General Introduction to the New Testament

During the second century A.D. there were many writings in circulation that bore the name of Gospel, Acts, or Letter and claimed to be from the pen of an apostle, but only a few of these gained a place in the liturgy, catechesis, and preaching. Toward the end of that same century, it became customary to give the name “New Testament” to the collection of writings that had acquired authority everywhere in the Church as an important point of reference for the faith and that carried the guarantee of apostolic origin.

The first Christians did not immediately get the idea of connecting their writings with the Bible, Israel’s book of revelation, which Christians were using in their liturgy and teaching. Gradually, however, the new writings acquired equal importance. To distinguish them from the Law and the Prophets or, in other words, the Bible, Christians spoke of a “New Testament,” so that the other became in fact the “Old Testament.”

The word “testament,” in this context, is a translation of the Greek word used to convey the idea of a pact, that is, in this case, the Covenant that God had made with the people he had chosen. To speak of a “new covenant” was a bold step. It meant that the Covenant of Sinai, which was the foundation of the Jewish faith, had been completed and transcended by the coming of Christ. In the “passing over” of Jesus, God had established a new and definitive relationship with all human beings.

Henceforth, the Christian Bible had two parts: the Old and New Testaments. The Old was not rejected, but was interpreted as a prediction of the New and a way toward it. In reading the ancient texts, people now thought of the coming of Christ, which, for Christians, was the historical fulfillment of the hope of Israel.

The twenty-seven Books of the New Testament constitute the literature that is closest to Christian origins. Close in date, to be sure, but close, above all, by reason of the experience and faith to which they bear witness.

The Face of the New Testament

A Collection of Varied Writings

The New Testament writings are, then, close to Christ both in their date and in the experience they communicate. At the same time, however, even the writings that speak directly of him—the Gospels and Acts—are not in any sense a direct “news report”; they are testimonies and not reports. It is true that in one way or another all the New Testament writings communicate the essentials of a great event, but above all they are concerned with the meaning of that event. The Christ-event continues in the life of the community, and these writings are an expression of this continuity.

Texts Written at Various Periods

It must also be emphasized that the New Testament writings are not all from the same period. The earliest texts date from about twenty years after the death of Jesus. The earliest text is not one of the Gospels but the First Letter of Paul to the Christians of Thessalonica.

If we go through the Letters of the Apostle in their chronological order, we can discover evidence of a development of his thinking and see the series of problems that the communities of that particular period encountered.

The definitive form of the Synoptic Gospels points to a different period of writing, from about A.D. 65 to 80, the time when the need was felt to have available works covering the entire message and life of Christ.

The Church, which was widely scattered throughout the known world of the time, was gradually being separated from the period of her foundation, and no one wanted to lose the inspiration that came from it. The Church needed some essential points of reference, so that the person, message, and mystery of Christ would not be diluted or lost due to time, the movement away from the original geographical center, new currents of thought, and the problems raised by a different age. The idea was not that the Church should be fixated on the past but that she should preserve the memory of the living, concrete face of Jesus and the fervor of Pentecost.

We are, then, in the presence of a new generation of believers. The mother Church disappeared after the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70.

The communities strengthened their bonds of union within the same region, since they had to face the same problems there. Given the ferment of new currents of religious thought, there was the need to know the essentials of the faith and catechesis, the true tradition. Christians were set apart, were regarded as suspect, and therefore needed to be encouraged. Some were overcome by nostalgia and mourned for the Jewish religion with its prestigious past, its highly developed body of law, its grandiose ceremonies, and its temple. Others looked with interest on new pagan religious trends.

Amid this jumble of cultures and religions it was necessary to determine the criteria of Christian authenticity and to organize the communities. The Catholic Letters, the Letter to the Hebrews, and the Pastoral Letters attributed to Paul, as well as the collection of works that go under the name of St. John, reflected comparable situations that had developed especially in Asia Minor.

When, subsequently, open persecution broke out and aimed to destroy Christianity in a systematic way, the Book of Revelation by its tone and its words encouraged Christians.

Jesus of Nazareth

The Life of Jesus

This man, who was ignored by the age in which he lived, is unquestionably the most important figure in the history of humanity, due to the effect his name and his ideas have had down the centuries. Yet he is mentioned only on a couple of occasions, and then in vague terms, by historians of his time, specifically Tacitus and Suetonius at the beginning of the 2nd century.

He was sentenced and condemned to death by the Roman governor, Pontius Pilate, but the records of this trial have not been preserved. Nevertheless, of all the religious movements of that age, that of Jesus is the only one that has not disappeared.

