The New Testament in Its World Workbook

An Introduction to the History, Literature, and Theology of the First Christians

N. T. Wright,Michael F. Bird

• Publisher: Zondervan Academic
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9780310528722
• Topic: Teología y religión
• Subtopic: Estudios bíblicos

This workbook accompanies The New Testament in Its World by N. T. Wright and Michael F. Bird. Following the textbook's structure, it offers assessment questions, exercises, and activities designed to support the students' learning experience. Reinforcing the teaching in the textbook, this workbook will not only help to enhance their understanding of the New Testament books as historical, literary, and social phenomena located in the world of early Christianity, but also guide them to think like a first-century believer while reading the text responsibly for today.

I

READING THE NEW TESTAMENT

The Last Supper, dated to the fifteenth century, Novgorod School, National Museum of Russian Art, Kiev

A. Burkatovski / Fine Art Images

1

Beginning Study of the New Testament

1. Think about a book you have read that has had a deep impact on you, such as a novel, a mystery-thriller, a biography, a real-crime book, a children’s book, a history book, a political manifesto, or something in nonfiction. Then answer this question: ‘Why did the book have such an impact on me?’

[Your Response Here]

2. Now think about the New Testament, your favourite part of it, the parts you might not know so well, parts that unsettle you, and verses you can recite from memory. Then answer this question: ‘Why does the New Testament matter to me, my family, and my church?’

[Your Response Here]

3. In The New Testament in Its World we make the following claim:

The biblical drama is the heaven-and-earth story, the story of God and the world, of creation and covenant, of creation spoiled and covenant broken, and then of covenant renewed and creation restored. The New Testament is the book where all this comes in to land, and it lands in the form of an invitation: this can be and should be your story, my story, the story which makes sense of us, which restores us to sense after the nonsense of our lives, the story which breathes hope into a world of chaos, and love into cold hearts and lives.

How can studying the New Testament help you make the biblical story become your story?

[Your Response Here]

4. The New Testament is not just a story we read; it is a story – a drama even – in which we participate. The two main things the New Testament drives us to are w________p and m________n.

5. Why study the New Testament? Fill in the blanks from the list of words below.

‘The New Testament is designed to draw us into the story of ________, to rescue the world from ________ and ________, and to launch his new transformative ________.’

chaos, God’s plan, creation, idolatry

6. What do we lose if we forget that the New Testament is history?

[Your Response Here]

What do we lose if we forget that the New Testament is literature?

[Your Response Here]

What do we lose if we forget that the New Testament is theology?

[Your Response Here]

2

The New Testament as History

1. What event in the biblical story do you wish you could have witnessed in person?

[Your Response Here]

2. Provide one example of how knowing some historical background helps you better understand something in the New Testament.

[Your Response Here]

3. Discuss one way the ancient world of first-century Judea is very different from your own twenty-first-century context.

[Your Response Here]

4. Why is retrieving and understanding the past fraught with problems?

a. Sources can be sparse and open to interpretation.

b. Historians can be biased and project their biases into their research.

c. Historians need to be aware of diverse sources and various disciplines, including ancient languages and literature, archaeology, sociology, and philosophy.

d. All of the above.

5. Match the view of history with its description:

modernist view	History is knowable, but it is never known independently of our own interpretation and biases.
postmodernist view	Historical knowledge is possible, objective, and definitive.
critical realist view	There is no true history, only interpretation and ideological agendas in the social science called history.

6. Why is it that ‘myth’ can never be substituted for ‘history’ in regard to Christianity? Explain your answer with references to the historical Jesus.

[Your Response Here]

3

The New Testament as Literature

1. What do you think is the most beautiful part of the New Testament? Maybe the Lord’s Prayer, the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus’ discussion with the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, Paul’s ode to love in 1 Corinthians 13, the ‘hall of faith’ in Hebrews 11, the throne scene in Revelation 5, or something else?

[Your Response Here]

2. When we say that a text ‘means’ something, what are we talking about?

a. What the author intended to communicate.

b. How the text makes arguments and creates a story.

c. How readers respond to the text.

d. All of the above.

3. Where is meaning to be found in biblical texts? Fill in the blanks from the list of words below.

It appears that authors __________, texts __________, and readers _________; and that ‘meaning’ occurs in the ________ of all three. Ultimately, ‘meaning’ is the web of ________ we make with the world behind the text, the world in the text, and the world we inhabit in front of the text. The more __________ we make, and the thicker those connections appear to be, the more preferable is a particular meaning ascribed to the text because it explains more of the elements involved in the entire reading _________.

understand, cognitive connections, intend, experience, fusion, connections, signify

4. A...