Christianity

Christianity

Christianity On a late afternoon, in about the year AD 30, two men were walking from Jerusalem to the nearby village of Emmaus. Their conversation centered on notable events that had occurred the previous week. As they journeyed, they were joined by a stranger who seemed ignorant of these events. Surprised, they asked him: “Are you the only person staying in Jerusalem not to know what has happened there in the last few days?” So they explained to him about a certain Jesus of Nazareth, “a prophet powerful in speech and action before God and the whole people. Our chief priests and rulers handed him over [to the Roman authorities] to be sentenced to death, and [they] crucified him. But we were hoping that he was the man to liberate Israel.” Even more amazing, they went on to say, were reports from some women who visited his tomb that he was alive again, raised from the dead. Suddenly the stranger spoke: “How dull-witted you two are! And how slow to believe all that the prophets said. Was not the messiah bound to suffer thus before entering upon his glory?” Then he went on to clarify from the Hebrew scriptures all the passages that referred to himself. For the stranger was Jesus of Nazareth, of whom the two had been speaking. Based on the life, death, and coming to life again of this man Jesus—also called the Christ—there has developed the world's largest religion, Christianity. It claims more than one billion members in all parts of the world. In the late 20th century, it is divided into hundreds of groups, or denominations, the largest of which are the Roman Catholic church, the Eastern Orthodox churches, and innumerable Protestant churches. (For explanation of these divisions within Christianity see “A Short History” below.
Expectation and Reality The two men on the road to Emmaus were not disinterested bystanders. They were followers (called disciples, or learners) of Jesus who had known him for at least three years. During this period they had listened to all he said and had witnessed his amazing actions, such as healing the sick, giving sight to the blind and hearing to the deaf, and even bringing individuals back to life. They had become convinced that he was “the one who was to redeem Israel.” Israel wanted and expected redemption. This small Jewish nation, located in the eastern part of the Roman Empire, had for centuries looked forward to a time when their God would, through some decisive action, free it from outside domination and establish it as the preeminent nation in the world. One way he might do this was by sending a messiah (Christos in Greek) who would deliver them from their enemies and become their king. The word messiah means “the lord's anointed,” someone God has set aside for a specific task Christians believe that Jesus, from the small town of Nazareth in Galilee, was that messiah. They also believe that what he accomplished far exceeded the expectations of Israel. The Jews looked for a messiah exclusively for themselves, though his power would be such as to draw other nations to a belief in their God. Christians believe that Jesus, as God's agent, accomplished something that was intended to benefit the whole world directly without being tied to the fate of any single nation. His work is to be considered inclusive of everyone in all times and places.
The Man and the Message With all the differences in beliefs in the many denominations of Christianity, it is impossible to set out one list of teachings that apply to all Christians everywhere. The reason for this is fairly simple. Jesus, along with his life and work, are for Christians objects of faith; and the objects of faith are thought of by different people in different ways and differently in various periods of history. No one has ever succeeded in distilling an “essence of Christianity.” But the early followers of Jesus came the closest in their assertion that “Jesus is lord.” By this they seemed to mean that he was more than a man. He was also, in some incomprehensible way, God. And by his ministry, death, and resurrection he had accomplished a universal salvation available to all who believe in him. What Jesus said and did can be gleaned from the first four books of the Bible's New Testament These books—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John—are not biographies; they are called Gospels, a word that means “good news,” because they are his followers' written testimonies of what his life was all about. The Gospels depict a man who was thoroughly imbued with the whole tradition of Israel's religion from the time of Abraham onward. From what Jesus said and did, his followers came to believe that God was perhaps acting through him in a very special way. Very possibly he was the one long awaited who would inaugurate God's kingdom on Earth. It was reasonable that they should think this, for they too were Israelites; and they saw in his words and deeds what portended to be the dawning of a new age. What dashed their hopes was his ignoble death, for crucifixion was a punishment reserved for criminals. Then came the great surprise: He was raised from the dead and appeared to them again over a period of 40 days. This stunning event required a complete reassessment of what Jesus was all about. It is this reassessment that forms the basis for the writings of the New Testament. The Gospels themselves are part of it, but it is more strikingly conveyed by the other 23 books, all written by his followers over the subsequent decades after he had left them. For he had left them. How and where to could only be explained as his returning to the God who had sent him. But he did not leave them forever: He promised that he would one day return, and he gave them a mission to perform—to carry the message about his life and work to the whole world.
