1.02.02 The New Testament

II. THE NEW TESTAMENT.

Misapprehensions about the Old Testament are unfortunate, but misapprehensions about the New Testament may be little less than disastrous. The earlier revelation is of value as a preparation for Christian truth; the later revelation is itself the setting forth of that truth. Happily, this more important study is not beset with the same difficulties that hamper the student of the Old Testament. The most common mistakes made in reading the Hebrew Scriptures arise from the habit of importing into them a Christian meaning.

Occupying the Christian standpoint, we are inclined to view everything there from, so that we cannot let the ancient writings speak for themselves. But when we reach the New Testament we find ourselves at home; here the Christian view is natural and right, and Christian ideas of the very essence of the subject.

Even in itself, quite apart from the personal equation that has to do with the reader’s position, the problem of the New Testament is free from some of the most vexatious questions that cluster round the Old. We know where we start; there is no longer any question of origins in a distant antiquity; we are now in the daylight of a well-known historical period. All the books of the New Testament were written within a short space of time, probably all within about fifty years. The authors of most of them are known, and the circumstances of their origin are in most cases not difficult to discover.

Nevertheless, the New Testament has its difficulties, some of them of a very puzzling nature; and here, too, perverse methods of reading have brought in confusion where it need never have occurred. It becomes necessary, therefore, to see that we are following right methods in the study of these most precious writings of the fundamental charter of Christianity.

See Marcus Dods, ’Introduction to the New Testament,” and Adeney, ’’The Theology of the New Testament” (“Theological Educator “); McClymont, “The New Testament and its Writers”; Salmon, “Introduction to the New Testament”; Weiss, “Manual of Introduction to the New Testament.”