2. Interesting facts about the New Testament

A. Why was the NT originally written in Greek: The Pax Romana discussion in "The Roman World" mentioned that Greek was the most widely used language in the Roman Empire in the First Century A.D. Therefore, the writers of the NT wrote all their books in Greek. The language of the Jews in Israel at that time and the language that Jesus used was Aramaic. But, since the early church leaders wanted everyone in the Roman Empire to be able to read their books, they wrote in Greek. A few Aramaic words are still in the NT, though: Matthew 27:46 is one example of a verse that has Aramaic words.

B. Do original copies of the NT books exist?: None of the original copies of the NT books have been discovered. Whenever one church or an individual received a copy, if they could afford it, they made one or more copies and passed those to other churches. But none of the original copies have been discovered (although a piece of a copy of the original Gospel of John may have been discovered; this is discussed in the Gospel of John). What scholars have discovered are copies of copies of the original copies, and copies of copies of copies of the original copies, etc. Almost 175 of these copies of various NT books have been discovered that were written before the year 400.

• This has caused many people to doubt the truthfulness of the NT. The complaint is that humans copied these books, so these copies cannot be trusted, and therefore the Bible cannot be trusted. But that is an incorrect understanding of the process of copying in those days.
• This is the correct understanding: for example, if I told you that I was getting ready to die and I wanted you to copy a map I had that would lead to a million dollars in gold that is buried, do you think you would change or leave out any of the details? No. In the same way, the early Christians believed that these books were from God, and so did not leave out any details when they copied the books. For that reason, over 99.9% of the writings are the same.
• The only major differences are when someone changed a phrase due to personal preferences: a scribe might like the phrase “Jesus Christ our Lord” better than “Our Lord Jesus Christ” and so changed that. But the vast majority of the words, and 100% of the concepts and ideas, are the same in all the copies. In that way the books of the NT are reliable duplicates of the original copies.

C. Timing of the New Testament books: These twenty-seven letters were written over a 50-year period. The first book to be written was probably James around 48, and the last book to be written was either Jude, II John, or III John in the late 90s (in my opinion).

D. NT Apocrypha

How to pronounce:

The NT consists of 27 books, but in the 200 years after Jesus different people wrote around 125 writings that claimed to be Christian-based (this includes the 27 NT books). You can find a listing of most of these books here (this list does not include the 27 book of the NT). Most of these writings came from people who wanted to change the message of Jesus and so created new books for their new religions. Therefore, out of all 150 or so books that claimed to be from God (the apocrypha plus the true 27 NT books), the early church leaders had to figure out which of these books were truly from God and which were made up. The listing here is of books the early church leaders decided were made up by people who wanted to start alternative religions and therefore were not true. The main criterion they used was the authorship of each book. If the author or the information came from an Apostle (either written by an Apostle or a close follower of an Apostle) or from one of Jesus’ half-brothers (more about this in the book of James) then the book was included in the NT.

The early Christians may have gotten this idea from the Jews and the Old Testament. All the books of the OT are linked to prophets to ensure they are from God. We discussed earlier how Malachi was the last prophet, and so no books in the OT come after Malachi. (The Catholic and Orthodox Bibles do contain more books, but more on that later.) The early Christians decided to use the Apostles as the measure of trustworthiness. If a letter originated from an Apostle or one of Jesus’ half-brothers, then the letter could be trusted. Only 27 writings fit this criterion, and so there are only 27 books are in the NT. All the books that claimed to be Christian but were not are known as NT Apocrypha.

• Extra: OT Apocrypha
• Warning, this can be confusing! The OT also has its own Apocrypha. The Catholic Church does accept some of these into the Catholic Bible, but you will not find them in Protestant Bibles. Let me pause and say this: Catholics, Orthodox, and Protestants (basically all Christians) only have 27 books in the NT; they all have the same books in the New Testament. The difference is in the OT.
• Basically two different types of OT Apocrypha exists: books that all Christians believe should be excluded from the OT, and books that Catholics (and Orthodox) include in their OTs. But if the word “Apocrypha” means that it is not supposed to be in the Bible, then you can see that Catholics would not call those books Apocrypha. Instead Catholics use a different word for those books: Deuterocanonicals.
• Catholics also accept the criterion from the Jews that a book needed to be linked to prophets in order to make it into the OT. So why the extra books? This might be oversimplifying the issue, but it is a good way to understand the situation: Remember that the OT period ended 450 years before the beginning of the NT with the prophet Malachi. Protestants use the Jewish understanding of the OT, which means that in Protestant Bibles (Baptist, Methodists, nondenominational, Pentecostal, etc.) there is a 450-year gap between the OT and the NT. Catholics (and Orthodox) decided to include some writings that were written in that 450-year period. That is where the extra books come from. Catholics recognize that these writings are not on the same spiritual level as the OT books, but are a spiritual level below the OT writings. That is why Catholics chose to use the word “Deuterocanonicals.” If you break the word apart it will make more sense: “deutero” means “secondary” and “canonical” means “holy writing.” So these books are secondary holy writings. Catholics do not believe they are on the same spiritual level as the 39 OT books, but that they should be read. Therefore, Catholic scholars included them in the Bible and gave them a special name to show that they are different. To learn more go here.
• Extra: An early copy of the New Testament dates from the early-to-mid-300s. To learn more go here.
• Extra: Learn about the earliest scrap of the OT that has been discovered here. (Note: this is not from the original writing; none of those exist.)
• Extra: Learn about the earliest scrap of the NT that has been discovered here. (Note: this is not from the original writing; none of those exist.)
• Extra: Learn how the NT books were decided here.