by jimwalton » Fri Jun 16, 2023 11:39 pm
As far as the OT is concerned, the Old Testament is God's revelation of Himself to the world through the people of Israel, and it's the written record of the covenant (the contract between God and His people).
The Old Testament is God-breathed just like the NT (2 Tim. 3.16), and the prophets of old spoke as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit (2 Pet. 1.21). The OT reveals God just as the NT does (Hebrews 1.1), and the OT is considered Holy Scripture just as the NT is. We have to remember that the early church used the OT as their "Scriptures," and that every reference to the "Scriptures" in the NT is speaking about the Old Testament. The early church used the OT at every turn for its teaching and preaching because the NT hadn't been written yet.
The NT was created to tell the story of Jesus and to show how the OT was fulfilled by Jesus. It tells how salvation by grace through faith was always the plan (Gal. 3.6-14), and how the "rivers" of the Eden Problem (sin), the Babel Problem (deity falsely construed), God's covenant, God's presence, redemption, and resurrection are integral to the whole (both OT and NT) to reveal God to us and bring us to salvation.
The OT forms the basis of Jesus's credentials, but Jesus supplied his own credentials in what he said and did.
As Dr. Craig Evans says, "The Old Testament provides the context and framework for understanding the New Testament. In other words, the New Testament wouldn't makes sense to us without the Old Testament." Augustine said, "The New Testament lies hidden the Old and the Old Testament is unveiled in the New.”
> Should the (Torah being God's wisdom) which he gave be forbidden in our time, and also can't we make refrence to it as a way of governing our community with the lens of Christ?
Therefore the Torah should not be forbidden in our time. As Paul wrote in Rom. 3.31, the law is not nullified. “We uphold the law,” he wrote. And he wrote in 2 Tim. 3.16 that the Torah “is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness.”
> they continually used the word salvation(Yeshuah) and shamayim(heaven) in their writings, so how come they didnt understand the concept?
Their concept of salvation was different from ours. In John’s book on Old Testament theology, he explains that to the Israelites, salvation was their rescue from slavery in Egypt and their return from exile. In both cases the centerpoint of salvation was the covenant: a relationship with God possible because of His self-revelation. They perceived salvation as an escape from disorder and impurity, often via sacrifice, that enabled them to enjoy the presence of God.
Often by “heaven” they means the sky. If you look at the context when this word is used, it is most often speaking of the atmosphere. We could talk about specific verses if you want.
> If they do not understand the concept of the messiah coming to save them, they do they continually give their people HOPE?
They DID expect Messiah to eventually come and save them. Their hope on a daily basis was often to be found in God’s presence with them, and therefore His granting covenant blessings and protecting them from harm (famine, invasion, disease, etc.)
> how different are the old testament folks from US
I see a lot of commonality between the OT folks and us. Human beings have a way of being, well, human, and the Scriptures are so valuable for showing us how God invades our human existences to redeem us.
> how is the great symbiosis of israel different from the world around them (eg. Mesopotamia etc)
Israel didn’t believe in the Great Symbiosis, or, at least, they weren’t supposed to. Many texts in the OT show them that this was not how YHWH worked. YHWH had no needs; He didn’t need the people to care for Him; they were not His slaves to provide for Him; His blessings were based on the covenant, not on their works of care for Him. The OT shows that the Great Symbiosis was a theological misunderstanding of making deity in our image.
> if we are saved by grace through faith in Jesus,how were they saved? Is it by works as christains say?
In Israel, salvation was to be found in resolution of covenant disorder by the rituals of sacrifice and maintaining their obligations to the covenant. In those ways God would keep HIs presence with them and abide in their midst as a people. These sound like works (and they were), but at the root the idea was a relationship with God, not an earning of one’s way.
Last bumped by Anonymous on Fri Jun 16, 2023 11:39 pm.