This is a purely religious question. (I am not very religious. But bear with me.)
What exactly was wrong with the Old Covenant, between Abraham and Moses? I didn’t study the Bible too much in Catholic school (I was raised a Catholic, BTW). I know we pray in the Apostles’ Creed:
Get it? Jesus had to descend into “hell” (modern versions just say “the dead”), to free the people there left behind by the “Old Covenant”. Also, I just have to ask: Does antisemitism have anything to do with this theological doctrine?
(As I said, I didn’t study the Bible too much in RC school. So I don’t know offhand where it says this in the Scriptures. But if someone else does, please share it with us.)
So what went wrong with the Old Testament/Covenant?
BTW, I put this in the GQ because this is not a debate I am trying to start here. It is a purely theological, doctrinal question.
That’s not what it says in the Apostles Creed. It only states that Jesus went there, not why. (And I wonder if that’s the accurate translation: We pray in German protestant Church “hinabgestiegen zu den Toten - went down to the dead” because we don’t want to emphasize hell.
The general explanation that I always heard among the mainstream (non-fundie) Christian denominations is:
The old covenant was between God and the Nation of Israel, giving them a special place.
The new covenenat was between God and all nations, or all humans.
So the old covenant wasn’t broken, it was amended by expanding it. That’s why there are so many references in the NT as to Adam brought Sin and Jesus erased it: Adam was the mankind, and Jesus save mankind.
This was important because in the beginning, the church wasn’t antisemtic, it was made from Jews who converted (= the apostles and other followers), and later Gentiles. The Jews wouldn’t have accepted a breaking or substitution of the old covenant. In one of the gospels, Jesus says “Don’t believe I’ve come to abolish the law, no one hook shall fall from the law until the earth is no more”. And in the Pauline letters, Paul often draws the comparision between old and new covenenat.
You can also see this in liturgy “This is the bread of the new covenant for forgiving of sins”. The old was not nullified by this, it was for a different purpose.
There is very little in scripture about what Jesus did between the crucifixion and the resurrection. Because of this there is disagreement over whether he preached to the those there under the old covenant.
About the Old Covenant versus the New Covenenant scripture says alot. Basically the Old Covenenant was too hard and too focused on Israel. The New Covenant was much easier and applied to everyone.
There was controversy in the early church as to whether one had to convert to Judaism before becoming a Christian. It was eventually settled that one did not, much of Paul’s letter to the Romans is about the New Covenant replacing the Old Covenant. In particular chapter 7 where he says that the problem with the Old Covenant which he referred to as the law was that it showed us what was wrong and what was right but it did not empower us to do right. He contrasts that with the new covenant which not only shows us what is right to do but empowers us to do the right think through the Holy Spirit working in us and giving us a new heart. Here is a study of Romans 7 that goes into detail about the new covenant versus the old covenant.
What I have always been taught is that the Israelites rejected it, but with different sins being shown as the final straw. I have no citations, but since this is a religious question, I thought I’d share what at least some people believe.
I think Israel rejecting Christianity is true without a doubt. However 99% of Israel would never have heard about Jesus, and most of the 1% who had would consider his being executed as proof that he was not the Messiah, since that was not a part of the Messianic prophecy.
Actually, Christianity divided Israel considerably. Christianity built a following in Israel and around the Med shortly after Jesus’ death, particularly in Jewish enclaves outside Israel. Not long afterward, the Romans stripped the Israel of Jews in some part following the Jewish Revolt, but apparently many Christians remained. The land wasn’t allowed to go empty, and evidently Pagans didn’t move in any large numbers (some Jews managed to remain, of course).
If I understand Christian theology correctly (IANAT), the very arrival of Jesus constituted a New Covenant. It wasn’t that there was anything “wrong” with the old one; it was just that the arrival of the Messiah made the Old Covenant obsolete, ipso facto.
(Any day in which I can say “ipso facto” is a good day.:))
Of course, as one of Cecil’s columns written with contributions from Jewish scholars points out, animal sacrifice was already replaced in accordance with the Jewish bible.* (Remember that animal sacrifice itself was a replacement of Human sacrifice - that, not blind obedience, is what the story of Abraham almost sacrificing Isaac, is all about.)
Back then, sacrificies had a very practical reason - only a part of the offering was burnt and thus given to God by “wasting/ destroying” it, other parts fed the priests instead of a temple tax paid in money. (I think, but am not sure, that parts were given to the poor, too. You can see this also in the Passover tradition that if one lamb is too much for your family, you invite poorer people in. Muslims have a similar tradition on one of their holidays, where the either slaughter a whole sheep and invite many people, or are invited, so nothing is wasted.
