Most Christians dismiss the "Old" Testament with a waive of their hand and an annoyed false-piety opining, "oh, that's just Old Testament." I've heard it wisely stated that, "we should be careful in dismissing 2/3 of Divine revelation." Which has brought me to a new personal practice that I should hope would catch on in all of Christendom.
Because we now have Christ, some Christians have this notion that the Old Testament is a lesser collection of writings than the New. This, coupled with our modern western notion that newer must be better (which in this case is so), it causes a misconception to become grounded in Christian thinking that old equals no good. Well, this just isn't so as the "Old" Testament collection of writings have preserved for us the very essence and nature of God and His redemptive plan to bring our Savior and Lord near to mankind. The meaning of the cross would have less of a resonance in our hearts if we couldn't view it in the light of Moses and the bronze serpent raised in the wilderness.
Naming the the Torah, prophetic books, wisdom books and history books prior to the birth of Christ as "Old" is a misnomer in my opinion and a grave injustice to both Jews and Christians alike. I understand, as a Christian, the emphasis that is placed on the coming of the Messiah but the name "Old" does such an injustice to these earlier writings. It is an afront to the Jews to refer to the books of the Bible they love so dearly as Old.
I also think that for a Christian to refer to the "Old" Testament as the Hebrew Bible also does the Christian believer an injustice as in thought it excludes the "Hebrew" scriptures as being "Christian" scriptures. (Though, I think our Jewish brothers would however agree with this - yet, I still love you my brothers. )
I propose to now refer to the division of texts between Malachi and Matthew to forever be classified as "Pre-Resurrection Writings" and "Post-Resurrection Writings". For short, one can refer to them as "Pre-Res" and "Post-Res" writings. The distinction in the two collections is not content but time of writing. Nothing changes in the division or order of the books. No one could then argue that because the gospels include details of the life and times of Christ prior to resurrection that they somehow should need to be further divided. The gospels being physically written and originated after the resurrection of Christ from the dead would fall into the category of "Post-Res" writings.
I know this classification does little for the Christian-Jewish alliance, but to heal that relationship is not sought in this reclassification. That is another issue that neither changes nor negates the need for Christians to rethink the involvement of the OT in the Apostle's establishment of the church after Christ's ascension.
The choice of using the resurrection as the key or apex for the re-naming needs little discussion. If there is no resurrection then we as Christians have no basis for existence. The Resurrection changes everything.
I implore readers of this blog :)- like there are any- to begin immediately to change their thinking on the nomenclature so familiar to us and begin using this new terminology for referring to the Christian texts written both prior to and after the resurrection of Christ Jesus.
Go ahead and do it... it won't send you to Hell... :)
good job
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