Overview of the New Testament Letters (Part One)

First in the New Testament Survey Series

Khen Lim




The world in the New Testament circa 50AD (Image Source: biblecity.org)

Introduction

As a once-avowed fan of the Old Testament, my partial preference meant I paid very little attention to the real values that the New Testament hid so well from view. In contrast, the Old Testament is filled with innumerable colourful stories with towering characters, heroes, patriarchs and even outstanding women. There were battles and sieges, conflicts and challenges, even a love treatise and of course, prophecies and eschatological warning. All in all, the Old Testament has always been a fascinating reading experience and the fact is these are true stories make them even more riveting.

The New Testament has always been a poor counterpart by comparison, paling inti lesser significance. Without the epic wars and the phalanx of outstanding heroes and heroines, it is hard to draw them side by side unless we consider the four Gospels, each of which has been written from different perspectives, for difference audiences and under perhaps arguably, even different conditions.

The letters, on the other hand, have always been harder to understand. Compared to the powerful Old Testament tales, these are simply… letters. How exciting can letters ever be when one compares them to the countless exciting stories in the Old Testament? At least, that has been the way I had look at them until recently. From my personal experience, reading the letters of the New Testament require plenty of preparation and as I discovered, some guidance, discussions and directional analysis would be very helpful.

There are many letters in the New Testament and as you can see from the following chart, they are not all written by Paul and even those that are, are being contested:

Letters		Authors	Authenticity
Acts (of the Apostles)		Luke the Apostle	Undisputed
James		James, brother of Jesus	Disputed
Peter	First	Peter the Apostle	Undisputed
	Second		Disputed
John	First	John the Apostle	Undisputed
	Second		Disputed
	Third		Disputed
Jude		Jude, brother of Jesus	Disputed
Romans		Paul the Apostle	Undisputed
Corinthians	First	Paul the Apostle	Undisputed
	Second		Undisputed
Galatians		Paul the Apostle	Undisputed
Ephesians		Paul the Apostle	Disputed
Philippians		Paul the Apostle	Undisputed
Colossians		Paul the Apostle	Disputed
Thessalonians	First	Paul the Apostle	Undisputed
	Second		Disputed
Hebrews		Paul the Apostle	Disputed
Timothy	First	Paul the Apostle	Disputed
	Second		Disputed
Titus		Paul the Apostle	Disputed
Philemon		Paul the Apostle	Undisputed
Revelation		John the Apostle	Undisputed

Once I began to pour effort into understanding the letters beyond just what plain reading, the words came alive. Having the benefit of good sound discussion at the seminary, the value of these letters became increasingly obvious and important. 

Many are so crucial that they stand the test of time for today’s modern churches. Many of the threats that intimidated the Early Churches continue to pose serious issues for us today. Many of the advice given in so many of the letters still make strong sense for us today. Many of the guidance and instructions to church building are just as important in this new millennium. I found nothing but a whole lot of hugely important doctrinal and theological lessons to be found and none of them have lost lustre.

As I clue myself into the letters, I found importance in tying them to the historical events that were unfolding at the time they were written because these provide the crucial context that helps us to appreciate why and under what circumstances they were written in the first place. Peter’s Second Letter as well as Paul’s Second Letter to Timothy carry a heavy sense of finality because these were their last correspondences before they were martyred.

Basic Understanding

Because of the time period in which the New Testament letters were written, it is important to authenticate them by staying close to its Greco-Roman context. During such a time, letter-writing was the main and most popular means of staying in touch. This was especially so considering the distance from one town to another or from one region to a disparate one, spanning the region of Asia Minor and the Middle-East.

Letters offer the best possible convenience and this alone was invaluable to and for the apostles in order that they may reach their congregations from afar. Considering the festering problems with all the new churches, the ability of the apostles to stay in touch was critical and hence, letter-writing was crucial. 

The letters that form the bulk of the New Testament are necessarily diverse in nature as each respond to a different dynamic in a different setting because of different issues that need handling. However these letters can also be major rhetorical works or even simple notes or messages.