In the early Church, people didn’t tithe 10% of their income in money, but brought instead food to each service. Part of that was eaten as the remembrance meal (and later became the formalized Eucharist with wafers and special wine), part was given to the poor or the community as whole.
Which is in a way a step back to what God himself invalidated with Abraham - no human sacrifices.
However, that’s not because Jesus wanted the Law to be destroyed - I mentioned his quote that no hook shall fall from the law, and that he didn’t want to destroy the law. Healing on Sabbath or eating grain was against the letter, but in the spirit, of the law, and the spirit is what concerned him more than the letter. But as faithful Jew, he had most respect of the Law.
And the way that fundie Christians reject some part of Leviticus like mixing two garments and the food restrictions, but get upset about gays, rocknroll, movies with breasts showing and so on, is far more restrictive than Reform Judaism.
I think it’s very interesting how much Judaism changed in the past - from early polytheist days (God saying “Let us …” in the Genesis) to monotheism, from house worship to Temple and from tribal to nation-state with kings, and then, after the destruction of the Temple, a second time to private worship with local synagogues and schuls.
There are several stories in the Hebrew Bible (OT) about Israel breaking the laws and falling away from God, God sending a prophet and/or punishment, repentenance, and return to God.
I can not remember any support in scripture for one sin being final to break this cycle; instead, several prophets emphasize how forgiving God is. (That’s also why from the Jewish standpoint Jesus blood sacrifice wasn’t necessary.)
Historically, the death of Jesus was devastating for his followers, and everything is “viewed through the lens of Easter” - that some had a vision/ apparition of a resurrected Jesus, and that changed a loser to a conqueror of death. Everything was interpreted backwards from that point. That’s also why the apostles and other followers appear so dumb in the evangelions, not seeing the signs or realizing how things point to other scriptures. It wasn’t that they were dense, it was that everything was re-interpreted afterwards, as fulfilment.
So in order to turn a meaningless death and defeat into a triumphant victory, not just a mis-judgment by a minor prophet among many of that time, a good reason was needed. What better than becoming the sacrifical lamb - a concept already around in Judaism - for the whole mankind? Suddenly it was neither suicidal recklessness nor a false prediction to go Jerusalem and stir things up, it was a saving throw.
No, according to general Christian theology*, it’s not the arrival of Jeschuah from Nazareth. It’s what he did, his sacrifice, that made him the Messiah, who not only delivered the Jews, but all of mankind. That’s why in liturgy at mass the words from two places in the Evangelion from the last supper are said “This is my body … this is my blood … for forgivenes of sin, of the new covenenant (do this for remembrance)”.
That’s also why Easter, not Christmas, is the most important feast in Church (retail is different)*** - not the birth, but the sacrifice and removal of sins through it is important.
Part of making the sacrifice valid, so to speak, is that Jesus was a full man with free will (like Adam) who could’ve choosen to reject his path - hence that moving scene with sweating blood in the garden of Gethsemane.** If he had been just a robot going through the motions, it would have been worth not as much, esp. comparing that humans have free will.****
*as much as one can say this considering that there are not only the RCC and the Orthodox branches “against” the protestants, but also that the protestants split into many subgroups, with Anglican, Lutheran, and smaller.
** The historical Jeschuah, if we don’t consider him real God, was probably not willing to let himself be killed on a tree by unclean Romans. He believed, like many others, that the end time was near - not that a new church would come, but a new world. If anything, he would expect a stoning, the traditional penalty among Jews for blasphemy, but not a doubly shameful death.
*** Hence the fight against the imagined War on Christmas by the ignorant offenderati is doubly dumb.
**** Critical thinkers point out that, since Jesus was God and knew everything beforehand, he also knew that he was going to be resurrected and thus it was not a real sacrifice compared to humans dying for others.
However, there is no evidence in the scriptures that Jesus was full God all the time. How much human and how much God he was, if he was dual-nature or mixed or maybe only human and later turned God, was a Really Important Topic of quite hot discussion for the first centuries. Several concils and some minor wars were about this.
Not in Israel itself. James and the others who stayed in Jerusalem didn’t seem to get much traction. Christianity spread more effectively the further you were from the events, including synagogues out side of Israel, to be sure.
I don’t know if you could call over 30 years not long afterward, by the way. You’d think the impact of actual events with eye witnesses would be relatively immediate, not when the events would be already more or less legends. And if Dio were still around we’d hear about when the supposed miracles first got written down.
Do you realise what the Jews have to do to their dicks in the old covenant? Jesus renegotiated a pretty lousy deal. Traded in foreskin for love. Not a bad trade at all.
