Jesus Christ in the Old Testament: Session One

Session One: The Bible That Jesus Read (Introduction)

In this session we'll discuss how the Old Testament is the Bible that Jesus read.

Session Notes

What We Will Learn Today

1. What We Call the OT, Jesus and His First Followers Simply Called the Bible
2. The Torah as Scripture’s Christological Foundation
3. Scripture as a Hyperlinked Text
4. Different Approaches to OT interpretation
5. The Emmaus Approach
6. The Bible’s Opening Christological Word

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1. Christ wasn’t to be read *into* the OT but read *out* of the text. The Scriptures testified of him.
2. The Torah as the foundation of Scripture
   1. Torah = Teaching (or teaching of God)
   2. Everything after Deuteronomy is Inspired Commentary
   3. The entire Bible is already compressed into the first five books
3. Rabbi Isaac said, “That which the prophets were destined to prophesy in every generation they received at Mt. Sinai,” (Exodus Rabbah 28:6)
4. Luther, “Moses is the source from which the holy prophets and also the apostles, inspired by the Holy Spirit, extracted divine wisdom. This being the case, we shall not live up to our calling better and in greater harmony with God’s will than by leading our followers to this source and showing them in our own way the seeds of divine wisdom which the Holy Spirit, through Moses, has sown in such a manner that neither reason nor the power of human nature, if it does not possess the Holy Spirit, can see or understand them,” Preface to the Commentary on Psalm 90 (AE 13:75).
5. “And here we challenge them to show us one word in all the books outside Moses that is not already found in the books of Moses,” Avoiding the Doctrines on Men (AE 35:132).
6. The Christological Layers of the Bible:
   1. Torah
   2. Prophets
   3. Writing
   4. New Testament.
7. Everything builds on each other
8. Why wouldn’t Paul be quoting Christ?
   1. Because he didn’t have to, they were both quoting the Old Testament
9. Scriptural archeology:
   1. Digging through the layers of the text the build off of each other
10. Layers of the text:
    1. New Testament - like top soil, dig deeper and find;
    2. The Prophets, dig deeper and find
    3. The Psalms, dig deeper and find
    4. The Historical Books, dig deeper and find
    5. The Torah
       1. They all build off of each other
11. When Jesus walks on water He is illustrating in action what all the Old Testament was leading up to.
12. "And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters."Genesis 1:1 (ESV)
13. "And the people of Israel went into the midst of the sea on dry ground..." Exodus 14:22 (ESV)
14. "And all Israel was passing over on dry ground until all the nation finished passing over the Jordan." Joshua 3:17 (ESV)
15. Approaches to reading the Old Testament
    1. A Museum
       1. Somewhere we can look around and then leave
       2. Somewhere to learn a few things
       3. Interesting, but not life changing
    2. A Spiritual gym
       1. A place to work on buffing up certain areas of your life
       2. Working to accomplish a goal
       3. Used as morality tales for what we should do
       4. Doesn’t lead us to ask “How is this story about Christ?”
    3. A Vast Desert With Occasional Oasis
       1. Long stretches of useless detail with the occasional messiantic prophesy
       2. Strips the OT of the Spirits power
16. These all miss the point, Chrsit says,
    1. “You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me.” John 5: 39 (ESV)
17. The Most Important Question:
    1. How in these words is Christ speaking of himself to the church?
       1. With this question, we are at last going in the right direction.
18. The Bible is like a hyperlinked text in that verses from all throughout are connected and refer back and forth to each other.
19. And he said to them, “O foolish men, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?" And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.” Luke 24:25-27 (ESV)
20. Berashit = In the beginning
    1. This is the start, right?
    2. More than just a temporal marker
21. be-rashit – rosh – head – beginning
22. Proverbs 8:1 “Does not wisdom call out?”
    1. Hokma = Wisdom
23. Wisdom is described as a person from the beginning
    1. Proverbs 8:22-23 “The LORD possessed me, [Wisdom], the beginning [raysheet] of his way, before his works of old. From everlasting I was established, from the beginning [mayrosh], from the earliest times of the earth.”
    2. The Targum, “In Wisdom, God created the heavens and the earth.”
    3. Col. 1:18, “He is also the head of the body, the church; and He is the beginning [arche], the firstborn from the dead.
    4. Rev. 3:14, “The Amen, the faithful and true witness, the Beginning [arche] of the creation of God.”
    5. Fair Use Notice: While many Christian writers do allow faithful reproduction of their work with all due credit, most of the other articles on this site have the specific permission of the author to use their work. However there is some copyrighted material on this site, the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in an effort to our efforts to advance understanding of Christian issues. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

Philosophy in Christian Perspective Session 3

Session Three: Hellenism and Rome
In this session we take a look at Hellenism and Rome.

Session Notes

What We Will Learn Today
How Greek philosophy spread throughout the Mediterranean world.
How Roman thinkers had different philosophical concerns from Plato and Aristotle
What Epicureans, Skeptics, and Stoics thought about the nature of the good life.

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Alexander the Great

Aristotle had been a tutor of Alexander the Great, the son of Philip of Macedon.
Alexander famously spread Greek culture into areas he conquered.
We call this culture Hellenistic, and the thought that developed after this movement we call Hellenism.
Alexander was an incredibly successful military leader.
But, he died at the young age of 32.
While Hellenism continued to affect Mediterranean culture, the political grip of Alexander’s successors eventually faded, giving rise to a new world power: Rome.

