Old and New Testament: A Brief Overview

This article provides a brief overview of the Old and New Testament, their divisions, books, themes, and beliefs. The Old Testament comprises 24 books, including law, history, and poetry. It depicts God as the creator of the world and emphasizes morals and ritual purity. The New Testament discusses the teachings and person of Jesus and the establishment of Christianity. It is divided into biographical, historical, Pauline, and prophetic books. The main objective of the New Testament is to reconcile humanity with God. The article also discusses the concept of covenant, the problem of evil, and the Messiah in Judaism.

Religion

Table of Contents
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REFERENCES................................................................................................................................1

MAIN BODY
The Christian biblical canon’s first division is known as the Old Testament. Hebrew
Bible also called as Tanakh is a collection of twenty-four books as a part of Old Testament. The
group of religious and old time writings of Hebrew by Israelites is inclusive in Tanakh.
Old Testament comprises of varied books given by a number of writers in the past
centuries. As per the tradition the old testament is divided into four parts by the Christians. These
four sections are law books, historical books and poetic books (Hildebrandt, 2019). Talking
about law books there are five law books. These books have been written up by the Moses. The
names of first two books are Genesis and Exodus. Further books of law are Leviticus, Numbers
and Deuteronomy. These books are supposed to be written by Mosses as per the believes of the
ancient people. The books of history are the records of the past events of the Israelites from the
duration they entered Canaan, and their settlement at Canaan until the Babylonian exile. These
books are Joshua, Judges, Ruth, two part of Samuel, two books of Kings, two parts of
Chronicles. Further the other books namely are called as Esther, Ezra and Nehemiah. The poetic
publications are comprising of the words of wisdom. The books are available with the names
Psalms and Job. In addition to these two, volumes namely, Proverbs and Ecclesiastes, Songs of
Songs and Prophetic books are also poetic opus. Israelites prophecies are contained in poetic
books.
The old testament consistently depicts the god as the creator of the world. The god as per
the interpretation the Old Testament have not been represented as the only god that exists. The
God is instead represented as the only figure for the Israelite whom the Israel worships
(McComiskey, 2019). Almighty is the one true God. Bible has been interpreted by the Jews and
the Christians always as a thought to depict the oneness of powerful God.
The special relationship between the God and the people selected by him along with the
instructions for proselytes have been described through the old testament. The connection that
exists for Almighty with his selected people in expressed in the biblical covenant (Urnov, 2018).
Covenant is considered as a kind of contract. The law codes in the opuses of old testament are
the terms of this contract. The terms of the relationship between God and his people are Israel
oath for having faith in the God and the God also promise to Israel to be their special saver and
who will always support them.

But the interpretation of the holy Bible by the Jews does not accept that contract is the
meaning of the word covenant. The ancient near East covenant was sworn before the God, who
is the its enforcer (Senga and Grose, 2021). Jewish study says that as God is a part of the
covenant and not just a witness, covenant is interpreted as pledge instead of a contract. The Old
Testament includes salvation, divine, improvement, compliance and defiance, judgement,
confidence and authenticity. All throughout the old testament a major importance is on morals
and formal pureness. Ethics and ritual purity are considered to be demanded by the God. Few
diviners and knowledge writers argue that social justice is demanded by the God above the
purity. The moral code of the old testament connects fairness, intervene for the vulnerable, and
the responsibility of the ones in supremacy to rightfully direct impartiality. It is believed that
God, the ultimate source of goodness traces all morality (Ryken, 2019). Murder, bribery,
unethical trading, corruption and sexual misdemeanours have been forbidden in the Old
Testament.
In the Old Testament a major role has been played by the problem of evil. The old
testament authors faced the problem regarding the just reason with the good god behind the
bringing of disaster upon his people.
New Testament is the second division of the Christian Bible originally transcribed in the
language of Greek called as Koine (Gordley, 2018). The new testament discusses the teachings
and person of Jesus along with the first century Christianity events. It is recognized universally
within Christianity.
New testament is divided into five major categories. The first two categories are
biographical books, Mathew, Mark, Luke, John; and Historical books namely Acts written by
Luke, describes the history and development of the church after the ascension of Jesus. Third
category is Pauline Epistles (Jessee and et.al., 2018). The 13 letters written by the Paul to the
congregation and individuals. In these letters problems that were faced by them have been
addressed. The letters namely are known as Romans, Colossians, two volumes of Corinthians,
and two opus of Thessalonians. Further the few other letters namely are Galatians, two letters of
Timothy, Ephesians and Philemon. The fifth category is Prophetic books namely Revelation.
The death of the Christ on the cross is the way of the God for reconciling an immoral an
d alienated humanity to himself. This is the main point of the new testament. The principal of
new testament is to restore the relationship with the God, as argued by Dr. Ian Howard Marshall.

