Using the method of critical intertextual research, this book analyses the phenomena of hypertextuality and ethopoeia in the New Testament writings against the background of the Second Temple literature, the historical Jesus, and the historical Paul. The work demonstrates that all twenty post-Pauline writings including the Gospels, like some of Paul's letters, are only loosely related to history. On the other hand, the New Testament writings constitute a logically consistent network of intertextual-rhetorical relationships which have to be properly investigated and interpreted. Only analyses of this kind enable us to understand the internal logic of the New Testament as a whole and the true meaning of its individual works.