Jesus is the fulfillment of the Old Testament. The promises and ritual of the Old Testament point toward Jesus' life and work.
God's covenant and promises with Israel were fulfilled in the final form when his only son Jesus took on human flesh. The Old Testament points toward the final victory of Jesus.
The continuity between the Old and New Testament is that the Old Testament finds its ultimate significance in the person and work of Jesus. Often the discontinuity of the testaments is exaggerated.
In reality the Old Testament is in complete continuity with the New. It is unclear how easily much of the prophecy in the Old Testament would have been understood.
Liberal scholars often attempt to make a case that since the prophecy in the Old Testament might have at times been misunderstood by its readers the prophecy could not be about Jesus. It is of course a fallacious argument of the worst type. The misunderstanding of a text does not make the misunderstanding the valid reading of a text.
The Old Testament points to Jesus. The final covenant between God and mankind commenced when God sent his only son Jesus to fulfill all righteousness on our behalf.
Showing posts with label Old Testament. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Old Testament. Show all posts
Saturday, March 7, 2015
Tuesday, September 16, 2014
Israel in Apostasy
Often in the Old Testament Israel fell into apostasy against God. Often we get lost and feel as if the worship was all wrong and the apostasy was blatantly obvious.
In a sense the apostasy was blatantly obvious, but often only with spiritual eyes to see. Often Israel on the surface appeared to be keeping the law of God. The outside of the cup looked clean, but the inside was dirty.
You see the apostasy was often for neglect of the poor. There are those who lament the state of the church in our country in the current day. Many times the fall of Israel into apostasy was for neglect of the widow and the orphan.
You see the church often lives or dies based on love. Love must be expressed. If we simply look at the budgets of many churches today we can see they do not really love as God intended.
They either have no support for missions or no support for the poor. Where our money is our heart will be also. You see often the brokenness in the church is that we listen to the word of God in word only.
We are simply hearers of the word but not doers. We listen to the word of God but do not enact it. We look for practicality but find no application even for the unpacked practicality.
True revival can only come by faithfulness to the teaching of God. A concern for the proclamation of Christ crucified and care for the poor are the hallmark concerns of the early church. These are fundamental elements churches must seek if they wish for revival.
In a sense the apostasy was blatantly obvious, but often only with spiritual eyes to see. Often Israel on the surface appeared to be keeping the law of God. The outside of the cup looked clean, but the inside was dirty.
You see the apostasy was often for neglect of the poor. There are those who lament the state of the church in our country in the current day. Many times the fall of Israel into apostasy was for neglect of the widow and the orphan.
You see the church often lives or dies based on love. Love must be expressed. If we simply look at the budgets of many churches today we can see they do not really love as God intended.
They either have no support for missions or no support for the poor. Where our money is our heart will be also. You see often the brokenness in the church is that we listen to the word of God in word only.
We are simply hearers of the word but not doers. We listen to the word of God but do not enact it. We look for practicality but find no application even for the unpacked practicality.
True revival can only come by faithfulness to the teaching of God. A concern for the proclamation of Christ crucified and care for the poor are the hallmark concerns of the early church. These are fundamental elements churches must seek if they wish for revival.
Wednesday, August 13, 2014
Old Testament Cannon
Moses Stuart points out that there was significant rivalry between the Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essences. (Beckwith 86) These three groups disagreed on practically every issue. Beckwith points out that since there is no record of disagreement between these three groups on the contents of the canon we can assume that the canon was well established before the first century A.D. (Beckwith 86) Further evidence of a unified canon is that the Essences made no protest of the Pharisees condemnation of the Essences beloved Apocalypses as not being scripture. (Beckwith 86) If there was on going debate over the canon one would expect a record of it. There appears to be no record of intense debate between these groups who could agree on so little.
A common objection to Beckwith is that the Sadducees rejected all law accept the Pentateuch. However, scholars commonly note that the Sadducees also rejected angles which are quite common in the Pentateuch. The Sadducees rejection of the angles is probably a rejection of the time periods new wave of angles. If the Sadducees had truly rejected angles they would also have had to reject the Pentateuch. Similarly the Sadducees rejection of law other than Moses probably refers to their rejection of the widely increasing oral traditions of the Pharisees rather than their rejection of the prophets and writings.
In fact the Sadducees must have accepted books other than the Pentateuch as part of the canon. The majority of the priests after John Hyrcanus were Sadducees.
