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The New Testament

The New Testament is the name given to the final portion of the bible. The original texts were written by various authors between 45AD and sometime before 140 AD about four-hundred years after The Old Testament. The New Testament is considered the root of the Christian religion. The New Testament contains twenty-seven books written by eight authors over a period of about 100 years that are divided into four sections which contain the biographies of Christ, history of the church, instructions to the church and the final book which contains the prophecy.
In the New Testament the first section is called the gospel and contains four books written by Mathew, Mark, Luke, and John. These four gospels all describe the birth, ministry, death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. However these gospels do differ in their message as related to the audience they targeted. This brings up the term synoptic gospels which refer to the first three books. This means Mathew, Mark, and Luke has a great deal in common. “Out of a total of 1,071 verses, Mathew has 387 in common with Mark and the Gospel of Luke, 130 with Mark alone, 184 with Luke alone; only 370 being unique to itself”. (1)
The Gospel of Mathew addressed Jewish readers and emphasized Jesus as the Messiah and king predicted in the Old Testament. Mathew begins with a genealogy of Jesus that traces his ancestry as far back as Abraham. Following the genealogy is an account of the wise men’s visit to Jesus’ birth site; Herods attempt to destroy the newborn child, and the flight to Egypt. After the death of Herod, the family returned to Nazareth, which, according to Mathew, fulfilled an Old Testament prophecy. Mathew closes with accounts of Jesus’ resurrection and his appearance to the disciples. The gospel of Mark was written for the Gentiles and presents Jesus as a servant who ministered to the needs of the people. It addresses Jesus super-natural power, miracles he performed and things that he said. Luke...