Lesson #19

Excursus:
Christ in the Old Testament, Part 1
Having finished our study of the book of Exodus with Lesson #17, we
moved on to an excursus in Lesson #18, an examination of the Pillar
of Cloud and Fire. Here in Lesson #19 we begin a second excursus, a
2-part study of Christ in the Old Testament, or the Hebrew
Scriptures.

After Jesus crucifixion, burial and resurrection, he spends 40 days
with his disciples teaching them what they need to know to take the
Gospel to the world. When he is with them in the upper room on
Easter Sunday evening, he says to them:

These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that
everything written about me in the law of Moses and in the prophets and
psalms must be fulfilled. Then he opened their minds to understand the
scriptures.
(Luke 24: 44-45)










If Christ is in the Old
Testament as Jesus
said, how do we go
about finding him
there?








































To find Christ in the Old
Testament we must know how
to look for him.

Our search begins with
understanding how the canon
of Scripturethat is, the books
of the Bible in the order that
we have themcame to be.







1450



many books beginning with threads of oral tradition that long predate the
actual writing, redacting, editing and copying of the book as we have it today.
In the scholarly world, the study of how a particular book of Scripture came to
reach its final form is called textual criticism.







In Judaism today, the
Old Testamentor the
Hebrew Scriptures
contains 39 books
composed in Hebrew
over a period of
roughly 1,200 years,
1450 - 250 B.C.

The composition and
transmission of each
Old Testament book
has its own more or
less complex history,
Section of Isaiah from the Dead Sea Scrolls, c. 150-100 B.C.
Shrine of the Book, Jerusalem.



















Between 1450 250 B.C. hundreds
of books were written in Hebrew
and other languageson biblical
themes and topics. It was not until
the late 1
st
century A.D. that Jewish
scholars and theologians agreed
upon the 39 books in todays
Hebrew canon. Until then, the
canon of Scripture was an open
question, subject to much debate.



















Around 250 B.C. the books considered by most
to be inspired Scripture were translated from
Hebrew into into Greek, the lingua franca of the
Mediterranean world.

Legend has it that Ptolomy II commissioned 70
rabbinical scholars to make the translation for
inclusion in the great library of Alexandria,
Egypt. The story first appears in Letter of
Aristeas, and it is repeated, with
embellishments, by Philo of Alexandria,
Josephus, and later by St. Augustine himself.

The translation is known as the Septuagint, or
the 70, and it is typically referenced with the
Roman numerals, LXX.

This is the Scripture quoted most often in the
New Testament, especially in the Pauline
epistles, and later by the early Church Fathers. It
is the Scripture that Jesus would have known.
Papyrus page from the Septuagint.
Institute of Papyrology, Heidelberg.



















Between 250 B.C. and the later part of
the 1
st
century A.D. books continued to
be written, primarily in Greek, on
biblical themes and topicshundreds
of them.

Some gained traction in both Judaism
and in the early Church, expanding the
loosely-defined 1
st
-century A.D. canon
of Scripture to include:

Tobit
Judith
1 & 2 Maccabees
Book of Wisdom
Sirach and
various additions to Daniel and Esther


















Throughout the 1
st
century nearly all books were in the form of scrolls, sheets
stitched end to end, then rolled. Each book of the Hebrew Scriptures would have
been on an individual scroll (or scrolls). Nearly all Jewish communities would have
had the five Torah scrolls (Genesis Deuteronomy), but most communities would
only have had some of the other books considered Scripture, depending upon
availability and the resources of the community, since each was handwritten at
considerable expense.



















After the catastrophic Jewish Revolt
of A.D. 66-72, with the destruction
of the 2
nd
Temple and the fall of
Jerusalem, the Rabbis focused more
intently on Scripture and being a
people of the book, defining the
canon of Scripture as those 39
books originally written in Hebrew
prior to the Septuagint translation
of c. 250 B.C., and with those 39
books, the canon was closed.



















Today the Hebrew
Scriptures consist of:

Torah (Law)
Neviim (Prophets)
Kethuvim (Writings)
Tanakh, the Holy Scriptures. Philadelphia:
Jewish Publication Society, 1985.
This is the standard English translation of
the Hebrew Scriptures.
Torah (Law) Neviim (Prophets) Kethuvim (Writings)
Genesis Joshua Hosea Psalms
Exodus Judges Joel Proverbs
Leviticus 1 & 2 Samuel Amos Job
Numbers 1 & 2 Kings Obadiah Song of Songs
Deuteronomy Isaiah Jonah Ruth
Jeremiah Micah Lamentations
Ezekiel Nahum Ecclesiastes
Habakkuk Esther
Zephaniah Daniel
Haggai Ezra
Zechariah Nehemiah
Malachi 1 & 2 Chronicles












































The Astounding 4
th
Century!
During the first 300 years of Christianity the Gospel message was
spread primarily through oral teaching and preaching, as the Church
was a persecuted minority within the Roman Empire. As we enter the
4
th
century, however, all that changes.

In A.D. 313 the Emperor Constantine signed the Edict of Milan, officially
tolerating Christianity in the Roman Empire. In A.D. 325 Constantine
called the Council of Nicaea in part to define the foundational beliefs
and doctrines of Christianity. Nicaea was the first of seven such
Ecumenical Councils held between 325 and 787. Then on February
27, 380 the Emperor Theodosius I declared Christianity the official
religion of the Roman Empire.

At the start of the 4
th
century, roughly 10% of people in the Roman
Empire (about 6.5 million) claimed to be Christians; by the end of the
century, 90% claimed to be Christians (about 58.5 million).




