The temple during the period under their control clearly had other scriptures other than the Pentateuch that were used in worship. It seems difficult to rectify the Sadducees control of the temple and books not part of the canon being used there. (Beckwith 90) The Sadducees are also recorded in the New Testament as resenting Jesus calling himself the son of David. It seems difficult to find a good explanation for this resentment if the Sadducees accepted only the Pentateuch. (Beckwith 89)
The New Testament also offers much testimony pointing toward a completed canon. The New Testament is a valid pointer toward what the Hebrew Scriptures consisted of before the first century A.D. because Christianity arises out of the Jewish worldview and takes on the Jewish scriptures. The New Testament also records the debates between the early Christians and the Jews. A striking feature of this heated debate is that there is no mention of resentment of the books each group considers authoritative. This points toward a canon that was widely know and attested to at the time.
An objection to the New Testament witness is that the early Church took on the Apocrypha and that the closure of the Jewish canon was a reaction to this. Green notes that the New Testament writers quote freely from the Old Testament, but never quote from the Apocrypha. He notes that all the New Testament similarities with the Apocrypha are either very vague and nothing like citations or they are held in common with the Old Testament. (145)
The Apocrypha also do not clearly have the status of the other books in the early church’s canon. There are numerous disputes in the early church over the books of the Apocrypha. The protestant rejection of the Apocrypha follows in the line of Jerome and his followers on the issue. Because Christianity arose out of Judaism the Apostles would be assumed to be accepting the Jewish scriptures unless they made comments to the contrary. (Green 145) In fact Christ and the apostles never make any claim that charges the Jews with corrupting the scriptures or of excluding any of the scriptures. (Green 141) The Christ and the apostles do not hint that the Jewish choice of scriptures was lacking in any way. (Beckwith 91-92)
Christ and the Apostles used the scriptures to debate with the Jews on points of contention. The gospel of Acts points to many Christian and Jew debates where both sides shared and used the same scriptural texts to support their positions. (Beckwith 92) The apostles in fact accused the Pharisees of making void the word of God with their traditions. The position of Christ and the Apostles was thus one that affirmed the scriptures as being the final authority in all debates. This dialogue between the early church and the Jewish leaders should point toward a largely unified picture of the canon. One would expect there to be much record of dispute if Christ and the Apostles affirmed a different canon than the Jews.
The New Testament directly quotes from all the Old Testament books except Ezra, Nehemiah, Ester, Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Solomon. The lack of quoting from these books is probably due to the fact they were not needed to prove the New Testament’s points rather than a disagreement in the canon. (Green 143) Leiman notes that the New Testament frequently bears witness to the Torah and Prophets as separate units in the canon. Leiman notes that the canonicity of the writings is assumed by the New Testament. (40)
Scholars frequently sight Jesus’ words in Luke 24:44, “everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the prophets and the psalms must be fulfilled” as pointing to the complete collection of Jewish scriptures. They point toward the psalms as the completion of the Jewish scriptures and thus pointing toward Jesus referring to the totality of the Jewish canon. Psalms is also the most quoted book of the New Testament so it seems likely that the writings were held as part of the canon by the Apostles.
The evidence presented here presents a brief outline of the case for a canon set before the first century A.D. Other evidence such as the Apocryphal books could also be brought into the argument. This paper has avoided a discussion on the dating of the writing of the Jewish scriptures. Recent scholarship has tended to push the dates of authorship very close to the first century A.D. There are reasons in support of this, but this is not necessarily a correct. Until the enlightenment the date of the books authorship was considered far more ancient. This paper assumes that the canon is, likely like the church had a consensus on until the enlightenment, a more ancient canon. That discussion of course is far beyond the scope of this paper.
In conclusion if one assumes that the writings of the books are more ancient than recent scholarship argues than there are many good reasons to affirm a set pre-A.D. canon. This paper has outlined four main arguments for this thesis. There is also ample evidence from the Apocrypha on the issue. This paper avoids that evidence because scholars have had much more widely ranging debates and more disunity on that subject than other issues. In summery this paper assumes the canons completion sometime before the first century A.D. is a reasonable stance and falls in line better with the New Testament and Jewish testimony.
Works Cited
Beckwith, Roger T. The Old Testament canon of the New Testament Church and its background in early Judaism. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1985.
Cohen, Shaye J.D. From the Maccabees to the Mishnah. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1987
Green, William H. General introduction to the Old Testament. New York: C. Scribner's sons, 1899.
Harris, Laird R. Inspiration and Canonicity of the Bible; an historical and exegetical study. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1957.
Leiman, Shnayer Z. The canonization of Hebrew scripture: the Talmudic and Midrashic evidence. Hamden, CT: Archon Books, 1976.
