In reading Raymond Brown’s “An Introduction to The New Testament,” I found a lot of insight and explanation as to what exactly the New Testament is, what it intends to do/its purpose, and why it intends to do this. This reading definitely revealed to me a lot about the particularities in the writing and construction of The New Testament that I am eager to dive more deeply into.
In terms of insights, with this being my first time reading the New Testament in an outside of Mass way, learning about the “gospel” and literally what it means, was a great foundational aspect in the introduction. With “gospel” meaning “good announcement,” but also an air of ambiguity created around it, we can come to know it as a multifaceted word that figures in the Bible do not actually use themselves in the New Testament.
As for questions, I feel that the reading raised some points of interest for me in that I am curious about why the Bible, and specifically the New Testament, was constructed as we know it. For example, on page 110, it says that the Gospels are not records of the ministry of Jesus in a literal sense. Why not? What does having a non-literal work contribute to the experience that a literal work couldn’t? Why does there seem to be a trend of not wanting literal interpretation?
Ultimately I am very excited to transition into studying the New Testament!
Brick by Brick: Building Foundations of Theology 