For me, the Old Testament reading was much different than reading the New Testament...This discussion is just from one layman's viewpoint of the Old Testament...And from my viewpoint the Old Testament is laced with the idea that a Messiah would come to Israel, and that many prophets wrote about that...So since the Messiah is written about in the Old Testament, I must say that He would have a great influence on the Old Testament...And when the Messiah came, I might expect that even the Old Testament authors and believers in God might expect some sort of change when the Anointed One arrived...So the Messiah not only fulfilled the writings of the Testament, His Teachings would be listened to and are to be remembered...His Words will never pass...His Teachings and what He said and how He lived have changed the way we look at things and the way we look at the Old Testament...Believers in the Messiah have to believe He came from God...And since He came from God, we must believe in His teachings and believe that He sent us the indwelt Holy Spirit...So from my point of view the Old Testament was fulfilled by Jesus and His Teachings and Words are the ones that will never pass...
The Old Testament books are the writings about the Jewish People...They are sacred and holy writings...The Old Testament was originally written for the most part in Hebrew, with a couple of books in Aramaic...Portions of Daniel and Ezra are written in Aramaic...The Old Testament was the Bible that Jesus had...He, of course, had no New Testament...
In reading the Old Testament, I find it harder to read and harder to follow than reading and following the New Testament...But the early stories of Genesis and Exodus are exciting...And even though I find the New Testament scattered with history, the Old Testament, at least for me, is at many times feeling like I am reading from a history book (especially the book on Judges, the two Kings books, the two Chronicle books, even Ezra and Nehemiah -as well as some of the other books)...I even get that feeling when I read the Book of Ruth, who was a Moabite...The widow Ruth follows her mother-in-law Naomi back to old homeland and follows her mother-in-law's God...Then we read about Ruth marrying Boaz and having a child named Obed...Obed would be the father of Jesse, and Jesse was the father of David, King David...That to me, gives this book and many other books of the Old Testament this history element of God and the Hebrew people, and the land of Canaan and Judah, and Israel is a big difference than when I read the New Testament...The Jewish people were to follow the Old Testament and the laws outlined in the Mosaic Law Books...The New Testament books are mostly a complete focus on Jesus and His life in His ministry and about His Teachings, and changed the Way we look at the Mosaic Law......
In reading these ancient texts, I try to put myself in the ancient culture, and take into account that many books are thousand of years old...People thought different then and did things different...I think most of the Old Testament Books were originally orally passed down, before they were written down....So there was a translation for these books that was passed along from generation to generation orally until that specific book was written...Abraham and his family were a nomadic group or community that traveled around looking for the best places for food and shelter, as they traveled around the near and mid east...Those in the family of Abraham or friends of Abraham would have been the first to start these oral stories...Abraham might be called the first Jew, or at least the first one in the Judaism religion...If not the first Abraham was certainly one of the first Judaism believers in the God of Israel (which was not in existence yet- because the country is named after his grandson Jacob, who would be later named Israel)...
Moses would write about Genesis and the family of Abraham hundreds of years later, after Abraham had walked the earth...Descendants of Abraham and generation after generation of the Patriarch Abraham would have been the ones to hear these oral stories, long before Moses did...To our knowledge Abraham did not write anything, that has been found in Scripture...But Abraham being the first Patriarch and his meeting with God would have been such an event that it would become oral tradition in his community and with his family...Abraham would have told them about the God he met and talked to...So Moses and some of the other authors would have gotten their information of the events of God and Abraham (and Isaac and Jacob) for their books through oral tradition and the descendants of Abraham, and at a much later time...Most likely the three Patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and their contacts with God were such huge events, that the event and Presence of God would have been such a historical and Spiritual Experience that the stories would be told over and over to the community and family groups year after year...This community then would pass on the event of the Presence of God from the Patriarch to the next generation...This closeness to God was such an event to be remembered each generation would probably reflect and study it and continue to pass it on until Moses finally wrote the first five books of the Bible...In fact, I believe that the Prophets contact with God, and the others who experienced God (like the Prophets and other wise men) were so dramatic that they probably became the everyday talk of these original nomadic groups and communities as they traveled from place to place...So more and more people would hear about our LORD as the nomads, like Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob traveled from place to place through the Prophets...The nomadic groups would spread the word on the roads as they traveled...And the Prophets would spread the Word of God more locally than by travelling, I believe...