Kline, Meredith G. The structure of Biblical authority. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1972.
A common objection to Beckwith is that the Sadducees rejected all law accept the Pentateuch. However, scholars commonly note that the Sadducees also rejected angles which are quite common in the Pentateuch. The Sadducees rejection of the angles is probably a rejection of the time periods new wave of angles. If the Sadducees had truly rejected angles they would also have had to reject the Pentateuch. Similarly the Sadducees rejection of law other than Moses probably refers to their rejection of the widely increasing oral traditions of the Pharisees rather than their rejection of the prophets and writings.
In fact the Sadducees must have accepted books other than the Pentateuch as part of the canon. The majority of the priests after John Hyrcanus were Sadducees.
The temple during the period under their control clearly had other scriptures other than the Pentateuch that were used in worship. It seems difficult to rectify the Sadducees control of the temple and books not part of the canon being used there. (Beckwith 90) The Sadducees are also recorded in the New Testament as resenting Jesus calling himself the son of David. It seems difficult to find a good explanation for this resentment if the Sadducees accepted only the Pentateuch. (Beckwith 89)
The New Testament also offers much testimony pointing toward a completed canon. The New Testament is a valid pointer toward what the Hebrew Scriptures consisted of before the first century A.D. because Christianity arises out of the Jewish worldview and takes on the Jewish scriptures. The New Testament also records the debates between the early Christians and the Jews. A striking feature of this heated debate is that there is no mention of resentment of the books each group considers authoritative. This points toward a canon that was widely know and attested to at the time.
An objection to the New Testament witness is that the early Church took on the Apocrypha and that the closure of the Jewish canon was a reaction to this. Green notes that the New Testament writers quote freely from the Old Testament, but never quote from the Apocrypha. He notes that all the New Testament similarities with the Apocrypha are either very vague and nothing like citations or they are held in common with the Old Testament. (145)
The Apocrypha also do not clearly have the status of the other books in the early church’s canon. There are numerous disputes in the early church over the books of the Apocrypha. The protestant rejection of the Apocrypha follows in the line of Jerome and his followers on the issue. Because Christianity arose out of Judaism the Apostles would be assumed to be accepting the Jewish scriptures unless they made comments to the contrary. (Green 145) In fact Christ and the apostles never make any claim that charges the Jews with corrupting the scriptures or of excluding any of the scriptures. (Green 141) The Christ and the apostles do not hint that the Jewish choice of scriptures was lacking in any way. (Beckwith 91-92)
Christ and the Apostles used the scriptures to debate with the Jews on points of contention. The gospel of Acts points to many Christian and Jew debates where both sides shared and used the same scriptural texts to support their positions. (Beckwith 92) The apostles in fact accused the Pharisees of making void the word of God with their traditions. The position of Christ and the Apostles was thus one that affirmed the scriptures as being the final authority in all debates. This dialogue between the early church and the Jewish leaders should point toward a largely unified picture of the canon. One would expect there to be much record of dispute if Christ and the Apostles affirmed a different canon than the Jews.
The New Testament directly quotes from all the Old Testament books except Ezra, Nehemiah, Ester, Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Solomon. The lack of quoting from these books is probably due to the fact they were not needed to prove the New Testament’s points rather than a disagreement in the canon. (Green 143) Leiman notes that the New Testament frequently bears witness to the Torah and Prophets as separate units in the canon. Leiman notes that the canonicity of the writings is assumed by the New Testament. (40)
Scholars frequently sight Jesus’ words in Luke 24:44, “everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the prophets and the psalms must be fulfilled” as pointing to the complete collection of Jewish scriptures. They point toward the psalms as the completion of the Jewish scriptures and thus pointing toward Jesus referring to the totality of the Jewish canon. Psalms is also the most quoted book of the New Testament so it seems likely that the writings were held as part of the canon by the Apostles.
The evidence presented here presents a brief outline of the case for a canon set before the first century A.D. Other evidence such as the Apocryphal books could also be brought into the argument. This paper has avoided a discussion on the dating of the writing of the Jewish scriptures. Recent scholarship has tended to push the dates of authorship very close to the first century A.D. There are reasons in support of this, but this is not necessarily a correct. Until the enlightenment the date of the books authorship was considered far more ancient. This paper assumes that the canon is, likely like the church had a consensus on until the enlightenment, a more ancient canon. That discussion of course is far beyond the scope of this paper.