Broad Structure

New Testament letters have certain signatures about them. A typical common feature is their structure, which is identifiable by an opening salutation comprising the following:

The writer’s name(s)	Example: ‘Paul and Timothy, servants of Christ Jesus’
The recipient’s name(s)	Example: ‘To all the saints in Christ Jesus who are in Philippi, with the bishops and deacons’
A suitable greeting	Example: ‘Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ’
A prayer, blessing or a thanksgiving	Example: ‘I thank my God every time I remember you constantly praying with joy in every one of my prayers for all of you’
…and a report of certain circumstances	Example: ‘I want you to know, beloved that what has happened to me has actually helped to spread the Gospel…’

Next comes the body of the letter. This is where the sender (such as Paul) would want to put into writing what he needed to say that occasioned the letter. Understandably this is the lengthiest part of the letter and most obviously the meatiest chunk of it, the one that necessitates careful reading and proper exegesis.

However, despite all of this, there is no typical sequence as to how the body of the letter is fashioned. Other than the specific occasion of the letter, the body may also carry a request such as:

Example: ‘Only, live your life in a manner worth of the Gospel of Christ…’

Finally we get to the conclusive greeting part of the letter. Here is a sample:

Example: ‘Greet every saint in Christ Jesus. The friends who are with me greet you. All the saints greet you, especially those of the emperor’s household.’

This is then followed by a final farewell:

Example: ‘The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit.’

In some cases, the writer of the letter may append a doxology or a benediction to the final farewell.

Pseudonymity and Pseudepigraphy

It wasn’t uncommon during those days for people to rely on scribes to write for them. Considering the widespread low literacy levels, this was understandable. In view of the high writing material value, this was also to be expected especially when you think of people with humble fishermen background.

The scribe’s influence over the outcome of the letter would hinge on his relationship with the author and the independence he is given henceforth. From that, we can imagine the extent of his penmanship, poetic licence and use of words.

However plagiarism was rife even then and as much as all of us are irritated by similar – often spurious – claims made by modern biblical scholars, such a problem has reared its ugly head. Such issues stem from two practices of falsified writing called Pseudonymity and Pseudepigraphy. The first relates to an intended work that is falsely named while the second is more about false attribution.

In pseudonymity, the work may carry the name of the writer but it isn’t necessarily written by him. In the case of First and Second Timothy as well as Titus, we have long understood that Paul is the author but critics now tell us that someone else wrote them instead.

Similar allegations were fairly widespread across other Pauline letters in the New Testament but most of them are contentious and specious because the reasoning is remarkably weak and often unfounded. Nonetheless, authorship problems going back more than 2,000 years ago have now returned to stir the church up.

Pseudonymous Christian works appear even more evident around the mid-Second century and apparently are associated with visible leaders including Peter. And as mentioned, modern scholars are constantly pointing the finger at pseudonymity with established books like Hebrews and the vaunted Gospels. Yet we know that Early Church Fathers had long declared all NT texts to be authentic in authorship leading to their canonisation.

On the other hand pseudepigraphy appears more maliciously in intent because the motives can range from simple contempt and commercial greed to the desire to promote a false stand or to support a position adjudged to be true only because a credible authority’s name is (unethically or dishonestly) used. We are told that as far back as 3BC to 3AD, pseudepigraphy was endemic in Jewish literature such as 1 Enoch. But, at that time, not so with letters. 

Yet modern scholars believe that authorship of Ephesians, Second Peter, Colossians, Second Thessalonians, First Peter as well as the Pastoral Epistles (1-2 Timothy, Titus) are all disputable, claiming evidence of pseudepigraphy in the forms of anachronisms as well as disproportionate use of words and phrases allegedly uncommonly used by the particular writer in his other works.

It is hard to understand some of these allegations because the reasons are often impossibly unacceptable. While this article is not the place to debate any of these points, any challenge to what are essentially canonised texts requires irrefutable proof and none of them offer this.

For example, disproportion or uncommon word usage is easy to justify when the author writes for different audiences in different geographies tackling different issues under different circumstances. For whatever reason, many of us are constantly surprised by a lack of awareness by supposedly expert modern biblical scholars.

There is much to be desired with modern efforts to identify pseudonymity and pseudepigraphy in works that have passed scrutiny with the Early Church Fathers.

Approximated Chronology

Much of the dating information concerning the writers and letters of the New Testament can only at best be approximate. There are as much variances to these dates as there are, in some cases, counterclaims of vastly different dates altogether.

