What is the New Testament?

Prior, to working through and analyzing the literature in the New Testament, I held the belief that the New Testament was simply the latter half of the bible containing the gospel of Jesus Christ within it. I also believed that all the books from the New Testament take place after Jesus.

Currently, after working through the New Testament, understanding more context through our textbook, and performing further analysis of New Testament books on my own, I have obtained a slightly more comprehensive view of the second half of the bible. My perspectives have changed in the fact that I now know that a lot of the New Testament takes place in letter form and was actually written by Paul and others to various churches. I also took note that many of these writers were under some sort of persecution, in prison, or knew of others who were undergoing great persecution. My previous perspectives have not really changed since they were so limited, vague, and ambiguous. All that has happened is that the knowledge I did have increased. To be honest, I thought that my previous knowledge of the New Testament was pretty lackluster. I hope that through this class my understanding will increase even more than it already has. However, I think that I will also have to take part in some independent study of the scripture on my own.  Currently, I still view the New Testament as the second half of the Bible that includes the teachings and Gospel of Jesus Christ, but I do know more about it now. I do not really think that knowing more about it has changed my overall perspective of it.