The Assembly of Believers: the Church First, a word about terminology. The small group of Jesus' followers that gathered in Jerusalem after his departure did not call themselves anything. The word Christian came into use years later and was at first a derogatory term applied by outsiders. When the books of the New Testament were written, the word used to name the believers was simply assembly. The Greek word is ecclesia and denotes any assembly of people, though it often had political connotations. Much later, probably in the 3rd or 4th century, the word church came into use to denote the specific kind of assembly that the believers composed. The term church is also of Greek origin, from the word kuriakon, meaning “belonging to the lord.” It is now the most common term applied to groups of Christians as well as to the totality of the world's Christian membership. The word is also frequently applied to denominations, a usage now so common as to be unavoidable. Denominations are, however, institutional arrangements based on specific viewpoints and traditional practices. They exist as a result of long historical development, doctrinal diversity, and geographical separation. During the first decades of the church's existence, there were four significant accomplishments: The assembly of believers separated themselves from the religion of Israel; they formulated an extensive assessment of what the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus meant; new congregations of believers were founded in all parts of the Roman Empire; and the believers improvised organizational arrangements and forms of worship that were to remain influential.
Separation from Israel. The early Christians were all Jews. They remained in Jerusalem and partook of the religious observances in the Temple. They differed from their fellow Jews only in that they believed that the Messiah had come. Had they remained quiet about their conviction, they might well have remained a sect within Judaism. However, they insisted on preaching to all who would listen that the Jesus whom the Jewish authorities had persecuted was the one Israel had long awaited. This preaching aroused great hostility on the part of religious leaders, and the early Christians were persecuted. Yet these Christians had no thought of venturing beyond the confines of Israel with their message. It was only with the appearance of a man named Saul of Tarsus that the assembly of believers enlarged its horizons to include the whole known world. Saul, a strict Jew, was a persecutor of the church. He was nevertheless converted, and, after changing his name to Paul, began what is called the mission to the gentiles. (The word gentile is simply a cover-all term for all non-Jewish peoples.) It was this man who, more than any other, pulled the church out from temple and synagogue and set it apart as a separate institution But the separation was, for Paul, more than a physical one. It was also doctrinal. Christians, he asserted, did not have to become Jews. They were not subject to all the rites, rituals, and laws of Israel's religion. This, perhaps more than any other factor, aroused the intense hostility of the Jews and led to a definitive separation of the two camps.
Assessment. The books of the New Testament, particularly the writings of Paul, contain the early church's testimonies about who Jesus was and what his life meant. The first issue that had to be settled was whether Jesus was for Israel only. The answer, already noted, was no. That he was for Israel in some sense was undoubtedly true, because he is presented as the one who had fulfilled every prophecy and promise in Israel's scriptures (called by Christians the Old Testament). The first verse of the Book of Hebrews states: “When in former times God spoke to our forefathers, he spoke in fragmentary and varied fashion through the prophets. But in this, the final age, he has spoken to us in the Son whom he has made heir to the whole universe, and through whom he created all orders of existence.” In this verse, and in many other places, the New Testament makes clear that Jesus was the full and final revelation from God for all people. This represented a whole new way of thinking about God. Somehow this Jesus was one with the creator. This notion is abhorrent to both Judaism and Islam, which are strictly monotheistic religions for whom God is one and cannot be divided. But the Christians had to deal with this problem, and from what they believed about Jesus they could come to no other conclusion. They claimed it to be true, even though they could not understand or explain it. They simply believed it and stated it in their early confession: Jesus is lord. How could this man have achieved such status? The writers of the New Testament answer: by his death and resurrection. But how could these events, occurring as they did in a remote part of the Roman Empire, have a universal significance? Paul himself admitted that the notion was scandalous; it was offensive to Israel because the Jews could never conceive of their messiah being put to death; and it was likely to appear as plain nonsense to gentiles who had no knowledge of Israel's beliefs. Yet it was stated as true by all early Christians. They believed that Jesus, by his death, had paid a universal penalty for all human unbelief and disobedience toward God. They further asserted that the resurrection was the first act by which God was restoring the whole creation. Creation was, in the words of some modern Christians, being “born again,” being reconstituted and remade after God's original intention. This was the message the earliest Christians took, first to Israel, then to the rest of the world.
