Concern and Purpose of New Testament Studies

CONTENT AND PURPOSE OF NEW TESTAMENT EXEGESIS

The analysis and interpretation of the writings of the New Testament (and contemporary Early Christian writings) are the central issue of New Testament Exegesis. All these texts were written from mid1st century to mid2nd century, probably all of them in the Eastern part of the Mediterranean. Therefore, these writings originate from a distant culture and thinking and cannot easily be understood by modern readers in the Western world.

METHODS AND PRINCIPLES OF HISTORICAL-CRITICAL EXEGESIS

Historical criticism accepts the “gap” between the texts and their readers and it seeks to read, analyse, and interpret them against the background of the culture, literature, and religions of the time of their origins. Historical criticism tends to advocate the intentions of the texts and their authors. It assumes that, in analysing and interpreting the New Testament writings, the same methods and principles must be used as with other texts written in the ancient Mediterranean world. On that basis, every human being is supposed to review, understand, and accept the analysis and interpretation of New Testament writings, whatever the reader’s religious belief or convictions.

Accepting this fundamental concern of modern exegesis, the Second Vatican Council advised biblical scholars to treat the texts of the Bible as documents of a distant past and culture.

However, since God speaks in Sacred Scripture through men in human fashion, the interpreter of Sacred Scripture, in order to see clearly what God wanted to communicate to us, should carefully investigate what meaning the sacred writers really intended, and what God wanted to manifest by means of their words. To search out the intention of the sacred writers, attention should be given, among other things, to literary forms. For truth is set forth and expressed differently in texts which are variously historical, prophetic, poetic, or of other forms of discourse. The interpreter must investigate what meaning the sacred writer intended to express and actually expressed in particular circumstances by using contemporary literary forms in accordance with the situation of his own time and culture. For the correct understanding of what the sacred author wanted to assert, due attention must be paid to the customary and characteristic styles of feeling, speaking and narrating which prevailed at the time of the sacred writer, and to the patterns men normally employed at that period in their everyday dealings with one another. (Dei Verbum 12)

HISTORICITY OF NEW TESTAMENT TEXTS

Speaking this way, the Roman Catholic Church has acknowledged that all texts of the Bible are deeply shaped and formed by the culture of the time in which they were written as well as by the thinking and the abilities of their human authors. The analysis and interpretation of biblical writings must, therefore, focus on their form and wording and take a close look at their cultural, literary, and religious context in the first place, whatever their reception and significance within the church(es). The words of the Second Vatican Council clearly reflect the principles and methods of historical criticism: form criticism, attention to literary genres, examination of the socio-cultural background of the New Testament authors and knowledge of the culture, literature and religions of New Testament time.