New Testament in Review

Greetings! You have reached an on-going project of mine called the New Testament In Review (or NTiR, for short). I started this project out of love for David Plotz’s “Blogging the Bible series on Salon.com. Plotz is a fantastic writer, and he had one of the most brilliant and unique ideas: he read the Old Testament and blogged about what he read. It ended up being a masterpiece. The only problem was that the series came to an end; Plotz stopped at the end of the Old Testament.

That leaves a whole Testament that hasn’t been blogged. Which is where I come in. I am reading through the New Testament, and blogging what I find there. I am reading and writing about the New Testament from a purely secular point of view. I don’t believe in the supernatural/divine aspects, nor am I reading the Bible for spiritual reasons. I am reading it to review one of the greatest literary works in the history of mankind.

I started this project in April 2010 and finished on December 31st of that same year.

This page serves as the Table of Contents for my series, allowing you to get to any article as quickly as possible. As such, this page should update frequently.

On to the good stuff!

Introduction

Getting the ball rolling Link

The Gospels

Gospel According to Matthew

• Matthew 1-7: Prophecies fulfilled. And more prophecies. And even more…
• Matthew 8-15: Miracles, John the Baptist returns and Jesus battles the Pharisees
• Matthew 16-23: Matthew has a bad acid trip, while Jesus continues his ministry in some of my favorite scriptures from the entire Bible
• Matthew 24-28: Matthew turns stone cold, the Roman power structure confuses me, and Christ suffers more misery than anyone should have to deal with

Gospel According to Mark

• Mark 1-8: Jesus tries to hide his identity, but makes himself famous by performing miracles
• Mark 9-16: The end already? Shortest Gospel EVER!!!

Gospel According to Luke

• Luke 1-6: Luke is one hell of a writer, and delivers the best book in the whole Bible
• Luke 7-12: Luke 7, the most wondrous chapter in the Bible
• Luke 13-18: Jesus sings, but does he dance?
• Luke 19-24: Luke gives a different tale of Christ’s death

Gospel According to John

• John 1-6: John 3:16 makes me shudder in horror
• John 7-12: Jesus and the Pharisees call each other names
• John 13-18: I’ll leave the foot washing to Jesus
• John 19-21: John writes a new end to the Gospels

Acts of the Apostles

• Acts 1-4: Luke makes Acts of the Apostles bearable
• Acts 5-8: Everyone goes a little nutso
• Acts 9-12: Worms!!!
• Acts 13-16: Why wouldn’t Jesus want a Pharisee as the head of his church?
• Acts 17-21: Peter who? It’s Paul’s ball now
• Acts 22-24: Cliffhanger: what does Paul say?
• Acts 25-28: Is Paul cursed? Death imminent?

Paul’s letters

Romans

• Romans 1-4: Letters, we get letters…
• Romans 5-9: Paul really, really doesn’t like Adam
• Romans 10-13: Whadda you know, there is something decent in here after all…
• Romans 14-16: Thank God, this letter is OVER!

1 Corinthians

• 1 Corinthians 1-4: Paul -vs- everyone else
• 1 Corinthians 5-8: Poor Paul isn’t getting any
• 1 Corinthians 9-12: Sexism, thy name is Paul
• 1 Corinthians 13-16: Paul keeps chucking the first stones

2 Corinthians

• 2 Corinthians 1-3: Does Paul understand himself?
• 2 Corinthians 4-6: There’s something rotten in the State of Corinth
• 2 Corinthians 7-10: Paul’s massive ego trip
• 2 Corinthians 11-13: Paul the dictator

Galatians

• Galatians 1-2: Relations cool between Peter and Paul
• Galatians 3-6: The return of Paul the lawyer

Ephesians

• Ephesians 1-4: Ephesians, the bible’s cure for insomnia
• Ephesians 5-6: Sexism in disguise?

Philippians

• Philippians: Paul finds brevity?

Colossians

• Colossians: New Testament Drinking Game

1 Thessalonians

• 1 Thessalonians 1-3: The Bible Is Not the Word of Paul. Seriously!
• 1 Thessalonians 4-5: Paul slowly sucks the color out of the gospel

2 Thessalonians

• 2 Thessalonians: Paul and the anti-Christ

1 Timothy

• 1 Timothy 1-3: Timothy didn’t write Timothy
• 1 Timothy 4-6: Paul was one f****d up dude

2 Timothy

• 2 Timothy: Paul’s letter was so nice, he wrote it twice

Titus

• Titus: The letter to Titus

Philemon

• Philemon: The most forgettable book in the New Testament

Other letters

Hebrews

• Hebrews 1-2: Paul, let’s give someone else a chance to speak
• Hebrews 3-5: Hebrews was written for the Jews? I knew that. Seriously!
• Hebrews 6-8: Boring, boring, boring…
• Hebrews 9-11: By faith, this book was saved
• Hebrews 12-13: Damn, what’d Esau do to you?

James

• James 1-2: A return to Christ’s teachings
• James 3-5: Christ’s message personified

1 Peter

• 1 Peter 1-2: Six of Peter, a half-dozen of Paul
• 1 Peter 3-5: Interchangeable apostles

2 Peter

• 2 Peter: What happens when the world doesn’t end?

1 John

• 1 John 1-2: My little children
• 1 John 3-5: Be excellent to each other

2 John, 3 John, Jude

• 2 John, 3 John, Jude: Three Rings for the elven-kings under the sky

Final book

Revelation

• Revelation 1-2: Down the rabbit hole
• Revelation 3-5: John takes a spiritwalk
• Revelation 6-8: The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse
• Revelation 9-11: Angels can be bad-asses!
• Revelation 12-15: The anti-Christ and the Beast
• Revelation 16-19: Babylon is about to get fucked up
• Revelations 20-22: One resurrection, two deaths and a thousand years

Time for goodbyes

• Conclusion: All good things…

The New Testament In Review series will always be on my blog, http://biffster.org. The entire series will be accessible via http://biffster.org/ntir