Excerpt from The Evolution of the New Testament The little volume which we call the New Testament has had more influence on the world than the whole literature of England or France. It consists of twenty-seven books, written eighteen centuries ago, in a degenerate form of Greek, by authors of Jewish race and scanty learning. Nevertheless, millions of persons still turn to the New Testament for guidance and for consolation. Such persons should surely wish to know in what order and in what circumstances these twenty-seven books were written; how many of them may be assigned to their traditional authors; what motives animated these men; whether any of the books are compilations from earlier documents; and how they came to occupy their unique position among Christian writings. Such questions will also interest, if to a less degree, those who reject Christianity, but are yet too wise to neglect or despise a literature merely because they do not share the views which it expresses. Moreover, we have here to do with a literature which has been the textbook of that religion on which modern civilization has to a great extent been built up, a religion which remains to-day one of the greatest of living forces. Many of the critics who in modern times have thrown light on the New Testament have themselves been unbelievers; but they have realized that the subject is one of profound interest and importance, and they have devoted immense learning and ability to its elucidation. Forty years ago some of these critics attributed most of the New Testament books to unknown writers of the second century, but it is now generally agreed that this attribution was based on insufficient grounds. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.