The life of Jesus can be dated with some accuracy. We need only refer to the passages in which the Gospels mention personages and events that can be identified from other sources. Thus, we know that the first year of the Christian era was not accurately calculated: Jesus was born in the year 7 or 6 before the beginning of that era. He died on a Friday, the eve of Passover, between A.D. 28 and 33, perhaps on April 7, 30.

The Stages of Jesus’ Preaching

The Galilean period began in a very promising way. There was a springtime atmosphere about it, a kind of explosion of joy at the proclamation that salvation had come. But the proclamation was not unambiguous. Jesus Christ spoke of the Kingdom of God; that is, in order to make himself understood, he used a word that was heavy with the hopes and expectations of the Jewish people. Consequently, the titles that others gave him—Son of David, Messiah, Son of God, or the title he gave himself: Son of Man—all had overtones of grandeur, but they also carried with them all too human hopes.

In fact, he was to carry out his vocation as Savior, the one who takes responsibility for the religious destiny of the world, in the form of the Suffering Servant, the unexpected figure described long before in the Book of Isaiah (42; 49; 50; 52:13—53:12). People refused to hear this, and understandably so. They were looking forward to a radical upheaval of the political situation, a glorious rehabilitation of Israel, and revenge on the pagan nations, for it was these that the Scriptures seemed to suggest.

Jesus, however, did not speak of this brutal turnaround, but of a new beginning, a change, a conversion, a new life. The lack of understanding between him and the crowd continued to grow. It reached its high point after the multiplication of the loaves, when he had to flee because some wanted to seize him and make him king.

When the misunderstanding reached the point of no return, Jesus changed his way of acting. He knew he would experience nothing but rejection, and he therefore devoted himself to the training of his disciples, the formation of the core group of individuals who would proclaim the kingdom once he was no longer there. He met with misunderstanding even among these men, but, more importantly, he won their unshakable affection. Through the experiences they shared with him, they learned his way of thinking and responding, and they would be able to pass this on later. The Kingdom of God was entrusted to a community, the Church.

The point came when the prospect of death became imminent; it was written in the foreseeable course of events. But Jesus did not change his program, even though he had to struggle with the instinctive horror of atrocious torment. Henceforth he clashed openly with entrenched positions, whether political or religious or social. The Gospel has preserved for us the tragic encounter of Jesus with the leaders of Judaism. He had to learn from experience that he would change the wills of human beings only by willingly making the supreme gift of his life.

The Youthful Years of the Church

After the unforgettable experience of Pentecost, the group of disciples grew rapidly, as the disciples realized they were the agent of God’s plan for the whole human race. The Spirit and events had given them this formidable mission. In the very beginning, indeed, the Church seemed desirous of falling back into the way of life and thinking of Judaism, but her destiny was to be one of continual and often difficult expansion, out to the ends of the then known world.

Believers of Palestinian origin were joined by others from the Diaspora: the Hellenists or Greek-speaking Jews. This was the first occasion for somewhat serious internal tensions and for the first efforts at organization; above all, however, it was the seed of development in new cultural areas. Various personages came to the fore in those early days: the Apostles Peter and John; the deacons Stephen and Philip, the former as the first martyr, the latter as one who overcame all difficulties in order to proclaim the Gospel. The first persecution, in 44—which claimed the Apostle James as a victim and would have claimed Peter, were it not for a miraculous deliverance—led to the dispersal of the community. From that point on, we know almost nothing about the majority of the Apostles.

Outside of Palestine, on the other hand, a dynamic enterprise, initially hidden, was brought fully into the open. Such men as Barnabas, John, Mark, and soon Paul, the converted persecutor who was aided by Timothy, began to establish one missionary center after another on the shores of the Mediterranean, moving finally into Europe; the Book of Acts creates for us a map of this expansion. Yet these men were certainly not the only missionaries.

We can only hint at the immense effort that the communities needed to set forth in order to give form to their experience and to express it. The Palestinian Jewish world was enmeshed in internal tensions, while the Christians affirmed that Jesus was the Christ, that is, the Messiah. They venerated him as the Son of God and celebrated him in the Liturgy, declaring his presence among them.

To affirm that Jesus was alive it was necessary to reinterpret his life and his work, the whole Old Testament and all the ideas of humanity concerning the meaning of life. These affirmations were not made in specialized schools but amid the demands of life, with its problems and its unforeseen questions, while seeking greater depth of understanding, which at times entailed tentative gropings.

The organization of the inner equilibrium of communities was also necessary. Jews and non-Jews, Greeks and barbarians, those privileged by culture or fortune and poor people, slaves and freemen had to acknowledge one another and express themselves as believers equally and entirely.

