UNIT C: the Old Testament and the Gospels

UNIT C: The Old Testament and the Gospels

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Contents

UNIT C: The Old Testament and the Gospels

SESSION 1

SESSION 2

SESSION 3

SESSION 4

SESSION 5

A Basic Vocabulary of Biblical Studies For Beginning Students

This unit has been prepared by Rev Malcolm Lambert, assisted by the CCS Revision Group

This Unit will continue examination of the Old Testament and developing knowledge of the Gospels

During this module, you will be asked to read the whole of the Gospel according to Mark.Ideally, you should also find time to read as much as you can of the other three Gospels. You may prefer to listen to the Gospels on tape. See ‘Further Resources’ below(page 64)

Aims of Unit:

To help us see the Bible as a whole. The New Testament is rooted in the Jewish heritage of Jesus and the first disciples. The Gospel writers tell us that Old Testament promises and prophecies find their fulfilment in Jesus.

• To provide an introduction to the Gospels
• To introduce the key theological theme of God’s Kingdom in the gospels
• To help us make connections between the New Testament and today, applying ourlearning to discipleship, ministry and worship

Resource Section: Please read the following before Session 1

We move now to the New Testament but we don’t leave the Old Testament behind. One reason is that the books of the Old Testament were the only scriptures for Jesus and for his first followers.

Resource A:(taken from BBC website)

The New Testament:

The New Testament has 27 books, written between about 50 and 100 AD, and falling naturally into two sections: the Gospels, which tell the story of Jesus (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John); and the Letters (or epistles), written by various Christian leaders to provide guidance for the earliest church communities.

The Letters

Letters were the natural way for itinerant church leaders to communicate with their converts, and the earliest ones were written before the Gospels. With some exceptions (Romans, Hebrews), they were not meant to be formal presentations of Christian belief, but offered advice to people who were working out how to express their commitment to Jesus in ways that would be relevant to the many different cultural contexts in which they found themselves throughout the Roman empire.

Reading them can be like listening to one half of a conversation, as the writers give answers to questions sent to them either verbally or in writing. Paul was the most prolific writer of such letters, though he was not the only one.

The Gospels

The Gospels were written to present the life and teachings of Jesus in ways that would be appropriate to different readerships, and for that reason are not all the same. They share some characteristics with other “lives” written in the ancient world.

The first three Gospels have a good deal of material in common. It is possible to place them side by side, and see their similarities and differences. They are known as the 'synoptic gospels' (from the Greek for “seen together”). A presentation of the three side by side is called a “Synoptic Parallel”.

The writer of Luke also wrote the Acts of the Apostles, which tells the story of how Christianity spread from being a small group of Jewish believers in the time of Jesus to becoming a worldwide faith in less than a generation.

The New Testament concludes with the book of Revelation, which begins with a series of letters to seven churches in the area of Asia Minor (modern Turkey), but then offers a visionary presentation of the meaning of all things, from creation to the end of the world.

B Stephen Motyer, “The Old Testament in the New Testament”

“The New Testament proclaims its indebtedness to the Old Testament on the very first page. Matthew begins with an Old Testament genealogy that makes sense only to those who are familiar with the people and events to which it refers (Matthew1:1-17 ). Thus the New Testament signals at the start an engagement with the Old Testament that touches every page and makes great demands on its readers.

The New Testament authors generally assumed knowledge of the Old Testament context from which quotations were drawn. They were concerned to communicate with and convince their fellow Jews, not just to nurture a private faith. They did not want simply to jettison their Jewish heritage, but sought genuinely to understand how the "word" spoken through the prophets related to the new "word" now revealed in Christ.

The New Testament authors both use the Old Testament to explain Jesus and use Jesus to explain the Old Testament in a circular process in which each is illuminated by the other.All the great themes of the Old Testament are confirmed, even when they are also developed in various ways: God as the one creator and ruler of the nations, the election of Israel to be the light of salvation for the world, the presence of God with his people, the possibility (and actuality) of revelation through appointed instruments, history as moving toward God's purposed goal for the world.”

Stephen Motyer,“The Old Testament in the New Testament” in Walter A. Elwell (ed.), Baker's Evangelical Dictionary of Biblical Theology, Grand Rapids, Michigan:Baker Book House Company, 1996.

C Wayne A. Meeks

“… Christianity, in its earliest beginnings, is part of Judaism … it is a sect, among a number of varieties of Judaism in the Roman Empire. But it is also clear that at a certain point, they develop a consciousness which takes them outside of the social orb of Judaism. They're no longer part of the local Jewish community, they're a separate community, meeting in little household groups, all over the city. And, it's apparent, at least from the time of the Emperor Nero, that outsiders also view them as distinct. So that when Nero is looking for scapegoats upon whom to put blame for the fire in Rome in 64, he zeroes in on the Christians.

