: F.F. Bruce
: The New Testament Development of Old Testament Themes Seven Old Testament Themes Perfectly Fulfilled in Jesus Christ
: Kingsley Books
: 9781912149018
: 1
: CHF 10.50
:
: Christentum
: English
: 200
: DRM
: PC/MAC/eReader/Tablet
: ePUB
To understand the Old Testament themes that were fulfilled in Jesus, we need to understand Old Testament thought. F.F. Bruce reveals the context of the New Testament writers' understanding of the Old Testament by focusing on seven Old Testament themes-the rule of God over all creation, the salvation of God, the victory of God, the people of God, the son of David, the servant messiah, and the shepherd king. 'These and other themes,' he says, 'are fulfilled in Jesus.' This short book is jam packed with insight. It serves as a valuable guide to the complexities of messianic prophecy and opens the enormity of Old Testament proclamation about the Messiah.

CHAPTER I


ORGANIZING OLD TESTAMENT THEOLOGY


“To him all the prophets bear witness.”

THE PAYTON LECTURES, it is prescribed, “must fall within these areas: the uniqueness or confirmation of the historic Christian faith, the confutation of non-Christian or sub-Christian views, or the foundation of Biblical doctrines”. The last of these categories, it seems to me, is the one under which my particular subject can most properly fall. It was in this very area of study that the doyen of British New Testament scholars, Professor C. H. Dodd, in another series of lectures delivered in the United States, found “the sub-structure of Christian theology”.1 It would be a fruitless enterprise indeed to traverse the ground covered by Professor Dodd, in hope of finding something which he overlooked, but the following treatment of the relation between the Testaments proceeds along different lines from his.

1. OLD TESTAMENT THEOLOGY

One of my colleagues in the University of Manchester a few years ago, discussing the question “Is there an Old Testament Theology?” made the statement that

the use of the Old Testament in the New is the concern of the New Testament scholar, and not of the Old Testament scholar; the latter should not go to the New Testament except in isolated instances for the purpose of textual criticism and should never for a moment forget that, so far as he is concerned, it is the original meaning of the text that matters, and not the use which was later made of it in the New Testament.2

There is a valid point there, although it could be argued that the history of Old Testament interpretation is a proper field of study for the Old Testament scholar; but as a New Testament student I gladly avail myself of the permission thus granted me to read the Old Testament in the light of the New. There is something more to be said: if we begin to atomize the Christian scriptures we cannot treat even the Old Testament by itself as a unity or Old Testament theology as a single subject of study. The Old Testament is interpreted in the New, it is true, but the Old Testament is also interpreted in the Old. There is, for example, a relation between the use made of the Exodus motif to depict the return from the Babylonian exile and the use made of the same motif to depict the New Testament message of salvation.3 Historic Christianity recognizes in the New Testament the goal ortelos of the Old, and we do not need to go all the way with Aristotle to agree with him that anything is