In a few years an unequaled transformation was worked in the name of a certitude: Jesus and his Spirit, and the salvation of all humanity. In a world turned upside down, a new seed was introduced. The little group had become a great community of believers, the Church; the first announcement had given rise to a magnificent Gospel. Without the Easter faith, which was at the origin of the movement and remained its core, none of this would have taken place. There would have been no Christianity, and the name of Jesus would forever be effaced from human memory.

The Gospels

The Bible’s table of contents (the “canon” of the Scriptures) gives the Gospels in the following order: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

As a matter of fact, only the Book of Mark calls itself a “Gospel”; the others were given this title during the second century.

Alongside these officially recognized writings, a number of other gospels (known as the “apocrypha,” that is, “secret” writings) circulated, but they were never accepted by the Church as inspired.

The Differences

The differences among the four Gospels are such that it is very difficult to combine their varied and often contrasting bits of information into a complete and solidly based biography of Jesus.

All four Gospels are very similar in their accounts of the Passion. But apart from that particular sequence, the difference between John and the other three is radical. When we read John, we are told that during his public life Jesus went up to Jerusalem three or four times for Passover and other feasts (Jn 2:13; 5:1; 7:10; 12:12); the other three Gospels report only one journey to the holy city, the one that ended in his arrest and death. According to the fourth Gospel, Jesus carried on a baptismal ministry at the same time as that of John the Baptist; the three Synoptic Gospels locate John’s entire activity prior to that of Jesus (see Mt 4:12; Mk 1:14; Lk 3:1—4:15; and Jn 3:24).

Most importantly, the material in the majority of John’s chapters is unknown to Matthew, Mark, and Luke, who nonetheless abound in sayings and stories; this cannot be explained as forgetfulness on either side. Finally, John’s style has nothing in common with that of the other three. In the Synoptics, Jesus speaks in short, carefully wrought sentences that were easy to remember and to pass on orally; the Gospel of John, on the other hand, always starts with a solemn gesture of Jesus and follows with lengthy discourses that are marked by a careful and complex progression.

The Synoptic Problem

In contrast to John, the first three Gospels have much in common. They report the Christ-event according to the same pattern. In addition, the texts are similar, and each frequently follows the other two even in the details of images and sayings. This similarity makes it possible to read these three Gospels together, in parallel columns; we can read them “synoptically,” that is, “seeing them together or at the same time” (Greek: synopsis), whence the name “Synoptic Gospels” or “Synoptics.” In fact, of the 661 verses in Mark, 600 are found in Matthew and 350 in Luke.

At the same time, however, there are major differences. Matthew and Luke have many passages in common that are completely unknown to Mark. In addition, each Gospel has a sizable group of texts that are found only in it.

How are we to explain these surprising similarities and differences? This is the “Synoptic problem.” The similarities are to be explained mainly by the development in the communities of a well-structured oral tradition and by the formation of written collections organized according to genres or forms (parables, miracle stories, controversies, and so on). The kind of research known as the “study of forms” or literary genres endeavors to understand passages that had taken shape in the development of preaching.

But we have to go farther, because among the three Gospels there exist not only affinities due to tradition but also obvious editorial connections, so that it is also necessary to look into what is known as “redaction history.” Different explanations of this history have been proposed, but scholars are generally in agreement on a hypothesis that includes the following points:

—The Synoptics use as their first source either the present Gospel of Mark (in the case of Matthew and Luke) or this same text but in an earlier editorial stage (all three evangelists).

—Matthew and Luke also use another source that had preserved chiefly the sayings of Jesus. This source could have been a single document or a family of similar documents.

—It can be presumed that prior to the composition of the Gospels there were contacts between the different sources at the various stages of their formation.

—Each Gospel also draws on sources of its own.

—Finally, each Gospel has its own point of view, its own way of proceeding, and its own visions of things, and all these are explained by the purpose the author set for himself, the setting in which he was living, and the readership he was addressing. We shall speak of these in the introduction to each Gospel.

The Purpose of the Gospels

These differences make clear the freedom that the communities and the authors had in adapting the Gospel story to the mentalities and problems of the communities. The purpose of the authors was not to present a detailed, structured story but rather a vision of what Jesus was and of what he presently is for the Church. A document that lacks all biographical detail is not a Gospel; on the other hand, a Gospel is always a theological discourse, a faith-inspired presentation, and not a simple historical description. The starting point of the Gospels is the Easter faith.

