Reading the New Testament

The New Testament is not a single book. It is a collection of twenty-seven documents written in different genres, by different authors, for different audiences, over a period of about fifty years. Reading it well requires understanding what kind of document you are reading, who wrote it, and who it was written for.

This section is a guide for the reader who wants to read the New Testament historically — not to prove or disprove anything, but to understand what the texts say and why they say it. Three pages, on the Gospels, the letters of Paul, and the Acts of the Apostles.

The Three Pages

Why Reading Matters

The New Testament has been read and misread for two thousand years. It has been used to justify slavery and to abolish it, to support tyrants and to overthrow them, to comfort the comfortable and to disturb them. Many of these misreadings come from reading the texts as if they were written yesterday, in modern genres, for a modern audience.

Reading the New Testament historically means reading it as it was written: as first-century Jewish and Christian documents, in first-century Jewish and Christian genres, for first-century Jewish and Christian audiences. It does not mean reading it as merely human. It means reading it as honest. And honest reading is what makes the texts available for the reader who wants to hear them.