There are many ways of interpreting the text, and ancient methods of interpretation may seem bizarre to our modern sensibilities. The New Testament offers us many examples of how an early Christian might interpret the text of the Hebrew Bible, which was their scripture. The Letter to the Hebrews, which is not really a letter but a speech of encouragement, structures its argument around the thesis that Jesus’ liturgy and priesthood is superior to that in the Hebrew Bible. The author of Hebrews proves this through several interesting interpretations of passages from the Hebrew Bible.

In the undisputed Pauline epistles, marriage is seen as a way to extirpate sexual desire - neither as a means for procreation nor as the preferred social status. The Pastoral Epistles, written to instruct in the pastoring of churches and appointing of church offices, presents quite un-Pauline attitudes. In the Pastoral Epistles, the church, rather than anecclesia, becomes a household, a specifically patriarchal structure in which men hold offices and women are not to have authority over them. They present a pro-family, anti-ascetic message in contrast to the Pauline epistles.

In ancient times, documents that were falsely attributed to an author, called pseudepigrapha, were a common phenomenon. Both the Letters to the Colossians and Ephesians are most likely pseudonymous works attributed to the Apostle Paul. The writer of Colossians assures his readers that they already possess all the benefits of salvation and do not need to observe rules concerning feast days, Sabbaths, and worship of the angels. Ephesians seems somewhat based on Colossians, although it reads more like an ethical or moral treatise.

1 Corinthian and 2 Corinthians give us several snapshots of the development of the Corinthian church and Paul’s relationship to it. In 1 Corinthians Paul is concerned with controversies that have been dividing the church, most probably along social status lines. The issues causing controversy include whether one should eat food sacrificed to idols, how one ought to conduct oneself sexually, the practice of speaking in tongues, and how Christians will be resurrected from the dead. 2 Corinthians shows that these issues seem to have been resolved.

It is obvious that certain narratives in the New Testament contradict each other and cannot be woven into a historically coherent whole. How, then, do scholars construct who the “historical Jesus” was? There are several principles that historical Jesus researchers follow, which include considering data that 1) has multiple attestations and 2) is dissimilar to a text’s theological tendencies as more likely to be historical. Using the modern methods of historical research, it becomes possible to construct a “historical Jesus.”