moreover, can be seen in the other texts in the New Testament.
ThusActs of the Apostlespresents a debate between those who
thought Jesus’ message was only for the Jews, and those who
argued that it should be preached also to the gentiles (non-Jews).
Moreover, Actspresents this debate from the perspective of those
who agreed with the second point of view. Such issues are even
more explicit in the various New Testament letters, all of which
were written to suggest solutions to particular problems confront-
ing the emerging Christian communities (see chapter 4). In their
various ways, then, the New Testament writings share a common
thread: all of them are concerned with the nature of the nascent
Christian movement’s relationship to contemporary Judaism.
To sum up: none of the texts that make up the New Testa-
ment can be taken at face value as a transparent window onto
earliest history of Christianity. Only a few of them were written
by authors whom we can identify with any certainty. The narra-
tives they contain or the arguments they communicate, whether
about Jesus himself or about the actions and beliefs of his imme-
diate followers, sought to articulate particular points of view. As
a starting place for a study of the origins of Christianity, then,
they are perhaps better regarded as a guide to problems than a
source of solutions.Apocryphal texts outside the New Testament
It has been noted above that the canon of the New Testament
came into being only gradually, over the course of three centuries.
While Christians debated what texts should be included, they also
argued about what should be left out. There survive, for instance,
gospels attributed to the disciples Thomas, Philip, and Peter, some
of which contain materials (especially sayings of Jesus) that are
found also in the canonical gospels in a different form. A number
of infancy gospels also recount episodes from Jesus’ childhood.
Analogous to the biblical Acts of the Apostles, we possess other
books recounting the careers (and sometimes violent deaths) of
the apostles Andrew, John, Paul, Peter, and Thomas. There areSOURCES AND THEIR INTERPRETATION
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