So, obviously they are recognized as a distinctive group. How did this happen? What is involved in their separation? The one thing I think we have to recognize is that it doesn't happen all at once.”

Wayne A. Meeks: Woolsey Professor of Biblical Studies Yale University

From pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/religion/first/wrestling.html

Further resources for this Unit:

First, read the New Testament itself! It’s surprising how many Church members haven’t. Or listen, e.g.

New Testament and Classical Psalms on Pickwick Label (B003ASNWK),

or

The Message, Oasis Audio (ISBN-10: 1598594567, ISBN-13: 978-1598594560)

Or

Complete Audio Bible, read by David Suchet (ISBN:9781444786408)

KNOWLES, Andrew, The Bible Guide. Lion: 2006 is an excellent overview of the Bible.

WRIGHT, N.T. The "Matthew, Mark, Luke, John for everyone" series published bySPCK is recommended.

GREEN, Joel B. and McDONALD, Lee Martin, ed. The World of the New Testament: Cultural, Social, and Historical Contexts. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2013

BURRIDGE, Richard, Four Gospels, One Jesus, SPCK, 2013.

GISBEY, Joseph, Follow: walking in the dust of the Rabbi, DLT 2015 gives the Jewish background to Jesus’ ministry and describes the Gospel in that setting.

SESSION 1

Opening worship

Jesus and his first disciples are all Jews, and to start with his followers continue to live as devout Jews and attend the Temple and the synagogues. The land they live in is now part of the Roman Empire, but has had a turbulent political history.

The books that make up the New Testament come out of this Jewish / Roman world. They were all written in Greek, by Christians and for Christians. The authors of the New Testament books don’t always tell us much about themselves or their reasons for writing, but in general their purpose is clear - to provide authoritative teaching for the Church. The earliest documents in the New Testament that were written are the letters – and most of these were written by one person, Paul. Later come the Gospels and Acts, more letters and Revelation.

Optional “ice breaker” tasks:

In groups of two or three, attempt to write a list of the NT books in order, without consulting any reference materials.

And/or

In pairs, tell each other which book or passage of the NT is most important to you, and why.

Section A: The aim of this Section is to introduce some of the ways in which early Christian writers draw on the inheritance of the Jewish Scriptures.

Tutor Input

Your tutor will introduce the module, and speak to you about the continuity of God’s work in his world, in both Testaments. They may refer to the information in the Preliminary Reading for this Session.

Group Work:

Motyer (see Preliminary reading for Unit B, page 63)tells us that the New Testament authors assumed that their readers would know the Old Testament.

Read the following pairs of Bible passages. In twos or small groups, look at the following pairs of passages. In each case, how might knowing the OT passage help us to understand the NT passage?

Section B: The aim of this section is to look at the similarities and differences between the faith of the first Christians and other Jews of the 2nd Temple period.

Your tutor will talk about Judaism in the time of Jesus and the first Christians. They may refer to some of the following notes. Be sure to refer to the glossary given in the previous unit and at the end of this one for any words that are not familiar.

There was considerable diversity of practice and opinion among Jews of the 2nd Temple period. Some scholars e.g. Neusner write about the “Judaisms” of this period. But the various groups also had things in common:

• commitment to the ancient Scriptures of Israel as the word of God
• explicit claim to be “Israel”, and criticism of other claimants
• the certainty that all who belong to this community are truly the people of God.

This definition would of course include most of the early Christian groups. One way of defining a religious group is to find out what they argued about – what they thought was important enough to argue about – rather than what they agreed on. All the various Jewish groups; Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes, Zealots, Scribes, others who didn’t define themselves with any party label and the followers of Jesus thought that the following subjects were crucial issues to debate and commit themselves to:

• the stories of Abraham, Moses, Exodus, Sinai
• the conviction that they were God's elect covenant people
• obedience to Mosaic Law
• festivals, rituals and ways of worshipping
• the place of the Temple
• Sabbath observance.
• a future hope
• belief in a spiritual and angelic realm

LawAll agreed that Torah was vital. The five books explain the people's origins, their status as the chosen people of God, the conditions for the Covenant with God, and the regulations that mark the people out as distinctive. But there was disagreement as to how to apply Torah to daily life. We can see Jesus taking part in discussions about this in the Gospels.

CovenantAll agreed that God has chosen the people of Israel, and shown himself to them. There is a Covenant between God and Israel, and this is the basis for everything else. Obedience to the Law, sacrifice in the Temple, keeping the festivals- all the details of religious observance - are the response of a people who are trying to express what it means to be the chosen people of God.

