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Who is Luke Timothy Johnson?Luke Timothy Johnson (born 1943) is an American New Testament scholar and historian of early Christianity. He is the Robert W. Woodruff Professor of New Testament and Christian Origins at Candler School of Theology and a Senior Fellow at the Center
for the Study of Law and Religion at Emory University. Johnson's research interests encompass the Jewish and Greco-Roman contexts of early Christianity (particularly moral discourse), Luke-Acts, the Pastoral Epistles, and the Epistle of James. Johnson received a Ph.D. in New Testament from Yale University in 1976. He has taught at St. Meinrad, Saint Joseph Seminary College, Yale Divinity School, and Indiana University.
What is New Testament?The New Testament is the second part of the Christian biblical canon. The first part being the Old Testament, based on the Hebrew Bible. The New Testament discusses the teachings and person of Jesus, as well as events in first-century Christianity
Christians regard both the Old and New Testaments together as sacred scripture. The New Testament (in whole or in part) has frequently accompanied the spread of Christianity around the world. It reflects and serves as a source for Christian theology and morality.
Who was Apostle Paul?Paul the Apostle (Latin: Paulus), commonly known as Saint Paul and also known by his Jewish name Saul of Tarsus was an apostle (though not one of the Twelve Apostles) who taught the gospel of Christ to the first century world. Paul is generally
considered one of the most important figures of the Apostolic Age and in the mid-30s to the mid-50s AD he founded several churches in Asia Minor and Europe. He took advantage of his status as both a Jew and a Roman citizen to minister to both Jewish and Roman audiences. According to writings in the New Testament and prior to his conversion, Paul was dedicated to persecuting the early disciples of Jesus in the area of Jerusalem. In Acts, Paul was traveling on the road from Jerusalem to Damascus on a mission to 'arrest them and bring them back to Jerusalem' when the resurrected Jesus appeared to him in a great light. He was struck blind, but after three days his sight was restored by Ananias of Damascus and Paul began to preach that Jesus of Nazareth is the Jewish Messiah and the Son of God.
What is Pagan?Paganism is a term first used in the fourth century by early Christians. It was applied on populations of the Roman Empire who practiced polytheism, either because they were increasingly rural and provincial relative to the Christian population or
because they were not milites Christi (soldiers of Christ). Alternate terms in Christian texts for the same group were hellene, gentile, and heathen. Pagan and paganism were pejorative terms for the same polytheistic group, implying its inferiority. Paganism has broadly connoted the "religion of the peasantry", and for much of its history was a derogatory term. Both during and after the Middle Ages, pagan was a pejorative term that was applied to any non-Abrahamic or unfamiliar religion, and the term presumed a belief in false god(s).
