When was the New Testament written? When does the New Testament begin? What does the new covenant consist of?

part of the Bible that contains a description of the life of Jesus Christ and his preaching. Consists of 27 books: the four Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, the 21 Epistles of the Apostles, the Revelation of John the Theologian (Apocalypse).

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NEW TESTAMENT

is the most outstanding monument of early Christian literature, forming the second part of the Bible. The union of the sacred books under the title of the Old Testament and New Testament attributed to the Apostle Paul (1st century AD), the founder of the Christian community in the city of Corinth, a zealous preacher of the new faith in Greece, Macedonia, Cyprus, Asia Minor, who suffered martyrdom for it (according to legend, he was beheaded). The New Testament formulates the basic principles of Christianity, which were developed during the 1st – 4th centuries. and were finally approved at the Council of Laodicea in 364. The complete canon of the Old and New Testaments, numbering 66 books (39 books of the Old Testament and 27 books of the New Testament), was established by the church leader and theologian Athanasius of Alexandria. Great influence The New Testament writings were influenced not only by the ideas of the Old Testament, but also by the religious and mystical teachings of Philo of Alexandria, who considered logos as an analogue of being and a mediator between God and man, as well as the philosophy of Stoicism (the basic assumptions about providence - the highest divine power that controls the destinies of people and the world) and Neoplatonism (ideas about the identity of thinking and being as an emanation of the “one”, about the immortality of the soul, about beauty and harmony as evidence of the divine origin of the world). The New Testament canon includes the four Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John), the “Acts of the Holy Apostles” (Greek apostolos - “ambassador, messenger”; books of Paul, Peter, Andrew, John and Pseudo-Clement, telling about miracles , written by the apostles after the Descent of the Holy Spirit), seven conciliar epistles of the apostles: James (one), Peter (two), John (three), Jude (one) and fourteen epistles of the Apostle Paul. The New Testament ends with the “Revelation” (“Apocalypse” from the Greek “revelation, manifestation”) of John the Theologian (68 AD), the main themes of which are the second coming of Jesus Christ, his victory over Satan and the Last Judgment. The Gospel (Greek “joyful, good news”) of Matthew (Levi), according to ancient church tradition, was written by a disciple of Christ, a tax collector (publican) in Capernaum, probably in 60 - 00. This is the most extensive of the canonical gospels, telling about the genealogy of Jesus Christ (Christ is the Greek translation of the Aramaic "anointed one", which corresponded to the Hebrew "messiah"), a descendant of King David, the flight of Mary into Egypt, the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem, his baptism and temptation in the desert, about the first disciples (Simon Peter and his brother Andrew), the sermons and miraculous acts of Jesus, about his triumphal entry into Jerusalem, the Easter dinner (Last Supper) with his 12 disciples (apostles), communion with bread and wine. Then follows the betrayal of Judas, the arrest of Jesus “by the chief priests with the elders and scribes and the entire Sanhedrin,” who took him to the Roman procurator Pontius Pilate, who released Barrabas, and “beat Jesus and handed him over to be crucified.” The story ends with the crucifixion and death of Jesus, his burial and resurrection. The main idea of ​​the Gospel is that in Jesus the messianic aspirations of the Old Testament for the Savior were embodied. The Gospel of Mark, one of the companions of the Apostle Paul, and then the translator and scribe of the Apostle Peter, was probably written c. 60 – 06 in Rome. It begins with the baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist in the Jordan, his temptation in the desert by Satan, his calling of the first four apostles (Simon Peter, Andrew, James, John), the miracles that he performs as a servant of God carrying out God's will (the expulsion of a legion of demons, the resurrection the daughter of Jairus, the healing of a woman who had suffered from an illness for 12 years, a blind man in Bethsaida, feeding 5,000 with “five loaves and two fish,” walking on water, etc. ). The Gospel contains Christ's predictions about the destruction of Jerusalem and his death, a description of the "Lord's Supper", the betrayal of Judas, crucifixion, burial, resurrection and the meeting of the disciples with the resurrected Jesus. A distinctive feature of the Gospel of Luke (c. 60 - 00), addressed to the educated Greek Theophilus, is the desire of the author, a companion of the Apostle Paul on missionary trips, to connect the events of sacred history with world history and present Jesus as the perfect God-man. It opens with predictions “in the days of Herod king of Judea” about the birth of John the Baptist and Jesus, who came into the world to lead the outcasts to God. Compared to other authors, Luke devotes more attention the history of Mary, the birth of Jesus, the appearance of an angel to the shepherds, events in Galilee (in the synagogue in Nazareth, from where Jesus was expelled, and in Capernaum, where he cast out demons and healed the sick), a description of the visit to Jerusalem, the calling of Jesus' twelve disciples (Simon Peter, Andrew, James , John, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, James "Alpheus", Simon the Zealot, "Judas Jacob and Judas Iscariot"), whom he "called apostles", gave them "power and authority to cast out demons and heal diseases." In the Gospel of John (c. 85 - 50), Jesus is glorified as the eternal Logos (“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God... The Word became Man and lived among us”), as light, truth, love , “good shepherd”, “bread that came from heaven.” The symbolism is intended to reveal and emphasize the fullness of the mission of Jesus Christ, which became clear to his disciples only after the descent of St. Spirit. My main goal The evangelist saw the need for people to “believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and, believing, have life in His name.” The central image of the New Testament is the image of a preacher from Galilee, the founder of one of the three world religions named after him - Jesus Christ (epithets: “Son of God”, “Savior”, “Redeemer”, “Pantocrator”, “Great Bishop”, “ King of Kings”, etc.). Archangel Gabriel predicted to the Virgin Mary, betrothed to the carpenter Joseph, the birth of a baby, immaculately conceived through the action of St. Spirit. During the census, Joseph and Mary went to the Palestinian city of Bethlehem to register at the place of residence of their clan. According to the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus was born during the reign of Herod I the Great (37 or 40 - 4 BC) in Bethlehem. Eight days later, the baby was circumcised and, according to God's instructions, named Jesus; on the fortieth day he was brought to the Jerusalem temple to be dedicated to God. During the massacre of the infants, ordered by King Herod, Joseph and Mary flee with Jesus to Egypt. At the age of thirty, Jesus was baptized in the Jordan River by John the Baptist, then withdrew into the desert, where he fasted for forty days, tempted by the devil. After his return, he called the first disciples and began to preach the revealed teaching from above in Cana, the site of the first miracle performed by Jesus, Capernaum and other cities on the shores of Lake Gennesaret. Violating the prohibitions of Judaism, Jesus healed on the Sabbath, communicated with the outcasts, forgave their sins, raised them from the dead, and taught people “as one who has authority, and not as the scribes and Pharisees,” which caused the indignation of the Jewish rabbis. In the days before the Passover, Jesus triumphantly entered Jerusalem, where the crowd greeted him with ritual shouts. The Sanhedrin held a trial against Jesus as a dangerous candidate for the role of king for the authorities. One of his students, Judas Iscariot, betrayed his teacher. Jesus was arrested and brought to the Roman governor of Judea, Pontius Pilate (26 - 66) to confirm the verdict of the Sanhedrin - scourging and crucifixion. On the third day after death, Jesus Christ rose from the dead, and on the fortieth day he ascended from the Mount of Olives into heaven in the presence of eleven disciples. Over the centuries, the image of Jesus Christ, “the greatest religious genius in the entire history of mankind” (E. Renan), and the New Testament stories, legends and motifs associated with him have been widely used in art and literature.