Mission to the gentiles. Paul and his associates took this message to most of the urban centers of the Mediterranean world. By the end of the 1st century there were strong congregations in Alexandria, Ephesus, Antioch, Corinth, Thessalonica, and even at Rome, the capital of the empire. Jerusalem, the mother church, was dispersed when the Roman legions destroyed the city in AD 70 during a Jewish uprising.
Organization and worship. It is unlikely that the early Christians intended to devise structures that would endure for centuries. But any institution, to operate successfully, must organize itself. Of first importance in the church were the apostles, those who had been with Jesus during his lifetime. To their number Paul was later added. They were the living and authoritative voices that could be appealed to on all questions of belief To assist them, deacons, or attendants, were appointed to help in preaching and in the everyday operation of the congregations. Later, there developed other leaders called elders (in Greek, presbyteroi, from which the modern Presbyterian denomination gets its name) and leaders called episkopoi (literally meaning “overseers”—the word episcopal is derived from it—normally translated as bishops). The early church had no clergy; it had people who performed specific functions—leading worship, preaching, collecting offerings, and feeding and clothing the poor among them. But as centuries passed, the three functions of bishop, elder (priest), and deacon became arranged in a hierarchy. The bishop became the overseer for a city or region. He was, as well, the authoritative person in matters of doctrine. In time these functionaries came to be set apart from the rest of the membership by a process called ordination—suggesting that they were a special order within the church. One of the problems that troubles modern denominations is the relation between these ordained offices and the regular members of the denomination, called the laity. Some denominations have attempted to erase the distinction, while others have held rather rigidly to the traditional forms. In its worship life, Christianity borrowed greatly from Jewish forms. Christians used prayers, sang psalms, read from the scriptures (the Old Testament) and from some of Paul's letters, and listened to someone expound the scripture passages for the day. The day was Sunday, to commemorate the resurrection, which had taken place on the first day of the week. In addition, Christians used two rites that had been commanded of them by Jesus himself. These rites, often called sacraments, or holy acts, were baptism and the Lord's Supper (or Eucharist, meaning “thanksgiving”). Baptism, an immersion in water to represent the washing away of sin, was the initiating rite by which one became a member of the church. The Lord's Supper was originally a community meal, followed by the receiving of bread and wine. This meal was a remembrance of Jesus' last meal with his disciples before he died. Today these rites are so variously defined by the many denominations that no single interpretation of them is possible.
God's Presence in the Church Before Jesus left his disciples, he promised them that they would not be alone and helpless in the world. He said that after he was gone he would send them a helper, a teacher, a comforter to sustain them and aid in carrying out the church's mission. He called this helper the Holy Spirit. It would be the Holy Spirit's purpose to “guide them into all truth” and to bring to remembrance all that Jesus had said and done. The books of the New Testament are vivid in their conviction that this spirit was indeed living and working through the first Christians. They were spared neither pain, persecution, nor death; but they were convinced that God's spirit was sustaining them in all their endeavors. The faith that the Holy Spirit was working among them again forced the early Christians to broaden their understanding of God. They concluded that he had revealed himself as the creator of all things, as Jesus the redeemer, and lastly as the spirit that sustained and preserved the church. To explain this impenetrable mystery, early Christian thinkers devised the doctrine of the Trinity. This doctrine was never an explanation of God. All it could do was set forth the firm belief that, for Christians, God was somehow at the same time one and three.
Life of Discipleship Essentially Jesus commended to his followers the same type of life he led: selfless obedience to the will of God. He called himself a servant and said that they were to be servants as well. They were to fear nothing, not even death. He summed up what their basic attitude was to be by saying, “You shall love the Lord your God above all things and your neighbor as yourself.” They were to do good to all people and to carry the message concerning him everywhere. Above all, they were not to be just people who believed certain doctrines. Their obedience was to be an active participation in the life of the world. Paul summed up the characteristics of the individual Christian by saying: “Put on the garments that suit God's chosen people . . . compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience. Be forbearing with one another, and forgiving. The nature of the individual Christian's obedience and quality of life was generally left to private judgment within these parameters. Christians over the centuries have found a great variety of ways to express their individual faithfulness.
A Short History The history of Christianity is filled with conflict, controversy, and division. It also has countless instances of brilliant creativity in worship, architecture, painting, sculpture, music, and literature. And in all ages churches have sought to carry out the mission entrusted to them by Jesus. Within this article only a very brief summary of the history can be given.
