Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Home
Evangelical
New Testament 3.0 – A Major Breakthrough

New Testament 3.0 – A Major Breakthrough

Last updated on: February 24, 2025 at 9:32 am by Frank Viola

0 Comments

New Testament 3.0 – A Major Breakthrough 2025-02-24T09:32:19-04:00 Frank Viola

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Promo graphic created by author.

If you’ve been consuming my work for any length of time, you know that the Lord often uses observations of the natural world (music, film, biology, anatomy, etc.) to provide precious insights into the kingdom of God. Today’s article is a fresh example.

Prominent physician and longevity expert Peter Attia’s has come up with a three-stage framework for medicine. Attia observes that medicine evolved from “let’s randomly cut stuff out and hope for the best” to something far more useful.

When I read Attia’s framework, suddenly the thought hit me that his framework works perfectly to describe how reading and studying the New Testament has evolved. And how my upcoming book fits into it.

Before I give you the application to the New Testament, here’s Attia’s medicine framework with my own comical spin:

Medicine 1.0 (ancient times to the 19th century) was basically ancient doctors playing medical roulette. Wanna cure a fever? Here’s some bloodletting! Got a problem? Chop it off! Spoiler alert: Most of their “treatments” were about as effective as using a fork to fix a laptop.

Then Medicine 2.0 (19th century to the present) showed up and was like, “Hey, maybe we should use science instead of wild guesses.” Doctors started understanding germs, treating symptoms, and not just randomly removing body parts.

Revolutionary, right? Yes, but the focus is on treating symptoms, not causes. The medical industrial complex still operates in Medicine 2.0, and most doctors today are still hanging out in this zone.

Medicine 3.0 is the cool kid on the block. It’s all about prevention: eating right, moving your body, sleeping enough, and not pumping yourself full of garbage. It’s proactive healthcare instead of reactive panic.

Attia is one of the leading experts of Medicine 3.0.

Now here’s where my “revelation” comes in. I suddenly realized that New Testament studies has followed a weirdly similar path. So I coined the following framework.

New Testament 1.0 (4th century to the 16th century) was translation bootcamp. “Let’s get this Greek text into languages people actually speak!” Groundbreaking stuff for its time, but still pretty basic.

New Testament 2.0 (16th to 19th century) was where scholars went full detective mode. Textual Criticism, Historical Criticism, Source Criticism, Form Criticism, Redaction Criticism, Literary Criticism, Social-Scientific Criticism, Narrative Criticism, and Reader-Response Criticism.[i]

Basically a bunch of nerdy ways to dissect ancient texts and figure out what the heck it was saying by the use of historical tools and the original meaning of Greek words. These folks were the original academic fact-checkers. This approach still prevails today.

That brings us to what I call New Testament 3.0. This is where things get really interesting.

Instead of translating or analyzing tiny pieces (verses), we are now looking at the entire New Testament as one epic, interconnected story.

It’s like going from examining individual movie scenes to understanding the whole narrative arc.

While New Testament 3.0 incorporates both New Testament 1.0 and 2.0, it goes much further and puts us on a different mountain from which to view Scripture.

My upcoming book, The Untold Story of the New Testament Church: Revised and Expanded, is a major contribution to New Testament 3.0 (as I call it).

The takeaway: Whether it’s medicine or biblical studies, we’re constantly upgrading how we understand complex systems. And that’s pretty awesome if you ask me.

The challenge is to stay current, refusing to remain stuck in 1.0 and 2.0 – for either medicine or the Bible.

So if you want to join me on the New Testament 3.0 journey, WAIT to get your copy of the book on March 4th.

Again, I’m giving away 7 bonuses to everyone who orders it during release week, so don’t pre-order it.

By the way, I explain New Testament 1.0, 2.0, and 3.0 less casually (and without the humorous remarks) in an audio interview that will drop on the book landing page on March 4th. I think you’ll love it.

Your brother,

NOTES

[i] These critical approaches predate New Testament studies and have long been used by classical historians to analyze ancient texts across various cultures. Here’s a modern example of each kind of criticism put simply. Think about studying an old family recipe. Specifically, your great-grandmother’s lasagna recipe:

– Textual Criticism: Looks at all the different copies of the recipe to figure out which one is closest to great-grandma’s original

– Historical-Critical Method: When was it written and what was cooking like back then?

– Source Criticism: Which cookbooks did it come from originally?

– Form Criticism: Is it written like a fancy restaurant recipe or a casual family one?

– Redaction Criticism: How has it been changed over time?

– Literary Criticism: How is the recipe written and organized?

– Social-Scientific Criticism: What ingredients were available back then?

– Narrative Criticism: How does the recipe guide you through the cooking process?

– Reader-Response Criticism: How do different family members interpret and adapt it?

Uncategorized

About Frank Viola

Frank Viola is a best-selling author, A-list blogger, speaker, and consultant to authors and writers. His mission is to help serious followers of Jesus know their Lord more deeply so they can experience real transformation and make a lasting impact. See his About page for more information. You can read more about the author here.

Previous Post

January 31, 2025

Applying Proverbs to the Internet

Next Post

March 2, 2025 20 Renowned Scholars Tell a Story (Plus Sampler)

Recent Comments

0 | Leave a Comment

"I get, the more I see that every attempt to debunk it leaves the Shroud ..."

giwol42523

Interview with Leonard Sweet – More ..."

"You're referring to the way things happen in the Industrial Religious Complex. I'm speaking about ..."

Frank Viola

Passing the Torch

"Another insight is that young people want to start their own ministry and are not ..."

Derek Thompson

Passing the Torch

"You’re challenging the usual narratives and pointing us toward deeper, more nuanced perspectives. This is ..."

eva753kimson

The Origins of Human Government and ..."

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Uncategorized

Select a Month October 2026 September 2026 August 2026 July 2026 June 2026 May 2026 April 2026 March 2026 February 2026 January 2026 December 2025 November 2025 October 2025 September 2025 August 2025 July 2025 June 2025 May 2025 April 2025 March 2025 February 2025 January 2025 December 2024 November 2024 October 2024 September 2024 August 2024 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Who healed a blind man by making mud and placing it on his eyes?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Moses Elijah Jesus Peter