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Stephanie D Butcher RT1201 The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writing By Bart D. Ehrman Summary of Readings for Week 2: 01/22/20  Ehrman, 2020: 1-40 (Introduction: Why Study the New Testament; Chapter 1: What is the New Testament?:  The Early Christians and Their Literature Chapter 2: Do We Have the Original New Testament? Our introductory readings to The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the New Testament gave me a true understanding as to why a seminary student should study the New Testament from a historical standing. Chapter 1 offers us reasons why we should look at the New Testament from a historical view/approach. This approach has the reader asking themselves "where did these writings come from?" How were they put together and who authorized the canon? Reading chapter one we find there were several forms of Christianity that emerged during the second-century . Jewish-Christian adoptionists, the Marcionites, the Gnostics, and the proto-orthodox Christians. This group of individuals maintained the belief that Jesus was a “remarkable man, more righteous as a follower of the Jewish law than any other and was chosen by God to be his son.” 1 He was in a sense adopted by God. On his baptism day, Jesus was empowered by God’s spirit to perform miracles and to teach the truth of God. Jesus fulfilled his divine destiny and willingly sacrificed himself brininging about the forgiveness of sins for

the world and was then raised from the dead by God and ascended into heaven where he currently resides. I found it interesting that these people did not believe Jesus was not born of a virgin and that he was merely a man until the day God chose to adopt him as his son. I do see the reasoning for this belief as the Jewish people proclaimed there was only 1 God and if Jesus was considered a God then there would be 2 and that was blasphemous. Make sense to adopt a man doesn’t it? The Marcionite Christians were different from the Adoptionist in that the were a Christian dualist belief system. Their teaching originated from Marcion. Marcion believed Jesus was a savior sent by God. It is my understanding that Marcionist believed the Hebrew God of the Old Testament was a separate and lower God entity than that of the New Testament God. The God of the Old Testament was an evil tyrant. Very different from the Adoptionist, Marcionites believed jesus was not human and that he in fact was not really born as he was not flesh and bone. He only pretended to be human, have human qualities like hunger and thirst… Next were the Gnostics. Gnosticism (after gnôsis , the Greek word for "knowledge" or "insight") is the name given to a loosely organized religious and philosophical movement that flourished in the first and second centuries CE. According to the Gnostics, this world, the material cosmos, is the result of a primordial error on the part of a supra- cosmic, supremely divine being, usually called Sophia (Wisdom) or simply the Logos . I could write much more regarding Gnostiocism but chapter summary will do. These groups were the initial groups vying for Christian converts during the 2 nd Century.

The development of the New Testament scripture is discussed and how some writings came to be. Chapter 2 Chapter 2 the originality of the texts is discussed. It is understood that none of the original writings of the New Testament no longer exist. The attributes of Scribes that copied the original texts were given. Some were qualified to write while others were not. We learned that often changes were made to texts as a result of some scribes thinking they had a better way to word things or simply changing it for their own purpose. Textual criticism and scholars study ancient manuscripts to determine the authenticity, as well as likely authors of these texts. Scholars have comprised a series of rules to help determine what the authors of the New Testament actually wrote. Source: The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early New Testament Writings. Ehrman, Bart D., New York Oxford University Press 2020.

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