New Testament Writings Research Articles

‘The spirit of the Lord God is upon me’ (Is 61:1): The use of Isaiah 61:1–2 in Luke 4:18–19

Copious citations of the Old Testament (OT) by the New Testament (NT) writers confirm the continuity of the divine revelation in both parts of the sacred scripture and at the same time underscore the newness of the NT. This is evident in the theological development of the reality of the ‘spirit of the Lord’ from the OT to the NT. In this article the writer traces the development of this biblical concept from its occurrence in the context of Isaiah 61:1–2 to the use of this text in a programmatic passage of Luke 4:18–19. The aim of the research is to shed light on the concept and nature of the spirit of the Lord in its context in Isaiah and the use of this by a NT writer. Both texts are carefully compared, using a literary approach, with the intention to discover how the NT writer used this concept in his presentation of the person and mission of Jesus as a charismatic figure and the anointed of the Lord.

Book Review: Is Scripture Still Holy? Coming of Age with the New Testament

Is Scripture Still Holy ? Coming of Age with New Testament. By A. E. Harvey. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans Publishing, 2012. vii + 151 pp. $22.00 (paper).With winsome and yet unflinching style, Harveys Is Scripture Still Holy? delves into New Testament hermeneutical questions that challenge trustworthiness of biblical text as an acceptable foundation for contemporary Christian living. Assuming his readers' general familiarity with textual scholarship, Harvey foregoes customary academic explanations and notations in order to pointedly consider driving question of his work: Can New Testament still be trusted as a, if not the, authoritative source and reliable moral compass for Christian ethics today?Harvey immediately plunges into central hermeneutical questions and implications of New Testament textual scholarship. If people of equally profound rely on other 'scriptures' in same way that Jews and Christians rely on Bible, question has to be asked whether any scripture can claim unique (p. 2). He fairly accounts for questions about reverential esteem historically afforded to Bible and subsequent authority it holds over adherents of faith and whether it should deserve respect from those outside (p. 19). Over course of his discursive argument, Harvey engages numerous conversations, including questions regarding Luke's historical narration of Paul's speeches in Acts (p. 29), primacy of and variances between synoptic accounts (p. 35), potential discrepancies between historical Jesus and Jesus as esteemed in Christian tradition (p. 87), and development of Paul's theology as record of earliest seeds of Christianity (p. 109). Harvey even ponders impact of an expected parousia and nearly two millennia since time of New Testament writings (p. 136).Throughout Harvey asserts plausibility of different conclusions than those typically drawn by scholarly consensus. He notes the fragility of reasoning which underlies usually accepted account for gospels' genesis (p. 37) and contends that Jesus of gospels could not have been fabricated or altered out of recognition to his early followers while achieving such global and ongoing impact (p. 39). At several points, Harvey considers overlooked questions in academic dialogue, such as what kind of moral standard does New Testament offer, a compendium of rules to be strictly observed or collection of teachings intended to exhort and inspire (p. 84)? He ultimately suggests writers of New Testament assumed reality of God as creator, of creation that lacked fullness God desired, and of belief that God will undoubtedly bring about a new era of righteousness. …

Old Testament spirituality in the gospel of John

The majority of early Christian documents are saturated with Jewish thought. Although Second-Temple Judaism did include a certain amount of diversity, when the Gospel of John was written in different phases during the latter half of the 1st century, the written Torah was a fixed part of Jewish Scripture. In this research, I endeavour to point out how Torah themes saturate the Prologue of the Gospel of John and also how these themes create a certain spirituality amongst its readers. A positive feature of Old Testament imagery and themes is that they are polysemantic, which made it easy for the writers of New Testament documents to reinterpret the Old Testament in the light of Jesus Christ. The author of the Gospel of John also made use of significant characters, themes and imagery, all taken from the Torah. In doing so, he created new spiritualities amongst the readers of the Gospel of John to endorse the identity, reality and a certain image and experience of the unseen God (1:18) of the Old Testament through Jesus Christ. The spirituality in the Gospel of John is bound up with a real God interacting with real people in real situations.

Knowing God by Faith according to the Writers of The New Testament

Knowing God by Faith according to the Writers of The New Testament

Church and State in the New Testament

The attitude of the New Testament writers towards the Roman Empire presents a curious picture, varying as it does from a quite remarkable enthusiasm to a violent hostility. The hostility is natural enough in view of the hostility of wide circles of Palestinian Judaism to the supposed oppressors of the chosen people; the earliest generation of Christians regarded themselves as loyal members of the nation, while the later writers of the New Testament had lived through the persecution of some at least of the churches outside Palestine under Nero and Domitian. The enthusiasm is not so easy to explain, especially as it survives both these persecutions.

Modern Methods in New Testament Philology

The language of the Greek New Testament has been under the continual search-light of criticism since the early part of the seventeenth century, when the keen debate between the Purist and the Hebraist produced a copious literature. The former laid a very heavy burden on his own shoulders. Although he could easily argue for his thesis of the “purity” of the New Testament language by citing numberless parallels between it and the best Greek writers, it was hard to account for the many points of divergence, and consequently the Hebraist steadily gained ground. Antecedent probability, as well as common sense, seemed to be on the side of the latter. For the New Testament was akin to the Septuagint, and that was regarded as a treasure-house of Semitisms. Moreover most of the writers of the New Testament were Jews, and nothing seemed more natural than that their Greek should be deeply tinged with the idioms of their native tongue. Accordingly Hebraism was granted large concessions, and under it were included not only the Greek expressions which happened to have sister-constructions in Hebrew or Aramaic, but also many usages peculiar to Greek but unusual in the days of the best Attic. These Semitisms were supposed so to affect syntax, vocabulary, and style as to make the result un-greek.

The Writers of the New Testament: their Style and Characteristics, by the late William Henry Simcox. Hodder and Stoughton. 1890. 2s. 6d.

The Writers of the New Testament: their Style and Characteristics, by the late William Henry Simcox. Hodder and Stoughton. 1890. 2<i>s</i>. 6<i>d</i>.