Roman

Philippians

Philippians: a warm letter from an imprisonment nobody can locate, the hymn in chapter 2 that predates the letter carrying it, and what excavation at a Roman colony contributes.

Ephesians

Ephesians: a circular letter whose address is absent from the earliest manuscripts, an authorship question argued from style and vocabulary, and what Ephesus itself contributes to reading it.

Galatians

Galatians: the sharpest of Paul’s letters, the autobiographical passage that is our best evidence for his early years, and the unresolved question of which Galatia he was writing to.

2 Corinthians

2 Corinthians: a letter that is probably several letters, a conflict with rival apostles, and the Gallio inscription — the fixed point that anchors the whole chronology of Paul.

Revelation

Apocalypse, prophecy and letter, all three at once. What the book contains, how the manuscripts stand, and the two dates proposed for it — Nero or Domitian, and why it matters which.

James

Wisdom literature in Christian form, the sharpest social criticism in the New Testament, and a tension with Paul that this page sets out rather than resolves.

Hebrews

It never names its author, the traditional attribution is later and was doubted in antiquity, and the Greek does not read like Paul. A slow road into the canon.

1 Corinthians

Real answers to real questions from a real congregation, which makes it unusually informative about first-century practice — and it mentions a letter we no longer have.

Romans

A letter with an occasion, not a systematic theology — which is the commonest misreading. Plus a closing chapter with a textual history of its own.

Acts

Jerusalem to Rome, the “we” passages and three explanations of them, and the places where it is hard to reconcile with Paul writing about himself.