Reconciliation

This text was my answer to a Mid-Term question that basically asked whether it was possible to reconcile the Old Testament and the New Testament. I chose to answer in the "blogger" tone so that the voice could go from passive to persuasive without attracting too much attention. Anyway...

RECONCILIATION OF THE TESTATMENTS

Before getting started, note that I will refer to a scenario where the Old Testament (OT) and New Testament (NT) do not differ in any material way as “matching”. So when I say that they match, I mean that they are fully reconciled.

On the question of whether it is possible to synthesize the Old Testament and the New Testament I would say NO.

Without citing any specific inconsistencies between the testaments, I will use one of the major inconsistencies to illustrate. That God is described so differently in the Old Testament vs. the New Testament that they are almost certainly describing different beings.

I would like to point out some of the broad differences between God from the OT and God from the NT. Most notably, God has direct relationships with certain, otherwise regular individuals, in the OT. There is no such personal relationship with God in the NT. In the NT the connection is more spiritual than actual. Furthermore, God was somewhat vengeful in the OT, or at least He was more prone to directly punish the sinful. In the NT, it seems as though God will allow the sinful to continue in their ways and hold his judgment/punishment until the end of days.

In general, the major difference is that in the OT, God was directly involved in the day to day affairs of people. He is somewhat more abstract in the NT. Not so much a physical force as a spiritual one. So, if the question is; Is it possible to make a synthesis of the OT and the NT? The answer is no but then, I don’t believe this to be the real question.

On the question of whether they can be made to match. That is, interpreted in such a way as to make those differences immaterial, I would again say no… not really. First, let me point out that there must be inconsistencies or the question would never have been asked on this mid-term. Then, is it possible to overcome these inconsistencies in order to perceive the OT and the NT as matching?

I concede that the intentions/meanings behind the writings can be corrupted by our perception, or even perhaps by the perception of writers themselves who were, despite divine intervention, merely human. We could then agree that they really describe God in the same way. Although valid, this argument is so broad as to make it meaningless. So if we return to the belief that the interpretations are (generally) correct and that the writings were also accurate, were are then left with and OT and a NT so different that they cannot be seen as matching without effort. By effort, I mean that the only way for them to match is to force it. To loosen our interpretations so much that the meaning expressed in The Bible is taken figuratively. The facts present in The Bible are disputable, so long as the deeper message they lead to is the same as that which as already been interpreted and agreed upon as correct by theologians.

So if the question is; Can they be made to match? I say sure, with enough loosening of our standards and enough imagination, why not? Well, because they don’t really match, all we have done here is change the definition of “match” so that the word is in effect meaningless. But, if we hold to my original definition of matching, that is, no material differences between the OT and the NT, then the answer to this question also is NO. In either case it’s somewhat irrelevant to the point I’m leading to as I do not consider this to be the real question either.

So, if the real question as I see it to be is not whether the OT and the NT match, or whether they can be made to match, what is the real question??? The real question is why do we want them to match? What is the reason that pushes us to want fully reconciled OT and NT? I don’t have an answer for this. If I did, I would not have identified this as the one real question.

That said, I can speculate. I see two likely answers; one more academic, the other, more spiritual. Academically, we believe that the writers of the gospels, and indeed Christ himself believed in the OT. If this is true, then the teachings of Christ must be consistent with the OT. Spiritually, these two books combine to give the faithful guidance, if they don’t agree with each other, how can the ordinary faithful determine which is most real?

The truth is, there may be as many different answers to this question as there are individuals to answer it. But still, it needs to be asked.

Concept Of Death In The Garden Of Eden

I'm currently taking a class who's focus is any literature considered to have significantly influenced western culture. The first (and the fourth) reading were from the bible. I had made a decision to take a believers approach for all the readings. This is far easier with The Republic or even Utopia than with The Bible. Keeping in mind that I’m atheist. I attempted to write an essay as a believer in The Bible. The result (shortened but otherwise not modified) is below.