In conclusion if one assumes that the writings of the books are more ancient than recent scholarship argues than there are many good reasons to affirm a set pre-A.D. canon. This paper has outlined four main arguments for this thesis. There is also ample evidence from the Apocrypha on the issue. This paper avoids that evidence because scholars have had much more widely ranging debates and more disunity on that subject than other issues. In summery this paper assumes the canons completion sometime before the first century A.D. is a reasonable stance and falls in line better with the New Testament and Jewish testimony.
Works Cited
Beckwith, Roger T. The Old Testament canon of the New Testament Church and its background in early Judaism. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1985.
Cohen, Shaye J.D. From the Maccabees to the Mishnah. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1987
Green, William H. General introduction to the Old Testament. New York: C. Scribner's sons, 1899.
Harris, Laird R. Inspiration and Canonicity of the Bible; an historical and exegetical study. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1957.
Leiman, Shnayer Z. The canonization of Hebrew scripture: the Talmudic and Midrashic evidence. Hamden, CT: Archon Books, 1976.
Kline, Meredith G. The structure of Biblical authority. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1972.
Monday, March 17, 2014
Prophecy as Apologetic
The Old Testament is full of imagery of Jesus. Much of the temple imagery is based upon what would later be fulfilled by Jesus.
All through the Old Testament the bible is filled with prophecy of Jesus.
I have heard some people say that the most powerful apologetic for Christianity is explaining the Old Testament prophecy related to Jesus. I agree with this point.
It is often a far more helpful apologetic to unfold the Old Testament prophecy regarding the coming Messiah than to argue solely by reason. You see reason is heavily influenced by emotion. We often only accept what pleases us.
The Old Testament prophecy regarding the Messiah is more powerful for various reasons. First it bypasses human reason in the sense that we meet something we cannot explain by human reason. We meet God telling us what will happen if we have ears to hear.
Also we meet in the bible an appealing reason to accept God. If we truly understand who God is then we will desire to accept him.
All through the Old Testament the bible is filled with prophecy of Jesus.
I have heard some people say that the most powerful apologetic for Christianity is explaining the Old Testament prophecy related to Jesus. I agree with this point.
It is often a far more helpful apologetic to unfold the Old Testament prophecy regarding the coming Messiah than to argue solely by reason. You see reason is heavily influenced by emotion. We often only accept what pleases us.
The Old Testament prophecy regarding the Messiah is more powerful for various reasons. First it bypasses human reason in the sense that we meet something we cannot explain by human reason. We meet God telling us what will happen if we have ears to hear.
Also we meet in the bible an appealing reason to accept God. If we truly understand who God is then we will desire to accept him.
Tuesday, April 23, 2013
Old Testament Sacrificial System
There is a great importance to the Sacrificial System in the Old Testament. One importance that comes up immediately is that there is a guilt which man possesses.
This guilt must be paid by a price. The price is the sacrifices that were brought before God. These were to be animals which were without blemish.
The most interesting thing about the sacrificial system is that it was futile. One brought a sacrifice one was forgive and made clean. One sinned and was unclean necessitating a future sacrifice.
The sacrificial system is interesting because it could bring no ultimate peace with God. In the opening scene of Jesus’ ministry John the Baptist filled with the Holy Spirit cried out “Look the Lamb of God who comes to take away the sins of the word.”
In the first moments of Jesus’ ministry he is pictured as a sin offering for the world. The Lamb reference is about the essential aspect of Jesus’ ministry, he is here to pay the price of sin.
Jesus did pay the price for sin after fulfilling all the righteousness that is expected of men. And his death was vindicated in his resurrection in that the powers of the grave could not hold him.
Really the ministry of Jesus is not separate from the Old Testament law but a fulfillment of it, once and for all since his sacrifice was so great that no other sacrifice was needed.
This guilt must be paid by a price. The price is the sacrifices that were brought before God. These were to be animals which were without blemish.
The most interesting thing about the sacrificial system is that it was futile. One brought a sacrifice one was forgive and made clean. One sinned and was unclean necessitating a future sacrifice.
The sacrificial system is interesting because it could bring no ultimate peace with God. In the opening scene of Jesus’ ministry John the Baptist filled with the Holy Spirit cried out “Look the Lamb of God who comes to take away the sins of the word.”
In the first moments of Jesus’ ministry he is pictured as a sin offering for the world. The Lamb reference is about the essential aspect of Jesus’ ministry, he is here to pay the price of sin.
Jesus did pay the price for sin after fulfilling all the righteousness that is expected of men. And his death was vindicated in his resurrection in that the powers of the grave could not hold him.
Really the ministry of Jesus is not separate from the Old Testament law but a fulfillment of it, once and for all since his sacrifice was so great that no other sacrifice was needed.
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