[ I know this will sound stupid to most people, but I have no background in religion. ]
Did Jesus preach from the old testament?
I.e., did he promote the concepts of the Garden of Eden and Noah’s Ark?
Would he have promoted all the old testment as factual?
Read this link: http://biblia.com/jesusbible/prophecies.htm
You’d certainly think so. His “Two Great Commandments” line is made up of two Old Testament verses stitched together (and, I believe, others besides Jesus quoted them). He quotes examples from the Law in his arguments (as you’d expect) He quotes the Psalms on the cross, and his words often suggest, if not quote, the Old Testament. This wouldn’t be remarkable in someone regarded as a Rebbe by his followers. He doesn’t tell any extended stories from the OT in the existing gospels.
Paul, I understand, quotes extensively from the OT. He doesn’t quote from the NT because, when he wrote his letters, they hadn’t been written yet. (although he has only a very few quotes from Jesus).
If you’re asking, did Jesus quote, refer to, or base teachings on the Old Testament? The answer is yes, except that of course he wouldn’t have referred to it as “the Old Testament.” CalMeacham has already mentioned some examples; another is in Luke 4:18-19 where Jesus reads a couple of verses from Isaiah.
If you’re asking, was Jesus personally—or would a typical Jew of his time period have been—what we would call a “Biblical literalist”? Did he think of all the stories in the Old Testament as things that had actually, historically happened as described? That I don’t know; I’ll let someone else answer.
Come to think of it, Luke’s gospel has Jesus reading the Torah.
Look in any good biblical reference. I’ve got a set of the Pelican NT Commentaries at home that doubtless list a whole bunch of cases of Jesus citing the OT.
I guess that is what I’m asking. If someone said to him “You gotta be kidding me that all the animals would fit on one boat”, would he have replied a) “It is written!” or b) “Hard to say, but then I’m really more interested in how people treat each other - if that story were proven false it wouldn’t change about my advice to mankind.”
Neither. He would have said something you never would have expected and answered your question in a way you didn’t anticipate.
Hey, he’s the SOn of God. He’s entitled to be original if he wants to be.
Perhaps he would have said, “Look, I drew up the plans for that boat and told Noah how to build it. Don’t tell ME it wouldn’t hold all those animals.”
Isn’t there a line in the NT where he says:
“Think not I have come to destroy the Law.
I have come to uphold it.”
Or something like that?
“Do not think I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them.” - Matthew 5:17, NIV Edition.
I’m sorry, but it was a memory verse from school and I couldn’t resist.
Matthew 5:17 (KJV)
Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.
I don’t believe there is a factual answer to the question, but I would suspect that most people of that time would have been what we call today “creationsist”. After all, the science of the day, such as it was, didn’t have a better explanation.
Jesus did make reference to the Old Testemant(The Torah). But he did not always agree with it, He didn’t like the letter of the law keeping Pharisees. He used the 82d Psalm to show that he considered all men sons of God. John 10. He said man was not made for the law, but the law for man. When the adultress was being stoned he asked that some one with out sin throw the first stone. He did say the scriptures were good (Implying they could be used for a guide). He also implied that there were times the sabboth could be broken, like when a man’s horse fell down etc. He was not a literalist, but used common sense.
Monavis