In addition to the texts of Holy Scripture recognized by the Church, there are also so-called apocryphal texts. Perhaps the essence of faith and the true evidence of the era of the first generation of Christians should be sought precisely in them - for example, in the recently sensational Gospel of Judas? Why are they worse than official texts? We asked a famous biblical scholar to tell us how the list of texts included in the New Testament was formed, and from what it follows that it really reflects the view of the Gospel events of the first disciples of Christ Andrey Desnitsky.

How the canon came to be

Opening the New Testament today, the reader discovers 27 books under its cover. And indeed, if you look at the early history of the Church, the first Christians did not have such a list of canonical texts. There was not even the very concept of “canon” - in relation to the Bible, this word means a closed list of books included in it. But this is not surprising: Christianity did not immediately arise in a ready-made form, as totalitarian sects sometimes arise, with complete ready list rules and regulations for all occasions. It developed naturally, and it was not immediately that a definitive list of the books of Holy Scripture appeared.

The earliest lists that have reached us are found in the works of the Church Fathers who lived in the 2nd, 3rd and 4th centuries - Justin the Philosopher, Irenaeus of Lyons, Clement of Alexandria, Cyril of Jerusalem and others. There is also an anonymous list of books, called the “muratorian canon” (after the name of the person who discovered it in modern times), dated to the end of the 2nd century.

The important thing is that in all these lists, without exception, we will find the four Gospels known to us, the book of Acts and almost all of the Epistles of Paul. They may lack the Epistle to the Hebrews, the book of Revelation and part of the Council Epistles. At the same time, they may include some other texts that are not today part of the New Testament: the Epistles of the Apostle Barnabas and Clement of Rome, the Shepherd of Hermas, the Didache (otherwise called the Teaching of the Twelve Apostles) and the Revelation of Peter. All of these texts were written shortly after the New Testament books, and they give us much valuable information about the history of the early Church.

The canon that we know today, as well as the expression “canonical books” itself, is found for the first time in the Easter Epistle of St. Athanasius of Alexandria in 367. Nevertheless, small discrepancies in the lists of canonical books were encountered until the 5th-6th centuries, but this mainly concerned the recognition of the book of Revelation of John the Theologian, full of mystical images and difficult to understand.

