Tuesday, April 1, 2008
Christian Scripture
JBK posted very interesting questions. Even though we talked about Christian scripture in class yesterday, I still have some issues with it. Christians seem to rely on the New Testament scripture more than the Old Testament one. I think Christian scripture is both New Testament and Old Testament. But I noticed that many Christians think that the New Testament is the most important scripture of the two. Also, I noticed that some Christians do not see the Old Testament as the same as the Hebrew Bible because they perhaps do not want to rely on the interpretations of the Jewish scripture. As a Christian I personally enjoy reading the Old Testament (Hebrew Bible) because its stories are more interesting than those of the New Testament.
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I think that Christians tend to rely more on the New Testament, because the New Testament is dealing with the primary and central theme of Christianity, that 'Jesus is the only son of God, and he came to suffer and die for our sins.'
However, I believe that the Old Testament is equally important in Christianity as the Old Testament is all about the coming of Jesus Christ.
Which means, without the Old Testament, Jesus cannot be the fulfillment of the Hebrew prophecy.
It would be interesting to study how the Old and New Testaments function withhin a Christian church..in my church there is usually either a reading from the hebrew bible and one from the New Testament, or two from the New Testament. I think there is rarely (if ever) two readings from the Hebrew bible. This is something I will start to pay more attention to...but what I've noticed so far is that the Old Testament readings are definitely interpreted through a purely Christian lens. Pastors today add Christian vocabulary to the Hebrew bible in a very similar fashion as the New Testament itself.
*Sorry for the retraction, but edits were greatly needed to the original*
I have a friend who is Christian and we actually had a conversation where I posed that very similar question of what the OT means to you (her). She answered that the OT is more of a collection of stories than anything. Not that none of the OT was true, but that the NT carries more weight to her because much of it are Jesus' words and teachings.
My Christian relatives tend to have similar feelings, but also that the OT is more of a supplement/evidence to Jesus’ teachings.
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