The New Testament? A Jewish book? Oi vey!
Is not the New Testament a Gentile book written by Pagans?
Let us see…
Jesus was Jewish. His Jewish parents took him to the Temple to be circumcised on the eighth day. His parents took Him to the Temple feasts. He attended the synagogue and, when of age, He took his turn reading Scriptures to the congregants. Jesus made pilgrimages to worship at the Temple. He was a law abiding Jew.
The first Christians were all Jewish. Later on Gentiles also became Christians by putting their trust in the God of the Jewish Scripture. The writers of the New Testament were Jewish, practicing Jews, monotheistic Jews. The first handfull of people to believe that Jesus as the Messiah were Jewish. The 12 apostles were Jewish. The first 70 disciples were Jewish. In fact, for years the church was strictly Jewish, and some were weary at first to allow Gentiles into the church (not a building but a body of believers).
Eusebius wrote the following in Ecclesiastical History IV:
I have learned from written documents that, until the siege of the Jews under Hadrian, there had been in Jerusalem a succession of fifteen bishops, all of whom are said to have been Hebrews of ancient stock. In fact, the entire church of Jerusalem consisted at that time of practicing Hebrews.
Is it not astounding that millions of Gentiles are following the Jewish Messiah, worshipping the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob? Just as God’s very own people have lived and died for the Word of God, Gentiles likewise are living and dying for the Word of God.
Let us consider the New Testament for a moment. Of the twenty-seven books that make up the New Testament, Jewish men wrote twenty-five of them. A Greek doctor named Luke wrote the Gospel of Luke and the Book of Acts. Luke traveled around and interviewed eyewitnesses in order to ensure that what he was being taught was true and in order to collect first hand accounts of the events that had transpired. Dr. Luke wrote:
Dear Theophilos: Concerning the matters that have taken place among us, many people have undertaken to draw up accounts based on what was handed down to us by those who from the start were eyewitnesses and proclaimers of the message. Therefore, your Excellency, since I have carefully investigated all these things from the beginning, it seemed good to me that I too should write you an accurate and ordered narrative, so that you might know how well-founded are the things about which you have been taught (Luke 1:1-4).
The concepts, illustrations, metaphors, allusions, symbolism, etc. within the New Testament cannot easily be understood apart from the proper context of the Old Testament-the Tanakh. As it is said, the New Testament is in the Old Testament concealed and the Old Testament is in the New Testament revealed. Take a look at a “Christian Bible” and you can compare the size of the books of the Old Testament to that of The New Testament. The grand majority of the Christian Bible is the Old Testament. In a lecture that I once attended, the lecturer stated that we do not really need the New Testament because the life of Christ is so clearly spelled out in the Old Testament; the New Testament identifies the Messiah Jesus.
There are circa 260 quotes from and 370 allusions to the Old Testament in the New Testament. For example, the Book of Revelation is 404 verses long, 278 of those verses are allusions to the Old Testament.Jesus directly quoted or alluded to the following Old Testament books:
Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, 1st Samuel, 1st Kings, 2nd Chronicles, Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Jonah, Micah, Zephaniah, Zechariah and Malachi.
Rabbi Saul of Tarsus, a.k.a. Paul the Apostle, was especially learned in the Torah, he himself explains,
I am a Jew, born in Tarsus of Cilicia, but brought up in this city and trained at the feet of Gamaliel in every detail of the Torah of our forefathers. I was a zealot for God as all of you are today (Acts 22:3).
Gamaliel was a Pharisee and celebrated doctor of the law, he is referred to as an authority in the Mishnah, and was grandson of Hillel. Gamaliel and Hillel These men were two of the most well known and respected sages of their day and still highly revered today. In fact, Paul enters the story of the New Testaments as an extremely zealous persecutor of those who believed in Jesus. He traveled from city to city with armed men and had Christians beaten and jailed, he even approvingly oversaw the stoning to death of the first Christian martyr; Steven.He was not about to let anyone corrupt the Torah, so why did he end up writing the majority of the New Testament? To start with he had a vision in which Jesus told him that he was not merely persecuting the early believers but that he was persecuting Jesus Himself. Paul never met Jesus, all this happened after His death, resurrection and ascension. However, as we know from the Old Testament; as astonishing and emotionally charged as visions and miracles are, they have a tendency to not have a long lasting effect in the life of an individual (for example, consider the complaining of God’s people after the Exodus).What Paul did is to put what the believers were claiming to the test by seeing not only what the people said but in addition he diligently searched the Old Testament to see if Jesus’ life did or did not fulfill messianic prophecy. Paul, the other apostles, and Jesus, were constantly preaching at the Temple and at synagogues.
But as soon as night fell, the brothers sent Saul and Silas off to Berea. As soon as they arrived, they went to the synagogue. Now the people here were of nobler character than the ones in Thessalonica; they eagerly welcomed the message, checking the Old Testament every day to see if the things Saul was saying were true (Acts 17:10-11).
We are being taught to not listen to Paul or any pastor or priest, but to check the Old Testament and see if what is said about Jesus is true. We learn that they eagerly welcomed the message because every single day after Paul spoke to them they checked the Old Testament to see if the things Paul was saying was true. So the truth about Jesus is not only in the New Testament but also in the Old Testament. Before the New Testament existed Jesus was proven to be the Messiah strictly by the Old Testament.
When Jesus encountered two disciples on the road to Emmaus He said to them:
“O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken! Ought not the Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into His glory?” And beginning at Moses and all the Prophets, He expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself (Luke 24:25-27).
Thus, what Paul states is true regarding both the old as well as the new covenant when he wrote,
What advantage then has the Jew, or what is the profit of circumcision? Much in every way! Chiefly because to them were committed the oracles of God (Romans 3:1-2).
