Actsand the various epistles, and with Revelationat the end. This
order makes sense in terms of how the contents of the various
books contribute to a portrait of the emergence of Christianity.
Thus the New Testament begins with the events of Jesus’ life,
before assembling the deeds and writings of his earliest apostles,
and concluding with Revelation’s glance towards the future. But
this was not the order in which they were written. This is clearest
if we consider the relationship between the seven genuine letters
of Paul and the book of Acts. The last datable event in Actsis
the arrival of Festus as the governor of Judaea (Acts25.1), an
event which seems to have occurred at the very end of the 50s,
after which Paul himself was dispatched to Rome as a prisoner
(Acts27–8). Paul’s genuine letters, however, seem to date earlier
than this, from the period of his missionary journeys. Any refer-
ences they contain to his imprisonment (e.g. Philippians1.14, 17;
Philemon10) most likely refer not to his incarceration in Rome,
but to his various spells in prison during his missionary journeys
(2 Corinthians 11.23–7). In other words, the genuine Pauline
letters are earlierthanActs, even though Actsprecedes them in
the order of books set out in the New Testament.
There are similar difficulties concerning the historical reli-
ability and dating of the gospels. I cannot possibly review here
in detail the myriad arguments that have been set forth on this
most vexed issue. However, a few basic (and, to the extent that
such a thing is ever possible, uncontroversial) statements about
them may be made:
(1) As we have seen, none of the gospels can be confidently
ascribed to the individual authors under whose names
they appear in the New Testament.
(2) The gospels were written in Greek. But Jesus’ ministry
in Galilee took place in a society that mainly spoke the
Semitic language Aramaic. Hence the gospels were
written for a very different audience than the one which
heard Jesus’ actual teachings. This is reflected, for
instance, in the need felt by the author of the GospelSOURCES AND THEIR INTERPRETATION1
2
3
4
5
61
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
1711
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
71 Folio