New Testament Studies

What New Testament Studies covers

Paper 3. The world into which the New Testament was written, the person of Jesus as the Fourth Gospel presents him, the methods scholars use to interpret the texts, and the accounts of the kingdom, the crucifixion and the resurrection.

The 13 subtopics

Each one has its own page.

• Messianic Prophecy and ExpectationRecall questions on the Suffering Servant and Davidic descent, first-century messianic expectation, Wrede and the messianic secret, Matthew's formula quotations in the birth narratives, Brown and Hooker, and the problem of a crucified Messiah.Open →
• The World of First-Century PalestineRecall questions on Roman rule and the Herods, the Temple and its place in Jewish life, how Greek culture and Jewish tradition pulled against one another, and the Pharisees, Sadducees and Zealots.Open →
• The Prologue of John's GospelRecall questions on the Word made flesh, life, light and darkness, belief and becoming children of God, flesh and spirit, law, grace and truth, the Jewish and Hellenistic background, Dodd and Hooker, and the Prologue's influence.Open →
• The Titles of Jesus and the I am SayingsRecall questions on Messiah, Son of God and Son of Man, the bread, light, shepherd and vine sayings, the absolute and predicate uses of I am, Brown and Dodd on the sayings, and why their scriptural background matters.Open →
• Miracles and Signs in the Fourth GospelRecall questions on why the Fourth Gospel calls miracles signs, Cana, the official's son, the pool, the five thousand, Jesus coming across the water, the man born blind and Lazarus, and Brown and Dodd on sign and discourse.Open →
• The Synoptic Problem and Biblical CriticismRecall questions on Markan priority and the Q hypothesis, and on source, form and redaction criticism.Open →
• Authorship and Purpose of the Fourth GospelRecall questions on the Gospel's stated purpose, the spiritual gospel, Jewish and Gentile readerships, fulfilment of scripture, the traditional attribution and its difficulties, and Brown and Dodd on its origin and aim.Open →
• Ways of Interpreting ScriptureRecall questions on inspiration, the literal, allegorical and moral senses of scripture, Barth on the Word of God, Bultmann's demythologising, the rational, historical, sociological and literary approaches and their weaknesses, and the value of historical-critical study.Open →
• The Kingdom of GodRecall questions on the kingdom of God as present and future in Luke, the parables and the great banquet, realised eschatology, Schweitzer's interim ethic, Marshall on Luke's kingdom, and whether the two strands can be reconciled.Open →
• Conflict and the Death of JesusRecall questions on the Fourth Gospel's conflict with the authorities, the Temple incident, the Sabbath controversies and the Law of Moses, the sequence from arrest to sentence, political expediency, and Rivkin and Culpepper on responsibility for Jesus' death.Open →
• The Crucifixion and Resurrection NarrativesRecall questions on Luke's crucifixion account, its use of scripture and symbolic details, the death as God's saving plan, the resurrection narrative and Emmaus, sacrifice, atonement and salvation, and Marshall and Matera on Luke's passion.Open →
• Faith, History and the ResurrectionRecall questions on scientific and Enlightenment challenges to the resurrection, Hume on miracles, fictional, mythical and experiential interpretations, alternative explanations of the empty tomb, Morison and Wilson on the historical evidence, and the strengths of each case.Open →
• The Ethical Teaching of JesusRecall questions on Luke's Sermon on the Plain and love of enemies, the poor and outcasts, the parables of the Lost, the Good Samaritan and the Rich Man and Lazarus, Marshall and Matera on Luke's ethics, and the teaching's impact today.Open →

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

Take New Testament Studies further

The same content, four other ways.

Commonly confused

Pairs that lose marks when they are blurred together.

• Synoptic Gospels vs Fourth Gospel

  Synoptic Gospels: Matthew, Mark and Luke, which share much material and order. Fourth Gospel: John, which differs markedly in content, chronology and style.

• Form criticism vs Redaction criticism

  Form criticism: study of the small oral units behind a text and the settings that shaped them. Redaction criticism: study of how an evangelist edited and arranged his sources to make a point.

• Logos vs Messiah

  Logos: the divine Word through whom all things were made, identified with Christ. Messiah: the anointed deliverer awaited by Israel.

Questions from this topic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

1. 1

   Who is the Suffering Servant, and why does the figure matter so much in New Testament study?

   Model answer

   The Servant is the figure described in the later chapters of Isaiah as chosen by God, despised and rejected, silent under affliction, and bearing the consequences of others' wrongdoing before being vindicated. Jewish interpreters in the period read the figure variously as the prophet himself, a faithful remnant, or Israel as a nation. Early Christian writers drew on the Servant material to make sense of a Messiah who suffered, which is why so much New Testament language about suffering on behalf of others carries its imprint.

2. 2

   Why did descent from David matter to Jewish messianic hope?

   Model answer

   God's promise to David was remembered as a promise of a lasting royal house. Jewish hope in the period therefore often pictured the anointed one as a king of David's family who would restore Israel, throw off foreign rule and establish justice from Jerusalem. Not every strand of expectation was royal, but the Davidic strand was strong enough that a claim to be the Messiah invited the question of ancestry.

3. 3

   Was there one agreed picture of the Messiah in first-century Judaism?

   Model answer

   No. Scholars describe a range of hopes rather than a single doctrine: a Davidic warrior king, a priestly anointed figure, a heavenly deliverer, a prophet like Moses, and in some circles two anointed figures rather than one. Some groups seem to have had little active messianic expectation at all. This diversity matters because it means the gospel writers were working within a contested field, not correcting one settled definition.

4. 4

   Explain what is meant by the messianic secret.

   Model answer

   It is the pattern, most pronounced in Mark, by which Jesus silences those who identify him: demons are told to be quiet, healed people are told to say nothing, and the disciples are told not to publicise the confession that he is the Messiah. Parables are also said to conceal as much as they reveal. The term was coined by William Wrede, who treated the pattern as a single deliberate motif rather than a set of unrelated incidents.

5. 5

   Why did Wrede think the secrecy commands came from the evangelist rather than from Jesus?

   Model answer

   Wrede argued that the commands are often absurd as history, since they are given in circumstances where concealment is impossible and are routinely disobeyed. He proposed that the motif was the early community's way of explaining why Jesus had not been acclaimed as Messiah during his lifetime: the church believed he was Messiah from Easter onwards, and secrecy accounted for the silence of the earlier period.

6. 6

   What is a formula quotation, and how does Matthew use them in the opening chapters?

   Model answer

   A formula quotation is a citation of the prophets introduced by an editorial comment that an event happened so that what was spoken might be fulfilled. In the birth material Matthew attaches them to the conception and the name Emmanuel, to Bethlehem as birthplace, to the return from Egypt, to the mourning for the children of the region, and to the family's settlement in Nazareth. Each turns an episode into a demonstration that the story belongs inside Israel's scriptures.

What is inside Levo

Six ways to work the same material.

New Testament Studies revision questions

What does New Testament Studies cover in Edexcel A-Level Religious Studies?

13 subtopics: messianic prophecy and expectation, the world of first-century palestine, the prologue of john's gospel, the titles of jesus and the i am sayings, miracles and signs in the fourth gospel, the synoptic problem and biblical criticism, authorship and purpose of the fourth gospel, ways of interpreting scripture, the kingdom of god, conflict and the death of jesus, the crucifixion and resurrection narratives, faith, history and the resurrection and the ethical teaching of jesus. Each one has its own page with questions and model answers.

How is New Testament Studies organised?

By the Edexcel 9RS0 specification, subtopic by subtopic, so it matches the order you are taught it in.