I think the best way to understand (at least for me) the Old Testament is that the Hebrews (or the Jewish people) going to the Promised Land under the covenant of God with Abraham -was a very long process and took a very long time coming...Most of the traveling was by walking, camel, burrow, ox, and the like...So to travel from one place to the next took days, weeks, months, and even years...It took Moses forty years to get God's people from Egypt to the Promised Land in the desert...That was God's Plan...He could have planned this trip much shorter, but chose a forty year journey...Imagine what can and does happen over a forty year period...Each of these individuals and their small community groups would have been trying to figure out as individuals first, who God was, as they traveled...Families would grow up, some elders, if not many, would pass on and things would change in each of the families over forty years of traveling...Only two of the original people from Egypt made it to the Promised Land...The two were Judah and Caleb...As they were traveling they were becoming a nation...They would be trying to figure out as they traveled, how they would get together and become a nation the Judah and the Israel (and then later Israel country)...All of this is written about by Moses as he wrote the first five books of the Bible...
Some of the Old Testament readers, who are not believers, say that God is vindictive, focus on the animal sacrifices, and the old rituals in these ancient texts...But the cultures back then, were so much different, how can one say and describe things in today's words about a very ancient culture and its traditions and rituals -without being there and seeing how things were and how their daily lives were...All these sacrifices, rituals, and traditions were part of God teaching His people, the Jewish people, about becoming morally correct and becoming a nation...What the ancient believer did in Palestine and Canaan thousands and thousands of years ago was so dramatically different than what we do today in our daily routines and our daily lives...
But these, often puzzling Scriptures, were inspired by God and are about a completely different time and culture (if we try to relate and think about them in today's terms)...We must try to understand that some of these ancient Scriptures and writings came out of a time before Israel was even a nation...Then finally the Jewish people formed Judea and Israel and all the while there were other factions and cultures trying to destroy them...The Hebrew people were constantly being threatened by wars and fighting in wars, and this was almost commonplace in many of their periods and times...So much of this is including in the Old Testament, that it makes for interesting reading, and includes some graphic warring times...Again war and exiles seems common in some of the writings...But they were common...The Jewish people, during all this, were trying to figure out as individuals about their God, and were trying to organize themselves into the nation of Israel...And all the time taking care of their families...So while they would be thinking and reflecting about their inner spiritual self, the organization of the nation was happening...Protecting their families would have been a priority...And all this happened over a very long time, in the Jewish history...The Bible covers many centuries, with many different authors...We can't forget it is not like any other book...It was not just someone sitting down and writing it over a period of years...It was written over thousands of years...And by many different authors...
The people did not have a lot of books, the internet, or other study guides to help them reflect on God and their nation...They had their family, friends, their community, their traditions, their rituals, and their God to help them get through each day...So when the Old Testament was finally all put down in writing, we can see why some books seem a little out of order, and a little chaotic being put together in an ancient type way with no editors or book and writing experts...
C. S. Lewis explains the Old Testament this way...God selected one people and spent several centuries hammering into their heads what sort of God He was, and that there was only One of Him and that He cared about right conduct...These people were the Jewish people and the Old Testament is an account of this hammering process...
Our God and the Hebrew God is a Moral God...He is a God who can do miracles...He did many miracles in Egypt in getting the Pharaoh to release them...
Much of this hammering process that Lewis is talking about is written about in the Prophets and wisdom books...The Prophets were in contact with God and were constantly trying to get the Jewish people to follow God better and more closely...God is a Moral God and the Jewish people were not behaving morally right all of the time...So the prophets were there to constantly remind the Jewish People of the moral ways of God and what the information they were receiving from God...The wisdom books show that the Jewish people had insight on how God cared about them and how important this right moral conduct is...And this moral conduct teaching from our LORD and our God is sometimes tough discipline...I try to read the tough discipline in the days that they lived and through the eyes of the Messiah, who would be coming years later...
