Introduction

The Old Testament is the name given by the Christian Church to the first 39 books of our Bible. It is the common Scriptures we share with the Jewish faith. Since Jews do not accept Jesus as the Messiah, they also, therefore, do not accept the New Testament as Scriptures. The term "Old Testament" is, therefore, a Christian expression. The Jews refer to these 39 books simply as "Scriptures," or the Hebrew Bible, or the Tanak, a name created from the first letters of the names of the three divisions—Torah (the Law), Nebi'im (the Prophets), and Ketubim (the Writings)—that make up the Hebrew Bible.

Although it is our Scripture, it is a sad fact that Christians in general have a rather poor appreciation of the Old Testament. This does not detract in any way from the importance of the Old Testament; as anyone who has ever studied the New Testament in any serious way will acknowledge, it is impossible to really grasp the meaning of the New Testament without some fundamental understanding of the Old. The reason for this is simple: the New Testament assumes what the Old Testament has taught and affirmed, even though in many ways it also transcends it. New Testament scholar Donald Hagner has this to say"

Together with the people of Israel, the writers of the NT looked to the Scriptures of Israel as the foundation of their faith and as the expression of their hopes . . . From the point of view of the NT writers, who believed that fulfillment has come in Christ, these Scriptures came to be regarded as a long story of preparation and promise. For them . . . Christ was the hermeneutical key that unlocked the ultimate meaning of the Scriptures, as as a consequence they saw the Scriptures as pointing repeatedly to Christ. It is virtually impossible to understand the NT without knowledge of the Scriptures of Israel. This, therefore, is where we must start.

Donald A. Hagner, The New Testament: A Historical and Theological Introduction (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2012), 13; emphasis his.

To see how this is so, we turn to our first explorative article on The Structure and Message of the Old Testament.

©Alberith, 2014