Course Summary:
The NT is a remarkably varied collection of Christian literature composed between the late first and the early second centuries CE. This “library” represents a number of different literary genres written by over a dozen different authors!
In brief, the NT is about Jesus and his first followers, those who chose to carry on after his death as if he were still with them in spirit. The first four texts of the NT, the gospels, tell us about Jesus. The next text, the Acts of the Apostles, is the earliest narrative about those who continued to spread the word of Messiah Jesus throughout the Roman Empire. A number of letters follow Acts primarily documenting the efforts of Paul who worked to establish a network of believers outside the Jewish homeland. Other letters follow. (And there’s an apocalypse, too!)
It would be naïve to pick up any ancient text and pretend we can understand it, even in translation, without acquiring some background in the life and times of the people who wrote these texts and for whom the texts were written. Therefore, we will spend some time acquiring a basic understanding of the religious, social, political, and economic conditions that created the environment in which first-century Jews and non-Jews, men and women, rich and poor, powerful and disempowered, educated and illiterate, urban and rural lived.
