Customer Reviews

The New Testament: Its Background Growth and Content 3rd Edition

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This is one of the few college textbooks I did not have to use my highlighter to read. Metzger is extremely easy to understand; he structures his book chronologically, covering, albeit briefly given the spatial limitations of a short introductory text, most every topic the reader must understand to gain a basic knowledge of the context of the NT's development. The reader first will gain a basic understanding of the cultural context from which the New Testament arose, then will learn about the life of and sources for understanding of Jesus Christ, then finally will see the same for the apostolic age. His prose is lucid and lacks the pedantry of much New Testament scholarship, which will assist the reader in understanding such scholarship.

In assessing Metzger's positions, the reader must keep in mind that, as he plainly states in his preface, Metzger writes as a Christian. As such, he does not dispute traditional authorship for the majority of the New Testament (with the notable exception of 2 Peter), and argues that the evidence for Christ's resurrection is "overwhelming." Readers looking for the consensus of scholars on issues so contentious to conservatives will not find this book to their liking. That said, Metzger generally does well, given how little space he has, of presenting most sides of various debates and leaving it up to the reader to do further research necessary for finding his own opinion. Since this must be the objective of an introductory text, the text succeeds.

My son's gone back to college. He left this book lying around on his bedroom floor, so I decided to read it. After all, I'm leading a Bible study on the book of Mark on Tuesday mornings. Knowing more about the New Testament, Its Background, Growth and Content, can only help.

Since the book was clearly a college text book I wasn't sure how far I'd get. After all, college texts can be really slow to read. But I actually finished the book in two days and could scarcely put it down.

Since I grew up with a "Catholic" Bible, I was fascinated to learn more about the history of intertestament times and the Maccabean revolt. The insights into all the different groups of people in Judea at the time of Christ help bring a lot of the Gospel stories and Christ's teachings to life. And the information on local customs, in action and in speech, are truly amazing.

Interesting examples included the use of Judean overstatement (as opposed to British understatement I suppose), and picturesque speech (logs and specks in peoples' eyes). Rhythm and puns that we miss in translation were quite fascinating too. And the insights into how texts were collected, combined, used and preserved make the whole question of where our New Testament comes from much more interesting and well-grounded, besides providing a logical background to modern arguments about "hidden" and "lost" books.

I liked the fact that the author didn't shy away from difficulties. He doesn't assume that every word in some favorite translation is perfectly preserved, but instead looks at how the translations were made, how changes crept in, and how well-researched the analysis of those changes is. I've always known that the historical evidence for the Bible rivals and probably beats that for the Roman documents I studied in Latin in school, but it was nice to see the arguments so clearly laid out.

I really enjoyed this book. I don't know that I'm ready to take an exam on it, and I probably don't want to go back to college to find out. But I'm glad my son left it lying around.

This is not a review of the latest edition of Bruce Metzger's 'The New Testament: Its Background, Growth, and Content', but rather one of the 1987 reprint of the 1983 second edition. While I cannot comment on the latest edition, this one is quite dated. The "background" section of this book is definitely the strongest section. Metzger deals with the political, social, cultural, and religious background to Palestinian Judaism. This is important, simply because it provides the context for so much of the New Testament, but also because many readers are likely to be unfamiliar with it. I suspect that while many have heard of the Dead Sea Scrolls and have heard the name Judas Maccabeus, they do not really understand just how that fits into the the context of first-century Judaism. Since there is a gap between the two testaments in the Bible at this point, much of this history may not be familiar to those who use the Bible as their main source for the history of ancient Israel, and so Metzger must be commended for doing a good job compressing a lot of data into a readable and relevant format. Some of his information in that section is a little dated, such as his understanding of the role of the Pharisees, but for the most part it is very good. The intellectual and religious currents of the Graeco-Roman world around Israel also gets a small chapter in the first part. There is not much to say on that, other than the fact that it is exceptionally brief and that any decent survey on the eastern Mediterranean during Hellenistic or early Roman times is likely to have a much better section.

The latter two sections of the book survey the life of Jesus and the apostolic church. This is where my major criticism of the book comes in, simply because there is not much here of any real interest. For a scholar of Metzger's category, these two sections are mediocre at best and offer little new insight. Despite there being almost 100 pages devoted to Jesus alone, I felt that I learned very little, simply because Metzger does not go far beyond putting Jesus into context. (Instead, I would recommend Jesus and the Victory of God (Christian Origins and the Question of God, Volume 2) for a much more in-depth and academic survey of Jesus' life and teachings.) The final section on Paul continues the mediocrity of the section on Jesus. Once again, there is just very little being offered here. He gives an overview of each of Paul's letters to the various churches, but that is about all. While it is handy in the sense that it provides a history of Paul's life and missionary work that has been put all together, that is about the extent of it. There are two appendices, one on the transmission and translation of the Bible, and another on the formation of the NT canon, but both are extremely brief.

This is not a bad book by any means, but I would recommend reading something a little more up-to-date unless you really have no background whatsoever in the context of the New Testament. It is also disappointing that for a book on the content of the New Testament, the topic of canon formation was almost ignored. While the absolute beginning may find this book useful and insightful, anyone with a basic background in New Testament history will not get much out of this book, although the section on the inter-testamental period may be useful to those who have an understanding of first-century Judaism, but not necessarily one of how it got that way.

It was a good careful read, and served as a good supplement for Bibliology. Properly structured and well written. I intend to keep it as reference.

One has to be somewhat familiar with New Testament history to be able to read through. Its not a beginner-out-of-nowhere reading.

I am looking to extend my readings on his work with his more controversial- The Shepherd of Hermas and The Epistles of Clement- which caused a bit of an uproar with Evangelical Christians. Even in the subject of Christianity- a little naughty tabloid-type preference never hurt.

I recommend this book for anyone in Bible College as a very good reference on the New Testament.

I am in the middle of the book. So far I have found it to be a good guide to reading the New Testament. It is well organized and provides good insight into the New Testament books with references to the Old Testament when applicable to the text.

Received my book well ahead of the time i expected to and the book was in excellent condition. I would buy from this seller again! Thanks.

The New Testament Study, by Bruce M. Metzger is a very informative book that has helped me tremendously with my knowledge and understanding of the history behind the Bible.

I purchased this book for my online religion class. Metzger's book is very informative for all of my class needs.

The book I recieved was in great shape but I did not recieve it in a timely manner. Apparently, the seller got it back in the mail and had to resend it. I have no idea how that happened. No harm done, I was just worried I wasn't going to get the book I was charged for.

Purchased as a text book for a College religion class. A text book I actually enjoy reading.