Finishing the Old Testament Year

I am sorry that the holidays overtook me and I never wrote about Haggai, Zachariah, and Malachi.  In all honesty, I was suffering from a little bit of "minor prophets" fatigue. Of course, Malachi in particular has a lot of meaning for members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day-Saints as it was quoted to Joseph Smith in one of his early visions, and the idea of "Turning the hearts of the children to the fathers" is foundational in our church's practice of family history research. I actually had something interesting to write about all that three weeks ago, but I don't remember what it was. (This may partially be because I am in the final hours of my monthly fast, and my brain isn't working well.)

I did want to end the year with my overall takeaways from this year's study of the Old Testament. Since it is New Year's day I think I will do them in countdown style. 

5. More than ever before I see the Old Testament as a book that was composed/edited at a specific time for a specific purpose. Just as the Book of Mormon was compiled and edited by Mormon to show the hand of God in the lives of his people from their first arrival in the Americas, the Old Testament was written by some unnamed person who wanted to have a record of the workings of God in the lives of his people from the time of Abraham to the time of the return from exile.  Each book and each story was included for a reason to teach something to the author's present day audience, and to future Jews. 

4. It is super important to understand the historical and cultural context in order to understand the Old Testament.  There is a practice that often happens with Christians, to take a verse or a chapter of the Old Testament out of context and use it as starting point for a gospel conversation.  If that is the only way you use the Old Testament, you are pretty much missing the boat. I am so grateful for the podcasters I listened to this year that gave me more of a historical context and I look forward to doing a deeper dive into that in later years.

3. One of the greatest miracles of the Old Testament, is that the Jews have been able to maintain their cultural identity for thousands of years.  What other group of people feel connected to the religious practices of their ancestors 3 or 4 thousand years ago. I have no idea even how or where my ancestors were living in 2000 BCE let alone how they were worshiping.  Somehow at least a small group of Israelites still see themselves as Israelites even after all this time.  They still worship the same god and revere the same prophets. That is amazingly remarkable. 

2. Both the New Testament and the Doctrine and Covenants must be seen through the lens of the Old Testament.  New Testament writers chose the scenes they portray in the Gospels specifically to compare them to Old Testament ideas and people.  When you read the stories in the New Testament, they are supposed to bring to mind antecedent stories in the Old Testament. Likewise, Joseph Smith very much saw his role in the restoration as a continuation of the role of prophets in the Old Testament.  He was striving to restore or create a modern day House of Israel, with worship focused on the Temple, just as it was from the Exodus to Malachi.  

1. (And this one may seem contrary to all the previous ones)  Jesus' doctrine about personal salvation and hope for exaltation in a life after death, is a stark and dramatic departure from Judaism which focused on group salvation in the mortal world.  The prophets of the Old Testament, except for perhaps Isaiah, were primarily focused on saving their civilization by community righteousness, i.e. if they were righteous, God would protect and prosper them as a nation. The gospel of Jesus Christ, with its emphasis on personal righteousness and personal salvation was new and unique teaching, and it is no surprise that even his own disciples didn't understand it until after His death and resurrection.  Christianity, though born in the world of Judaism, is a fundamentally new belief system.

This year of study has been a delight.  I look forward to seeing the influence of the Old Testament in the next three years of study of the New Testament, Book of Mormon, and Church History, and revisiting the Old Testament in 4 years.