THE New Testament is comparatively short. Unlike the Old Testament

which spans a thousand years and more, it is the creation of only three

generations of a small and scattered community. Short though it is, it can

be intimidating for the ordinary reader. He turns the pages over: twenty-

seven books--gospels, letters, revelation ; some passages crystal-clear,

some strange and remote and obscure even when he has read them two or

three times. One incident is unforgettable--the plain and moving report

of the death of a young man one Friday afternoon outside the walls of the

capital city of an occupied country on the eastern borders of the Roman

Empire. Four times that story is told, the climax of each of the first four

books. That death in the afternoon is the obvious clue to the whole

collection of writings.

I was once that ordinary reader, and New World has grown out of the

plain guide I made for myself. I wish someone had made it for me and

put it into my hands when I first picked up the New Testament to read it

for myself. It was that death in the afternoon that started me reading.

I wanted to know why, for these last two thousand years, it was a death

men could not forget.