Ideological Issues of the term, “Old Testament”
*This post was originally published bilingually in English as well as Korean back in 2017. Now the post is separated in each language. For the Korean version, see here
Christian Scripture, commonly called “the Bible,” is divided into two sections, the Old and New Testaments. The Old Testament comes first in the Bible and occupies an enormously large portion of it, compared to the New Testament. The “New Testament,” of course, means a new covenant, whereas the “Old Testament” gives an impression that this particular corpus of texts is something old: so it is perhaps obsolete or inferior to the new covenant. I know Christians don’t think this way, but, in terms of the designations themselves, it is true that people rarely think that something “old” is equal to or better than something “new.” Even Jesus says “no one puts new wine into old wineskins” (Luke 5:37). For this reason, there are people who don’t like the name “Old” Testament, and some of them prefer the term “the First Testament.” Despite the limitations or the negative connotations of the name “Old” Testament, however, most Christians seem reluctant to replace the old name with the alternative. That is, perhaps, because they are so deeply familiar with the name “Old Testament.” Or maybe they think that the designations are not a big deal, as far as they are aware that the Old Testament is as important as the New Testament. In other words, even though the “Old Testament” is not the best designation for the corpus of these texts, the discussed problems do not strongly motivate most Christians to seek an alternative for the “Old Testament.” With respect to this point, the mentality of many biblical scholars would probably be the same. Nevertheless, most biblical scholars, whom I know or read, usually prefer the “Hebrew Bible” to the “Old Testament.” Then what on earth caused them to abandon their old habit, to push them out of their comfort zone, and to use an alternative, “Hebrew Bible?”
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