Introduction: Blogging the New Testament

Introduction: Why Blog the New Testament?

I have no idea if anyone will actually be reading this. I'm not alerting anyone that I'll be updating this blog after months of inactivity, and I'm not sure the content I'm actually updating with will interest anyone but me. It may not even be intelligible.

So why even try to blog the entire New Testament? Well, first off, I should confess that I've shamelessly stolen the idea of blogging the Bible from Slate's David Plotz. I admit, I've only read a couple of Plotz's dispatches, but the idea intrigued me. What better way to experience the Bible than to dig into it like I would any other piece of literature? As a Christian, the Bible obviously holds a different attraction for me than for Plotz, a non-practicing Jew, but the concept seems to translate. Read the Bible (or in my case, the New Testament) and write down my thoughts as they come to me. If possible, edit them into a readable form. It's a win-win for me; I get a bulk of material to write and write about, and I get more intimately acquainted with the Bible on both a personal and intellectual level.

So why only the New Testament? I initially planned to try writing about the entire Bible, but abandoned that idea (for now) for two reasons. One, the Old Testament is a lot longer than the New Testament. In my Bible, the Old Testament is 1,057 pages long, with the New is only 300. As difficult as sticking to any sort of long term project is for me, starting off blogging a book longer than War and Peace seemed to guarantee failure.

Secondly, the New Testament seems to me to be more practical for my purposes. Although the Old Testament is vital for fully understanding the new, the New Testament contains a lot more advice for daily living, particularly given my views of the authority of the Old Testament in the life of the believer, an issue I may or may not tackle later on, depending on my mood. The other reason the NT seems more practical is because avoiding the Old Testament avoids many of the issues that Christians tend to get caught up in at the expense of other, more important issues.

I have no interest (or the knowledge necessary to) debate Creation or the minutiae of Old Testament law. I may have something to say that would be useful to someone (even myself) about day-to-day living or the literary aspects of the NT; I doubt I'm going to add anything new to these age-old debates. I'd rather spend time on things that interest me.