Tag Archives: Old Testament

Why the New Testament doesn’t have a Torah

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While the Jews had their canon within a canon, what about the early church? The Jews emphasized the Torah above the other scriptures? What about early Christians? Specifically, how did they see the New Testament writings?

I would argue that the stratifying of authority took place during the years when the canon was in flux. That is, writings seen to be of lesser authority were not included as part of the New Testament. There were highly respected books like the Didache or 1 Clement that were read regularly, but not seen as part of the authoritative scriptures of the church.

There was debate about some of the accepted books, like 2 Peter or Jude. But for the most part, the books we use today were seen as holy scriptures. (And yes, I’m greatly simplifying decades and decades of study and debate)

I don’t place the epistles over the gospels nor vice versa. I do read the varying literary sections in different ways, which helps explain why I don’t take Revelation literally (Jesus isn’t a slain lamb with seven horns and seven eyes)

I guess the huge difference between the Old Testament and the New Testament is that the Old Testament had books that were expected to be read as law; that’s why the Torah was/is seen differently. The New Testament lacks such legal code. There are commands and instructions throughout the New Testament writings, but there is nothing similar to what we find in the laws of the Torah.

That’s where I ended up on this mental side trip. How about you?

Hebrew scriptures

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scrollsLike many in churches of Christ, I grew up with an understanding that the Bible basically had two parts: the Old Testament and the New Testament. The Old Testament contained an old law that we were no longer under; the New Testament contained the law that replaced that old one.

Jews have never seen their scriptures as a single unit, the Old Testament that I grew up with. And they certainly never considered it all to be law.

There is the Torah. This is Scripture, with a capital S. This is God’s Law. This is The Law.

The other writings are exactly that… other writings. The Prophets are a Word from God for his people and are treated as such. (Some books which we consider to be “history” are considered prophetic books by the Jews, such as the books of Joshua, Judges, Samuel and Kings) Then there are the poetic books: Psalms, Proverbs, and Job. There are the Five Scrolls, the five books that are read on the different Jewish feast days. And there are the other books. But none of them compares with the Torah in terms of weight and authority.

There’s a vast gulf between that view of Hebrew (and Aramaic) scriptures and the flat view I grew up with. Again, I have to wonder how the different ways of viewing God’s Word affect our understanding.

Nailed To The Cross

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“And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses; Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross” (Colossians 2:13–14)

This has been one of the classic verses used against the Old Testament. I’ve mentioned before one of the horrible moments in my ministry, when one young man referred to the Psalms during a heated discussion at a men’s meeting. One older man, who had been in ministry for over 30 years, interrupted him, saying, “My Bible says that was nailed to the cross.”

Really? The Psalms were nailed to the cross? Is that what Colossians says?

Well… no, not at all. What was nailed to the cross?

The King James says “the handwriting of ordinances.” The word “handwriting” is cheirograph in Greek. That word appears nowhere else in the New Testament. However, the word is seen in some writings found in Egypt. In those writings, the word referred to an I.O.U., a record of debt. That reading makes sense in this context.

In an article about this verse, Bobby Valentine notes:

In Jewish apocalyptic there was an idea that there existed a book of records that kept track of our evil deeds. This book, like the mortgage (an I.O.U.) at the bank, provided powerful leverage with less than friendly spirit beings called principalities, powers, angels and the like. This book is mentioned often in Jewish literature of the time (1 Enoch 89.61-64; 108.7; Testament of Abraham 12.7-18; 13.9-14; and many other places). Enoch, for example, tells how he heard the words “write down every destruction {sin} … so that this may become testimony for me against them.” We have an IOU that stands against us and that IOU is our own sin debt. It is that sin that the malignant powers hold over us.

The translators of the ESV understood this passage to refer to a record of debt. They phrased it:

“And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross.” (Colossians 2:13–14)

But what if Paul were referring to the Law here? That doesn’t seem to fit with other passages where Paul quotes the Law as authoritative, but it is a possibility.