Early period to AD 380. Christianity became established in nearly all parts of the Roman Empire and in the Middle East during the first two centuries. As it continued to grow and expand, it became the object of persecution by the Roman authorities. The severest persecutions came during the reigns of the emperors Domitian (AD 96), Marcus Aurelius (161–180), Decius (249–251), and Valerian (253–260). Worst of all was the attempt by the Emperor Diocletian (284–305) to extinguish Christianity altogether. But in 313 Constantine the Great issued an edict of toleration for all religions. In 380, Theodosius I made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire.
Middle Ages. Although the church was empire-wide, two cities came to be more influential than others in guiding its affairs: Rome and Constantinople (now Istanbul). Many theological disputes arose in the centuries after Constantine, and these were usually settled by councils The Roman church, headed by its bishop, the pope, gradually diverged in both belief and practice from the church at Constantinople, headed by its patriarch. The Roman church became dominant in Western Europe, while the church at Constantinople dominated the East. In 1054 the two churches broke off relations with each other.
Modern period. Early in the 16th century a split occurred in the Roman church. Since that time the church in the West has been divided primarily between the Roman Catholic and Protestant segments. The term Protestantism has come to refer to nearly any denomination that is not affiliated with either the Roman Catholic or Eastern Orthodox branches. Among the older Protestant denominations are the Lutheran, Anglican, Presbyterian, Reformed, Methodist, and Baptist. In the 20th century there have been attempts to revitalize and reunify the church. The World Council of Churches, founded in 1948, is an organization made up of most denominations except for the Roman Catholic. In the 1960s the Roman Church, in its Second Vatican Council, strove for spiritual renewal and modernization. Thus, after many centuries, most of the denominations that make up the worldwide church are in contact with one another. Many are involved in cooperative projects, and others have undertaken actual merger negotiations. The Roman and Orthodox churches resumed contact in 1965.
Bible Many religions have a literature that  serves as a foundation for belief and practice among their followers. For Judaism and Christianity such a literature is found in the Bible—a term derived from the Greek meaning “book.” The Bible is a collection of many books by an unknown number of authors. In Judaism and Christianity the makeup of the Bible is not the same. The Christian Bible is divided into two major sections: the Old Testament and the New Testament. For Judaism the Bible consists of the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings—what Christians call the Old Testament. Some Christians, notably the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches, include certain books that are not accepted as authoritative by Judaism or Protestant Christianity. These books, called by Jews and Protestants the Apocrypha, are commonly included in Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox versions of the Bible but omitted from (or segregated within) Protestant Bibles.
THE BIBLE OF JUDAISM Written originally in Hebrew and Aramaic, the compilation of sacred writings that came to be the Jewish Bible emerged from the religious experiences of the ancient nation of Israel. The Jewish Bible contains 24 books divided into the three sections. The Christian Old Testament (excluding the Apocrypha) contains the same books, numbered and ordered differently, resulting in a compilation of 39 books.
The Law The first five books of the Jewish Bible are referred to as the Law, or the Torah, or as the books of Moses. They are also sometimes called the Pentateuch, from a Greek term meaning “five scrolls.” (The books were originally written on long scrolls instead of in a bound book form, which is commonly used today.) The names of the books are: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. The story told in these books concerns how Israel was founded and how its people are called on to serve as a positive example to other nations. Taken together, these books are called the Torah, meaning “to teach,” because so much of their content is devoted to explaining in detail what God's laws are and how they are to be interpreted.
The Prophets The term prophet is derived from a Greek word meaning “to speak on behalf of.” The prophets were ancient Israelites who spoke to the nation on behalf of God. In other words, they were preachers. Their purpose was not, as is often mistakenly assumed, to foretell the future. The prophets were men who interpreted Israel's behavior in the light of God's laws and frequently found reason to condemn that behavior. The prophets also declared that Israel would be punished for breaking the laws. A series of national disasters that befell Israel seemed to prove the merit of the prophetic warnings: Israel was conquered or subjugated in turn by Assyria, Babylon, Persia, Greece, and Rome over a period of seven centuries. The prophetic books are divided into two groups: the Former Prophets and the Latter Prophets. The Former Prophets include the books Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings. In the Christian Old Testament these are considered historical narratives rather than prophetic works. The Latter Prophets are Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, plus a group of shorter books called the Twelve. In the Christian Old Testament, the Twelve are called the Minor Prophets—specifically Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi.
