Chris Weimer

The old covenant, as far as I can tell, was a Jewish Israel being favored by God. (This is how Matthew perceives it, at least, and is a very basic summary of his views pertaining to this conversation.) Matthew doesn't really give a clear reason why the OC wasn't working. He usually offers instead their sins and gentile's faith as the reason for the transition. Moreover, the Pharisees neglected "the weightier matters of the law: namely justice, mercy, and faith."

Soul Invictus

The "fulfillment" issue came up again and for some reason I couldn't recall what the resolution was from this thread so I'm bumping this to see if I can iron out my remaining issues.


I think my remaining issue is why the OT is "incomplete" i.e. why is a new covenant necessary. When someone references an object as being incomplete, this indicates that the object has yet to be completed - with the underlying assumption being that the object will be kept and not ridded of, or replaced. If something needing replacing then that would imply that the original object was obsolete. What I'm saying is that incompleteness and replacement are invokes two different concepts.

Thoughts?

Secondly, are you saying that Matthew is claiming that the weighter matters of law (justice, mercy, and faith) were not being present (being applied) in the times under the old law, and that this is why a new covenant was necessary? If so, do we know his basis for this position?

Chris Weimer

I can't say for certain why the early Christians thought that the OT was incomplete, because I don't think it was ever documented expressly, and certainly by Matthew's time it was a non-issue. However, there are some clues. Paul mentions certain laws concerning kosher and circumcision, and I think the distaste in the Gentiles for such might have turned off plenty. Yet I don't think that was the prime reason. My hypothesis is that it was an inability to sacrifice at the Temple in Jerusalem, that when no Temple is near, it probably created a need to have an alternative system. Jesus' crucifiction, in my opinion, led to the reasoning that he must have been the paschal lamb - it changed their whole views on messianic understandings. Such an idea would then easily be explained by the later idea that the OT was incomplete.

Perhaps the Pauline school introduced the thought.

sodium

I think the bulk of the New Testament is best understood as explaining why Christians are the true followers of the Jewish God, even though they don't intend to follow any Jewish practices (except perhaps by coincidence), even those that are specifically enacted by the Jewish God in the Old Testament.

The early Christians like monotheism, and they probably liked the idea of a God with a history (as opposed to one purely dreamed up by Plato), but they had no intention of becoming Jewish. The NT is their justification for this stance. There are a few different approaches, but the main one used by Matthew is to reinterpret the OT as prophecy, even passages that seem to be prescriptive or not about future events. I don't agree with their argument, but that doesn't mean it isn't there.

Soul Invictus

Does anyone else know of any scholary references that discuss the contention that the OT was incomplete or obsolete? I am trying to understand the basis for this claim.