27 first-century Greek texts that announce and unfold the implications of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ — gospels, history, letters, and one apocalypse.
Books
27 books
Chapters
260 chapters
Verses
~7,957 verses
Span
c. AD 45 – c. AD 95
What is the New Testament?
The New Testament is a collection of twenty-seven first-century texts that proclaim, interpret, and announce the implications of one event: the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. Written across about fifty years — from roughly AD 45 to AD 95 — by eyewitnesses and their close associates, it is the smaller and younger of the two halves of the Christian Bible, but the part to which everything in the Old Testament was always pointing.
Four Gospels open the New Testament: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John — each telling the story of Jesus from a different angle but converging on a single figure whose teaching, miracles, death, and resurrection turned the ancient world upside down. The book of Acts follows, narrating the spread of the gospel from Jerusalem to Rome. Then come twenty-one letters — most of them written by Paul to early churches — that work out the implications of Jesus' resurrection for belief, behaviour, and community. The Bible ends with Revelation, John's apocalyptic vision of the risen Christ, the church under pressure, and the renewal of all things.
What unites these very different documents is one conviction: that Jesus is the Messiah promised in the Old Testament, that his death atones for sin, that his resurrection inaugurates a new creation, and that his return will complete it. Everything else in the New Testament — Christology, ethics, ecclesiology, eschatology — is the church working out what it means that this is true.
Every Book of the New Testament
Each book has its own page with author, date, themes, key verses, and a cross-reference web.
The Gospels
Four complementary accounts of the life, teaching, death, and resurrection of Jesus — Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
The entire New Testament was written in Koine Greek — the common (koinē) dialect of the eastern Mediterranean in the Hellenistic and Roman periods. Koine was the lingua franca that knit together the Roman world, and it is the language in which the apostles communicated the gospel to Jew and Gentile alike. The New Testament writers occasionally retain Aramaic phrases (talitha cumi, abba, maranatha) and Hebrew names, but Greek is the workhorse language throughout.
Of the twenty-seven books, thirteen are letters traditionally attributed to the apostle Paul; one (Hebrews) is anonymous; eight are 'General Epistles' bearing the names of James, Peter, John, and Jude; four are Gospels (two by apostles, two by close associates of apostles); one (Acts) is by Luke as a sequel to his Gospel; and one (Revelation) bears the name of John. Most letters can be dated with reasonable confidence: Galatians and 1 Thessalonians are the earliest (c. AD 49–51), while John's Gospel and Revelation likely close out the canon in the 90s.
No book of the Bible is better-attested in the manuscript record than the New Testament. Over 5,800 Greek manuscripts have been catalogued, alongside more than 10,000 in Latin and tens of thousands in other ancient languages — an order of magnitude more than any other classical text. The oldest surviving fragment (P52, a scrap of John 18) dates to around AD 125, within a generation of the original. Modern critical editions — Nestle-Aland 28 and the United Bible Societies' 5th edition — distil this immense manuscript witness into a text most scholars consider remarkably close to the original.
Canon: How the 27 Books Were Recognised
All twenty-seven books of the New Testament were universally accepted by the church no later than AD 367, when Athanasius of Alexandria listed them in his Festal Letter — the first surviving canon list that exactly matches the present New Testament. In practice, the core of the New Testament (the four Gospels, Acts, the major Pauline letters) was treated as Scripture from the earliest decades; only a handful of shorter books (2 Peter, 2–3 John, Jude, Revelation) saw any sustained debate, and all were settled by the late fourth century.
Unlike the Old Testament, the New Testament has no Protestant/Catholic/Orthodox variation. The same twenty-seven books, in the same order, appear in every mainstream Christian Bible — east or west, Catholic or Protestant. The New Testament canon is one of the most stable artefacts of Christian history.
Why the New Testament Still Matters
The New Testament is the most-read body of religious literature on earth. Its Gospels supply the founding stories of the Christian faith. Its letters form the basis of Christian theology, ethics, and worship. Its apocalypse — Revelation — shapes the church's hope for the future and its endurance in the present. From the world's first hospitals and universities to the modern human-rights tradition, the New Testament's influence on Western civilization is impossible to overstate.
Good Ways to Read the New Testament
Curated translations available on GodsGoodBook that pair especially well with this part of Scripture.
Common questions about the New Testament — also indexed for search engines as structured FAQ data.
When was the New Testament written?
Between roughly AD 45 and AD 95. Paul's earliest letters (Galatians, 1 Thessalonians) date to the late 40s and early 50s, well within twenty years of Jesus' crucifixion. The Gospels were composed in the AD 60s–90s by writers who either witnessed the events themselves or worked closely with eyewitnesses. The latest book, Revelation, is usually dated to around AD 95.
In what language was the New Testament written?
In Koine Greek — the common dialect of the eastern Mediterranean during the Hellenistic and Roman periods. Greek was the lingua franca that allowed the gospel to spread across the ancient world. The New Testament occasionally preserves Aramaic phrases (the language Jesus spoke), but every book of the New Testament was originally composed in Greek.
Who decided which books are in the New Testament?
No single council or person — the canon emerged organically over the first four centuries as the church recognised which writings carried apostolic authority and were used in worship. The first surviving list that exactly matches the present New Testament is Athanasius' Festal Letter of AD 367, but the core (Gospels + Paul's major letters + Acts) was treated as Scripture from the second century. Later councils (Hippo 393, Carthage 397) confirmed what was already widely accepted.
Why are there four Gospels?
Because the early church received four early, complementary, and widely circulated accounts — Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John — each presenting Jesus from a different angle and to a different audience. Together they form a multi-perspectival witness: Matthew highlights Jesus as the Jewish Messiah; Mark, as the suffering servant; Luke, as the saviour of the marginalised; John, as the eternal Word made flesh. The church preserved all four because each tells the same story truthfully without flattening its richness.
Continue Exploring the Bible
The Bible is one book in two — three, if you read the broader canon. Each testament builds on the others.