NEW TESTAMENT

New Testament (Greek: Διαθήκη Καινὴ, Kaine Diatheke) is the name given to the collection of books that make up the second part of the Christian Bible, whose content was written after the death DeJesus Christ and is explicitly directed to Christians, although within the Christian religion both the Old Testament (the first part) and the New Testament are considered together Scriptures Sagradas.3

The books that make up this second part of the Bible were written as Christianity was widespread in the ancient world, reflecting and serving as a source for Christian theology. This collection of 27 books influenced not only religion, politics and philosophy, but also left a permanent mark in literature, art and música.4

The New Testament consists of a collection of papers written at different times and by different authors. In virtually all Christian traditions today, the New Testament consists of 27 books. The original texts were written by their respective authors from the year 42 d.C.5 in Greek koiné6, the lingua franca of the eastern part of the Roman Empire, where they were also composed. Most of the books that make up the New Testament seems to have been written around the second half of the century I.7

Are part of this collection of texts the 13 letters of the Apostle Paul (most of the work, written probably between 50 and 68 DC8), the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John (narratives of life, teaching and death of Jesus Christ, known as the Four Gospels), Acts of the Apostles (ministry narrative of the Apostles and the early Church history) as well as some smaller Catholic epistles written by various authors and it has with content instructions, conflict resolutions and other guidelines for early Christian church. Finally, the Apocalypse of John the Apostle.

Not all of these books were accepted immediately by the Church. Some of these letters were disputed in antiquity (antilegomena) as the Apocalypse of John and some minor Catholic Epistles (II Peter, Jude, James, II and III John) .9 However, gradually they joined the existing collection that was accepted by Christians forming the canon of the New Testament. Other books, such as the Shepherd of Hermas, Polycarp's epistle, the Ignatius and Clement (I and II Clement), circulated in the ancient collection of books that was accepted by some Christian communities. But these books were excluded from the New Testament by the Church primitiva.10

Interestingly, in spite of the Old Testament canon not be accepted uniformly within Christianity (Catholic, Protestant, Greek Orthodox, Slavic and divergent Armenians as the books included in the Old Testament), the 27 that make up the canon of the New Testament were accepted almost universally within Christianity, at least from the third century. Exceptions are the New Testament of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, for example, consider authentic the Shepherd of Hermas (sec. II) and the Peshitta, the Bible of the Syrian Orthodox Church, used by many churches of Syria, which does not include the Apocalypse John the list of books inspirados.11