Old and New Testaments

The Christian faith is based on the teachings, the factors of belief, and the knowledge found and presented in both the Old Testament and the New Testament.

            The Old Testament, or as it is called by Judaism 'Tanakh', was written by different authors over a time period that exceeded a millennium. As Larue explains, the Old Testament is a set of chosen writings collected, re-written and revised by individuals that can be identified as Hebrew-Jewish. The author states that the contents of the Old Testament vary in subjects, references and meanings as they include “such diverse materials as prophetic oracles, teachings of wise men, instructions of priests and ancient records of the royal courts. Some material is historical, some is legendary; some is legalistic, some is didactic. For the most part the literature was written in Hebrew, but a few passages were written in Aramaic.”

            The Old Testament is composed of several books, and even though the number of those books varies from a religious group to the other, the content is the same for all of them. The Jewish holy bible contains twenty-four books, while that of the Protestant Christians contains thirty-nine. This difference is related to the fact that some chapters within the Old Testament are considered to be independent books for a certain religious institution, but are considered to be parts of other books for other religious institutions.

            The New Testament, on the other hand, is believed to be the word of God. According to Barnett, “Jesus, although the central figure of the New Testament, himself wrote nothing. His message was delivered orally, and for twenty years after the close of his earthly ministry the memory of his followers constituted the only record of its content” (13).

            Concerning the way the New Testament is arranged, Perkins explains that “the writings are arranged in groups. The four gospels are grouped together at the beginning” (1). This is the reason why we find the gospel that was written by Luke separated from Acts, which is considered to be the second part of his work in the gospel.

            Perkins states that:

[Beside the parts mentioned earlier] we have fourteen letters that were either written by Paul or were attributed to his authorship. The last [is] Hebrews... The others, whether by Paul or by disciples writing in Paul’s name, are divided into two groups, each in descending order of length. The first group comprises letters addressed to churches. The second... [is] addressed to individuals. Then we have a group of seven letters that were attributed to other apostolic figures. [And] finally, Revelation. (1-2)

UNDERSTANDING THE BIBLE

            It must be stated that the Old Testament and the New Testament, for the Christian school of thought and belief, form the unity of the holy bible, as there are within the New Testament references to passages within the Old. Examples of such references are found throughout the New Testament:

· NT: “Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us” (The New Testament, Matthew. 1:23).

 OT: “Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive,
      and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel” (The Old Testament,  Isaiah. 7:14).

·  NT: “See thou say nothing to any man: but go thy way, shew thyself to the priest, and offer for thy cleansing those things which Moses commanded, for a testimony unto them” (The New Testament, Mark. 1:44).

 OT: “This shall be the law of the leper in the day of his cleansing: He shall be brought unto the priest” (The Old Testament, Leviticus. 14:2).

            To mention just a few more examples, we find Luke 1:10 (NT) - Leviticus 16:17 (OT), John 1:23 (NT) - Isaiah 40:3 (OT), Acts 1:20 - Psalms 69:25 (OT), and Romans 1:17 (NT) - Habakkuk 2:4 (OT).

            To understand the New Testament in all its aspects, a thorough knowledge of all the parts of the Old Testament is needed. Referring to the context in which it was mentioned within the Old Testament is essential for anyone who desires to reach the complete religious knowledge. It is somewhat difficult to refer to the Old Testament and to retrieve the meanings and the teachings from it; “The critics of the Old Testament find the material hard to understand and even to relate to their lives.” One of the important factors regarding the Old Testament is that it teaches the “Christian Community by situating its faith in a historical context, by reminding it of the social character of that faith, and by insisting on the traditional dimension of the faith... The New Testament is unintelligible apart from of the Old Testament” (Harrington 122-123).

            According to Boadt, the Old Testament forms the background for understanding the New Testament proclamation of Jesus (546).

            Another view is that by understanding the Old Testament, we can have a total comprehension of the message of Christ: Greidanus states that “preaching from the Old Testament... provides a fuller understanding of the person, work, and teaching of Christ than does preaching only from the New Testament” (32).

Works Cited

Barnett, Albert. The New Testament: Its Making and Meaning. Whitefish, MT: Kessinger             Publishing, 2005.

Boadt, Lawrence. Reading the Old Testament: An Introduction. Mahwah, New Jersey: Paulist     Press, 1984.

Greidanus, Sidney. Preaching Christ from the Old Testament: Contemporary Hermeneutical         Method. Cambridge, UK: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1999.

Harrington, Daniel. Interpreting the Old Testament. Collegeville, Minnesota: Liturgical Press,       1991.

Larue, Gerald. Old Testament Life and Literature. 1968. 15 November 2006

            <http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/gerald_larue/otll/chap1.html>

Perkins, Pheme. Reading the New Testament: An Introduction. Mahwah, New Jersey: Paulist      Press, 1978.

The King James Version (KJV) of the New Testament of the Holy Bible. Evans Mills, New York:            Tri-County church of Christ, 2005.

The King James Version - The Old Testament. Albany, OR: SAGE Software, 1996.