If we pull out the Books written by Moses, or the Prophets, or the Wisdom Books, then the Bible changes...Moses starts out with the story of creation and soon into Genesis we read about the first Patriarch, who is called Abram...Then Abram, later to be called Abraham has a son named Isaac...And then Isaac has a son named Jacob...Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are the Bible's three Patriarchs...
Maybe I view Old Testament Scriptures a little bit different than other readers...A Man comes along thousand of years after Abraham and says before Abraham I AM...He says that He and God are One...He tells people, He can forgive sins...And then He stands up and says I AM the Truth (as well as the Way, and the Life)...This Man is Jesus...He says did not come to change these Old Testament Scriptures, but to fulfill the Old Testament...The key word here is fulfill...He fulfilled what Moses, the Prophets, and others wrote about -a Messiah and Prophet to come...Jesus is that Messiah...He fulfills the ancient texts...He fulfills and completes the Old Testament...How each of us Bible readers and believers interpret this word "fulfill" is important, in the sense, of how one views the Old Testament writings...And yet, the Bible that Jesus studied and would have read as He grew up was the Old Testament...The Old Testament was His Bible...And He would be the One to fulfill the Old Testament verses and Scripture...
For me, and I think many Christians, to read only the Old Testament, and never reading the New Testament is reading the Bible out of context...This is because Jesus puts the whole Bible into context, including the Old Testament... Now remember, this is only my opinions and interpretations, of how I read the Old Testament, and the entire Bible...But Jesus is the leading character in God's Book -both Old and New Testament...The intellectual theist may say that I have misunderstood (or maybe completely misunderstood) the Old Testament, and they maybe right, but for me Jesus changed everything...The Mosaic Laws, sacrifices, rituals, their eating ways, and cleanliness rules, as well as the other Old Testament passages are indeed sacred...But Jesus "fulfilled" them....Jesus "fulfills" the Old Testament, and is the purpose of the Old Testament...To me, that is why He says He is the Truth, and the Way, and the Life...He is the Absolute Truth, the Way to Life, and the Way to Live...Jesus gives life purpose...Jesus changes everything...He makes all things new...His coming to life and us spreading His Word, maybe the very purpose for our existence...
The first Christian Martyr, Stephen gives us a look at the Old Testament...Stephen said, "Our glorious God appeared to our ancestor Abraham in Mesopotamia before he settled in Haran...God told him, ‘Leave your native land and your relatives, and come into the land that I will show you.’...So Abraham left the land of the Chaldeans and lived in Haran until his father died...Then God brought him here to the land where you now live...“But God gave him no inheritance here, not even one square foot of land...God did promise, however, that eventually the whole land would belong to Abraham and his descendants—even though he had no children yet...God also told him that his descendants would live in a foreign land, where they would be oppressed as slaves for 400 years...‘But I will punish the nation that enslaves them,’ God said, ‘and in the end they will come out and worship me here in this place.’...“God also gave Abraham the covenant of circumcision at that time...So when Abraham became the father of Isaac, he circumcised him on the eighth day...And the practice was continued when Isaac became the father of Jacob, and when Jacob became the father of the twelve patriarchs of the Israelite nation... “These patriarchs were jealous of their brother Joseph, and they sold him to be a slave in Egypt...But God was with him and rescued him from all his troubles...And God gave him favor before Pharaoh, king of Egypt...God also gave Joseph unusual wisdom, so that Pharaoh appointed him governor over all of Egypt and put him in charge of the palace...“But a famine came upon Egypt and Canaan...There was great misery, and our ancestors ran out of food...Jacob heard that there was still grain in Egypt, so he sent his sons—our ancestors—to buy some...The second time they went, Joseph revealed his identity to his brothers, and they were introduced to Pharaoh...Then Joseph sent for his father, Jacob, and all his relatives to come to Egypt, seventy-five persons in all...So Jacob went to Egypt...He died there, as did our ancestors...Their bodies were taken to Shechem and buried in the tomb Abraham had bought for a certain price from Hamor’s sons in Shechem...“As the time drew near when God would fulfill his promise to Abraham, the number of our people in Egypt greatly increased...But then a new king came to the throne of Egypt who knew nothing about Joseph...This king exploited our people and oppressed them, forcing parents to abandon their newborn babies so they would die...