Roman Dominance
Eventually, Roman power reached far enough to include Athens itself.
But back in 155 BC, Athens had a problem with Rome’s handling of affairs.
The Romans were demanding a fine of 500 talents of gold, which was equivalent to more than 35,000 pounds of the precious metal. Athenians didn’t want to pay this heavy sum. So they sent three philosophers, from three of its dominant schools, to reason with the Romans.

Carneades, an Academic skeptic and follower of Plato, (what was Academic skepticism)
Critolaus, head of the Aristotelian School, and
Diogenes, who was head of the Stoic School.
These delegates were able to reduce the fine to only 100 talents.
More importantly, they spent their time in Rome spreading their philosophical ideas.

Summum Bonum = Highest Good
Roman society during the time of its exposure to new philosophical questions was undergoing rapid change, cultural turbulence, and a flood of new ideas and religions from all over the region.

Three major philosophies that became popular in Rome, but originated in Greece
Epicureanism: sought a life of moderate pleasure and the avoidance of pain.
Stoicism: sought a life of serenity in the midst of cultural and political turbulence.
Skepticism (Pyhrronic Skepticism): sought a life free from intellectual turmoil or dogmatic error achieved through the suspension of intellectual judgment.

All Three Schools sought one thing in different ways: Tranquility

Important Features of Epicureanism
Lucretius is Roman Epicurean poet and philosopher

According to him, nothing was controlled by an intelligent design.
atomism, the belief that the physical universe is made up of individual and indivisible bits, or “atoms.”
Believed in the importance of avoiding physical pain and pursuing moderate pleasure
Epicureanism is the default religion of affluent, secular western society.

Important features of Stoicism
First, Stoics focused more on ethics than abstract ideas
Second, they believed that virtue is its own reward and is sufficient for happiness
Third, they sought self-control as a way to overcome the irrational influence of human emotion.
Major takeaway from Stoicism? Consider the Serenity prayer
God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, The courage to change the things I can, And wisdom to know the difference.
The focus here is on the idea that life is full of uncertainty and often injustice.
All we can do in such a turbulent situation is to live wisely and virtuously and take satisfaction in our personal integrity.
A superb Roman example of stoicism in action is the Roman philosopher Seneca (4 BC-AD 65).

What interested the stoics?
Their famous interest in apatheia, which we might translate to apathy, isn’t a lack of caring, but an attempt to have a profound joy that comes from virtue, rather than a constant pursuit of temporary and fleeting pleasures.

Features of Skepticism
Skepticism refers to any school of thought that seeks to be comfortable with doubt and to avoid unjustified beliefs.
Consider Sextus Empiricus
“Skepticism is an ability, or mental attitude, which opposes appearances to judgments in any way whatsoever, with the result that … we are brought firstly to a state of mental suspense and next to a state of ‘unperturbedness’ or ‘quietude.’”

Sextus divided intellectual world into three parts
Dogmatists believe that some beliefs can be known to be true.
Pyrrhonic Skeptics aren’t sure whether we can know anything for certain.
Academic Skeptics, taking their cues from the later Platonic Academy are certain only that we can’t know anything for certain.
Academic skepticism, according to Empiricus, is too bold in that it asserts dogmatically that nothing can be known.

Key elements in Pyrrhonic Skepticism
First, It seeks mental quietude by suspending judgment about debated ideas.
Second, It defines “dogma” as assent to all unfounded beliefs.
Third, It is concerned to take note of empirical data or “appearances” in the physical world.
Fourth, It recognizes that theories are “underdetermined” by data.
Finally, since we can’t know for sure what to believe, we should follow our community and family traditions to live peacefully.

Reflecting on Christian Perspective

The Christian summum bonum (highest good)?
Westminster Shorter Catechism: Q. 1. What is the chief end of man?
A. Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever.
Dr. Mallinson describes the summum bonum of Christianity to be peace with God and subsequent service to humanity by sharing the grace and forgiveness of God to a hurting world.
Skepticism helpful?
..of course Christians, through revelation, believe they have the truth…believe it or not has some value (suspending judgment because we recognize our own finite and fallen reason
Using this method for this empirical world… Luther seems to have appreciated aspects of this … also it reminds us we are works in progress.
Stoicism?
we don’t eliminate our passions. we redirect them toward a hurting world. And this can bring emotional pain. we welcome this in solidarity with other human beings, whom we love in the name of Christ.




Further Reading
Lucius Annaeus Seneca. Moral Epistles. Translated by Richard M. Gummere. The Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1917-25.
Lucretius, On the Nature of Things (50 B.C.)
http://classics.mit.edu/Carus/...
Sextus Empiricus, Outlines of Pyrrhonism
http://www.oswego.edu/~dhorace...
Christopher Gill. The Structured Self in Hellenistic and Roman Thought. Oxford University Press, 2009.

Fair Use Notice: While many Christian writers do allow faithful reproduction of their work with all due credit, most of the other articles on this site have the specific permission of the author to use their work. However there is some copyrighted material on this site, the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in an effort to our efforts to advance understanding of Christian issues. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.