The Writings The third section of the Bible of Judaism consists of a miscellaneous assortment of books that includes history, songs and hymns, poetry, stories, and wisdom literature. Unlike the books in the Law and Prophets sections, the Writings do not constitute a unity, but their very variety has made them useful in both Judaism and Christianity as aids in worship and for teaching purposes. The best-known and probably the most often used book among the Writings is Psalms (from the Greek word for “song”). It is a collection of hymns and songs dating from various periods in the history of Israel. The collection was assembled so that it could be conveniently used at worship services. The book is often called “Psalms of David,” referring to the king of Israel in about 1000 BC It is now generally accepted by Biblical scholars that, while David may have written some of them, the authorship of most of them is unknown. The other books included in the Writings are: Proverbs, Job, Song of Songs, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, Esther, Daniel, Ezra-Nehemiah (considered as two books in the Christian Old Testament), and Chronicles (also considered as two books). The books of Job, Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes are books of wisdom, a literary form that flourished throughout the ancient Near East. There were two main types of wisdom literature: practical and speculative. Practical wisdom, of which Proverbs is an example, consisted of wise sayings, maxims, parables, and aphorisms. This kind of wisdom was used as a teaching device to instill in young students sensible attitudes for the conduct of life. Speculative wisdom, as found in Job and Ecclesiastes, explored issues such as the problem of good and evil, justice versus injustice, the sufferings of innocent people, and why the wicked are so often successful and prosperous. The books of Ruth and Esther are basically short stories that have a bearing on Israel during various periods of its history. Daniel is a composite of stories (chapters 1–6) and visions (chapters 7–12). The Song of Songs (also called Song of Solomon) and Lamentations are collections of poems. The Song of Songs is a collection of love poems, often ascribed to Solomon, king of Israel after his father David. Lamentations is a collection of five poems, mourning the fall of Jerusalem in 587 BC. At that time Jerusalem and the surrounding countryside were overrun by the armies of the Babylonian Empire Ezra-Nehemiah and Chronicles are historical books. Both books are interpretations of the history of Israel. Chronologically the book of Chronicles precedes the material in Ezra-Nehemiah, but in the Hebrew Bible their order is reversed. This was probably done because Ezra-Nehemiah contains information found in no other book of the Bible, information that follows logically upon the material in the book of Kings. Chronicles, on the other hand, basically reiterates the material already told in other books. In the Christian Old Testament the two books are divided into First and Second Chronicles and Ezra and Nehemiah, and the four books are printed in that order. In modern Hebrew Bibles the five books Song of Songs, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, and Esther are grouped together in that order for use on an annual sequence of festivals. Originally called “festival scrolls,” they have little in common except for their roles in worship services.
THE NEW TESTAMENT For Christians, the Bible has two components—the Old Testament and the New Testament. To clarify the reason for having two testaments, it is helpful to think of the word testament in terms of one of its synonyms—“covenant.” (The two parts of the Christian Bible are often called the Old Covenant and the New Covenant.) A covenant is an agreement or a contract. The chief teaching of the Old Testament (or Hebrew Bible) is that God has made a covenant with the nation of Israel, beginning with a covenant He made with Abraham, the founder of Israel Under the terms of the covenant God chose the people of Israel to be His special people, promised to make their nation great, gave them the Law (the Ten Commandments and many other statutes detailed in the books of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy), and demanded obedience from the people. The purpose of the covenant was to make Israel a “beacon light” by which all other nations would be enabled to become God's people. The promises God made to Israel were contingent upon Israel's complete loyalty to him. It is on the issue of whether God's promises were ever fulfilled that the religions of Judaism and Christianity became absolutely divided. Judaism maintains that Israel, the Jewish people, are still God's nation, obedient under His Law, and waiting for the fulfillment of His promises. Christians believe that the promises of the Old Covenant have been completely fulfilled in the life and ministry of Jesus and that the terms of the Old Covenant were sufficiently transformed by the life of Jesus so that a New Covenant was instituted They therefore believe that the Old Testament (or Covenant) is incomplete without the New Testament. Christians accept the Old Testament completely, but they interpret it in terms of what is said in the New Testament.
