition, Challenge, and Change. 6th Edition..
- The Gospel of Matthew: it portrays Jesus as the "new Moses", a teacher who offers a "new Torah". In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus delivers his teachings on a mountain , just as Moses delivered the 10 commandments from Mount Sinai. The gospel also contains many quotations from Hebrew Scriptures, showing that Jesus was their fulfillment.
- The Gospel Of Mark: it is the shortest, which suggests is the oldest. This gospel contains no infancy stories and begins with the adult public life of Jesus. In the original version, it ends with an account of Jesus's empty tomb, with the later addition having his appearances after his resurrection.
- The Gospel of Luke:speaks repeatedly of the miraculous action of the Spirit of God at work in the world. It has been called the "women's gospel" because of it's many accounts of women, including; Mary, Elizabeth, Mary Magdalene, and his disciples, Joanna, and Susanna. This is seen as a gospel of mercy and compassion, with a strong focus o the underdog.
- The Gospel of John: the portrayal of Jesus is full of mystery. The text is written in cosmic tones where symbols are it's main focus. (Water, bread, the vine, shepherd, and the door- symbols that indicate aspects of Jesus and his meaning for the believer.
Molloy, Michael (2013). Experiencing World Religions: Tradition, Challenge, and Change. 6th Edition..
Seven Trumpets- End of the World
The Acts of Apostles
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Acts of the Apostles (85CE), the second part of the work that begins with the Gospel According to Luke, is the story of the early church after Jesus’s martyrdom. One of the perplexing problems surrounding the authorship of Acts is the narrator’s changing voice and person. He generally speaks as an uninvolved third party, but sometimes lapses into the plural. Acts is certainly intended as a history of the early church, and it is the most complete and valuable history we have of the Christians in the first century. However, it is not necessarily historically reliable, either in terms of its depiction of the first-century development of Christian theology and religion, or in its description of the political history of the church.
http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/newtestament/section5.rhtml
http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/newtestament/section5.rhtml
The Epistles
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The Epistles of the Bible are all found in the New Testament. They include 21 of the New Testament’s 27 books, extending from Romans to Jude. Thirteen of these Epistles were written by the apostle Paul: Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 1 and 2 Thessalonians, 1 and 2 Timothy, Titus, and Philemon. Within this group of Pauline Epistles is a subgroup labeled the Prison Epistles (Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, and Philemon) so-called because they were written during Paul’s two-year house arrest in Rome (Acts 28:30–31). The Pastoral Epistles (1 and 2 Timothy and Titus) were written to church leaders and include many teachings regarding practices within the early church.
http://www.gotquestions.org/what-is-an-epistle.html
http://www.gotquestions.org/what-is-an-epistle.html
The Christian Canon
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The Christian Biblical Canons are the books Christians regard as divinely inspired and constituting a Christian Bible. Books included in the Christian biblical canons of both the Old and New Testament were decided by the 5th centuryfor the ancient undivided Church (which includes both Roman Catholic and Eastern orthodox traditions) and was reaffirmed by the Catholic Church in the wake of the Protestant Reformation at the Council of trent (1546). The canons of the Church of England and English Calvinists were decided definitively by the Thirty- Nine Articles (1563) and the Westminster Confession of Faith (1647), respectively. The Synod of Jeruselum (1672) established additional canons that are widely accepted throughout the Orthodox Church. The Old and New Testament canons did not develop independently of each other and most primary sources for the canon specify both Old and New Testament books.
http://www.leaderu.com/orgs/probe/docs/xn-canon.html
http://www.leaderu.com/orgs/probe/docs/xn-canon.html