However, all these discrepancies do not change the overall picture in any way - what Christians believed in, what they told about Jesus.

What is the difference between canonical texts and apocrypha

Already in the first centuries of Christianity, books appeared about the life of Jesus Christ, which claimed absolute truth and authenticity. They also appeared at a later time, right up to the present day. These are the “gospels” of Peter, Thomas, Philip, Nicodemus, Judas, Barnabas, Mary (Magdalene) - so to speak, “ alternative histories» Jesus of Nazareth, whose authorship is attributed to various characters in the New Testament. But hardly anyone today takes such claims to authorship seriously. In these “gospels,” as a rule, one can clearly trace an ideological or theological scheme that is alien to Christianity. Thus, the “Gospel of Judas” sets out a Gnostic view of the events of the New Testament, and the “Gospel of Barnabas” is a Muslim one. It is obvious that the texts were not written by the apostles to whom they were attributed, but by adherents of one or another religious school, and in order to give weight to their works they declared them to be the authors of other people.

In addition to these books, many other texts that do not contradict the New Testament itself are often classified as New Testament apocrypha. These are the acts of individual apostles (Barnabas, Philip, Thomas), some epistles, including those attributed to Paul (Laodiceans and 3 Corinthians), and the very books that in ancient times were sometimes included in the New Testament. However, it makes more sense to talk about them as post-biblical works in the Christian tradition.

It is difficult to give any formal criteria by which the first Christians accepted some books and rejected others. But we see a clear continuity of tradition: there may have been some fluctuations on the periphery of the list, but the most important texts speaking about the foundations of the Christian faith (such as the four Gospels or the Epistle to the Romans) were recognized by everyone, immediately and unconditionally, while no “ alternative" versions were not recognized by any of the early Christians. Such versions could be Scripture for the Gnostics or the Manichaeans - but only for them.

At the same time, numerous manuscripts of the canonical texts of the New Testament have reached us, starting from the 2nd century. They may also differ in small details, but it is impossible to read any sensational revelations from them.

Findings of new apocrypha continue, and there is no sensation in this. Christians have always recognized that, in addition to their own Scripture, there are other texts that are revered by other people. In the end, even in our time, people continue to write down the “revelations” that were given to them and assign them sacred status - this is exactly how, for example, the “Book of Mormon” was born in 1830, which the followers of this teaching include in their Holy Scripture. Well, that's their business.

Christians insist only that their Scripture is identical with the Scripture of the early Church, and they do have evidence to support this claim. We can firmly say: the existing canonical text reflects what the witnesses of Christ’s earthly life—his disciples, the first preachers of Christianity—believed.

Codex Sinaiticus.

First page of the Gospel of John

The second oldest (after the Vatican Codex) and most complete manuscript of the Bible. The time of creation is the end of the 4th century. In addition to the books of the canon of Holy Scripture, the composition also includes the texts of the Epistle of the Apostle Barnabas and the “Shepherd” of Hermas.

The Codex is one of the main sources on the textual criticism of the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, since it preserved the text of the Greek Bible in the greatest completeness - compared to the most ancient manuscripts.

The codex was found in the monastery of St. Catherine on Mount Sinai in 1844 by the German biblical scholar Constantin von Tischendorff, who took several sheets to his native Leipzig. In the late 1850s, von Tischendorff visited Sinai as part of a Russian mission and managed to buy the main part of the codex from the monks, which went to the Imperial Public Library in St. Petersburg. In the 1930s Soviet authorities sold almost the entire volume of the codex to Great Britain (now the National Library contains fragments of only three sheets of the codex, found at the beginning of the 20th century). In 1975, several more fragments of it were found in the monastery of St. Catherine.

In 2005, all four owners of the codex sheets - the Russian National Library in St. Petersburg, the British Library, the Leipzig University Library and the St. Catherine's Monastery - agreed on high-quality scanning of the manuscript with the aim of posting the full text on the Internet. Since July 6, 2009, the texts have been available in full on the website www.codex-sinaiticus.net.

NEW TESTAMENT(Greek kaine diatheke, Latin novum testamentum) contains 27 books that make up the second part of the Christian Bible. The Greek word diatheke means "testament", "testament"; "union", "treaty". The covenant is called the New because Christians believe that Jesus Christ sealed with his blood a new (second) covenant between God and man (1 Cor 11:25; Heb 9:15) (the first was the covenant made by God with Moses on Mount Sinai) .

