The New Testament - Bruce M. Metzger

 

 

 

 

“There are many ways of studying the Scriptures. When the reader comes to the bible with the sole aim of of securing spiritual guidance, he will ponder it from a devotional point of view. His principal interest will not be with questions of who wrote what and when certain events happened, but in learning God’s message for him now.

Another approach is to study the Bible from a literary point of view.
The Old and New Testaments constitute a veritable library of sixty-six books which represent many types of literature---including law, history, sagas, poetry, prophecy, gospel and letters. A host of problems concerning authorship, date of composition, sources utilized and literary  relationships demand attention.

 

A third method of studying the Bible emphasizes the historical approach. It is not too much to say that every serious attempt to understand the scriptures must be historically oriented. Only by being acquainted with the political, social and religious background of the biblical era can the student understand the allusions to the contemporary culture which the biblical writers take for granted will be obvious to their readers.

 

It is the aim of the present volume, which was written at the request of the council for Religion in Independent Schools , to supply basic information concerning the content of The New Testament and important aspects of its historical background, as well as to let the reader see something of the critical processes by which scholars have sought to solve some of the chief literary problems of the gospels. It would be out of place in a book of this kind to advocate novel theories, whether historical, literary or hermeneutical. On the contrary, the author has attempted to present a balanced account that represents the consensus of the present day New Testament scholarship.