Long time lurker, first time poster. I’m not looking for confirmation or refutation of the validity of the concept (but feel free to discuss), just looking to see if there was any Old Testament context for this New Testament concept. Hopefully this isn’t too theological in nature for this sub.
I'm a Catholic, have been blessed with all the sacraments, except for Confirmation (still working on that) and firmly believe Jesus is Son of Man, and is the Messiah, I've been Catholic all my life. I ask this question because when Atheists point this out their technically correct there is no evidence to support there was Moses, from The Book of Exodus ever in history. So that begs the question why is it canon then? Or why we keep it canon? I feel we do bc its been part of our doctrine for years. I just want to personally say I still believe in The Old testament because I believe it did happen, despite there being no evidence for it. Its been with us for so long in our belife system why should we make it not canon now, and despite that there is no evidence Moses existed, others can not prove that he did not not exist. Still I defend the story I ask perhaps the Egyptians wiped their defeat from their historical record; perhaps the archaeologists were looking in the wrong place. As Ishaan Tharoor has noted over at the Washington Post, some scholarship has suggested that perhaps a Moses-like figure did live, but that he wasn’t Moses-Moses; he could have been Egyptian, for example. But I believe our Lord said it best when he said in John 20:29 Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”
In two Gospels, one can see multiple times "the law and the prophets" be referenced (Matthew 5:17; 7:12; 11:13; 22:40; Luke 16:16; 24:44).
In Luke 24:44, one can also see the Psalms be referenced, but no sign of the Writings (Ketuvim). I've read that the Writings (specifically Ecclesiastes and Song of Songs) were the last ones that got into the Jewish canon (I think the Talmud says this IIRC).
But are these verses an argument for that affirmation that the Hebrew Bible canon was not set in Jesus' times?
“It makes sense if you interpret it in light of the OT (Old Testame Original Trilogy)”
“The new books movies don’t abolish the OT franchise, they fulfill it!”
“Leave your political agenda out of your interpretation!”
“Mary-Sues can’t be priests Jedis!”
“No, they didn’t write it in chronological order stupid”
“Wait how many authors directors?”
“Oh we knew Judas JarJar had a treacherous plan all along”
“I didn’t did kill myself, I AM your FaThEr!” What?
“ReeeeeEeeE”
“Well some people would just rather watch Star Trek go to hell.”
Can YOU think of any parallels? Give it a shot:
Today I wanna talk about the canon of the Hebrew Bible.
Again, when I say “canon”, I’m referring to those books of the Bible that have been officially recognized as being genuine and inspired.
In discussing this topic, the first issue we have to deal with is another big time falsity promoted by modern Christianity.
Ironically, even though the “Old” Testament came before the New Testament (obviously), the history of how its canon was decided and put into place is actually easier to trace.
But first, what Christian falsehood am I talking about?
Well, according to the Christian position, they say the “Old” Testament canon was decided about 20 years after the Romans destroyed Jerusalem at around 90 A.D.
Based on their concocted story, one quiet day in the tiny village of Jamnia, a bunch of Rabbis who had been keeping a low profile after the destruction of Jerusalem gathered together and it was during this meeting that the canon of the Hebrew Bible was determined.
This story is a bunch of booooooooool sheeeeeeeeeeeeeet for a variety of reasons.
All one has to do is examine the other Jewish writings that detail what went on at this council and you’ll see that these Rabbis met to discuss multiple issues and not just those dealing with Scripture.
In fact, the only major issue concerning Scripture that was discussed was whether or not to include the books of Ecclesiastes and the Song of Solomon in the canon.
And there isn’t any solid record or proof that a conclusion was reached on the issue of those two books.
All we can really know for sure is that the Rabbis met and argued for the merit of these two books.
Honestly, the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls should have been the final death blow to the ridiculous Christian assertion that the canon of the “Old” Testament wasn’t put together until after Yeshua came.
But unfortunately it takes a long time for old ways of thinking and agendas to die.
Here are two indisputable facts we know about about the Dead Sea Scrolls.
FACT ONE:
They were written around 100 B.C.
FACT TWO:
In the Dead Sea Scrolls, every book of the “Old” Testament was discovered except for Esther and Nehemiah.
But we don’t need just the Dead Sea Scrolls to debunk the modern Christian position.
The historian Josephus informs us that by his generation (around the time of Yeshua and the destruction of the Temple), the canon of the Hebrew Bible had loooooooooooooooooooooong been fixed at 22 books.
I’m well aw
... keep reading on reddit ➡Re-reading the New Testament, it was interesting to pay attention to who exactly was speaking and who exactly was the audience. For example, Luke 10:1-23 when Christ sends out the 72 to heal people, etc. Being raised evangelical, I heard different verses from this section cherry picked and used for modern evangelical instruction, even though Christ was very much only giving the charge to specifically 72 people 2,000 years ago.
Or Paul speaking directly to Corinthians, Philippians, Thessalonians, etc. He was addressing specific issues, in specific cities of different cultures, in the ancient world.
Or just how often the Bible recorded Jesus speaking and he was only speaking to a primarily Jewish audience, but modern Christians use that text as modern commands and instructions... even though Christ was very clear at the time that he was only here for the lost people of Israel when it came to those outside of Judiasm.
Pilate program in effect: Protestant top level responses only
There are two ways that the books of the Old Testament were selected by the Catholic Church and Martin Luther which became the preferred choice of the Protestants.