Jesus did not leave behind any writings; all information given in the books describing his life and explaining the meaning of his ministry comes from his first followers, the apostles and their disciples. The first four books are called the gospels, their content is the “good news” about Jesus Christ - about his birth, ministry, expressed in preaching and in the miracles he performed, about his death and resurrection. The Acts of the Apostles, the fifth book of the New Testament, is a historical account of the asceticism of the followers of Christ in spreading the Christian faith and the growth and strengthening of the ancient church. Works of the epistolary genre are particularly widely represented in the New Testament: it includes 13 epistles of the Apostle Paul, 9 of which are addressed to various churches, and another 4 to three individuals, as well as the anonymous Epistle to the Hebrews (attributed in the Vulgate to the Apostle Paul) and seven volumes. n. conciliar epistles, one of which is attributed to James, two to Peter, three to John and one to Judas (not Iscariot). The last book that concludes the New Testament (Revelation of John the Evangelist) belongs to the genre of apocalyptic literature: its subject is “revelation” (Greek: apocalypsis), announcing future events that are to take place on earth and in heaven. All these books are arranged in the New Testament in accordance with a natural semantic sequence: first the story of Christ and the Good News he brought is given, then the history of the spread of this message by the ancient church is outlined, then explanations and practical conclusions follow, and it all ends with a story about the ultimate goal of the divine economy .

The language in which all 27 books of the New Testament are written is Koine, the common Greek language of that era. This form of Greek, although lacking the refinement of classical Greek of the 5th–4th centuries. BC, was familiar to almost the entire population of the Roman Empire, to whom the first Christian missionaries turned to preach the Gospel. Most literary language- from the point of view of the syntactic structure and vocabulary used - the Epistle to the Hebrews and two books belonging to Luke were written - the Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles. Among the books that deviate most from the standards of the Attic dialect and approach colloquial Greek are the Gospel of Mark and the Book of Revelation. Moreover, since all the authors represented in the New Testament were either Jews or pagan converts to Judaism before becoming Christians, it is only natural that their Koine Greek would be influenced by their familiarity with the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible.

The original manuscripts of the books of the New Testament have not reached us. We draw all our knowledge about these texts from three sources: Greek manuscripts dating back to the 2nd century. or subsequent centuries, ancient translations into other languages ​​(primarily Syriac, Latin and Coptic) and New Testament quotations that are found in the works of ancient church writers.

Greek manuscripts are distinguished either by the material on which they were written (papyrus, parchment, or leather, and ostracons - clay shards) or by the method of writing. IN Greek two types of writing were used: majuscule (or uncial) and minuscule. Majuscule manuscripts are written in large letters, which have much in common with modern in capital letters. From the 9th century majuscule writing is being replaced by the more convenient minuscule writing, which is characterized by small, closely written letters. In the most ancient manuscripts, in accordance with the then writing rules, punctuation marks were not used and spaces were not left between individual words and sentences.

More than 50 Greek papyrus fragments of the New Testament, more than 200 Greek uncial manuscripts and about 4,000 Greek minuscule manuscripts (including lectionaries - books from which sacred texts were read during church services) are known. The oldest New Testament fragment is considered to be a tiny fragment of a papyrus codex dating from the first half of the 2nd century. and containing several verses from the 18th chapter of the Gospel of John in Greek. The most ancient manuscripts, containing significant parts of the New Testament, are three papyrus codices dating from the 3rd century. (the so-called Chester Beatty papyri). One of them consists of 30 damaged leaves of the papyrus codex, which originally included all four gospels and the Acts of the Apostles. Another is 86 slightly damaged leaves containing the text of the ten letters of the Apostle Paul. Finally, the third contains ten slightly damaged leaves of the Book of Revelation. The two oldest parchment Greek majuscule manuscripts of the New Testament are the Codex Vaticanus and Codex Sinaiticus, dating from the 4th century. Greek minuscule manuscripts date back to the 9th century. and subsequent centuries.

As the New Testament was rewritten many times to meet the growing needs of the church, the scribes made many changes to it. Copyists not only made the unintentional errors that are inevitable in any copying, but often attempted to improve the grammar or style of the text, correct perceived historical and geographical errors, correct quotations from the Old Testament in accordance with the Greek Septuagint, and reconcile parallel passages in the gospels. As a result, numerous readings (variants of text fragments) arose, of which approx. 200,000. However, it should be noted that more than 95% of these discrepancies do not affect the understanding of the meaning of the text. Using textual methods, scientists are able to reconstruct, with a greater or lesser degree of reliability, the original text that underlay the surviving variants. Ancient translations and New Testament quotations in the writings of the church fathers are also of great help in evaluating various manuscript readings.

The number of surviving Greek manuscripts of the New Testament far exceeds the number of manuscripts of the Greek classics. So, for example, Iliad Homer has reached us in less than 500 manuscripts, the works of Plato and Thucydides - in two dozen manuscripts, and we know many other authors only from a single manuscript. In addition, the works of many Greek and Latin authors are preserved only in manuscripts dating back to the Middle Ages.

