Chapter 9: How Did the New Testament Reach Us?

On descending to heaven, the Lord commanded His disciples saying:

"Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit" (Matthew 28: 19).

He also said to them: Behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you; but tarry in the city of Jerusalem until you are endued with power from on high "(Luke 24: 49). Thus, they stayed for ten days in the house of Saint Mark the Apostle with one accord, until the coming of the Holy Spirit upon them on the day of Pentecost in the shape of a rushing mighty wind, forked tongues and numerous languages (See Acts 2). Three thousand souls believed in Christ on that day. This comprised the seed of the Christian Church.

After that, the Apostles reached out to the world, following the same order that the Lord had appointed to them: Jerusalem - all Judea - Samaria - the end of the earth (Acts 1: 8). Thus, Christianity spread quickly in the various parts of the world during the first century A. D.

The Beginning of writing the Books:

At the beginning, the Gospel of good news was oral. The apostles preached, people believed and some of these believers became preachers who travelled throughout the world. Believers, however, started to feel their need for two types of writing:

One to preserve for them and for us the biography of the Lord Jesus.

The other to answer the questions and inquiries that reached them from their children in the different churches, to solve the problems that they face, or to refute the heresies that arose among them.

Thus the apostles started writing through the Holy Spirit They wrote to us:

The Four Gospels:

The Gospel of Saint Matthew: Saint Matthew wrote it for the Jews who believed in Christ in order to explain to them that He is the Messiah in whom all the prophecies are fulfilled.

The Gospel of Saint Mark: Saint Mark wrote it for the Romans, the men of war, in order to reveal to them that Christ is the powerful minister to the needy humanity.

The Gospel of Saint Luke: Saint Luke wrote it for the Greeks, the men of wisdom and philosophy, to show them that Christ is the Son of Man who will deliver man from all his problems and will open for him the gates to eternity.

The Gospel of Saint John: Saint John wrote it in order to reply to the heresies that tried to refute the divinity of Christ. He addressed the world as a whole.

The Acts of the Apostles:

Saint Luke wrote this book to his friend, Theophilus, so as to continue his talk with him. For after telling him in the Gospel about the life of the Lord, he started to explain to him how the apostles preached the whole world, exactly as Christ had asked them to do, and with the help of the Holy Spirit.

The Epistles:

While the apostles were preaching, faced a lot of questions, various problems and heresies that threatened the soundness of faith. Thus, they started to reply to these matters in the Epistles directed to churches, to people or to priests in order to explain to them the basics of Christian faith and to warn them from fated heresies. Saint Paul wrote to the Galatians in 49 A. D. in order to deal with their reversion to the Jewish law.

In 53 A. D. , he wrote to the Thessalonians in order to explain to the believers the meaning of expecting the Lord's Second Coming, as some had lift their jobs, waiting for this event. Around 58 A. D. , he wrote to the Romans and Corinthians to explain to the believers the meaning of justification through active faith, and to correct the numerous faults found in the Corinthians such as division and the abuse of gifts.

After that, Saint Paul the Apostle wrote four epistles known as "captivity epistles" as he wrote them while he was a prisoner in Rome in the years 62 - 64 A. D. These are the Epistles to the Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, and to Philemon; and they are wonderful Pastoral Epistles.

Saint Paul went on recording his epistles according to the conditions of the churches and the priests. He wrote, for example, the First Epistle to Timothy and the Epistle to Titus, and finally, he wrote the Second Epistle to Timothy which is a farewell counsel as he felt that his martyrdom was near (67A. D.).

Thus, we find that each epistle has a lovely story and a noble aim. Some of the epistles are purely instructive, while others are pastoral or personal. Therefore, we must have an idea about the Circumstances under which each epistle was written before studying any of the fourteen epistles.

The same applies to the "Catholic" or "Universal" Epistles written by Jacob, Peter, John and Jude to the Universal Church.

The Revelation:

This Book was written by Saint John the Beloved while he was exiled to the island of Patmos by the tyrannical emperor Dumetian who, at seeing that throwing the saint in boiling oil had no effect on him, thought that by exiling him to Patmos he could get rid of him and his influence on his children in Asia Minor. The Lord, however, revealed Himself to John in order to encourage him and his children in their tribulation, assuring them that victory is at hand and that he is undoubtedly coming. It goes without saying that Saint John wrote the Revelation in a symbolical style in the form of codes that cannot be unravelled except by those he sent them to so as to avoid the fierce anger of the pagans.

Thus, the twenty seven Books of the New Testament were completed. However, they were scattered along a very wide area: The Epistle to the Romans was in Rome, the Epistle to the Colossians in Colossi and the Epistle of the.

Thessalonians in Greece. For this reason, after the persecution of the Jews and the pagans was over, the church started to collect these holy Books. Undoubtedly, this work needed ample time because of the difficulty of transport at that time. We notice that while the Gospel of Saint John was written towards the close of the first century, collecting the other Books started during the second century. Moreover, there had be a very accurate examination of all the Books that reached the Church lest the Jews, pagans or heretics would corrupt the Orthodox faith.

That is how the Church has collected the Books of the New Testament, approved them and handed them over to us in one Book.

The Old Versions of the Gospel:

We thank the Lord for preserving the New Testament.

The evidence to this is as follows:

The Old Versions:

We have Old Versions of the whole Bible, with its two Testaments that go back to the fourth and the fifth centuries, such as:

The Vatican Version in the Vatican Museum.

The Sinaitic Version and the Alexandrian Copy in London.

The Ephraimian Version in the Paris Museum.

Scientists have examined these Versions very accurately, and they were found identical with the Versions in our hands.

Besides, we have about 4000 manuscripts that go back to the period following the fourth and fifth century, until printing was invented in the fifteenth century. Since then, the Bible has been spread all over the world and in all languages. (about 1300 languages).

The Muratorian Canon:

The archaeologist, Moratory, discovered a document that goes back to the year 150 A. D. , and he found out that ;t consists of a list of the Books of the New Testament which is identical to the Books in our hands. This took place during an archaeological excavation in the eighteenth century.

The Council of Carthage:

The Church gave great attention to the study of all the Books and to acknowledging them. Thus, the Council of Carthage was held in 397 A. D. in order to re - affirm the soundness of the Books that we have today. Thus, we find that the Holy Bible that we have today is identical to what the apostles have written in the first century.

Dividing the Books into Chapters and Verses:

When the Holy Bible was first written, the Books were not divided into chapters and verses, with the exception of the Psalms because they were used as songs. The author used to write his Book or Epistle in the form of a long undivided essay. Scholars, therefore, found it necessary to lay down dividing marks so as to make it easy for those who study the Bible to go back to a particular passage, event or miracle. Thus, the Alexandrian deacon, Ammonius, divided the Gospels into 1146 parts (355 in Matthew, 235 in Mark, 342 in Luke and 232 in John).

This was in the third century; precisely in 220 A. D.

Another attempt took place in the eighth century. As for the final version that is in our hands today, it was the work of Cardinal Hugo who divided the Book into chapters in the year 1240, followed by the monk, Ben genus and Robert Stephen who exerted a great effort in dividing the chapters into verses in 1545.

Let us give thanks to the Lord for this life - giving Bible. Let us feed on it as our daily bread and water, and as a lamp that leads us to the right road to the Kingdom.