Do We Need the Old Testament?

The Hick Cousins

A lot of prominent Christians nowadays don’t like to talk about the Old Testament. The gospels are the smart, hip, politically-correct star child of the family; the epistles (particularly the Pauline ones) are more like the stodgy uncle who’s a little dull but pays for all the get-togethers. And of course, you have Revelation, the weird cousin who’s a lot of fun, but who everyone suspects is on something.

And then there’s the Old Testament. The Old Testament is like the super-hick cousins who never get invited to anything because they make everyone uncomfortable. They dress certain ways, say certain things, that just don’t fit in with the cool, hip image everyone wants to cultivate. So everyone just kind of pretends that they don’t exist. For many prominent Christians today, the Old Testament is a third rail.

Which is why the Old Testament is one of my litmus tests for Christian doctrine.

A Litmus Test

If I want to know what someone thinks about the inerrancy of the Scriptures, one of the easiest ways to cut to the chase is to ask them who they think wrote the books of Moses, or the book of Daniel, or the Psalms of David. If they think that none of these people wrote the texts named after them, that the prophesies aren’t actually prophesies at all, and that these are all just collections of myths assembled by committee centuries later, I have a pretty good idea where I stand.

“Now,” you say, “let’s not go overboard. We agree on the gospels, and that’s where the crucifixion and the resurrection are; we don’t really need the Old Testament. As long as the gospels are veridical, there’s no need to hold to the veracity of the Old Testament.”

The Old Testament and the Gospels

There’s one problem with separating the Old Testament from the gospels: it turns out that Jesus multiple times in the gospels speaks about the Old Testament. Moreover, he explicitly cites Moses, Daniel, and David as actually writing the texts attributed to them. So if you decide you don’t believe in Moses’ history or Daniel’s prophecy, you’re left either arguing that the gospels lied about Jesus, that Jesus lied about the Old Testament, or that Jesus didn’t know about his own Scriptures. And any way you parse that, you end up with a huge question mark over the credibility of the gospels.

You can’t get rid of the Old Testament. Jesus talked about it constantly; Paul talks about it constantly. Peter and John reference it constantly. In fact, the whole New Testament talks about it constantly. You can’t even say the words “New Testament” without implicitly acknowledging that there was an “Old Testament” first.

Christianity isn’t about a philosophy; it’s about a history, a history that encompasses the whole world from beginning to end. Trying to cut out the Old Testament and start from the gospels is like trying to start watching Marvel with Infinity War, or trying to start Star Wars with Return of the Jedi. You may get the gist, but you can’t fully understand what’s going on, because you don’t have the proper context. You can’t have the second Adam without the first Adam; you can’t have the gospel without Genesis.

It’s “true;” it’s just not accurate.

“Alright, alright,” you say. “Calm down. I’m not saying we should do away with the narrative themes of the Old Testament. I’m sure the Old Testament is true in the abstract. It’s just the historical facts, the moral laws, the authors named in the texts, the people and events they mention, and the prophecies that are wrong. But the spirit of the book is still true. Don’t you think God is big enough to work through a flawed Old Testament? In C.S. Lewis’s words, ‘he’s not a tame lion.’”

This sentiment is akin to those mentioned in 2 Timothy who “hav[e] a form of godliness but den[y] its power.” It does no good to say something is “true” if you also think it riddled with inaccuracies. If I said I loved you – but I hated how you spoke, acted, dressed, thought, looked, and behaved – I would not be loving you “in the abstract.” I would just be lying.

Not a Tame Lion

C.S. Lewis does indeed tell us that Aslan is “not a tame lion” content to fit into our conceptions of him. In The Last Battle, we find his answer to this argument. A group of men come to Narnia, murdering and pillaging, raping the countryside and razing the towns. All this, they say, is by Aslan’s orders. In vain the people protest that Aslan would never order such a thing. After all, “he’s not a tame lion.” Who are they to say what he should do?

Over the course of the story, Lewis gives his answer. Aslan is not a tame lion, but he follows his own rules. To have an evil Aslan, Lewis says, would be to have a black sun, or to have dry water. Cruelty is anathema to his nature. God cannot be evil, not because he is tame but because he is Himself. He is Goodness. And he is also Truth – he cannot lie. A god whose inspired word lies or errs is no longer the God of Christianity.

There is a reason, of course, that people would prefer not to invite the hick cousins to the reunion. If we have these cousins at the dinner-table, we have to listen to what they have to say. And many Christians are, quite frankly, afraid of what they might have to accept if they let the Old Testament in. They’ve heard rumors of horrible, bloodthirsty deeds, tyrannical oppression, ludicrous historical accounts. They are afraid that, for moral or factual reasons, if the Old Testament is part and parcel with Christianity, they’ll have to give up on Christianity. To their credit, they don’t wish to do this.

Fortunately, they don’t have to. But we will have to continue this discussion next week.

“Ten Commandments Tablets” by DrGBB is licensed under CC BY 2.0