The removal of the Law from a position of opposition to Christians doesn’t mean that every writing before the cross loses validity for Christians. We have to remember that God’s Word is not merely a law book; it is a living, sacred document which teaches us about the nature of God and the way God’s people should live. I’m not talking the plan of salvation; I’m talking about sanctification.

It’s true that we are no longer under the Law of Moses. We no longer offer sacrifices. We await the eternal sabbath rather than keeping a weekly one. Our hope for salvation comes through Jesus and his sacrifice, not through law keeping.

That doesn’t mean that the writings of Isaiah and Jeremiah suddenly cease to be God’s Word. That doesn’t mean that the lessons we learn from David and Moses and Abraham no longer hold truth. The Psalms still speak volumes about the nature of God and his creation.

It’s easy to confuse the Old Law with the writings we call the Old Testament. (remember that the term “Old Testament” wasn’t used to refer to Scripture until well into the second century) The Jews referred to the first five books of the Bible as the Law. If Paul really says that “the Law” is nailed to the cross, he is only referring to those books! And even at that, who among us thinks that the creation story was against us and needed to be nailed to the cross? Can anyone read Paul and think that he felt a need to nail Abraham’s story to the cross? Or the story of the exodus?

We need to read Colossians 2 as a celebration of Christ’s victory, not a proof text for dispensationalism. Eugene Peterson’s translation in The Message can help us capture that feeling:

“Think of it! All sins forgiven, the slate whiped clean, that old arrest warrant canceled and nailed to Christ’s Cross. He stripped all the spiritual tyrants in the universe of their sham authority at the Cross and marched them naked through the streets.”

Dividing The Word

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saw“Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth” (KJV).

This verse gets used a lot to say that we need to know how to divide God’s Word into Old and New Testaments. I’ve even seen this verse used in studies in Spanish, even though the concept of “dividing” isn’t in the Spanish translations!

Paul uses a word in this verse that isn’t used anywhere else in the New Testament. It’s a Greek word: orthotomeo. It literally means to cut straight, which explains the King James translation of the term. Remember, though, that the literal translation of a word isn’t always the way it was used. That is, we talk about a man being a straight shooter, even if he’s a pacifist. We can have a workout without ever going outside.

In common Greek usage, the word came to mean to do something correctly. Vine’s Expository Dictionary says “The meaning passed from the idea of cutting or dividing, to the more general sense of rightly dealing with a thing. What is intended here is not dividing Scripture from Scripture, but teaching Scripture accurately” [p. 327]. It often was used in reference to making a straight road; that’s the usage in the Septuagint, the Greek version of the Old Testament. We find orthotomeo in Proverbs 3:6 and 11:5, referring to straight paths.

Al Maxey wrote an excellent article on this verse. There he listed some of the different translations:

  1. King James Version — rightly dividing the word of truth.
  2. New King James Version — rightly dividing the word of truth.
  3. American Standard Version — handling aright the word of truth.
  4. New American Standard Bible — handling accurately the word of truth.
  5. New International Version — who correctly handles the word of truth.
  6. English Standard Version — rightly handling the word of truth.
  7. Holman Christian Standard Bible — correctly teaching the word of truth.
  8. The Message — laying out the truth plain and simple.
  9. Lamsa’s Translation from the Aramaic of the Peshitta — one who preaches straightforwardly the word of truth.
  10. New American Bible, St. Joseph Edition — following a straight course in preaching the truth.
  11. New English Bible — be straightforward in your proclamation of the truth.
  12. The New Jerusalem Bible — who keeps the message of truth on a straight path.
  13. Hugo McCord’s NT Translation of the Everlasting Gospel — interpreting correctly the message of truth.
  14. Charles B. Williams’ NT in the Language of the People — who properly presents the message of truth.
  15. J. B. Phillips’ NT in Modern English — who knows how to use the word of truth to the best advantage.
  16. Contemporary English Version — who teaches only the true message.
  17. New World Translation — handling the word of the truth aright.
  18. Revised Standard Version — rightly handling the word of truth.
  19. New Living Translation — who correctly explains the word of truth.
  20. Darby Translation — cutting in a straight line the word of truth.
  21. Lexham English Bible — guiding the word of truth along a straight path.

