Historical background of the New Testament that the Temple would not be rebuilt in their lifetimes, Christianity reflected the acknowledgment of early Christians that the Second Coming of Christ and the establishment of God's kingdom on earth was not to happen in their lifetimes. The critical analysis of the Gospels involves, at least in part, a consideration of how these concerns affected the Gospels' accounts of Jesus. According to historian Paula Fredriksen (1988: 5), critical scholars rely on four basic criteria for extrapolating an "authentic" historical account of Jesus out of the New Testament sources: As Fredriksen observes, these criteria do not guarantee an accurate historical
Quotations from the Hebrew Bible in the New Testament of Moses. Other quotations are sometimes made directly from the Hebrew text (e.g. , , ). When the New Testament was written, the Old Testament was not divided into chapters and verses, and there is therefore no uniform standard for these quotes and the authors had to provide contextual references: Quotations from the Hebrew Bible in the New Testament There are in all two hundred and eighty-three direct quotations from the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) in the New Testament. In about ninety instances, the Septuagint is literally quoted. In around eighty further instances, the quote is altered in some way.