The life and death of Jesus of Nazareth and the beginnings of the movement which venerated him are of profound religious significance to Christian believers today. However, these events are also part of our common history and have had enormous influence on the development of Western civilization, They are, therefore, legitimate subjects of historical enquiry. The historical introduction to the New Testament investigates the foundation of the new religious movement in the life of Jesus, the experiences which acted as a catalyst on missionary activity after his death, the factors which led to a separation of the movement from Judaism, and the development of the ecclesiastical structure through which Christianity has influenced subsequent secular and religious history.

Traditional doctrinal and historical interpretation both rely heavily on rational analysis. But from the disciples at Emmaus to the beginnings of the present century, it has been the impact of scripture upon the human heart that has changed human lives. In recent decades, this impact has been strengthened by advances in linguistic and literary theory, by such disparate influences as feminism, structuralism, Jungianism, deconstructionism, the analysis of archaic imagery and myth, the recovery of Gnostic texts, and finally an openness to pluralism, whether ethnic, geographic, religious, or interpretive. All of these factors are treated here with a brevity and comprehensiveness which convincingly show that the reader of scripture has a creative and not merely passive role.