Create a new account

It's simple, and free.

Survey of the New Testament

The purpose of this paper is to survey the New Testament of the Bible, keeping in mind the historical context in which it was written. The sources for the survey are Robert H. Gundry's A Survey of the New Testament, and Isaac Asimov's Guide to the Bible.

The Messianic tradition was strong among the Jews of Palestine at the time of Christ. Since General Pompey had conquered Jerusalem many years earlier, the Roman yoke was hard pressed on the Jewish people. The Jews not only were forced to pay a part of their Temple tribute to the Romans, but they considered themselves to be the Chosen People of God and, as such, were insulted that their land had been taken over by heathens. The Romans had originally appointed Hasmonean rulers over Judea (e.g., Herod the Great) but, after his death, had assumed the rule of the land directly, with a series of cruel, provincial governors enforcing the Roman laws (Gundry, 1970, pp. 3-11).

Because the Jewish people believed in Biblical prophecy, and because they had been promised a deliverer by various Hebrew prophets, the expectation was strong that a Messiah would soon come who would throw off the Roman yoke, and free the Jewish people, also establishing them as the righteous people under the Lord. Any number of Jewish preachers had made the claim that they were, in fact, the Messiah, and each had been summarily executed by the Romans, some after much armed conflict between the two. Jesus Christ, however, was different. He was not a militant resister to Roman rule, but seems to have been a pacifist, who preached (as did the earlier Hebrew prophets) that if the Jewish people became pious enough and obeyed God's laws, they would be freed from all oppression and welcomed into the "Kingdom of Heaven" (Gundry, 1970, pp. 46-52). This was the state of Palestine when Jesus preached, and what His message seems to have been.

The New Testament books, described as the Canon, were considered by the...

Page 1 of 7 Next >

More on Survey of the New Testament...

Loading...
APA     MLA     Chicago
Survey of the New Testament. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 07:27, March 29, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1705285.html