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New Testament
Written c. AD 50–120; 27-book canon first listed 367· Scripture or text· Judaism, Christianity & Islam
Mostly agreed by scholarsMost historians agree; some details uncertain.
The second part of the Christian Bible: 27 books, written in Greek, about Jesus and the early church.
See it on the World Religions map →What it is
It contains four Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John) telling Jesus' life, death and resurrection; the Acts of the Apostles; 21 letters, 13 bearing Paul's name; and Revelation, a vision of the end of the age. Paul's letters, from around AD 50, are the oldest; Mark is usually dated around 70, the latest books around 100–120. Bishop Athanasius first listed exactly these 27 books in 367. The New Testament alone has been translated into more than 1,600 languages.
Why it matters
It is Christianity's core scripture, read alongside the Hebrew Bible, which Christians call the Old Testament. Its words shaped Western languages, law, art and ethics.
Sources and history
Over 5,000 Greek manuscripts survive, more than for any other ancient text; the oldest fragment, P52 of John, is usually dated to the 100s. Early church writers quote it widely.
Questions and debates
Who wrote several books, including the Gospels, whose authors' names were attached later; their exact dates; and how the canon's edges were settled are debated.
Connections (5)
▸New Testament builds on The Torah (Five Books of Moses)Historical record
The connection
The New Testament quotes and echoes the Hebrew Bible hundreds of times, including the Torah's laws and stories. Its writers present Jesus as fulfilling them: Matthew shows him as a new Moses teaching on a mountain, and Paul reinterprets Abraham and the Law. Jesus names loving God and loving one's neighbor, both Torah commands, as the greatest commandments.
When and where
Written c. AD 50–120 by Jewish and Gentile Christians around the eastern Mediterranean, who mostly read the Torah in Greek translation, the Septuagint.
Historical evidence
Explicit quotations, often from the Septuagint, introduced with phrases like 'as it is written'; scholars count roughly 300 direct quotations of the Hebrew Bible, though counts vary.
Questions and debates
Which Torah laws, such as circumcision and food rules, still applied to Gentile converts was hotly disputed among early Christians, as Acts and Paul's letters show.
▸Resurrection of Jesus (Easter) is central to New TestamentHistorical record
The connection
Every Gospel climaxes with the empty tomb, and the resurrection runs through the rest of the New Testament: Acts makes it the apostles' core message, Paul calls it 'of first importance', and Revelation pictures Jesus as the one who was dead and is alive forever. Its writers present it as the event that explains everything else.
When and where
Written c. AD 50–120; 1 Corinthians 15, from about AD 54, contains the earliest written account.
Historical evidence
The texts themselves: the resurrection appears in all four Gospels, Acts, most of the letters and Revelation, written by many different authors.
Questions and debates
Scholars debate why Mark's earliest manuscripts end at the empty tomb without appearances, and how the later Gospel accounts developed.
▸Paul the Apostle wrote the earliest books of New TestamentHistorical record
The connection
Thirteen of the New Testament's 27 books are letters bearing Paul's name, written to churches and coworkers to settle disputes, teach and encourage. His seven undisputed letters, from about AD 50–60, predate the Gospels, making them the oldest Christian writings. Collected by about 100, they became scripture and shaped Christian doctrine.
When and where
Written c. AD 50–60 from cities such as Corinth and Ephesus, some from prison; a first collection circulated by about AD 100.
Historical evidence
1 Clement (c. 96) already quotes 1 Corinthians; the papyrus P46, c. 200, holds a collection; style and content mark seven letters as genuine.
Questions and debates
Whether Paul wrote Ephesians, Colossians, 2 Thessalonians and the Pastoral letters (1–2 Timothy, Titus) is debated; many scholars think followers wrote them in his name.
▸Friedrich Nietzsche: 'God is dead' attacked the ethics of New TestamentHistorical record
The connection
Nietzsche argued that New Testament ethics, blessing the meek, the poor and the weak, was a 'slave morality' born of resentment against the strong, and that Paul had turned Jesus' life into a system of guilt. He pressed these attacks in On the Genealogy of Morals (1887) and The Antichrist (1888).
When and where
Late works written mainly in Switzerland, Italy and France: Beyond Good and Evil (1886), On the Genealogy of Morals (1887) and The Antichrist (written 1888, published 1895).
Historical evidence
The attacks are explicit in his books, which quote the Gospels and Paul's letters at length.
Questions and debates
Readers debate whether he rejected Jesus himself, whom The Antichrist treats with some respect, or mainly the church and Paul.
▸Pentecostalism (Azusa Street Revival) is named for the Pentecost story in New TestamentHistorical record
The connection
Acts 2 tells how, at the Jewish festival of Pentecost after Jesus' ascension, the Holy Spirit came on the disciples like tongues of fire and they spoke in other languages. Pentecostals believe this 'baptism in the Spirit', with speaking in tongues, healing and prophecy, is for believers today, not only the apostles' era.
When and where
Topeka, Kansas, in 1901 under Charles Parham, then the Azusa Street Revival in Los Angeles, 1906, led by William Seymour, a Black preacher.
Historical evidence
Early Pentecostal papers such as The Apostolic Faith (1906) cite Acts 2 constantly; the movement's name and core doctrines come straight from it.
Questions and debates
Whether 'tongues' are real foreign languages, as early Pentecostals expected, or a form of prayer speech, and whether such gifts ceased after the apostles, are debated among Christians.