Often Christians think that the Old Testament is virtually irrelevant today, since the doctrines of the Church are explicitly revealed in the New Testament. However, this is a serious mistake, since Yeshua (Jesus) and all his disciples were Torah-observant Jews, and the Scriptures which they studied, loved, and quoted were the Torah, the Prophets, and the Writings (i.e., the Jewish Tanakh). When asked what was the greatest commandment of God, Yeshua quoted the Shema: And you shall love (veahavta) the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength (Deut. 6:5), and then he added the commandment, vahavta lreakha kamokha - ani Adonai , You shall love your neighbor as yourself (Lev. 19:18). Yeshua said that the Jewish Scriptures plainly testified of Him (John 5:39), and he taught his disciples from them: And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself (Luke 24: 13-36). Moreover, it must be remembered that a text without a context is a pretext, and therefore the New Testament derives its meaning, authority, and veracity from the Jewish Scriptures -- not the other way around. Too many Christian theologians go at this backwards, reading the New Testament as the interpretative filter for the study of the Hebrew text, and this leads to many exegetical errors...
Posted on: Tue, 13 May 2014 02:37:22 +0000