In the views of Marshall, the themes of God’s Kingdom’s inauguration and the establishment of
new covenant are subordinate to the main objective of reconciliation of humanity with God. The
death of Christ serves in making the humans one with God.
Believers insist on interior uniformity between the Jewish and Christian scriptures
because it is believed that the contradiction could encounter the perseverance. The textual
integrity must be there in every biblical book for both who are interested in Hebrew bible or
classical Jewish thought.
The Old Testament Israelites have been authorized by the god to bear sword for using it
against the enemies. On the other hand, the New Testament non-violence is being advocated by
the Jesus and advises its devotees that the person who will survive by the use of sword will die
because of the sword. In the Old Testament God is seemed to be preoccupied with the justice
whereas in the New Testament God is more focused to reconciling and forgiving.
Jesus affirms the unity in both Old and New Testaments. He says he has not come to
finish the law instead he came to fulfil it. He kept the laws by the God perfectly such that his
right deeds will be credit to people by having faith in him. The laws of the old testament have
been fulfilled by the Jesus in different way. He taught people that how love means the fulfilment
of the commands by the God (Mengara, 2020). It summarizes as whoever loves the god will do
whatever his commands require. Jesus saw himself as the fulfilment for the promises of the God
as per the Old testament. The arrival of Messiah will transfer the mortality in the form of death
and reappearance of himself. The first Easter’s twilight the Jesus seemed and said to his
followers that all written in the Law of Moses, the Psalms and the prophets will be fulfilled by
himself. Jesus interpreted his words and deeds as extension and completeness of the verses and
actions of God in the Old Testament.
Messiah in Judaism is expected to be the king of Davidic line. Messiah would free
foreign bondage from Israel for restoration of the glories of its golden age. The term refers to any
redeemer figure. An eschatological messiah has been never spoke about in the Old Testament
(Brown, 2020). Messianic, adjective includes prophecies of a golden age in future under an ideal
king the messiah never used. The messianism in Israel is believed to be originated with the
connection to nation’s kingship. The actual reality and historical Israelite kings proved more
disappointing. The vision of national restoration of Jews’ prophetic and the universal
establishment of the kingdom of god became closely associated with the Lord’s anointed.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Hildebrandt, W., 2019. An Old Testament Theology of the Spirit of God. Wipf and Stock
Publishers.
McComiskey, T. E., 2019. The covenants of promise: a theology of the Old Testament
covenants. Wipf and Stock Publishers.
Urnov, F. D., 2018. Genome Editing BC (before CRISPR): lasting lessons from the “old
testament”. The CRISPR Journal. 1(1). pp.34-46.
Senga, S. S. and Grose, R. P., 2021. Hallmarks of cancer—the new testament. Open
biology. 11(1). p.200358.
Ryken, L., 2019. Words of life: A literary introduction to the New Testament. Wipf and Stock
Publishers.
Gordley, M. E., 2018. New Testament Christological hymns: exploring texts, contexts, and
significance. InterVarsity Press.
Jessee, M. B. and et.al., 2018. Mechanisms of blood flow restriction: the new
testament. Techniques in Orthopaedics. 33(2). pp.72-79.
Brown, J. K., 2020. Jesus Messiah as Isaiah's Servant of the Lord: New Testament
Explorations. Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society. 63(1). pp.51-69.
Mengara, D., 2020. From Villain to Messiah: Colonial Discourse and the “Jesus-fication” of
King Chaka in Thomas Mofolo's Chaka. Research in African Literatures. 51(3). pp.96-
118.
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