New Testament Chapter 1

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Adoptionists

Back 1

The view that Jesus was not divine, but a flesh-and-blood human being who had been adopted at the baptism to be God's son.

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Apocalypse

Back 2

A literary genre in which an author, usually pseudonymous, reports symbolic dreams or visions, given or interpreted through an angelic mediator, which reveal the heavenly mysteries that can make sense of earthly realities.

Front 3

Apocrypha

Back 3

A Greek term meaning, literally, "hidden things," used of books on the fringe of the Jewish or Christian canons of Scripture. The Jewish Apocrypha comprises books found in the Septuagint but not in the Hebrew Bible, including 1 and 2 Maccabees and 4 Ezra

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Apostle

Back 4

Generally, one who is commissioned to perform a task, from a Greek word meaning "sent"; in early Christianity, the term was used to designate special emissaries of the faith who were understood to be representatives of Christ.

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Apostolic Fathers

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A collection of noncanonical writings penned by proto-orthodox Christians of the second century who were traditionally thought to have been followers of the apostles; some of these works were considered Scripture in parts of the early church.

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Athanasius

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An influential fourth-century church father and bishop of the large and important church in Alexandria, Egypt. Athanasius was the first church writer to list our twenty-seven New Testament books (and only those books) as forming the canon.

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B.C.E./C.E.

Back 7

Abbreviations for "before the Common Era" and the "Common Era" respectively, used as exact equivalents of the Christian designations "before Christ" and "anno domini."

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Canon

Back 8

From a Greek word meaning "ruler" or "straight edge." The term came to designate any recognized collection of texts; the canon of the New Testament is thus the collection of books that Christians accept as authoritative.

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Ebionites

Back 9

A group of second-century Adoptionists who maintained Jewish practices and Jewish forms of worship.

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Epistle

Back 10

Another designation for a private letter. Some scholars have differentiated between "epistles" as literary writings in the form of a letter, which were meant for general distribution, rather than for an individual recipient, and "letters" which were a nonliterary form of personal correspondence. This differentiation between epistles and letters is not widely held today, however, so that the terms tend to be used synonymously.

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Gentile

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A Jewish designation for a non-Jew

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Gnostics

Back 12

A group of ancient religions, some of them closely related to Christianity, that maintained that elements of the divine had become entrapped in this evil world of matter and could be released only when they acquired the secret gnosis (Greek for "knowledge") of who they were and of how they could escape. Gnosis was generally thought to be brought by an emissary of the divine realm.

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Gospel

Back 13

When this word is not capitalized, it refers not to a book but to the proclamation of the "good news" (from a Greek word euaggelion) of Christ's Salvation. When this word is capitalized , it refers to a literary genre: a written account of the "good news" brought by Jesus Christ, including episodes involving his words and/or deeds.

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Law

Back 14

See Torah

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Manuscripts

Back 15

Any handwritten copy of a literary text.

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Marcion

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A second-century Christian scholar and evangelist, later labeled a heretic for his docetic Christology and his belief in two Gods - the harsh legalistic God of the Jews and the merciful loving God of Jesus - views that he claimed to have found in the writings of Paul.

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Nag Hammadi

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Village in upper (southern) Egypt, near the place where a collection of Gnostic writings, including the Gospel of Thomas, were discovered in 1945.

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Proto-orthodox Christians

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A form of Christianity endorsed by some Christians of the second and third centuries (including the Apostolic Fathers), which promoted doctrines that were declared "orthodox" in the fourth and later centuries by the victorious Christian party, in opposition to such groups as the Ebionites, the Marcionites, and the Gnostics.

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Scribe, Christian

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Literate Christians responsible for copying sacred scripture.

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Torah

Back 20

A Hebrew word that means "guidance" or "direction," but that is usually translated "law," As a technical term it designates either the Law of God given to Moses or the first five books of the Jewish Bible that Moses was traditionally thought to have written - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.