New Testament
The apostolic witness to Jesus Christ — Gospels, Acts, Epistles, and Revelation — the founding documents of the Christian faith, composed in the first century CE.
What Is the New Testament?
The New Testament is a collection of 27 books written in Koine Greek between approximately 50 and 100 CE. It contains the four Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, the Epistles of Paul and other apostolic writers, and the Book of Revelation. Together these texts bear witness to the life, teaching, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth, and to the earliest communities that gathered in his name across the Roman world.
The Four Gospels
The Gospel of Mark (c. 65–70 CE) is the earliest of the four, presenting Jesus as a figure of urgent, authoritative action. Matthew (c. 80–90 CE) situates Jesus as the fulfilment of the Hebrew scriptures, with the Sermon on the Mount as its centrepiece. Luke (c. 80–90 CE), paired with Acts as a two-volume work, emphasises the universal scope of salvation and the role of the Holy Spirit. John (c. 90–100 CE), the most theologically reflective, opens with a Logos hymn identifying Jesus as the eternal Word through whom all things were made.
The Epistles of Paul
Paul of Tarsus is the New Testament's most prolific correspondent. His authentic letters — Romans, 1 & 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, 1 Thessalonians, Philemon — shaped Christian theology decisively, articulating doctrines of grace, justification by faith, the body of Christ, and the cosmic lordship of Jesus. Later Pauline letters (Ephesians, Colossians, 2 Thessalonians, the Pastorals) develop these themes further, whether written by Paul or by disciples in his tradition.
The Catholic Epistles and Revelation
The Catholic (General) Epistles — James, 1 & 2 Peter, 1, 2 & 3 John, and Jude — address broader audiences and diverse concerns: faith and works (James), suffering and hope (1 Peter), false teaching (2 Peter, Jude), love as the criterion of true discipleship (1 John). The Book of Revelation (Apocalypse), attributed to John of Patmos, is the New Testament's single apocalyptic text: a symbolic vision of cosmic conflict, judgment, and the ultimate renewal of all creation under the reign of the Lamb.
The Synoptic Problem and Historical Jesus
The shared material across Matthew, Mark, and Luke (the Synoptic Gospels) has generated extensive scholarly inquiry into their literary relationships. The dominant solution posits Markan priority and a hypothetical sayings source Q (from German Quelle, "source") used independently by Matthew and Luke. Historical Jesus research — from Albert Schweitzer to N. T. Wright and beyond — attempts to situate Jesus within his first-century Jewish context, distinguishing layers of tradition in the Gospel narratives.
Mystical and Gnostic Dimensions
The New Testament contains themes that overlap with and inspired later mystical traditions. The Johannine Logos prologue resonates with Middle Platonism. Paul's accounts of ecstatic experience (2 Corinthians 12) and his participatory language ("in Christ") inspired Christian mysticism. The Nag Hammadi Gnostic texts (discovered 1945) — including the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Philip, and the Gospel of Truth — represent alternative early Christian readings that emphasised gnosis (direct spiritual knowledge) as the path to liberation, and have enriched understanding of the diversity of earliest Christianity.