The manuscripts of the New Testament were created on scrolls, and the practical impossibility of increasing their length beyond a reasonable limit prevented the combination of several books of the New Testament in one scroll. In the 2nd century. many Christians have mastered the form of a codex, or book with separate sheets, which allowed them to collect, for example, all the gospels or all the letters of the Apostle Paul in one volume. In parallel with this process of collecting and systematizing individual New Testament books, the idea of ​​a New Testament canon was formed.

The Greek word "canon" is borrowed from Semitic languages ​​and originally meant a ruler or stick with which measurements could be made, and hence - figurative meaning– “rule”, “norm” or “list”. Why, how, and when the books constituting the New Testament in its present form were collected into a single body is a question to which it is extremely difficult to answer, since the church fathers of this era do not give any definite and detailed reports on this subject. However, we can trace some trends that seem to have influenced the formation of the New Testament canon.

Jesus and his first followers received from the Jews the authoritative body of Holy Scripture - the Hebrew Bible. In addition, since the listeners treated with special reverence and respect the sayings of Christ himself, who said that in him the Old Testament was fulfilled and received its final meaning, the practice of reading excerpts from books in which the words were set forth began to develop in the ancient church during general services. and the actions of Jesus. But even before the gospels were written, Christians read the letters of the Apostle Paul addressed to a given church (community). These messages were also sent to neighboring communities (Col. 4:16). Paul's letters, like those of the other apostles, were intended to be read over and over again before an assembly of believers. It can be assumed that they were initially perceived as a written sermon by a teacher who could not personally address his flock. Over time, it became customary to listen to the apostolic words, and they were circulated in copies, and subsequently came to be regarded as Scripture. Later, when heretical sects began to arise in large numbers, each of which had its own “scripture,” the Orthodox Church had to more clearly define the boundaries of the true canon. Around 140, the heretic Marcion formed his own canon of scripture, excluding the Old Testament and leaving only the Gospel of Luke (in an abridged form) and the epistles of the Apostle Paul (with the exception of two epistles to Timothy and the Epistle to Titus).

During the second half of the 2nd century. church - according to such authoritative writers as Irenaeus, Tertullian and Clement of Alexandria, familiar with the situation in Asia Minor and Gaul, North Africa and Alexandria, - realized the fact that she has a canon, which includes the four gospels known to us, the Acts of the Apostles, the 13 epistles of Paul, the First Epistle of Peter and the First Epistle of John. Seven books - the Epistle to the Hebrews, the Epistle of James, the Second Epistle of Peter, the Second and Third Epistles of John, the Epistle of Jude and the Book of Revelation - have not yet received universal recognition, and a number of others (in particular, Didache, Message of Barnabas, Shepherd of Herma And Apocalypse of Peter) were placed as if on the border of the canon. In the 3rd century. and at the beginning of the 4th century, as can be judged from the writings of Origen and Eusebius, all near-canonical books were examined and a classification of texts claiming apostolic authority was carried out, as a result of which genuine, dubious and rejected (they were called apocryphal) books were identified. Although Origen still referred to Shepherd of Hermas And Message of Barnabas as “scriptures,” however, the significant thing is that among his many interpretations there is not a single interpretation of a book that would not be included today in the New Testament canon.

In the 4th century. The composition of the canon begins to be consolidated in official decrees - first by the bishops of local churches, and then by local and ecumenical councils. This composition is increasingly approaching - in the number and arrangement of books - the composition of the New Testament that we know today. Athanasius of Alexandria was the first who, in his 39th holiday epistle (367), gave a list of the modern 27 canonical books of the New Testament (placing, as is customary now, in Orthodox tradition, conciliar epistles before the epistles of the Apostle Paul). In the West, the 27 canonical books of the New Testament were recognized by the Latin Church at three African councils, at which Augustine played a leading role (at the Council of Hippo in 393 and at the two Councils of Carthage - in 397 and 419). With the advent of Jerome's Latin Vulgate, this canon was recognized everywhere in the West. In the East, the Syrian Church back in the 5th century. recognized only 22 books as canonical, not including the Second Epistle of Peter, the Second and Third Epistles of John, the Epistle of Jude and the Book of Revelation in the New Testament part of the Syriac translation of the Bible (Peshitta). The Ethiopian Church, on the contrary, included 35 books in its New Testament, recognizing 8 books of the so-called canonical. Apostolic Decrees.

None of the councils, whose authority was recognized by the entire church, made decisions regarding the limits of the canon. In 1546, the Council of Trent clearly defined the canon for Roman Catholics, and in the encyclical Providentissimus Deus(1893) was formulated - in terms accepted in Catholicism - the general Christian doctrine of the divine inspiration of canonical books. The canonicity of individual books was assessed according to certain criteria, the main of which were their apostolic origin (or the presence of apostolic sanction), their agreement with the Old Testament and other parts of the New Testament, and the wide distribution of these books.

