Orthodoxy and heresy in earliest Christianity

Aim of the course. The aim of this course is to prepare the student for future exegesis coursework through an investigation of the backgrounds, origins, circumstances, and character of the New Testament books. In order to advance into deeper engagement with the Word of God, students must establish a foundational understanding of the historical context of the New Testament and the earliest Church as well as a basic familiarity with the issues surrounding the scholarly study of the New Testament, today. At Gordon-Conwell, the course ‘Introduction New Testament’ traditionally seeks to supply this need and so lay the foundation for more detailed engagement with individual New Testament books.

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An Introduction to the New Testament

The origins and the theological significance of the fourfold Gospel raise a set of teasing questions. Why did the early Church eventually accept four partly parallel foundation documents? There is no precedent for this either in the OT Scriptures or elsewhere in earliest Christianity. Did retention of four gospels assist or hinder the early Church in the presentation of its claims concerning Jesus? No doubt to some, insistence that there were four gospels implied that there were basic flaws in the single gospels. Was the second century church's decision to bring together four separate gospels wise? What were, and what are, the theological implications of the fourfold Gospel? A critical theology cannot avoid asking these questions.

The Fourfold Gospel

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The Motif of Containment in the Gospel according to Mark

Pneumatological implications in Paul: convergence and modification of an existing reawakening terminology with the help of a catechetical foundation formula

This paper wants to address the question, why and how the term eỦαγγέλιον, originally a term for the early Christian proclamation, became the designation of a certain type of literature. Closely related problems have been discussed repeatedly in New Testament scholarship for several generations: (1) The origin of the term eỦαγγέλιον. (2) The consistency and uniformity of its meaning in its Christian usage. (3) The question of the literary genre of the writings which later became known as ‘gospels’. I shall comment on the second and third of these problems insofar as they concern the question addressed in this paper, but I shall leave aside the question of the background and origin of the term.

From the Kerygma-Gospel to Written Gospels

In recent years an old problem has been reconsidered in four studies, apparently written independently of one another, which with similar arguments arrive at virtually the same conclusion:1 The Epistle to the Philippians is actually a composition of three Pauline Epistles or fragments thereof.2 According to this conclusion, Phil. iv. 10−20 was the first letter written by Paul to Philippi, i. 1−ii. 30 (or iii. 1) the second, and iii. 1 (or 2)−iv. 1 the third, while the distribution of iv. 2−9 and 21−3 remains uncertain.3

Helmut Koester

Papers

From the Kerygma-Gospel to Written Gospels

The Purpose of the Polemic of a Pauline Fragment