Consequently, before being a historical document and while having all the value of a historical document, a Gospel is an event. The Gospels preserve for us many biographical details about Jesus, but they are not primarily biographies, lives of Jesus. Their purpose is to bear witness to the Gospel, that is, the Good News of God’s coming into the midst of humanity. In Jesus and by means of Jesus, God speaks the final word about himself and about the destiny of humanity and the world.

The Gospel According to Matthew

The Teaching of Jesus for the Life of the Communities

The form of the Our Father that we use in prayer and the formulation of the Beatitudes that we customarily follow are those that we read in the Gospel of Matthew; we also use this Gospel for most of the actions and words of Jesus. Since the very early centuries, Matthew’s Gospel has stood at the head of the New Testament writings, thus earning it the name “the first Gospel.”

Why has this Gospel enjoyed such success? It is pleasing for its literary qualities—its distinctive tone, its short, clear narratives, its well-organized text—but it is striking, above all, because the teaching of Jesus occupies such a very large place in it. Matthew’s Gospel is par excellence the book of the Church and has rightly been called the “ecclesial Gospel,” because as he reports what Jesus said, he has the life of the community constantly in mind.

What was the origin of this Gospel? The earliest tradition attributes it to the Apostle Matthew, also known as Levi, son of Alphaeus. Once this tax collector made the acquaintance of Jesus, he was struck by his personality and immediately left his trade (a profitable one, even if at that time regarded as quite a reprehensible one) to join the group of disciples (Mt 9:9; Mk 2:14). Later on, according to this tradition, he gathered up his recollections in a book. Careful research has led to less simple conclusions. In its present form our first Gospel was written in Greek and completed in A.D. 70 or perhaps a little later. Other less fully developed collections preceded it. The first texts, written in Hebrew or Aramaic (the languages of Palestine at that time), date perhaps from the forties or fifties, a period still close to the death of Jesus. The Book as we have it has drawn upon the Gospel of Mark and on another source on which Luke, too, draws. Despite these influences, Matthew reflects, better than the others, the early preaching to Christians of Jewish origin, and is perhaps the Book used for Christian preaching in Palestine. Rather than a simple biography, it is meant as God’s word regarding our life and the world.

Each Gospel has its own way of highlighting the important moments in the activity of Jesus, culminating in the story of the Passion and Resurrection. Matthew has, then, his own characteristic traits. The “Good News” is proclaimed principally in Galilee: it is a joyous event, and Jesus immediately calls some disciples. But the drama of rejection soon begins; from that moment on, the tempo quickens, as Jesus remains apart from the crowds and trains his disciples, thus preparing for the coming Church. The clash with official Judaism at last becomes open and unrelenting. This tragic development ends in the Passion. Along the line of this general movement Matthew locates some key points: the discourses that are so characteristic of his Book. Each gathers together the sayings of Jesus about a theme, because Matthew is thinking primarily of forming the community, of “catechizing” it, as we might say today.

As a result, the five great discourses of Matthew’s Gospel, separated from each other by sections of narrative, sum up the principal elements of a code of Christian life. The five are: the Sermon on the Mount, including the Beatitudes; the missionary discourse; the parables; the teaching on life in community; and perspectives on the end of the world. None of these discourses is developed like a fine lecture. Rather, the tradition Matthew follows gradually gathered sayings of Jesus on some central themes (the same sayings are often cited by the other evangelists in different contexts). In fact, as compositions, these discourses are quite unsuccessful. And yet what power flows from them to guide us in living a life worthy of the Christian name!

A Gospel is first and foremost the proclamation of Jesus as Savior of the human race. Matthew expresses this essential faith in words, ideas, and images that were accessible to the people of that time who were of Jewish origin. Therefore, he presents Jesus as the Messiah who had been promised and was long awaited, but then was rejected. And to give greater force to his arguments, he heaps up citations from the Old Testament. More than once, this “proof” from Scripture seems artificial in its details, but the author is nonetheless able to explain the fate of Jesus in the light of the Bible as a whole. Matthew’s Gospel is the Gospel of the Church. And indeed, it sets forth, for the community called together by Jesus, the main lines of a Christian life and presents the life of the disciples as a model for all those who accept the mindset of the kingdom of God.

The Gospel of Matthew may be divided as follows:

Prologue: The Birth of the Messiah, Jesus of Nazareth (1:1—2:23)

I: Jesus Inaugurates His Ministry as Savior (3:1—7:29)

II: The Signs of the Kingdom of God (8:1—10:42)

III: Jesus Is the Expected Messiah (11:1—13:52)

IV: The Authentic Faith of Those Converted (13:53—18:35)

V: The Coming of the Son of Man (19:1—25:46)

VI: The Passion and Resurrection (26:1—28:20)