Temple and Festivals. Central to the Covenant is the promise of the land. Since the return from Exile, this idea is focussed in Jerusalem. But Samaritans rejected the Temple at Jerusalem in favour of Mount Gerazim. The Essene Community at Qumran also rejected the Temple, because of its current state. Sadducees placed the Temple at the heart of their faith. For most other Jews, worship at the Temple was occasional, and centred around the pilgrim festivals, for which people travelled to Jerusalem. For these people, so far as everyday religion was concerned, the synagogue was more important. Some Festivals could be celebrated at home e.g. Succoth. Jesus’ followers had to decide whether to change their existing patterns of worship.

Angels and EschatologyAncient traditions described God as the leader of the heavenly host. In Torah, we meet Angels who represent God and declare his will. Later biblical books (e.g.Daniel) describe a detailed angelology. There was also a developing belief in Satan, a power hostile to God. In the Old Testament, Satan is an accuser, or means of temptation (e.g.Zech. 3, 1 Chron. 21) but later we find Satan as the chief enemy of God with his own powers. Overcoming these is a major theme of later Jewish writing, though Acts 23, 8 tells us that the Sadducess did not believe in angels or spirits.

Eschatology refers to the eschata, the end things. The central theme is that God is going to act again, and his righteousness will appear in the world. Most Jews did not think in terms of the "end of the world". The emphasis is rather on the end of the present order. God will reign in a world that has been dramatically transformed, and will vindicate his people.

The Future HopeFor many first century Jews, the future hope and the promise of God's establishment of a new order in which his people would be vindicated were absolutely central to faith. Important ideas include the division of the future age into the” time of the Messiah”, “the resurrection” and then” the new age” (e.g.Revelation,. 4 Ezra, Syr. Baruch). This could mean the establishment of God’s rule on earth, but the idea of general resurrection had become central to many, including the Pharisees, but was not shared by all Jews: the. Sadducees rejected this.

Group Work:

Meeks (see Preliminary reading, section C, page 64) says that “Christianity, in its earliest beginnings, is part of Judaism.” Some people might find this comment surprising. Meeks wants to draw attention to the fact that 1st century Judaism and Christianity have much in common and Jesus’ life, death and resurrection can be seen as God’s response to the problems and questions that 1st century Jews had.

Some of these issues are written in the first column. In pairs or small groups, try to recall some of Jesus’ words or actions that are a response to them:

Bring the whole group together and share your answers.

Closing worship

Please read the following before Session 2

The world between the Testaments - Judaism, Hellenism and the Messiah

What was the world of the first Christians like? How much did they conform to the normal ways of doing things in the culture they belonged to, and how far were they distinctive? What difference did being a Christian make to how you lived and thought in the first century?

If we want to answer this question, we have to know something about the social and religious environment in which Christianity began. In Session 2 we will look at the influence of Hellenism (the spread of Greek culture across the Eastern Mediterranean), the Messianic Hope in Second Temple Judaism.

Judaism and Hellenism

“Every book of the New Testament reflects to varying degrees an accommodation between Jewish religious and ethical values and traditions and Hellenistic forms of linguistic, literary, rhetorical and conceptual expression.”

David E Aune, The New Testament in its Literary Environment, Cambridge, James Clarke and Co, 1988, p12.

Jews had been influenced by Greek culture (Hellenization – “Hellas” is the Greek name for Greece) since the fourth century BC. The Hellenistic world was created after the conquests of Alexander the Great at the end of the fourth century B.C. It extended from India all the way through Egypt (though it was divided into three main areas within 20 years of his death). The Greeks imposed Greek language and Greek culture on their Empire.

We should think of the development of the eastern Mediterranean in two major phases:

First, the conquest by Alexander, which brought Greek culture to the Middle East.

Then came the Roman imperial expansion, which took over politically, and produced a kind of Greek city structure with Roman political organization.

Greek became the language of business and commerce. Hebrew fell into disuse, and a translation of the Hebrew Bible into Greek made during the second century BC (the Septuagint, traditionally abbreviated LXX), became “the Scriptures” for most Jews.

Some of the key information about Jewish history in this period comes from the books of the Maccabees. Written in Hebrew in the second century BC, they were included in the Greek Septuagint, and would have been well known to many Jews in the first century AD. (They are accepted as Scripture by Roman Catholics, but not by Protestants.) 1 Maccabees is set a century after the conquest of Judea by the Greeks under Alexander the Great. The book covers the whole of the Maccabaean revolt, from 175 to 134 BC.