| THE New Testament is comparatively short. Unlike the Old Testamentwhich spans a thousand years and more, it is the creation of only threegenerations of a small and scattered community. Short though it is, it canbe intimidating for the ordinary reader. He turns the pages over: twenty-seven books--gospels, letters, revelation ; some passages crystal-clear,some strange and remote and obscure even when he has read them two orthree times. One incident is unforgettable--the plain and moving reportof the death of a young man one Friday afternoon outside the walls of thecapital city of an occupied country on the eastern borders of the RomanEmpire. Four times that story is told, the climax of each of the first fourbooks. That death in the afternoon is the obvious clue to the wholecollection of writings. I was once that ordinary reader, and New World has grown out of theplain guide I made for myself. I wish someone had made it for me andput it into my hands when I first picked up the New Testament to read it for myself. It was that death in the afternoon that started me reading. I wanted to know why, for these last two thousand years, it was a death men could not forget. |
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