Epistle to TitusThe Epistle to Titus is one of the three pastoral epistles (along with 1 Timothy and 2 Timothy) in the New Testament, historically attributed to Paul the Apostle. It is addressed to Saint Titus and describes the requirements and duties of presbyters/bishops. The epistle is divided into three chapters, 46 verses in total. Not mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles, Saint Titus was noted in Galatians (cf. Galatians 2:1, 3) where Paul wrote of journeying to Jerusalem with Barnabas, accompanied by Titus.
First Epistle of PeterThe First Epistle of Peter is a book of the New Testament. The author presents himself as Peter the Apostle. The ending of the letter includes a statement that implies that it was written from “Babylon”, which may be a reference to Rome. The letter is addressed to the "chosen pilgrims of the diaspora" in Asia Minor suffering religious persecution. Authorship of the Petrine epistles The authorship of 1 Peter has traditionally been attributed to the Apostle Peter because it bears his name and identifies him as its author (1:1).
GospelGospel originally meant the Christian message ("the gospel"), but in the 2nd century it came to be used also for the books in which the message was reported. In this sense a gospel can be defined as a loose-knit, episodic narrative of the words and deeds of Jesus, culminating in his trial and death and concluding with various reports of his post-resurrection appearances. Modern biblical scholars are cautious of relying on the gospels uncritically, but nevertheless, they provide a good idea of the public career of Jesus, and critical study can attempt to distinguish the original ideas of Jesus from those of the later Christian authors.
Papyrus 46Papyrus 46 (P. Chester Beatty II), designated by siglum (in the Gregory-Aland numbering), is an early Greek New Testament manuscript written on papyrus, and is one of the manuscripts comprising the Chester Beatty Papyri. Manuscripts among the Chester Beatty Papyri have had several provenances associated with them, the most likely being the Faiyum. It has been paleographically dated between 175 and 225, or early 3rd century CE. It contains verses from the Pauline Epistles of Romans, 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Colossians, Philippians, 1 Thessalonians, and Hebrews.
Authorship of the Pauline epistlesThe Pauline epistles are the thirteen books in the New Testament traditionally attributed to Paul the Apostle. There is nearly universal consensus in modern New Testament scholarship on a core group of authentic Pauline epistles whose authorship is rarely contested: Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, 1 Thessalonians, and Philemon. Several additional letters bearing Paul's name are disputed among scholars, namely Ephesians, Colossians, 2 Thessalonians, 1 and 2 Timothy, and Titus.
Biblical manuscriptA biblical manuscript is any handwritten copy of a portion of the text of the Bible. Biblical manuscripts vary in size from tiny scrolls containing individual verses of the Jewish scriptures (see Tefillin) to huge polyglot codices (multi-lingual books) containing both the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) and the New Testament, as well as extracanonical works. The study of biblical manuscripts is important because handwritten copies of books can contain errors.
PeshittaThe Peshitta (ܦܫܺܝܛܬܳܐ or ܦܫܝܼܛܬܵܐ ) is the standard version of the Bible for churches in the Syriac tradition, including the Maronite Church, the Chaldean Catholic Church, the Syriac Catholic Church, the Syriac Orthodox Church, the Malabar Independent Syrian Church (Thozhiyoor Church), the Syro-Malankara Catholic Church, the Assyrian Church of the East and the Syro-Malabar Church.
Easter letterThe Festal Letters or Easter Letters are a series of annual letters by which the Bishops of Alexandria, in conformity with a decision of the First Council of Nicaea, announced the date on which Easter was to be celebrated. The council chose Alexandria because of its famous school of astronomy, and the date of Easter depends on the spring equinox and the phases of the moon. The most famous of those letters are those authored by Athanasius, a collection of which was rediscovered in a Syriac translation in 1842.
Protocanonical booksThe protocanonical books are those books of the Old Testament that are also included in the Hebrew Bible (the Tanakh) and that came to be considered canonical during the formational period of orthodox Christianity. The Old Testament is entirely rejected by some forms of Gnosticism, but the Hebrew Bible was adhered to even more tightly by Jewish Christians than Gentile Christians. The term protocanonical is often used to contrast these books to the deuterocanonical books or apocrypha, which "were sometimes doubted" by some in the early church, and are considered non-canonical by most Protestants.
