11/04/2020 – New Testament Part 1: Composition Letters

What is the New Testament and who wrote it? Part 1 of a 4-part series. This is TenOnReligion.

Hey peeps, it’s Dr. B. with TenOnReligion. Many people say they believe in the Bible but don’t know the history behind who wrote it or how it was formed. We’re going to focus on the Christian scriptures which came to be known as the New Testament. It is one of the most culturally influential set of documents in the Western world. It contains 27 ancient documents, now called books, all originally written in Greek, the language of the second generation of believers which is a different language from Jesus and the first generation, which was Aramaic.

We’re going to look at answering three questions in this four-part series. First, what are these documents and who composed them? Second, how were they transmitted? And third, why these documents – how were they selected?

This part and the next will focus on the first question, what are these documents and who composed them? The contents of the New Testament include four gospels, Acts (history with a clear theological agenda), 21 epistles (13 letters with Paul’s name on them and 8 others), and the Apocalypse of John, known by its common trade name of Revelation. This episode will specifically focus on the epistles. The next episode will focus on the gospels and other writings.

The first documents to be written were the letters of Paul, so we’re going to start there. Paul’s letters are grouped into three groups by historians: the seven undisputed letters, the three Deutero-Pauline letters, and the three Pastoral letters. The seven undisputed letters which are considered genuine by almost every historian are 1 Thessalonians, Galatians, Philippians, 1 & 2 Corinthians, Romans, and Philemon. These were all likely written during the 50’s which was two or three decades after the execution of Jesus.

The Deutero-Pauline letters have Paul’s name on them, but the authorship is controversial. Many historians do not think they were written by him. This is because of the differences in vocabulary, writing style, and theology of ideas presented which are all considerably different from the seven letters known to be written by Paul. These three letters are 2 Thessalonians, Ephesians, and Colossians. If they weren’t written by Paul this means they were forged. More on that in a minute.

The last group of Paul’s letters, called the Pastoral letters, include 1 & 2 Timothy and Titus. Most historians believe these were not written by Paul. They were written at a much later date than Paul lived because they mention church hierarchies that did not yet exist when Paul was alive. They were likely written 20-30 years after Paul died. This is important because it means the teachings do not represent Paul’s views, especially regarding 1 Timothy’s negative view of women in the church, which is clearly non-Pauline in nature based on his view of equality in Galatians 3:28.

Now a few quick comments about forgery. It was actually quite common in the ancient world. For a real- world illustration, there was a 2nd century famous physician & author in Rome named Galen. One day he overheard a conversation passing by a bookseller’s stall. Two men were arguing over a book written by Galen, but Galen knew he didn’t write the book. Despite being initially proud they were arguing over him, he later got a little upset that someone was trying to make money by writing and selling a book under his name. After he went home, he composed a small book called “How to Recognize the Books of Galen.”

So, in general, why forge a letter in the days of the Roman Empire? Three main reasons: profit motive – libraries paid cash for “original” documents; use a teacher’s name to honor them; but the most common reason – to get one’s views out into the market. For an example in Christianity, there was a third Corinthians letter whose author claimed to be Paul, but the document was written in the second century, 50-100 years after Paul died. The author didn’t seem to care because as long as it had Paul’s name on it, “his” views were being presented under the auspices of the name “Paul.” A similar thing happened with the Deutero-Pauline and the Pastoral letters.

So, to sum up, there are 13 letters in the New Testament with Paul’s name on them, seven are likely written by him and the other six were probably not and are considered forgeries by most historians today.

The rest of the letters go by different categories but are often called the general letters. These are Hebrews, James, 1 & 2 Peter, the three letters of John, and Jude. The letters of James and Jude were originally thought to be written by Jesus’ brothers, but most modern historians think that is unlikely as there is no historical evidence they ever would have learned Greek. The authors make no claim to be any particular James or Jude and if they were brothers of Jesus that likely would have been mentioned. [sarcastic drama voice: “Reservation for two. Maybe you don’t recognize us. We’re Jesus’ brothers. Corner table, window view please.”] It’s unclear which James or Jude wrote these letters as these names were common names. The letter to the Hebrews was claimed by some early Christian leaders in the second century to be written by Paul, but few, if any, historians think that is the case today. There is no name on the letter, and it reads more like a carefully constructed essay or sermon rather than a letter. Many early Christian leaders weren’t convinced that Paul wrote it either.

The three letters of John were not written by the apostle John, Jesus’ friend, but possibly a different John. This is known through the technical grammar usage of the Greek language in those documents. There is no author listed in the documents themselves. In some instances, an ancient author did not need to name himself, because his readers knew perfectly well who he was and did not need to be told. That is almost certainly the case with the letters of 2 and 3 John. These are private letters sent from someone who calls himself “the elder” to a church in another location. It is safe to assume that the recipients of the letters knew who he was even if we don’t know today.

The two letters of Peter were also not likely to have been written by Peter, Jesus’ friend. This is especially clear for 2 Peter because it claims that Paul’s letters are already in circulation and on a par with Scriptures according to 2 Peter 3:16, but this could not have been during Paul’s lifetime. Both Peter and Paul were killed during the reign of Nero who died in 68 CE.

It gets a little trickier with 1 Peter. Peter likely never learned to read his own language of Hebrew, much less read Greek, much less compose a rhetorical letter in Greek. We know this from another New Testament document as Acts 4:13 describes Peter as “unlettered” – the ancient word for illiterate. The writer of 1 Peter was very familiar with the Greek version of the Hebrew scriptures called the Septuagint and assumed the audience knew it as well. Peter would have only been familiar with the Hebrew version of the scriptures.

One common method to attempt to explain this is called the secretary hypothesis where Peter dictated this letter to another person who wrote it down. But this was really for the upper class only, for short compositions of one page or less. But this letter was more like an essay put in letter form with careful reasoning and historical evidence of Jewish scripture quotations. The letter does not read like a Greek translation of Aramaic ideas, but an original Greek composition. Coauthors were usually named. There is no instance in the ancient world of someone dictating a letter to be written in another language. It just didn’t happen. The argumentation and presentation of the letter only works in Greek. Also, the letter alludes to the destruction of Jerusalem, which happened after Peter died. So, it’s less likely that Peter spoke Aramaic to dictate a letter to a Greek translator and more likely the letter was a forgery written after the year 70 CE.

Now just because many of the letters in the New Testament have contested authorship issues like forgeries or misattributions, doesn’t mean that they’re not important. They are all very important as it gives historians some of the earliest written insights into the formation of the Christian communities during the first century.

In the next episode we’ll talk about what the gospels are along with some of the issues there, and also the rest of the other documents in the New Testament. I hope this vlog has helped you better understand this topic. Until next time, stay curious. If you enjoyed this, please like this video and subscribe to the channel. This is TenOnReligion.