46AD – 48AD	James’ Letter to the Jewish Christians
48AD – 55AD	Paul’s Letter to the  Galatians
49AD – 50AD	Jerusalem Council takes place
50AD – 52AD	Paul’s First Letter to the Thessalonians1 Paul’s Second Letter to the Thessalonians
55AD	Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians2
57AD	Paul’s Second Letter to the Corinthians3
57AD – 58AD	Paul’s Letter to the Romans
60AD	Paul’s Letter to Philemon4 Paul’s Letter to the Colossians4
60AD – 63AD	Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians4
61AD	Paul’s Letter to the Colossians4
61AD – 62AD	Paul’s Letter to the Philippians4
61AD – 64AD	Luke’s Book of Acts
62AD	James, brother of Jesus is stoned to death by fellow Jews
62AD – 63AD	Peter’s First Letter
63AD-64AD	Paul’s Letter to the Hebrews5
63AD – 65AD	Paul’s Letter to Titus6 Paul’s First Letter to Timothy6
64AD	Paul’s Letter to Philemon7 Peter is martyred under Emperor Nero8
65AD – 67AD	Peter’s Second Letter
66AD – 67AD	Paul’s Second Letter to Timothy6
66AD – 90AD	Jude’s Letter9
67AD-68AD	Possible year in which Paul was martyred under Nero10
70AD	The Temple of Jerusalem is destroyed
80AD	Jude, brother of Jesus, is crucified near Mt Ararat in Armenia11
84AD	Luke dies in Boeotia, Greece12
90AD – 95AD	John’s First, Second and Third Letters
95AD – 96AD	John’s Book of Revelation
95AD – 125AD	Jude’s Letter9
100AD	John the Apostle passes away peacefully in Patmos

¹ While the first letter was written in Corinth, we have no knowledge where the second one was written from.

² Paul was in Ephesus at that time

³ Paul was in in Macedonia at that time

⁴ Forms part of the Prison Epistles

⁵ Dating Paul’s letter to the Hebrews must take into account that it must be prior to destruction of Temple of Jerusalem. Otherwise the estimated year of writing cannot be ascertained.

⁶ Forms part of the Pastoral Epistle

⁷ Paul wrote to Philemon while he was under house arrest in Rome

⁸ Peter was martyred allegedly by inverted crucifixion although this cannot be confirmed

⁹ The estimated dating is according to Early Church Fathers and may easily be contested by modern scholars who counterclaims that it was written around 95AD-125AD instead

¹⁰ Paul’s death was said to be byway of beheading although there is no way of knowing for sure

¹¹ Jude’s alleged martyrdom was apparently not only be crucifixion but he was also pierced with arrows at the same time

¹² The dating for Luke’s death has also been claimed to be around 74AD

Planned Publishing Dates

With eighteen articles planned for future scheduled release, this will be a mammoth project for a small church like ours but it has been nothing but a love of labour and a very rewarding one at that. Much has been learned and much more there is yet to learn again.

With that, we are going to look at the following weekly Wednesday publication release dates from today to well into the first quarter of 2016:

1. Overview of the New Testament Letters	December 9 2015
2. Paul and the New Testament	December 16 2015
3. Book of Acts	December 23 2015
4. Book of James	December 30 2015
5. First and Second Letters of Peter	January 6 2016
6. First, Second and Third Letters of John the Apostle	January 13 2016
7. Letter of Jude	January 20 2016
8. Letter to the Romans	January 27 2016
9. First and Second Letters to the Corinthians	February 3 2016
10. Letter to the Galatians	February 10 2016
11. Letter to the Ephesians	February 17 2016
12. Letter to the Philippians	February 24 2016
13. Letter to the Colossians	March 2 2016
14. First and Second Letters to the Thessalonians	March 9 2016
15. Letter to the Hebrews	March 16 2016
16. The Pastoral Epistles of the First and Second Timothy and Titus	March 23 2016
17. Letter to Philemon	March 30 2016
18. Book of Revelation	April 6 2016

* Some of the above article titles may vary at the point of publication.

Publication release times for every allotted Wednesday will be 7:00am. If you have any queries, please direct them to the Editor at castanet.xiosnetworks@gmail.com.