The New Testament is part of the Bible, the most important book for all Christians. More precisely, a collection of 27 books that every believer read. To talk about what the New Testament is, it is worth explaining first the word Covenant, which in this case is interpreted as a contract. A contract appears to us to be a legal term, but a covenant made with God is something else. This is the way and order of life that the Lord gave us and the instructions of a loving parent who wishes us Eternal life. The Bible consists of the Old Testament, which tells us what happened before the coming of the Messiah, and the New Testament, the contract made with us.

The Lord loved people so much that He sent His Son to save us from death. The main thing in Christianity is Christ. By accepting His sacrifice, we abide by the “rules” of this agreement.

Story

The Gospel was written by the Apostles, each of whom speaks of events from the birth of the Child Jesus to His ascension. In the New Testament there are also messages that the Apostles left for people when they went to teach all nations, as the Lord told them. The New Testament also contains prophecies about the coming Last Judgment.

The history of the writing of the Gospel is evidence of the truth of the words that were written there. When Jesus was crucified, His disciples were depressed. Great conquests were expected from the Messiah, not death on the Cross. It is difficult to imagine that after these horrifying events, Christ’s disciples would have gone to preach and would have joyfully accepted martyrdom for the Savior, if they had not been convinced that He had conquered death and had not appeared to them in the flesh after the Crucifixion.

• historical,
• teaching
• prophetic.

Historical books are the four Gospels and the book of the Acts of the Apostles:

• Gospel of Matthew,
• Gospel of Mark,
• Gospel of Luke
• Gospel of John
• book of the Acts of the Apostles.

Teaching books are apostolic epistles, which are letters written by the apostles to different churches. The prophetic book in the New Testament is the Apocalypse. John the Theologian, where the fate of the Church of Christ is prophetically foreseen until the Second Coming of Jesus Christ.

Books of the New Testament

1. From Matthew holy gospel(or: gospel),
2. Mark's Holy Gospel (or: Gospel),
3. Luke's Holy Gospel (or: Gospel),
4. John's Holy Gospel (or: Good News),
5. Acts of the Holy Apostles,
6. Cathedral Epistle of St. Apostle James,
7. The first conciliar letter of St. Apostle Peter,
8. Second Council Epistle of St. Apostle Peter,
9. The first conciliar letter of St. Apostle John the Theologian,
10. Second Council Epistle of St. Apostle John the Theologian,
11. Third Council Epistle of St. Apostle John the Theologian,
12. Cathedral Epistle of St. Apostle Jude,
13. Epistle to the Romans by St. Apostle Paul,
14. First Epistle to the Corinthians by St. Apostle Paul,
15. Second Epistle to the Corinthians by St. Apostle Paul,
16. Epistle to the Galatians by St. Apostle Paul,
17. Epistle to the Ephesians by St. Apostle Paul,
18. Epistle to the Philippians by St. Apostle Paul,
19. Epistle to the Colossians by St. Apostle Paul,
20. First Epistle to Thessalonians (or: Thessalonians) by St. Apostle Paul,
21. Second Epistle to Thessalonians (or: Thessalonians) by St. Apostle Paul,
22. First Epistle to Timothy St. Apostle Paul,
23. Second Epistle to Timothy St. Apostle Paul,
24. Epistle to Titus St. Apostle Paul,
25. Epistle to Philemon by St. Apostle Paul,
26. Epistle to the Hebrews St. Apostle Paul,
27. Apocalypse, or Revelation of St. John the Theologian.

part of the Bible revered as St. scriptures by Christians. Name N. z. associated with the doctrine of a new agreement (Old Russian “testament” - agreement) of God with people through Jesus Christ. Consists of 27 “books”: 4 Gospels, Acts of the Apostles, 21 Epistles, Revelation of John (Apocalypse). The sequence of appearance of books by N. Z. does not coincide with the one in which they are located in the canon and the edges Christ defends. tradition. Appeared first on Tue. floor. 68 - beginning 69 Revelation of John, con. 90s 1st century iv early 2nd century - some from the Epistles, Tue. couple. 2nd century - Gospels, in the beginning Tue. floor. 2nd century - Acts and other Epistles. The general meaning of all the “books” of N. Z. church and christ. tradition is seen in the story of the incarnation into man. the image of the son of God Jesus Christ (messiah), who appeared on earth to redeem the firstborn. sin, about his fulfillment of this mission; about his resurrection after execution and ascension to heaven, where he must wait until he needs to appear on earth a second time and complete the work of saving the human race; about the preacher the activities of the apostles of Christ, as a result of which the first Christs arose. communities and then the church. Dept. The links of this doctrine are expressed in N. z. confusing and contradictory, so connecting them into something whole turned out to be a very difficult task for theologians. Hence the numerous Contradictory interpretations of the meaning of N. z., k-rys were in the history of Christianity the justification of religious and social-political. positions of the directions fighting among themselves. Canon N. z. was established gradually in an atmosphere of struggle between different communities of the first Christians. For a long time time were in use as sacred and essentially canonical plurals. works that were either not subsequently included in the canon (“The Shepherd” of Hermas, the Epistles of Clement of Rome and Barnabas, etc.), or recognized as apocryphal (see Apocrypha) (dozens of apocryphal gospels - Thomas, James, Peter, etc.. Revelation of Peter, series of Epistles and Acts). On the other hand, the canonicity of the Revelation of John, who entered into Christ, has long been questioned. canon later. It is believed that the canon of N. Z. was approved at the Council of Laodicea (364), but in fact its composition was repeatedly the subject of discussion at subsequent local and universal councils. cathedrals The canonical text has also undergone many changes. books AD

