There’s a lot of baggage around the way we’ve defined the two books: Old Testament and New Testament. The way Christians have titled them has definitely set them in opposition to each other, the old (ugh) and the new (yay!).
One of the first heresies, Marcionism, happened when Marcion of Sinope effectively told the Old Testament to piss off. To Marcion, that Old God was a tyrant. A dysfunctional father. So he wrote Him off.
I kinda can’t blame him, to a certain degree. But now that I know more about the text, I know that there’s no more or less tyranny (or grace) in its pages as there is in the New Testament.
I have an idea, though…
Maybe we can rename the titles (I mean, ‘Hebrew Bible’ is most appropriate for Old Testament, but I’m referring to those of us who follow the Jesus Way and use the old/new titles)…
Instead of Old Testament, maybe we can call it:
Jesus’s Bible
It’s weird when you think of it, but it’s true…
The Old Testament was the only Bible Jesus knew about.
Which seems obvious to me as I write this, but it also struck me as profound when I heard it put that way, directly.
And then, instead of the New Testament, we can call it:
The Bible About Jesus.
So, for Christian folks…
Part 1: Jesus’s Bible
Part 2: The Bible About Jesus
Puts them in a different light, doesn’t it?
Grace + Godspeed,
Jonas
I love it! Definitely going to use a few extra words and make that distinction clear.