Yikes!



















In Judaism the canon of
Scripture had been defined
and closed by the end of the
1
st
century with the 39 books
of Scripture originally written
in Hebrew, prior to the
Septuagint translation of c. 250
B.C.

Not so in Christianity.



















During the 4
th
century a major issue
was still on the table for the Church:

What exactly is Scripture?

Although several informal lists of
books had been drawn up as early
as the 3
rd
and 4
th
centuries, no list
had gained consensus by the Church
at largeuntil the Council of Hippo
in A.D. 393, called by St. Augustine.



















For the Church, the larger Septuagint canon
of 46 books making up the Old Testament
had long since been accepted as inspired
Scripture, since that was the Bible that
Jesus and the Apostles would have known.
In A.D. 393 with the Council of Hippo,
however, the 27 books of our current New
Testament were added to the list.

In 397 the Council of Carthage accepted the
decision of the Council of Hippo; in 405
Pope Innocent I affirmed it; and by the 5
th

century, with the completion of St.
Jeromes Latin Vulgate translation, the full
canon of 46 books in the Old Testament
and 27 books in the Newa total of 73
bookshad become the official Christian
canon of Scripture.






















Whats more, by the 4
th
century the scroll had been replaced by the codex,
individual sheets stacked one atop the other, bound by stitching on the left side
and held together between two covers, a major technological advancement.

Codex Sinaiticus, 4
th
century. British Library, London.



















Collecting and organizing 73
books of Scripture into a codex
and binding them between
two covers creates a fixed text,
one that is read in a linear
fashion, from page 1 to the
end, just as we read a novel.

The experience is
fundamentally different from
reading a collection of scrolls
loosely arranged by genre.
Torah (Law) Neviim (Prophets) Kethuvim (Writings)
Genesis Joshua Hosea Psalms
Exodus Judges Joel Proverbs
Leviticus 1 & 2 Samuel Amos Job
Numbers 1 & 2 Kings Obadiah Song of Songs
Deuteronomy Isaiah Jonah Ruth
Jeremiah Micah Lamentations
Ezekiel Nahum Ecclesiastes
Habakkuk Esther
Zephaniah Daniel
Haggai Ezra
Zechariah Nehemiah
Malachi 1 & 2 Chronicles

























Old Testament (46)

Five Books of Moses Major Prophets Minor Prophets
Genesis Ezra Isaiah Hosea
Exodus Nehemiah Jeremiah Joel
Leviticus Tobit Lamentations Amos
Numbers Judith Baruch Obadiah
Deuteronomy Esther Ezekiel Jonah
1 & 2 Maccabees Daniel Micah
Nahum
Historical Books Poetical Books Habakkuk
Joshua Job Zephaniah
Judges Psalms Haggai
Ruth Proverbs Zechariah
1 & 2 Samuel Ecclesiastes Malachi
1 & 2 Kings Song of Songs
1 & 2 Chronicles Wisdom
Sirach (Ecclesiasticus)


























New Testament (27)

Gospels Pauline Epistles General Epistles
Matthew Romans Hebrews
Mark 1 & 2 Corinthians James
Luke Galatians 1 & 2 Peter
John Ephesians 1, 2 & 3 John
Philippians Jude
History Colossians
Acts 1 & 2 Thessalonians Prophecy
1 & 2 Timothy Revelation
Titus
Philemon


















































From a Jewish perspective, one
reads Scripture in categories of
genre in a non-linear fashion,
much as a flower unfolds.

From a Christian perspective,
one reads Scripture as a fixed
linear narrative consisting of a
variety of literary genres, with
the curtain rising in Genesis
and falling in Revelation.



















As Harvard Professor and
literary critic Northrop Frye
wrote in The Great Code
(1981):

[Although the Bible may be a loose
collection of little books (ta
biblia, in Greek) this does not
matter]. What matters is that
the Bible has been read as a unity,
and has influenced Western
imagination as a unity.


Northrop Frye (1912-1991).
With the publication of his Anatomy of Criticism
in 1957, Frye was called the foremost living
student of Western literature.



















And as Pope Benedict XVI states in
his introduction to Jesus of
Nazareth:

If you want to understand the Scripture in
the spirit in which it is written, you have to
attend to the content and to the unity of
Scripture as a whole. . . Older texts are
reappropriated, reinterpreted, and read
with new eyes in new contexts. They
become Scripture by being read anew,
evolving in continuity with their original
sense, tacitly corrected and given added
depth and breadth of meaning.
Pope Emeritus, Benedict XVI.



















From a Christian perspective, when
we search for Christ in the Old
Testament we are invited to enter
the narrative, to probe beneath the
surface of the text, to see Scripture
fulfilled in light of the incarnation
and the end goal of redemption, to
see Christ on every page and to hear
his voice in every word.




















Let me offer an
example of such
rereading in
the genealogy
and birth of Jesus
in the Gospel
according to
Matthew.
A biblical hermeneutic
Rereading Isaiah

1. Although Jewish and Christian Bibles have the exact same
text, word for word, in the 39 books of the Hebrew
Scriptures, Jews and Christians arrive at radically different
readings of the same text. Why is that?
2. What is the Scripture that Jesus and the Apostles
knew?
3. Why were the Hebrew Scriptures translated into Greek
around 250 B.C.?
4. In what languages are the books of the Old and New
Testaments written?
5. How are passages in the Old Testament reread in light
of the New Testament?




Copyright 2014 by William C. Creasy
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