Origin and Contents The Old Testament was written by many authors over a period of many centuries. The New Testament was written by far fewer men over a much shorter span of years—perhaps between AD 50 and 150. After the earthly ministry of Jesus was over, his followers banded together in an organization that came to be called the “church,” a word derived from the Greek kuriakon, meaning “the Lord's house.” The church formulated as its mission the spreading of the message about Jesus to the civilized world. As the years passed, some members of the church began to write down the message. They wrote for several reasons: to make sure information was correctly preserved, to instruct believers, to exhort believers to keep the faith in difficult circumstances, and to make a record for coming generations. The writers whose work makes up the New Testament composed four different kinds of books: the Gospels, a history of the early church entitled Acts of the Apostles, epistles (letters), and a prophetic-dramatic work entitled Revelation. All of the books were originally written in Greek.
The Gospels The word gospel is derived from the Anglo-Saxon word godspell, meaning “good news.” There are four Gospels in the New Testament—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John—each presumably composed by one of Jesus' closest followers. The Gospels appear at first to be brief biographies of Jesus. While they do contain a wealth of information on the life of Jesus, they are really testimonies of belief about him. Beside recording what he said and did, they interpret the history of his ministry. The Gospels are biographical forms of proclamation of good news. Although appearing second in the order of New Testament books, Mark was the first Gospel written. It is also the shortest. Biblical scholars believe that Matthew and Luke used Mark, as well as other sources, to write their Gospels. These three, taken together, are called synoptic Gospels. Synoptic is a term of Greek origin meaning “viewed together.” The three Gospels can be printed in parallel columns and their contents can be compared to see which passages appear in all of them and which material is peculiar to each of them. The Gospel of John differs in several respects from the Synoptics. It contains much information not found in the other Gospels, and it has a different chronology for the ministry of Jesus. The author of John probably drew on traditions about Jesus that were unknown to the writers of the other Gospels.
The Acts of the Apostles The apostles of the early church were messengers sent to announce the Gospel. The book that tells of the founding of the church and the early work of the apostles is Acts. It was written by the same man who wrote Luke's Gospel, probably as the second of a two-volume work. The period of time covered in Acts is about 35 years. The book can be divided into two main sections: chapters 1 to 12, the “acts of Peter,” and chapters 13 to 28, the “acts of Paul.” Peter was one of Jesus' original disciples and later became the first of the apostles (Paul was the missionary to the non-Jewish world of the Roman Empire It is believed that both of these men were executed in Rome about AD 64 by Roman authorities. Their deaths brought to a close the earliest period of the church's mission.
The Epistles Of the 27 books in the New Testament, 21 are epistles; and of these 21 many were written by St. Paul. The names of his epistles, or letters attributed to him, are Romans, I and II Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, I and II Thessalonians, I and II Timothy, Titus, and Philemon. This is the order of their arrangement in the New Testament. While the letters to Timothy, Titus, and Philemon were addressed to individuals, the others were sent to churches in various cities. All of these letters were later copied and circulated among the churches in the Roman Empire. It was the intent of the writer of the letters that they be read aloud in the churches, because the messages contain extensive interpretations of the Gospel, solutions to local problems in the churches, and sound advice about how the Christians were to live. Sometime before the end of the 1st century, most of Paul's letters were collected and circulated for general use in all the churches. The Letter to the Hebrews, at one time ascribed to Paul, is now generally accepted to be by some unknown Christian of the 1st century. More like a sermon than a letter, it is one of the best and most carefully constructed compositions in the New Testament. Addressed originally to Christians out of Jewish backgrounds, the book makes extensive use of Old Testament material to demonstrate that the ministry of Jesus was the fulfillment of the Old Covenant. The other seven epistles are James, I and II Peter, I, II, and III John, and Jude. They are collectively referred to as the Catholic Epistles, meaning that they were not addressed to specific persons or churches but were meant for general circulation among all the churches. The authorship of most of the letters is in dispute, though it would seem likely that I John was written by the author of the Fourth Gospel. They were probably all composed late in the 1st century or early in the 2nd century, for there are indications in them that the churches were subject to persecution by the Roman authorities, which occurred at that time. The purpose of the letters was to give guidance for everyday living, refute false doctrine, and encourage perseverance in the face of opposition and persecution.
