A Book Review on
An Introduction to the New Testament
Submitted to
Mahek Lorlei
In partial fulfilment of the requirement of the course
Pauline Literature
Deadline of submission: 26 July 2024 Date of submission: 26July 2024
Expected word count: 1000 Actual word count: 1210
Submitted by
Amos M Jacob
M.Div 2
Enrolment number:2023/08
FILADELFIA BIBLE COLLEGE, UDAIPUR
RAJASTHAN
Brown E. Raymond, An Introduction to New Testament. New York: Doubleday, 1997.
Raymond E Brown was a Catholic Priest and Biblical Scholar who was widely active in the
filed of New Testament and played a significant role in understanding the Bible. Brown also
played an influential role among the Johannine community as he proposed theories on the
community and did a detailed study in the Gospel of John and Johannine epistles.
Summary
An Introduction to New Testament is one among the notable works of Brown. According to
the author the book wasn’t written for any scholars rather for Biblical students who would
like to know more about New Testament and for those who would like to have a basic idea on
New Testament. The book is majorly divided into four parts where the first part mainly deals
with the introduction, the nature and origin of New Testament, and details about the political,
religious, social and philosophical world of the New Testament. This part will be more
helpful to understand the background setting of the New Testament.
The second part is dealing with the Gospels and the epistle of John. The author gives a
detailed information on the synoptic problem and authorship of each Gospel and its
background. Whereas the third part deals with the Pauline epistles and the last part with the
other New Testament writings.
The Book Review will be mostly focusing on part three, The Pauline Epistles. The author
gives a detailed information about the Pauline epistles starting from Romans to Philemon.
The author also gives a general introduction to the classification and format of New
Testament letters, where he focuses on the format and a comparison of the format with
Pauline epistles and other epistles. The author has divided the epistles under the classification
of Pseudonymity and Deutero-Pauline Writings. Pseudonymity basically refers to the use of a
false name or with the help of other writer to compose a written work, whereas Deutero-
Pauline refers to the letters attributed to Paul but was most likely written by followers or
disciples of Apostle Paul. The arrangement also follows the chronological order which the
books were most likely to be written on.
The background of each Pauline epistle is explained properly and the need of the letter for
particular people, church or place is also well mentioned by the author. The chapters also give
a detailed idea on the genre of the letters, the problem Paul was addressing and from where
and when he was writing these letters. As the letters are classified under the authorship of
Paul, each letter gives a detailed idea about why that specific letter was or not considered to
be written by Paul.
Reflection
The author in the introduction Part of the book mentioned that this book is not written for
scholars, but for beginners and Bible students who wanted to know more about New
Testament books and its background. Certainly, for sure, the book is beyond beginner’s limit
as it has a beautiful narrative style and in-depth study of the background and context of each
book in New Testament, which will be a great help for scholars and as well as those who seek
in depth knowledge on the subject.
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Brown’s writings have a Roman Catholic influence which might not be acceptable by all the
readers. If the readers are from protestant background surely, they might not get an idea about
the comparisons Brown is making with the apocryphal books. When he is giving a detailed
information about the formats of letter, he has included the comparison between some of the
apocryphal books with Paul’s writings. This is a considerable drawback for those beginners
who doesn’t have any idea about apocryphal books. As Brown is from a Catholic background
and the reader is also having same mind set to accept the writings as it is and to understand
the comparisons then the book will be helpful for those individuals. This is only a problem if
the reader is a beginner and who have no idea about the Catholic Bible.
The author has explained the format of the letter very clearly, and the writings are supported
with ample references from other authors as well. The format can be mostly seen in all New
Testament books and also along with the comparison between Paul’s letters and apocryphal
books, the author has included a comparison between John’s epistles and Paul’s. When it
comes to the individual letters, the author has classified the letter according to the possible
chronology and as well as on the basis of authorship. The Pseudonymity and Deutero-Pauline
Writings, where all the letters written by Paul himself is examined first. In each letter the
author tries to bring out its background, main theme of the issue Paul is addressing, When
and where Paul wrote the letter. Brown also have included tables which shows Paul’s
chronology and activity.
The author explains in detail what exactly is Pseudonymity and Deutero-Pauline Writings
and what are the reasons for doing the classification. Brown explains that it is very common
during the early centuries to write under false names, but when it comes to Deutero Pauline
writings, it is widely believed that some of the letters are not written by Paul, rather it might
have been written by Paul’s disciples or followers in Paul’s name. But while explaining those
Deutero Pauline letters, the author has brought out the possible reasons which proves that the
author of the letters is Paul.
The Introduction to New Testament gives a detailed information on the social, political,
religious background of the New Testament and the influence of Greeco-Roman world in the
books of the New Testament. The background, theme, genre of each book is well explained
by the author along with its purpose. Each New Testament book serve different purpose and
all of them have different background, in the introduction part of the book the author has
briefed about reading the book based on it’s theme. It is always necessary to understand the
background setting, cultural, political, social, religious and contextual information to know
the mindset of the author. If one can easily know the background, it would be easy for them
to interpret the scripture. Thou the book isn’t focusing on interpretation but the way it has
detailed the teachings of apostles and Jesus will be helpful in interpreting.
The only area where one finds disagreement with the author is that, the author himself
confronted that the book is not written for scholars but rather for beginners and biblical
students. But when one goes through the book, some of the terms might be new for the
beginners if they don’t have any idea on the Roman Catholic bible, because the authors
background has a huge impact on his writings as well. The book can only be used by the
beginners who are also from the same background of the author. The detailing of the book
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and the overall content, shows that it will be helpful for scholars as well. An Introduction to
New Testament by Eugene Boring is also a book with similar content and it is best for the
beginners compared to Brown’s book. Brown’s book will be useful for those who want to
have in-depth knowledge of the New Testament.
