Monday, March 31, 2008
Writing Style
I have found that the writing style of the New Testament is very different than that of the Old Testament, I don't know if anyone else has found this to be true? It keep feeling as though I'm reading a contemporary story instead of an extremely old text. This could be attributed to the translation of the text but it just seems to flow differently than the old testament. The old testament read slightly slower and kept having a genealogical element to it that the new testament does not have. Does the mean that the teachings of Jesus valued less one's family history than the Jews did? I have found that that main family references are that Jesus is the son of God and thats about it. Does the difference in writing style have anything to do with trying to stray away from the Jewish text and to try and differentiate it? Or is it just the time that it was written in and this is the style?
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4 comments:
I agree with you Sophie. I think the writing styles in both New Testament and Old Testament are different because the two scriptures were written in distinctive times. The writing tools and methods they used in those days were also different. I am not sure but I think the Old Testament was written before the New Testament, and I believe that is why the New Testament cites many verses and parts of the Old Testament.
Good points, Sophie and John! Some of the NT is clearly written in imitation of OT style, like the beginning of the Gospel of John (=Gen 1), Acts of the Apostles (=I-II Kings), the genealogies in Mt and Lk (like those in Genesis), and Mary's prayer ("the Magnificat") in Luke (=Hannah's prayer in I Samuel) --- but for the most part, the style does seem more "contemporary."
This is extremely interesting!!
I read the bible in Korean, so I did not notice that the writing styles in the New Testament and the Old testament are different!
Maybe I should read the bible in English and see if I can also tell the differences.
I agree that that style and language had probably evolved and changed significantly from the final writings of the OT to the NT, but could the reason for the writing style change be more deliberate than practical? That the NT was written in a more contemporary style to make it more accessible to the "average" person, thus making Christian theology more mainstream and therefore appealing to possible converts?
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