Revelation The Book of Revelation, also called the Apocalypse of St. John the Divine, is the most colorful and imaginative work in the New Testament, as well as the most difficult to interpret. An apocalypse is a type of religious literature that has to do with the end of the world and the events that will take place before the end comes. The author of the book was probably a man named John, leader at the church of Ephesus in Asia Minor, who was banished to the island of Patmos, just off the coast. While on Patmos, John wrote Revelation for circulation among the churches in Asia Minor. Revelation got its name from the first verse in the book. The book is in two main sections: chapters 1–3 contain an introduction and letters to seven churches; chapters 4–22 contain the visions of the writer concerning the end of history and the triumph of the Kingdom of God. The book may have been written during the time of the Emperor Domitian (ruled AD 81–96), who inaugurated the first systematic persecution of the churches by the Roman Empire. The theme of the book is the lordship of God over history, a message intended to encourage Christians to endure even the most savage persecutions, because the Kingdom of God is near.
OTHER BOOKS The Old Testament is not the whole literature of Israel, nor is the New Testament the whole literature of early Christianity. Many other books with religious themes circulated among those of ancient Judaism and in the early church. Some of these books are called pseudepigrapha, a Greek term meaning “spurious writings.” Among Judaism's pseudepigrapha are: The Letter of Aristeas, III and IV Maccabees, the Ascension of Isaiah, the Testament of Job, the Life of Adam and Eve, the Psalms of Solomon, and the Assumption of Moses. The Christian pseudepigrapha include various gospels, books of acts, epistles, and revelations. There is another group of books, not included in the Hebrew Bible, that have been accepted into the Old Testaments of the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches. These books circulated in ancient Judaism, and many of them were very popular and widely read. For some reason they were never accepted by Judaism as authoritative, probably because they were not included in Hebrew versions of the text. This collection came to be called by the Jews the Apocrypha, a Greek term meaning “hidden things.” In reference to the writings it has the connotation of books not meant for common use. Although not included in the Hebrew versions of the Bible, the Apocrypha was included in a translation of the Hebrew texts into Greek made at Alexandria, Egypt, beginning in the 3rd century BC. This translation, popularly called the Septuagint because of the legend that it had been made by about 70 scholars, became the Bible of the early Christians before there were any New Testament writings. In about AD 400, when St. Jerome made a Latin translation of the Hebrew Bible, he included the Apocryphal books (somewhat against his better judgment) because they had been in the Septuagint used by earlier Christians. These books thus found acceptance in both the Latin (Roman) and Greek churches. In the Bibles used in these churches, these books are found distributed throughout the Old Testament and are not considered Apocryphal as they are in Judaism, but as authoritative. Some modern editions of the Bible include these books as a separate section. The books in this collection are: I and II Esdras, Tobit, Judith, Additions to the Book of Esther, Wisdom of Solomon, Ecclesiasticus (or the Wisdom of Jesus, son of Sirach), Baruch, Letter of Jeremiah, Song of the Three (or the Prayer of Azariah and Song of the Three Young Men), Daniel and Susanna, Bel and the Dragon, Prayer of Manasseh, and I and II Maccabees. Of these 15 books, three are not recognized as authoritative by the Roman Catholic church: I and II Esdras and the Prayer of Manasseh. This listing is based on compilations of the books under the title Apocrypha. The books' chief value is to aid in understanding Judaism in the two or three centuries before Christianity. The books contain wisdom literature, poetry, history, stories, and apocalypses (or revelations).
20TH-CENTURY DISCOVERIES Two major discoveries of ancient texts in the 20th century have added considerably to the understanding of the development of both Hebrew and Christian Bibles. These are the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Nag Hammadi collection. The Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered in the Palestinian desert beginning in 1947. They contain copies or remnants of almost all the Old Testament writings as well as hitherto unknown books and fragments The other find was made by two farmers near the Egyptian town of Nag Hammadi in 1945. It contains a miscellaneous assortment of texts from various schools of Gnosticism (from the Greek gnosis, meaning “knowledge”). Some of the books were written by Christians, others were not; they represent a wide range of philosophical speculation in the ancient period, most of it far removed from the teachings of the New Testament. The documents are nevertheless valuable in gaining an understanding of the thoughts and feelings that existed when early Christianity developed. The collection was translated by Christians into Coptic, the language of Egypt at the time, and buried at Nag Hammadi in about AD 400, when the teachings of Gnostic Christians came to be viewed by other Christians as mistaken and heretical.
