Two Testaments in One Bible: How do the Old and New Testaments Interrelate?

Abstract

The canonization of the Jewish Bible took place gradually in the post-exilic era, first the Law (Torah), second the Prophets (Nebi’im), and, finally, the Writings (Ketubim) in the period between the first and second Jewish revolts. From the third century BC, the biblical books were gradually translated into Greek. Because of the missionary outreach beyond Judea and Galilee, the early Christians used the pre-existing Greek translation of the Bible for preaching and teaching. Both due to its higher number of books and its salvation-historical compositional outline, the Septuagint corresponded well to the early Christians’ understanding of the Christ event as the continuation of revelation history. Gradually, the books that recount the story of Jesus Christ (the Gospels) and the books that communicate faith in Christ and elaborate what it means to live one’s life as a follower of him (the Letters) were collected and given equal authority to as the Holy Scriptures shared with and inherited from the Jews. The Zion tradition is a paradigmatic example of a theological tradition that underwent a long, transformative development from David’s conquest of Jerusalem in the tenth century BC until its reception in Jesus’ ministry and theological expositions in the New Testament. The New Testament shares a common language of faith with the Old Testament, applied to express the shared confession of the one true God, the Father of Jesus Christ. The New Testament understands itself as a continuation of the Old Testament, testifying to the culmination in the Christ event of the history of revelation.