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New Testament

Greek , lat. Novum Testamentum) is a complex of religious works added by Christians to the Judaic Bible (referred to in Christianity as the Old Testament) and together with the latter constitutes the Christian Bible. Term berit hahadas(“new union” - between God and man) is found in Old Testament(Jer. 31:31); then it served as the self-name of the sectarian “Qumran” community. The idea that God would re-enter into a union with men (and not with a single chosen one or a chosen people, but with all mankind) on the basis of their more spiritual service arose in the eschatological aspirations of Judaism. Christianity came forward with the message that the “new union” of God with humanity was brought about as a result of the reconciling mission and free sacrifice of Christ (cf. Luke 22:20). For traditional religiosity, the word "new" can only be given negative meaning- here official Judaism and Greco-Roman paganism were united [the critic of Christianity Cellier (V, 25) praises the Jews for the fact that, in contrast to Christians, “observing the worship inherited from their fathers, they act like other people”]. Young Christianity introduced this word to designate its “scripture” and invested in it its highest aspirations and hopes, colored by the pathos of eschatological historicism (cf. G. Quispel, Zeit und Geschichte im antiken Christentum, Eranos-Jahrbuch 20, 1951, S. 128 and ate); members of Christian communities looked forward to cosmic renewal and felt themselves to be “new people” (2 Cor. 5:17). At the same time, we are talking not only about dynamic reformism, but specifically about historicism, for the relationship between God and man turned out to be correlated with the mystically understood idea of ​​development, evolution, and received a time dimension (cf. Rom. 1-7, etc., where it is repeatedly emphasized that The Mosaic Law arose in time and is abolished in time). Contradictions and unity of N. 3. N. 3. combines texts of various authors and different eras - from the middle of the 1st century. until the middle of the 2nd century; the selection of the canon from the vast material of early Christian literature continued for several more centuries and was finally completed only by the 2nd half. IV century Naturally, N. 3. seems full of contradictions. Thus, if the letters of the Apostle Paul develop a unique concept of salvation through faith alone, sharply opposed to the idea of ​​​​religious merit through the performance of rituals or other “works” (see, for example, Rom. 4: 2-4; 11: 6: “But if according to grace, then not by works; otherwise grace would no longer be grace"), then in the “Conciliar Epistle of St. James” we encounter a direct polemic with Paul: “Do you see that a person is justified by works, and not by faith only?” (2:24). Two are given here various models religiosity: the first was realized in Protestantism (“salvation by faith alone” of Luther, dialectical theology), the second - in the legal rationalism of Catholicism. The Apocalypse and the Epistles of Paul give various types relations to the social reality of the Roman Empire, outlining two opposite lines running through the entire history of Christianity: the religiously colored rebellion of many medieval heresies, the left wing of the Reformation, etc., and the socio-political conservatism of the official churches. However, contradictions do not cancel the internal unity of N. 3. as an expression of a certain ideological style. This unity is in the general atmosphere of intense eschatologism, paradoxism and personal psychologism. The paradoxism of N. Z., equally characteristic of the thinking of such dissimilar religious writers as the author of the Apocalypse and the authors of the Epistles of the Ap. Paul,” is of a fundamental nature and stems not only from the usual distrust of rationalism for religion, but also from the experience of a crisis historical dialectic, forcing a person to a radical revaluation of values ​​(see, for example, 1 Cor. 1:21,26-28) . All traditional “natural” assessments are questioned: a person is strongest when he reaches the limit in deprivation and despair, for only then does “grace” come into play, revealing itself in psychological crisis situations (eg, 2 Cor. 12). The symbol of this crisis is death and rebirth: the “saint,” according to N. 3., is already here on earth, living as if on the other side of death: “Don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death ? (Rom. 6:3-4). Therefore, the central message of N. 3. is the death on the cross and the resurrection of God, the correlate of which is the torment and resurrection of believers, understood in the literal sense, but at the same time as a symbol psychological process renewal in earthly life. High score suffering (cf. John 16:20-21) is generally characteristic of Christianity at all its stages, but later it acquires the more rationalistic character of asceticism, going back rather to Greek philosophy than to N. 3. (cf. / Leipoldt, Griechische Philosophic und fruhchristliche Askese, V., 1961). In N. 3. despair is understood not so much as “mortification of the flesh”, but as a painful experience of the antinomy of cosmic processes and one’s own soul (cf. Rom. 7:19: “The good that I want, I do not do, but the evil that I do not want, I do"). At the same time, the elements of dialectics