“At that time Moses was born—a beautiful child in God’s eyes...His parents cared for him at home for three months...When they had to abandon him, Pharaoh’s daughter adopted him and raised him as her own son...Moses was taught all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and he was powerful in both speech and action...“One day when Moses was forty years old, he decided to visit his relatives, the people of Israel...He saw an Egyptian mistreating an Israelite...So Moses came to the man’s defense and avenged him, killing the Egyptian...Moses assumed his fellow Israelites would realize that God had sent him to rescue them, but they didn’t...“The next day he visited them again and saw two men of Israel fighting. He tried to be a peacemaker...‘Men,’ he said, ‘you are brothers. Why are you fighting each other?’...“But the man in the wrong pushed Moses aside...‘Who made you a ruler and judge over us?’...he asked...‘Are you going to kill me as you killed that Egyptian yesterday?’...When Moses heard that, he fled the country and lived as a foreigner in the land of Midian...There his two sons were born...“Forty years later, in the desert near Mount Sinai, an angel appeared to Moses in the flame of a burning bush...When Moses saw it, he was amazed at the sight...As he went to take a closer look, the voice of the LORD called out to him, ‘I am the God of your ancestors—the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.’...Moses shook with terror and did not dare to look...“Then the LORD said to him, ‘Take off your sandals, for you are standing on holy ground...I have certainly seen the oppression of my people in Egypt...I have heard their groans and have come down to rescue them...Now go, for I am sending you back to Egypt.’...“So God sent back the same man his people had previously rejected when they demanded, ‘Who made you a ruler and judge over us?’...Through the angel who appeared to him in the burning bush, God sent Moses to be their ruler and savior...And by means of many wonders and miraculous signs, he led them out of Egypt, through the Red Sea, and through the wilderness for forty years...“Moses himself told the people of Israel, ‘God will raise up for you a Prophet like me from among your own people.’...Moses was with our ancestors, the assembly of God’s people in the wilderness, when the angel spoke to him at Mount Sinai...And there Moses received life-giving words to pass on to us...
“But our ancestors refused to listen to Moses...They rejected him and wanted to return to Egypt...They told Aaron, ‘Make us some gods who can lead us, for we don’t know what has become of this Moses, who brought us out of Egypt.’...So they made an idol shaped like a calf, and they sacrificed to it and celebrated over this thing they had made...Then God turned away from them and abandoned them to serve the stars of heaven as their gods! In the book of the prophets it is written, ‘Was it to me you were bringing sacrifices and offerings
during those forty years in the wilderness, Israel?...No, you carried your pagan gods—the shrine of Molech, the star of your god Rephan, and the images you made to worship them...
So I will send you into exile as far away as Babylon.’...“Our ancestors carried the Tabernacle with them through the wilderness...It was constructed according to the plan God had shown to Moses...Years later, when Joshua led our ancestors in battle against the nations that God drove out of this land, the Tabernacle was taken with them into their new territory...And it stayed there until the time of King David...“David found favor with God and asked for the privilege of building a permanent Temple for the God of Jacob...But it was Solomon who actually built it...However, the Most High doesn’t live in temples made by human hands...As the prophet says, ‘Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool...Could you build me a temple as good as that?’ asks the Lord...‘Could you build me such a resting place?...Didn’t My hands make both heaven and earth?’... “You stubborn people!...You are heathen at heart and deaf to the truth...Must you forever resist the Holy Spirit?...That’s what your ancestors did, and so do you!...Name one prophet your ancestors didn’t persecute!...They even killed the ones who predicted the coming of the Righteous One—the Messiah whom you betrayed and murdered...You deliberately disobeyed God’s law, even though you received it from the hands of angels.”...The Jewish leaders were infuriated by Stephen’s accusation, and they shook their fists at him in rage...But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, gazed steadily into heaven and saw the glory of God, and he saw Jesus standing in the place of honor at God’s right hand...And he told them, “Look, I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing in the place of honor at God’s right hand!”...