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.