L4 Birth of Christian Bible

One Jewish sect of the first century quickly became a Gentile rather than a Jewish movement. They read the Jewish Bible in Greek (the Septuagint) from a perspective established by the death and resurrection of Jesus, whose followers called him Christ and Lord. Christian writers engaged the Jewish Scripture in their effort to communicate and understand the meaning of their own experiences. The 4 Gospels, 21 letters and 1 apocalyptic composition comprise the earliest Christian literature all place Jesus and their experience of him within the longer history of Israel and give distinctive shape to the Christian form of the Bible.

The process by which the New Testament came into being is best understood within the context of a divided Judaism of the first century CE.
1. This literature is produced in circumstances different from those that produced the Torah. Rather than over hundreds of years, the Christian literature in the bible formed within about 70 years. The literature arose out of a religious Jewish context, was written in Greek and interpreted on the basis of the Septuagint. In contrast to Torah, the New Testament reflects the inclusion of the Gentiles.
2. There are points of similarity with Torah. The writings emerged from community experience. Oral and scribal activities were involved in the process of composition. Dating of each writing and the relationships among them are a matter of scholarly guesswork. The rapid and prolific production of the literature suggests social dynamics in early Christianity, within religious communities and between the Jewish and Gentile world.
3. Four factors account for the overall shape of the New Testament. The fundamental starting point is the conviction that Jesus is Lord, not only resurrected from the dead but exalted to the status of God. The issue for the first Christians was the manner of Jesus’ death: Crucifixion created cognitive dissonance within Jewish and Greco-Roman ideas of how God works. The framework for the interpretation of Jesus and of the New Creation and New Covenant was the text of the Septuagint, the Greek translation of Torah.
In various ways and in diverse literary genres, the first Christian writings sought to interpret the story of Jesus in the past, in the present, and in the future.
1. The earliest datable Christian compositions took the form of letters written by leaders of communities (ekklesia = church). Thirteen letters are ascribed to the Apostle Paul, who began as a Jew, persecuted the movement, and then became a missionary to Gentiles. Seven letters (Romans, Galatians, 1,2 Corinthians, Philippians, 1 Thessalonians, Philemon) are certainly authored by Paul. Colossians, Ephesians, 2 Thessalonians are disputed and 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, and Titus are rejected as genuinely Paul.
2. 8 letters were ascribed to Peter, John, James and Jude or were anonymous e.g. Hebrews. These letters focus on the moral life of specific communities, the importance of the resurrection of Jesus and his continuing presence by way of the Holy Spirit.
3. During the time of the earliest letters addressed to communities, the memory of Jesus was handed on in communities and, sometime around 70 C.E. were shaped in the form of Gospels (euangelion = good news).
4. The earliest gospel is attributed to Mark, within 15 years, it was the source along with a collection of sayings called Q by Matthew and Luke in their narratives. The close literary relationship among Mark, Matthew, and Luke is expressed by the term, Synoptic Gospels.
5. The author of Luke extended his version of the good news into a second volume now called the Acts of the Apostles: providing selective and theologically weighted account of Christian beginnings that highlighted the works of Peter and Paul.
6. All the gospels give an account of Jesus’ ministry, teaching, miracles, conflicts with religious authorities, and his death and resurrection. The Gospel of John (also called the Fourth Gospel) provides a distinctive account of Jesus’ ministry, death and resurrection, not dependent literarily on the other Gospels but using some of the same traditions.
7. The book of Revelation like its literary prototype, the Book of Daniel, is a mixed genre of letters to the churches of Asia Minor (chapters 1-3), heavenly visions by John the Seer (cpt 4-21) which assure the reader of God’s ultimate triumph in history.
8. The writings of the New Testament are earliest known Christian compositions but there was no “new testament” as such in earliest Christian communities. There may have been more writings that have been lost to history. There were certainly more writings dating in the second century – the gospel of Judas, Mary, Thomas, etc.

In the first of many technological changes that affect the story of the Bible, the New Testament compositions were predominantly written on the codex rather than the scroll.
1. Ancient books including those of the Jewish Scriptures, were written on scrolls, made of papyrus or parchment and stitched together in rolls; writing could be on only one side, the texts were limited by the length of the scroll.
2. The codex is a compilation of “pages” usually made of papyrus, folded and stitched together in quires or forms a “book” in the proper sense. The codex was cheaper, more mobile, could contain more text and allowed easier access to specific passages in the composition.
3. The codex appears for the first time in the 1^st and 2^nd centuries C.E. and is associated with Christian literature.

If you know Thomas Cahill’s book, “How the Irish Saved Civilization” you will recognize the importance of the codex, written, mobile, and durable. In similar fashion we can say that the Book of Common Prayer went also from England to all the places colonized by England. In what way does the preservation of the written word, of Scripture and of prayer provide unity and diversity?