Probably everyone senses how easy it is to misunderstand this nomenclature and how dangerous it is to do so. It appears, in fact, that there must be a testament composed at some point that has been replaced by a new testament. In our legal dealings that is how it goes: a new testament (or “will”) normally invalidates one that is older, written earlier.
As a consequence, the recently deceased German Old Testament scholar Erich Zenger adopted an idea from the United States and spoke no longer of an “Old Testament” but rather of the “First Testament.” 23 In doing so he could even appeal to Hebrews 8:7, 13; 9:1, 15, 18. But that does not solve the problem. Since the word “testament” today calls to mind “last will and testament,” even this choice of words gives many people the impression that the “First Testament” has been invalidated by a second one produced later. At the same time, “old” and “new” are terms of relationship that raise the question: to what extent is the “new” one new and the “old” one old? Besides, “old” need not necessarily be associated with “aged” or “outdated.” “Old” can also be understood in the sense of “honorable” and “precious.” In any case, in the ancient Near East and in antiquity “old” had positive connotations for the most part. So the problem remains, and we cannot escape the dilemma through simple renaming.
There is probably also little sense in simply tossing away respected concepts that go back to the Bible itself (cf. 2 Cor 3:14). We must keep the concepts but repeatedly clarify them anew. After all we have seen, it is obvious that “Old Testament” cannot mean something that needs improvement, or is outdated, or should be disposed of. No, the Old Testament is the basis of Christian faith, just as it was the basis for Jesus’ activity, and the New Testament is nothing but the final level of interpretation, the last thorough clarification of the Bible.
Those who want to approach that clarification cannot avoid once again taking the path on which Israel was led. They believe with Abraham. They dare the Exodus from the old society. They travel with Israel through the wilderness. They stand before the fire at Sinai and receive the commandment. They must decide whether to malign the promised land or believe God’s promise. They must praise, thank, petition, cry out to, and sometimes almost despair of Israel’s God in the Psalms. They must accompany Israel once again on the whole of its long journey if they are in any way to arrive at the clarification that opens up and explains everything, to understand it and be able to live it.
This last, fully valid, clear interpretation took place not only in words, not only through theology, not only by means of new formulae that, we might say, set the Old Testament to rights. This clarification took place through the person of Jesus himself, his existence, his life, and his death. The words of the letter to the Hebrews are definitive and unsurpassable in this regard: “Long ago God spoke to our ancestors in many and various ways by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son” (Heb 1:1-2).
Chapter 12
Jesus and the Torah
Around the year 165, the philosopher and theologian Justin was executed in Rome, by the Roman state, because of his Christian faith.1 He came from Neapolis (today’s Nablus) in Samaria, became a Christian, and was then a renowned theologian of the second century. In addition to a long Apology, a petition in personal law to the imperial chancery,2 we also have the record, written in dialogue form, of his argument with Judaism, the Dialogue with the Jew Trypho. There Justin writes:
For the law promulgated on Horeb is now old, and belongs to yourselves [the Jews] alone; but
this
is for all universally. Now, law placed against law has abrogated that which is before it, and a covenant which comes after in like manner has put an end to the previous one; and an eternal and final law—namely, Christ—has been given to us, and the covenant is trustworthy, after which there shall be no law, no commandment, no ordinance.
3
This text summarizes well what Justin also says in other parts of the Dialogue: the Torah has lost its legal authority. In juridical terms it is abrogated. Nothing in it remains valid except what corresponds to the natural law of reason, for example, its moral demands. Also valid are its constant, often mysteriously hidden, references to Christ. But as law, the Torah has no further significance because “a new lawgiver” has come: Jesus Christ. He has given a “new,” an “eternal law.” But he is not only a “lawgiver”; he himself is in person this new and eternal law.4
There is no question that in this theology we can already see what in time to come would be formulated more and more radically, more and more effectively, and more and more ominously: the “disowning” of Israel in salvation history. In every respect, in this view, Israel has been replaced by the church.
But it is also unquestionable that Justin tried in his own way to take the New Testament seriously. Does not Jesus appear in Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount as the new Moses and thus the new lawgiver who proclaims his new Torah to the disciples and the people gathered around them? That is how it seems. After all, does the Jesus of the Sermon on the Mount not say “you have heard that it was said to those of ancient times… But I say to you…” (Matt 5:21-22, 33-34)? And does Paul not speak of the “law of Christ” in Galatians 6:2? And does Jesus not tell the disciples in the Gospel of John “I give you a new commandment” (John 13:34)? In any case, talk of the “new law of Christ” seems to have been just as common in the church of the subsequent years as the idea of the “new people of God,” which was so perilously subject to misunderstanding.5
Therefore this chapter addresses one of the most important questions about Jesus’ life: what was his attitude to the Torah? Did he come as a new lawgiver? Did he drain the Torah of its legal authority? Did he see himself as master of the Torah, or even as the one who would overthrow it? Or did he hold up the Torah precisely because he did not come to abolish it but to fulfill it? That, at any rate, is what it says in Matthew 5:17. A great deal depends on Jesus’ relationship to the Torah, ultimately the relationship between the church and Israel. This chapter, therefore, is one of the most important in this book. I will proceed as I did in chapter 11 by attempting to clarify this difficult set of questions through a number of samplings.
The Twofold Commandment
According to Matthew 22:34-36, a scribe once asked Jesus which commandment in the Torah was the “greatest,” that is, the primary commandment.6 What the scribe asks is not altogether new; it was something that was commonly being asked in different ways in Jesus’ time. It was the search for the center of the Torah—or the effort to summarize the Torah in brief. It was in no way about a disqualification or nonobservance of the other commandments but was primarily about didactics and the correct understanding of the whole Torah. Jesus answers the scribe’s question:
“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.” This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” (Matt 22:37-39)
This coupling of love of God and love of neighbor became more or less a matter of course in and through the New Testament, for Christians at any rate. But we need to pay attention to what has happened here: two commandments that in the first place have nothing to do with one another and are widely separated in the Torah have now been brought together and are, in fact, inextricably bound up with each other.