It's the championship fight! Just kidding. It's just the opposite, in fact—an exhortation to the warm embrace of both Testaments by Christians and how they mutually illuminate one another. In this episode we look at all the ways Christians have done the Old Testament wrong—and man, they are legion—en route to commending a more excellent way. We tackle outright rejection of the OT, artificially forcing the OT to say things Christians want it to say, and even piously keeping hands off out of respect for Jewish believers. But how to get it right? Have a listen!

Notes

1. On gnosticism and docetism, see Dad’s book Divine Complexity, chapters 2 and 3.

2. Some of my reflections on the problems in the Christian relationship to the Old Testament are in this article “The Top Ten Reasons the Lectionary Sucks and Five Half-Assed Solutions” and in my review of Luther’s Jews by Thomas Kaufmann.

3. Donald H. Juel, Messianic Exegesis.

4. For commentary on the New Perspective on Paul, see Dad’s book Luther and the Beloved Community, chapter 7.

5. For a critique of 19th-century progressivist history of religions theories, see Dad’s Between Humanist Philosophy and Apocalyptic Theology, chapter 1.

6. Harnack, Marcion: The Gospel of the Alien God.

7. Neusner, Judaism in the Beginning of Christianity.

8. Lincoln, Gettysburg Address and Second Inaugural.

9. Richard Lischer talks about Martin Luther King’s use of Scripture in The Preacher King.

10. Deanna Thompson, Deuteronomy.

11. Jenson, Ezekiel.

12. Ephraim Radner, Time and The Word

13. Martin Luther, “How Christians Should Regard Moses” and “A Brief Instruction on What to Look for and Expect in the Gospels,” both in Luther’s Works vol. 35.

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