In the Acts of the Apostles, we see that serious animosity began between the Christians and the Jews based on the disagreements in Acts 4 and 7:54-8:3. After Peter's vision led to the conversions of Gentiles in Acts 10, a natural result was that the Christians wanted to familiarize the Gentile Christians with the Scriptures that prepared for the coming of Jesus, and they would be invited to attend the synagogue service where the Scriptures would be read since none of the Christians owned personal copies. Eventually, the Jews figured out that uncircumcised Gentiles were attending these services in the synagogue, and put a stop to it, which caused increased difficulty due to the decision in Acts 15 that Gentile Christians did not need to be baptised. The resulting disagreement cut Christians off from access to the Hewbrew scriptures, but resulted in the Christians resorting to the use of the Greek Septuagint due to it's availability througth the Library of Alexandria. This had the added benefit that it was already translated to Greek which accellerated the familiarity Gentiles were able to access the OT scriptures without needing to wait for a Christian translation to be performed. We can even see that the writers of the New Testament were familiar with the Greek because it is quoted by the writers of the New Testament 9 to 1 over retranslating from the Hebrew.
When the Council of Hippo settled on the books of the New Testament late in the 4th century, they followed the example of the first century Church, and selected as the books of the Old Testament the list of books in the Septuagint. No serious dissent was encountered for more than 1100 years. Then, when Martin Luther was looking for a way to get rid of several books, he decided upon siding with the Jewish rabbis of the second century instead of the Christians.
This raises a very serious problem with the Protestant canon. Why did God guide the Protestant Church to side with the early Christians that the Jews were right about Jesus being the messiah and seperating from Judiasm because of the events detailed in the book of Acts, but they were wrong and should have submitted to the decisions of the rabbis who had rejected Jesus as the messiah more than 50 years later? The Jews wer
... keep reading on reddit ➡In addition to Moses, the prophets,etc.
Thank you
The oldest surviving Greek LXX manuscript is from c. 150 BCE, the oldest full copy of the LXX is from c. 300 AD.
The oldest surviving Latin OT manuscript is from c. 400 AD (I don't know what the oldest OT manuscript of the Vetus Latina is, but the VL was translated from the LXX, not its original Hebrew), and the oldest full copy of the Vulgate is from c. 700 AD.
However, when it comes to the Tanakh in its original Hebrew, the closest that we have of surviving ancient versions of it is a copy of the Book of Isaiah from c. 150-300 BCE, the Leviticus Paleo-Hebrew scroll from c. 100 BCE, some other DSS pieces in very fragmented forms, and finally, the Masoretic text itself whose oldest complete manuscript is from c. 900 AD, so not "Ancient" when compared to other versions.
So what happened? I want to know why we have so few surviving ancient Hebrew texts of the Tanakh, why is the oldest surviving complete copy of the Hebrew OT more than a 1000 years younger than the oldest Septuagint manuscript, and why did it take so long for the oldest surviving copies of the Hebrew OT to be made?
Are any of these probabilities below correct?
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Since they were written in Hebrew, they would be restricted to being made and read solely by Jews in the Levant, unlike Greek that was spoken by almost all ethnicities in the entire Mediterranean, so is it due to the lack of significance and numerous wars in Judea that destroyed such manuscripts?
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Could it also be because of destruction of Hebrew manuscripts by Christians? since the Greek and Hebrew texts varied, the common justification was that Jews were intentionally modifying their scriptures to disprove prophecies related to Jesus.
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And also perhaps because Hebrew/Aramaic-speaking Jews took copying scripture very seriously, whereas Hellenized Jews and Christians could make as many copies of the scriptures as they wished without religious restrictions on the matter?
Asking because I'm captivated by the Proto-Masoretic/Paleo-Hebrew versions of the Tanakh that were used by the Septuagint translators and Jerome.
Cafeteria-style religion, everybody.
EDIT: The relevant verses Christians making this claim ignore:
> Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled. Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. (Matthew 5:17-19)
Thank you guys for pointing this out!
EDIT 2: Made it to r/all. Hello everyone!
EDIT 3: Wow, my first award! Thank you, kind stranger!
EDIT 4: Second silver award! Thank you lots!
Also, surprising to see how many Christians aren't aware that some tout this "Jesus fixing" argument. I can assure you I'm not misrepresenting or straw-manning. I'm simply expression a common answer we tend to hear in response to Old Testament laws.
I recently watched Christine Hayes' Yale Lecture Series on the Old Testament, which explores the differing voices throughout the Hebrew Bible and consults the documentary hypothesis to rationalize who the various writers and redactors might have been, what their conflicting aims/beliefs were, etc.
So now I'm curious: Which sects and Christian thinkers have interesting rationalizations of disagreeing voices and strangely pagan stories/traditions in the Old Testament?
I understand the following two extremes:
The Progressive Christianity of Dr. Jordan Peterson
Dr. Peterson popularizes a view that the Bible should be read entirely metaphorically, as one would read great fiction like Shakespeare. In this view, the disagreements, duplications, and pagan stories found in the Old Testament do not detract from the value of the book-- they might even enhance it at times.
Fundamentalist Literalism
As I understand this view, it is an extreme commitment to biblical inerrancy. They likely believe that any inconsistencies in the Bible arose from translation errors, or prophets that inserted their own personalities/agendas along with their divine inspiration.
Middle Ground?
The former seems a bit too remote and hardly deserves to be called Christianity. The latter is simply untenable in light of higher criticism.
So is there any interesting middle ground? Are there sects with some sort of database listing which verses represent legitimate divine inspiration and which verses should be dismissed as pagan mythology or political propaganda of the time?
Anything else you think I might find interesting on this topic?