Maxey also refers to some of the resource books on the matter:

The noted Greek scholar, Dr. Marvin Vincent, wrote, “The thought is that the minister of the gospel is to present the truth rightly, not abridging it, not handling it as a charlatan, not making it a matter of wordy strife, but treating it honestly and fully, in a straightforward manner” [Vincent’s Word Studies, e-Sword]. Albert Barnes (1798-1870) suggests Paul is instructing Timothy to “rightfully and skillfully teach the word of truth” [Barnes’ Notes on the Bible, e-Sword]. Dr. Henry Thayer’s Greek-English Lexicon of the NT states that in 2 Tim. 2:15 this word means “to teach the truth correctly and directly” [p. 453]. “The context suggests that Paul is warning against taking the devious paths of deceiving interpretations” when teaching others God’s Truth [The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, vol. 11, p. 402]. Don’t wander away from Truth; stay on course with Truth; don’t take the detours of human speculation. Sophocles, a Greek writer, used this term to mean: “expound soundly” [Dr. Kenneth Wuest, Word Studies from the Greek New Testament, vol. 2, The Pastoral Epistles, p. 135].

We definitely need to know how to correctly handle the Word of God. We even need to know how to tell the difference between the covenant with Israel and the new covenant that Jesus established. But we don’t need to divide the Word, not if it means neglecting inspired words of God.

photo courtesy of MorgueFile.com

The Marcion Way

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At times in the churches of Christ, we’ve seen a resurgence of what is often called a neo-Marcionism. A while back, I wrote the following about Marcionism:

Marcion of Sinope was born near the end of the first century. He was the son of a church leader and was raised in a Christian home. He came to be strongly influenced by popular philosophies of his day and developed his own unique approach to Christianity. (Eusebius called him a gnostic; I’ll let you research gnosticism on your own)

Marcion believed that the God revealed in the Old Testament was merely what he called a demiurge, sort of a sub-God. He wasn’t God the Father, the God revealed in the New Testament. Whereas the God of the Old Testament was an angry, unmerciful God, the God that was revealed through Jesus was only love and grace.

To strengthen his views, Marcion published a “canon,” a list of the inspired writings as opposed to the other Scriptures. Completely rejecting the Old Testament as an inferior revelation, Marcion’s canon had eleven books in two sections:

  • The Evangelikon, which consisted of ten chapters from the book of Luke, carefully selected and trimmed by Marcion.
  • The Apostolikon, which consisted of ten letters by Paul. Marcion thought that only Paul really understood and taught what Jesus taught.

Because of this, the term Marcionism is often applied to the rejection of the Old Testament, even though this doesn’t accurately reflect all of Marcion’s teachings.

Contrary to what the New Testament writers did, many believers today relegate the Old Testament writings to a secondary status. I want to discuss a bit this week as to why this happens, look at some of the motives behind this, and try to help us regain a more biblical perspective.

For now, let me close by reminding us what the apostle Paul said about the Old Testament writings:

“But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work.” (2 Timothy 3:14–17)

What sacred writings had Timothy known from his youth? Not the New Testament, for those writings weren’t around then. The Scripture Paul talks about is the Old Testament, and he says those writings:

  • Are able to make us wise for salvation
  • Are profitable for teaching, reproof, correction and training so that we may be equipped for every good work

Does it sound like Paul saw little value in the Old Testament? If we aren’t able to find teachings about salvation and Christian living in the Old Testament, then we haven’t learned to study it the way Paul and Timothy did.