THE AUTHORITY OF THE BIBLE Of the vast literature that circulated in ancient Israel and in the early church, only a small number of works came to be included in the Bible. Those that were eventually included make up what is called the canon (from a Greek term for standard) of the Old and New Testaments. This meant that there was a consensus in both Judaism and Christianity concerning the authoritative books of their religions. Getting into the canon was not an automatic process. The books that were included were accepted after extensive usage over long periods of time and after much debate. The formation of the canon and the origin of the great number of different texts were two separate matters.
Old Testament canon. The formation of the Old Testament canon took place in stages. It is almost certain that the books constituting the Law, or five books of Moses, were recognized by the Jews as authoritative by the late 6th or early 5th century BC. Since the Law became the foundation of Judaism, any other books that were to be considered canonical had to be in conformity with its teachings. From early in the 5th century BC the prestige of the prophets as national figures aroused interest in preserving their teachings in written form. The acceptance of the various books of the prophets was probably complete by the late 4th century BC. Most of the books in the Writings are of much later origin than either the Law or Prophets, at least in their present form. Most seem to have been in circulation by the early 2nd century BC, for the author of the prologue to Ecclesiasticus, an Apocryphal book, wrote of “the law, the prophets, and the writers” in about 132 BC. Although the collection of Law and Prophets was a closed collection by the end of the 3rd century BC, there was no attempt to make a final selection of the Writings until the end of the 1st century AD. Sometime about AD 100 it is probable that rabbis living in Palestine at Jamniah, a major center of scholarship for Judaism, settled the canonicity of the Old Testament.
New Testament canon. The 27 books of the New Testament are the only canonical books out of many writings considered sacred by the Christians of the 1st and 2nd centuries AD. The process of sifting to form the final canon took another 200 years. There were two chief reasons for the formation of a definitive New Testament canon. As the church moved from the 1st to the 2nd century, it was obvious that the oral tradition concerning Jesus and the work of the apostles was ending because the original witnesses were dying. And a number of sects and heresies (schools of doctrine) had emerged, each laying claim to the correct interpretation of the Gospel. Both of these factors made it imperative for the church to collect those writings that most accurately presented its message. The principles by which books were accepted as canonical were three: they had to have the authority of apostolic teaching in them; they had to present true doctrine; and they had to have been widely circulated. The first part of the New Testament to gain general acceptance was a collection of the letters of Paul, in circulation before the end of the 1st century. The four Gospels were widely regarded as canonical by the end of the 2nd century. The rest were slowly received, but by AD 325 the historian Eusebius of Caesarea made a compilation that listed most of the present canon and left a few books on the list as disputed. In 367 Athanasius, the bishop of Alexandria, Egypt, made a canonical list of all the presently accepted New Testament books. Church councils in subsequent decades established his list as final. Still, controversy over the Book of Revelation and some of the Catholic Epistles lasted for at least two centuries.
THE BIBLE TODAY None of the original Bible manuscripts exists. They were lost centuries ago, and the texts that are now in the Bible represent copies of copies that were handed down in a variety of translations over many generations. The most famous version of the Old Testament is a Greek translation, the Septuagint, made at Alexandria by about 70 Jewish scholars beginning in the 3rd century BC. Another famous ancient translation, including both testaments, is the Latin Vulgate (common, or vernacular) made by St. Jerome in about AD 400. Throughout the Middle Ages the Bible was translated and copied by hand, a process prone to error. It was only with the invention of printing in the late 15th century that fixed, invariable texts of the Bible could be published. The present versification of the Old Testament is based upon the work of a 15th-century rabbi. It was edited by Jacob ben Hayyim ibn Adonijah and published in Venice in 1524. The New Testament division into verses was done by a Paris printer, Stephanus, in 1551. His printed version of the Latin Bible in 1555 was the first edition to contain both testaments in the present chapter and verse forms. In the 20th century the Bible has often been updated—mainly to eliminate archaic translations and reflect contemporary usage. The American Standard Version of 1901 was followed by a rephrasing of the New Testament in 1946 and the Old Testament in 1952. Among the more than two dozen different English translations of the whole Bible published since then was the New Revised Standard Version (1990). The sexist language of older translations was also altered in the Revised English Bible (1989), the work of British scholars. While specific gender references to God were unchanged, the word he was no longer capitalized. Sometimes “man” was changed to “person”.