A chronological New Testament: 9-20-12

When I was a boy in Sunday school I memorized, as was the custom then, the books of the Bible in order. At least the New Testament -- maybe the whole thing. It's been awhile.

What no one told me then was that the order of books is different in the Hebrew Scriptures as the Jews have it than it is in what Christians call (offensively, is you ask me) the Old Testament. Also, I did not learn until quite a bit later that the books in the New Testament are not arranged chronologically. Rather, they begin with the gospels -- a good choice, actually -- and end with Revelation, also a good choice.

Well, there's a lot more I've learned about the Bible since I was a boy, including the fact that the people whose names got attached to certain of the books -- like the gospels -- almost certainly did not write them.

But now Bible scholar Marcus Borg has published Evolution of the Word: The New Testament in the Order the Books Were Written, as a way of helping us understand the early history of the church more easily. And I'm glad he's done so.

It's still the same New Testament (in the New Revised Standard Version). And each book has a brief but excellent introduction by Borg, easily the best of the Jesus Seminar scholars, not all of whom I like.

The obvious question is why bother to read the New Testament in chronological order (or as close as scholars have come to that order). Here's how Borg answers that question:

* "Starting with seven of Paul's letters illustrates that there were vibrant Christian communities (a term he elsewhere correctly explains is a bit anachronistic, given that all these communities understood themselves to be Jewish) spread throughout the Roman Empire before there were written gospels. These seven letters provide a 'window' into the life of very early Christian communities.

* "Placing the gospels after Paul's letters makes it clear that, as written documents, they are not the source of early Christianity, but its product. The gospel -- the good news -- of and about Jesus existed before the gospels. They were produced by early Christian communities several decades after Jesus's historical life.

* "Reading the gospels in chronological order beginning with Mark demonstrates that early Christian understandings of Jesus and his significance developed over time. When Matthew and Luke used Mark as a source, they not only added to the Markan material, but often modified it.

* "Seeing John separated from the other gospels and relatively late in the New Testament makes it clear how different from them John's gospel is. (Tammeus note: Yes, but anyone should know at first reading how different it is.)

* "Realizing that many of the documents are from the 90s and later allows us to glimplse developments in early Christianity in the late first and early second centuries."

Borg's introductory material -- both to the book and to each book of the New Testament -- is quite helpful and on target, especially because it reflects a lot of the most recent scholarship. Perhaps it will help alleviate a problem Borg identifies: religious illiteracy. As he notes, "About half of American Christians cannot name the four gospels."

Beyond that, Borg's take on Paul, as I indicated earlier, is up to speed and reflective of the best new scholarship there, too.

I can see this book an an excellent choice for church adult study groups.

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LET'S BE AGAINST ALL HATRED

Tom Friedman, the wise New York Times columnist, is right when he says many of the protesters against that stupid anti-Islamic "movie" need also to protest the kind of hatred some of their own leaders publicly express toward Christianity, Judaism and even Sufism. Vitriol is vitriol, whether it's directed against Islam or any other religion.

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P.S.: My latest National Catholic Reporter column now is online. To read it, click here.