-----------------
Oooh, fun question! Thanks for asking it, Pradeep!
You're not the first to ask this question. I've had plenty of church members ask why I spend so much time in the Old Testament. They'll grant that the stories can be fun, but since they're not about JESUS, why waste our time? Save the stories for story time, and spend our learning time learning about Jesus?
Simply put, because if you are Christian, the Old Testament is just as much about Jesus as the New.
For starters, I'd like to get rid of the term "Old Testament." It IS how most people separate the two parts of the Christian Bible, but a bit offensive to the Jewish faith, as if we're calling ourselves Judaism 2.0 and they're the outdated version. Check out Lewis Black's particularly funny take on that below...
I've done a vlog on Biblical Creationism, so I won't go back into it here. I don't accept Lewis' dichotomy... the Hebrew Scriptures are as much my book as his... but he can be forgiven the misunderstanding, given the lingo often used. Why waste time in that rusty Old Testament when we have a groovy new one, right?
The reason is simple... there is a lot of great stuff in the Hebrew Scriptures. It may not mention Jesus, but it DOES mention his namesake... Jesus is an Anglicization of the Hebrew name Yeshua... which can also be Anglicized to Joshua! (Wasn't it nice of English people to Anglicize it twice? Wish they could have done that with the Marys.) Also, if you believe that Jesus is God (which, in case you didn't know, Christians DO) then the whole of Hebrew Scriptures is about Jesus... it's not like we think that Christ just started existing around the first century CE. Christ's story is a continuation of the one told in the Hebrew Scriptures. And like any real geek can tell you, there's a good story to be told in the Lord of the Rings, but if you don't also read the Silmarillion, you're not getting the whole picture.
Besides, good research sort of demands understanding of the Hebrew Scriptures in order to truly follow the stuff us Christians added to the canon. The New Testament quotes the Hebrew Scriptures SO OFTEN that some of my Hebrew professors referred to the Bible as "The Hebrew Scriptures with a longish appendix."
In short (too late) we don't ignore the Hebrew Scriptures because they are a integral part of our faith. The fact that they predate Jesus' human life on Earth only helps, because it paints the context in which Christ came, and has a lot of good things to teach us.
If you don't believe me, ask the Jews!
I guess it kind of helps believers understand how Jesus 'paid the price for ALL humanity throughout ALL eternity (from Adam-&-Eve all the way to the Antichrist (or whoever head's that administration)).' I don't like how believers often misinterpret that forgiveness--thinking He paid for 'all our sins' when it was more like 'he paid for our "slavery to sin"' (i.e. now you have to pay EVEN MORE for the sins you commit, because it's a FREE CHOICE rather than 'something your nature forces you to do').
ReplyDelete