How were the Testaments divided?

sjanhunen / dokimazo

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How were the Testaments divided? #4

Closed sjanhunen closed 5 years ago

sjanhunen commented 5 years ago

Some initial observations on why the established division makes sense:

The OT was written in Hebrew
The NT was written in Greek
There was a large time gap between Malachi and John (inter-testamental period)
Jesus is to the NT like Moses was to the OT

But where were the labels OT and NT actually used to divide up the books?

sjanhunen commented 5 years ago

The intertestamental period: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intertestamental_period

sjanhunen commented 5 years ago

Research on the terms OT and NT: https://standingonshoulders.wordpress.com/2009/05/31/where-did-the-term-old-testament-and-new-testament-come-from/

Goes back to the late second century. The concept was then imported into the English translations of the Bible.

sjanhunen commented 5 years ago

How many of us recall right now (without consulting our Bibles) the last four books of the Old Testament?

Zephaniah
Haggai
Zechariah
Malachi

sjanhunen commented 5 years ago

How many of us remember what the last two verses of the Old Testament talk about? They look forward to Elijah and then the Last Days. (Mal 4:5-6). In chapter 3, Malachi looks forward to a "messenger" that will prepare the way before the Lord when He comes to visit the temple.

So, in Malachi, we see both the first coming and the second coming of the Lord just a few verses apart.

sjanhunen commented 5 years ago

But how are we going to divide the Bible rightly?

By language: by the time the NT was written, many people would have been reading the Greek Translation of the Hebrew, the Septuagint
By time? God's concept of time is very different from ours
By content? How do we define the word Testament?

Is it possible that we could somehow recenter our Bible around Christ, the theme and protagonist, to really figure out where this line goes?

sjanhunen commented 5 years ago

Let's do a little experiment: assume for now that the Gospels are a just a continuation of where Malachi left off. If we start moving forward with that assumption, will we reach a natural point where we see the need to divide between Old and New?

sjanhunen commented 5 years ago

We can ask the question: what is it that makes the Old Covenant "Old"?