If pressed, I could easily deconstruct the essay below. In this sense, it has little value as an analysis of the concept of death in the Garden of Eden. However, it does proves one thing conclusively; one should not attempt to defend a position in which one has no conviction.




IN THE BEGINNING
THERE WAS THE END

THE BEGINING
Genesis 2:16 “And the LORD GOD commanded the man saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: 17 But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.”

These two passages in Genesis especially drew my attention. Taken literally, and chronologically, immediately after creation GOD gave life to man, planted the Garden of Eden then gave the commandment above to Adam. Woman was created after.

Why is this an issue? First, this means that from the very beginning, death was a part of life and that it does not follow the transgression of Adam. That Adam understood what GOD meant when He said “die”. The Bible therefore suggest that Adam had a precise understanding of death and that somehow, that understanding has not survived the generations that followed down to us.

1. DEATH DEFINING
Any analysis of passages from The Bible is made difficult because of the different methods of interpreting them by different people. Exploring the concept of death at creation is especially difficult since death follows life and each interpretation defines life differently.

Interpreting The Bible literally, the living, and by extension beings that can die, are beings which breathe. Man and beasts. This is illustrated in Genesis 7:22 “All in whose nostrils was the breath of life […] died”. Therefore the simplified definition of death according to Genesis is the cessation of breath in living beings. This is similar, though not as far reaching, as our modern biological definition of death "the total and permanent cessation of all the vital functions of an organism” (http://www.dictionary.com/).

Interpreting The Bible symbolically, the death of Adam from eating the fruit could be defined as a sort of spiritual death. However, since GOD commanded that Adam should die “the day” of the transgression, that is, at a specific time, I will favor the literal interpretation.


2. DEATH SENTENCE
Was there a time, however brief, where death was not part of The Creation? Some would argue that The Bible itself answer this question in Romans 5:12 “Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned.” This implies that death is the consequence of sin and did not exist before it.

It is true that chronologically, death is mentioned as what will follow Adam’s disobedience of the commandment (GEN 2:17). Here death is expressed as the punishment for sin. A deterrent for anyone who would disobey GOD’s will. However, in order to be effective, Adam must desire NOT to die. At the time that St. Paul wrote Epistle to the Romans, death and suffering had been either experienced or witnessed by all. This led him to assume that fear of death was inherent. He probably assumed this to be the case in the Garden of Eden also. It is an understandable assumption. If asked, we would all assume that Adam feared fire, although, not having been exposed to fire yet; there would be no reason for Adam to fear it.

In general, we all assume death to be universally fear-inspiring, but I say it was not so in Eden? If we examine the root of the fear of death, we see that it could not have been present. Every one of us as individuals is afraid of death, but it was not always so. Infants exhibit no fear of death whatsoever. Young children seem to fear only excessively dangerous activities. Adolescents are far less risk averse and young adults. And so on. It is clear that our fear of death follows from our exposure to, and grows in proportion to our exposure to it.

Now, some would argue that it is not exposure but rather understanding of death which leads to increased fear of it as one ages. In fact, this argument only reinforces my conclusion as our understanding of death increases with increased exposure. It remains that fear of death is not inherent.

But what of Adam and Eve, who could never have witnessed human suffering or death? If fear of death can only be the result of exposure to death, what is the source of fear for Adam? Or the fear exhibited by Eve in Gen 3:3 where she clearly considers death as a deterrent from eating the forbidden fruit? The only conclusion possible is that they somehow had an understanding of death so clear and so profound that they need not have been exposed to it in order to fear it. Fear it enough to consider it a deterrent.

THE MEANING LOST
Whatever Adam and Eve knew about death and/or the after-life, it has not been transmitted down to us. Perhaps the knowledge was lost during the great flood. It may have been meant for man as he was before sin, when man was more in the image of GOD, as understood from Gen 6:3 “And the LORD said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh[...]”.

THE END