in N. 3. are deprived of the ontological character that they acquire in patristics; this is an ethical dialectic presented in a symbolic-mythical form. Myth in N. 3. The characterization of the New Testament narrative as mythological does not depend in any way on the question of the historicity of Jesus Christ, the apostles, etc.; we are dealing here with mythology insofar as the constitutive feature of N. 3. is the direct identification of the real and the semantic, the one-time and the “eternal.” However, the mythology of the New Testament is not isomorphic to pagan mythologies that developed back in the era of communal tribal formation. At one time, the great achievement of biblical criticism was that it was able to decompose the topic (i.e., a set of motifs) of the New Testament myth into borrowings from pagan myths (the suffering, dying and resurrecting god of vegetation, the totemic animal as the object of the Eucharistic meal, etc. ). But the topic does not yet explain the structure: the elements of the pagan topic that make up the New Testament myth receive in its structure a meaning that is directly opposite to their original meaning. It is enough to compare the free sacrifice of Christ with a similar act of any naturalistic suffering god (Osiris, Attis, Tammuz, Dionysus, etc.) to understand this difference between the two mythologies: the pagan god with his “passions” and resurrection is woven into the impersonal cycle of nature and a conscious choice between acceptance and rejection of one’s fate is unthinkable for him, while in the New Testament myth at the center is the problem of personal choice with all its ethical and psychological attributes (“praying for the cup”). The emphasis is shifted from the objectivist-indifferent “fact” of God’s passions to the free act of his will, in other words, from natural processes to ethical ones. In place of cosmologism, which defined the ancient worldview in its idealistic and materialistic, mythological and scientific forms, fundamental anthropocentrism is put in place (the terms “cosmos” and “zones” are used in N. 3., usually in a devaluing sense). N. 3. in mythological form overcomes this impersonality (the individual human soul in its uniqueness from the point of view of N. 3. is of greater value than all material, intelligible and social cosmos taken together). There is something else connected with this. Pagan myth is fundamentally ahistorical and reflects the rhythm of nature with its “eternal returns”; Jewish myth is closer to Christian mystical historicism, but operates primarily with the distant past or distant future; The Christian myth is the myth of history par excellence and, moreover, of actual history. In place of the cyclical concept of development characteristic of Greek paganism (both in its mythological and philosophical design) is the concept of rectilinear movement ( euro 9:25-28; 1 Pet. 3:18; Wed words of Augustine, “On the City of God,” XII, 14: “Christ died once for our sins... but the wicked wander in circles... for such is the way of their error”). The fact that main character N. 3. is as close as possible chronologically, that the myth itself is given in the form historical biography with all sorts of prosaic details of Roman reality, such as the census under Augustus, the presence of the Roman procurator, etc., expresses a whole revolution in myth-making attitudes. Along with mythical symbolism, exalted solemnity, etc., the New Testament narrative is replete with degrading details, which in the original are sharply emphasized by vulgar Greek vocabulary; these reducing details are the most important integrating moments of the New Testament myth, the structure of which is built on contrasting unity, on the paradoxical identification of the “high” (mythological-theological) and “low” (historical-everyday) plans, on the unexpected “recognition” of one in the other, which culminates in its central point- depiction of Christ's death on the cross. On the one hand, this is the most base of all conceivable executions and, moreover, an everyday spectacle for a resident of the Roman Empire, on the other hand, this turns out to be the highest mystery, every moment of which is performed “in fulfillment of what is written.” Myth is introduced into history and finds itself assigned to certain historical dates and geographical locations; that unity of human life and universal universal existence, which in pagan mythology was taken for granted and then disintegrated with the growth of abstraction, is being sought anew, and this time not only the timeless, “eternal” sphere is associated with the absolute human existence, but also specifically the historical side of human life. In this sense, N. 3. already contains the Christological quest for patristics of the 5th-7th centuries. with its problematics of removing dualism, although, of course, only conservative theological exegesis can read Christological dogmatics in finished form from N. 3. Thus, in the NT there are elements of pagan myth, as well as various ideological systems of the late antique world, ideological and even terminological borrowings from vulgar Greek philosophy of the Stoico-Cynical direction, from pagan syncretic mysticism, magic and mystery teachings, from Jewish exegesis, from the everyday life of sects like “ Qumran”, etc. acquire a new semantic unity. Sergey Averintsev. Sophia-Logos. Dictionary