Not every apologist is a New Testament scholar. However, the New Testament is enough of a battleground that there are certain things that you need to know. Here are four areas that you should study.
1. Genre. You should be able to articulate what genre the Gospels and the rest of the New Testament are. I don’t mean just comparing the Gospels to the Psalms or Song of Solomon, but also comparing the Gospels to other ancient writings. Much of the confusion, including supposed mistakes, comes from not understanding the genre.
2. Source criticism. You may not believe in the four-source hypothesis or the existence of Q, but you need to study how the Gospels are related to each other. Who used who and what were the sources?
3. Textual criticism. Do we have an accurate New Testament that is close to the original text? How do we know? What are the means that textual critics do their job? How did the mistakes in copying enter in and how does that affect our theology?
4. Canonical studies. The canon is always a hot topic. Are the books we have the ones that should be there? Why the four Gospels instead of the other available gospels? Did Constantine choose our New Testament? These are very important questions.
You may never get an advanced degree in New Testament studies, but if you do personal research in these four topics, you will greatly improve your apologetics.
- Apologetics
- Canon
- Genres
- Gospels
- New Testament Studies
- Source Criticism
- Textual Criticism
