New Testament
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AN INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF THE NEW TESTAMENT Oxford University Press London Edinl>urg• GiasgflrJJ Copenhag•n New Yo,!, Toronto Melbourn; Capetown Bombay Calcutta Madras Sllanghai Humphrey Milford Publisher ~o the UNl.VERSJTY AN INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF THE NEW TEST AMENT By A. H. McNEILE MIKE HENCHER 61, KNIGHTS WAY NEWENT GLOUCESTERSHIRE ENGLAND. GL181QJ. OXFORD AT THE CLARENDON PRESS r927 Printed in Great Britain PREFACE HE following sketch of the history and contents of the T New Testament is necessarily a sketch only. His torical, literary, and textual criticism, and the question of the Canon, require increasing specialization, which makes a whole library necessary for a full treatment of the New Testament. But as the study advances there is need at intervals for a brief conspectus of the material in one volume, such as will put the reader who is not an expert or a professed student in possession of the salient points. He wants to know in outline how the New Testament as a whole, and each book in it, reached its present form, when and where each acquired canonical authority, the chief problems which the study of them raises, historical, literary, and textual, and broadly what each is about and what it contains. It is the aim of the present volume to supply such a need. I greatly regret that I was unable to make use of Provost (formerly Archbishop) Bernard's work on the Fourth Gospel in the International Critical Commentary, but I am glad to find that the views that I have expressed agree to a large extent with his. It is venturesome to write an Introduction to the New .Testament in Dublin, where Dr. Salmon's learning, en riched with brilliance and humour, has caused his name to be revered as that of a master and a giant. But a large proportion of this book is concerned with results reached since his day, which are so numerous that the attempt to record them may be forgiven. TRINITY COLLEGE, DUBLIN, Easter 1927. CONTENTS I. THE NEW TESTAMENT I II. THE SYNOPTIC GOSPELS 3 1. Early Stages 3 2. Characteristics and Motives 7 3. Arrangement 18 4. Date 27 5. Place of Writing 36 6. Original Language 40 III. THE SYNOPTIC PROBLEM 45 r. The Problem 45 2. The Marean Source 48 3. The Source known as Q 58 4. Other Sources of Matthew and Luke 65 IV. THE ACTS 73 1. The Purpose of the Acts 73 2. The Arrangement 79 3. The Source 81 4. The Authorship and Historical Value 85 V. THE EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL 109 A. First Group of Epistles IIO B. Second Group of Epistles u8 c. Third Group of Epistles 145 VI. I, II Timothy, Titus 175 VII. GENERAL EPISTLES AND HOMILIES . 189 1. James . 189 2. I Peter 202 3. Hebrews 212 4. Jude 228 S· II Peter 2 33 6. The Apocalypse 238 CONTENTS VIII. THE JOHANNINE GOSPEL AND EPISTLES. 255 1. The Fourth Gospel 255 2. The First Epistle 279 3. II, III John 285 IX. THE GROWTH OF THE NEW TESTAMENT CANON 289 1. The word Canon 28g 2. The Formation of a Canon of the New Testament 291 3. The Sub-Apostolic Age 294 4· .A. D. 170-300 328 5. The Fourth Century 348 X. TEXTUAL CRITICISM 363 1. The Need 363 2. The Material 368 3. The History of Criticism 400 4. Westcott and Hort 4°5 5. Further Advance 41 7 XI. INSPIRATION AND VALUE 443 ERRATA PAGE 28, two lines from bottom, for vi. 14 read v. 8. PAGE 29, line 3,/or iv. 14 read vi. 14. I. THE NEW TESTAMENT HIS title, as applied to the collection of sacred Christian T writings, is often used with no clear understanding of its meaning. A 'testament' is strictly a 'will', a last will and testament made by some one before his death and binding upon his survivors after it. But that does not explain the title. The Latin testamentum also has this meaning, apart from the Bible and writings connected with it. In non-biblical Greek the word 8ia0~,cr, (di'atheke), of which testamentum is the equivalent, means similarly a 'will'. But a will is only a particular instance of a binding arrangement or disposition ; and in the Bible diatheke bears that wider meaning in various applications. In the Greek Old Testament it is the rendering of the Hebrew n17:p (b6r'ith), which never means a 'will'. It is with the Hebrew mean ings, therefore, that a study of the word must begin. (a) Either God or man can lay a binding obligation upon himself. It is then an 'undertaking' or 'promise'. (b) It can be imposed upon another, in the form of an 'ordinance ' or 'command'. (c) When an undertaking is mutually entered into by two parties, it is a ' covenant' or 'agree ment' or 'pact'. The Israelite nation were deeply in fluenced by the thought that when they became Yahweh's people at Sinai He and they entered into such a covenant; they received from Him a body of commands, and He promised His blessing and protection in the event of their obedience. (8ta0~Kr, occurs in this sense of mutual agree ment in Aristoph. Birds, 439, but normally in non-biblical Greek the word used for that is U"vv0~Kr,.) Since 8ia0~Kr, was the LXX equivalent of berzth in all these various senses, it was taken over by New Testament writers with the same elastic force. But they added to it two other B 2 THE NEW TESTAMENT meanings : (d) Both St. Paul (Gal. iii. 15) and the author of Hebrews (ix. 17) illustrate the dealings of God with His people by reference to the ordinary non-biblical meaning, a human 'will' or 'testament'. (e) Finally, we reach the sense from which was derived the use in our title, i. e. a 'dis pensation', 'regt'me '. There were two eras in the world's history, in which there were two diathekat', the one involving slavery, the other freedom (Gal. iv. 24-6). The conditions of the 'old dt'atheke' were written on tablets of stone; and if the giving of them, says St. Paul, was accompanied by divine glory, how much more glorious must be the ' new dt'atheke' (2 Car. iii. 4-11). What we call the Old and the New Testaments are two collections of writings containing the divine message which belong respectively to the two dispensations. Melito, Bishop of Sardis (c. A, n. 170), speaks of 'the books of the old di'atheke' (ap. Eus. H. E. iv. 26); and at about the end of that century Clement of Alexandria and Tertullian employ the expressions 1Ta:\aul 8,a611K1J, vetus testamentum, and vfo 8ia0., novum test., as the actual titles of the two collections of books. BOOKS J. Hastings' Diet. of the Bible, articles' Covenant' and' Testament'. J. B. Lightfoot, Galatians, p. 141. A. H. M0 Neile, Exodus, pp. 150-2. J. H. Moulton and G. Milligan, Vocabulary ofthe Greek Testament, s.v. li1a0~"-'1· B. F. Westcott, Hebrews, pp. 298-302. II. THE SYNOPTIC GOSPELS § r. Early Stages LITTLE group of Jews in the capital of Judaism A began one day to proclaim to all and sundry that a young Man, who had just been executed as a revolu tionary, had risen from the dead, and was the Messiah. This obviously invited derision, and worse, unless con vincing proof were forthcoming. The repeated and con fident witness of those who had seen Him alive after His death, and the ecstatic and moving inspiration with which they pressed their message, were enough at the outset to convince quite a number of persons. But in the conserva tive air of Judaism no message could gain wide acceptance without the only sort of proof that was felt to be worth any thing-the proof from Scripture. If Jesus was the Messiah, Scripture must have foretold His death and resurrection. And the early Christians found no difficulty in showing that it did. And not only the death and resurrection, and the outpouring of the Spirit that followed, but many of the detailed circumstances of His life. After the first flaming proclamation Christian preaching inevitably took ~he form of apologia, 'proving that this is the Messiah' (Acts ix. 22). When St. Paul had given the same message at Beroea, and supported it in the same way, his hearers each day looked up in the Scriptures the passages adduced in order to verify and understand them (xvii. 11). It was from this.invariable need of apologi'a that Christian literature must have taken its rise, in the writing down of Old Testament passages, together with events in which they found fulfilment. This practice began at an early date ; and the writings would be in the native Aramaic of B2 4 THE SYNOPTIC GOSPELS Palestinian Jews. But while proofs were needed to con vince opponents, those who were convinced, and believed in the Messiahship of Jesus, would ask for more. Not, indeed, at the very beginning, when His Advent was expected any day in the immediate future. But as time went on, interest in the details of His life increased. What manner of man was this? How did He spend His time? Above all, what did He teach? Thus round the reminis cences of the events for which Old Testament predictions could be adduced other reminiscences would grow, all glowing with the character and spirit of Him who was believed to be the foreordained Son of God.