The New Testament, Fourth Edition, is the intriguing story of the early Christian writings - their authors, their subject, and their influence. How were they formed? Why were they written? What do they mean? How do they differ? And how did they come to be collected into a canon of Scripture as the New Testament? Bart D. Ehrman takes a historical approach to these questions, situating the writings of the New Testament in the social, cultural, and literary world of the early Roman Empire.