Expert: Marilyn - 11/23/2008

Question
If 500 years elapsed between the last books of the old testament and 50 years or so after christs death, the new testament was written, how can I not assume that the new testament authors had plenty of time to write a postscript adressing all the issues in the old testament and calling them "fulfilled " propheses?  The New Testament was accepted by christianity 400 years after christ.  The timeline leaves a lot of mystery surrounding the vaidity of the new testament.  Comments?

Answer
Hello Mark;

Forgive me, but I'm not totally sure I completely understand your question.  If I have failed to interpret this question correctly, please post a new question with clarifications.

Copies of the Old Testament that pre-date the Christian era still exist.  The Old Testament has remained amazingly unchanged through many translations throughout time.  

After Jesus' death many accounts were floating around, some passed on verbally, others written down.  The early church believed Jesus would return any day, hence no real effort was placed on recording any of these writings permanently for quite some time.  

Heretical groups arose.  The Judaizers are one.  Another group, the Gnostics began gaining ground.  When it became apparent that Jesus' return was not imminent, Christians finally got busy writing things down in more permanent form.  Also, over time the Gnostics had increased their efforts, hijacked the Christian story and were obtaining converts with their own "gospel" version.  This group and others forced Christians to face the fact that they needed to codify their doctrines and writings to preserve them and to refute heresies.  Church fathers met and reviewed all the manuscripts available.  Manuscripts were judged on many criteria, some of which were: grammar, verifiable quotes, verifiable authorship, agreement with the Old Testament and so forth.  

The Catholic Bible includes the "Apocrypha" which are writings not included in the regular canon.  It's possible other writings are valid, but were not included in the canon.  These writings still exist, such as the Gospel of Judas and the Gospel of Mary. Persons are welcome to read them and come to their own conclusions.  Personally, understanding the regular canon requires all my time and I have never read but the smallest snippets of the excluded books.  Jude refers to the Book of Enoch, but I am not sure that the Book of Enoch in existence today is the same book.  Also, one may peruse the Jewish commentaries called the Talmud.  And the Jewish extra-canon includes the Kabbalah.

The gospels do assert certain Old Testament prophecies were fulfilled by Jesus during His tenure here on earth.  Persons today dispute whether or not Revelation was fulfilled during the first centuries under Roman rule.  Personally, I believe some prophecies in Revelation may have seen partial fulfillment during Roman times, but Revelation has not been completely fulfilled.  Also, some Old Testament prophecies have not yet been fulfilled, such as passages in Daniel and Zechariah and others.  

Except for those specifically pertaining to Jesus first Advent, wise biblical scholars should hesitate to assert prophecies fulfilled, unless glaringly obvious.  I can think of few that meet that criteria save those the New Testament writers have already named.  Some have seen partial fulfillment.  The prophecy of Ezekiel pertaining to Israel's return to the land has been fulfilled, however Daniel's prophecy telling of the rebuilding of the temple yet again after the Roman's destroyed it in AD 70 has not been fulfilled, though priests are now being trained and breeders seek to obtain the red heifer required to ordain the priests.  There are other prophecies, both in the Old Testament and in the New Testament, that have not been fulfilled.

Having studied both the New Testament and the Old Testament for many years, I believe both are valid.  Jesus really did step onto the world stage.  Josephus, the Jewish historian, wrote about him saying, (my paraphrase):  The Rabbi Jesus had many followers.  He enjoyed great popularity.  The Romans crucified Him and His followers claimed He rose from the dead.  

Given Jesus as God's Hand in the earth, the pivot point of history; His fulfilling of the Law, fulfilling all its obligations to perfection which then qualified Him to pay for all transgressions against it for any who would receive Him by faith; His teachings and subsequent teachings of His Apostles--these all expand and illuminate the Old Testament. Given Jesus' intrusion into history, His teachings and the results His teachings wrought, the New Testament is the logical "next part" of God's Word.  

The New Testament is the New Covenant between God and man, based not on the Law and animal sacrifice to atone for infractions of that Law as was the case in the Old Testament, but on Jesus' fulfillment of that Law, on His sacrificial offering of His Own Blood in payment for the Law, and on the new revelation of God He brought first personally and then later by the Holy Spirit.  In the sense that Jesus has fulfilled the Law, the Old Testament has been fulfilled.  In the sense of prophecy, not all has been fulfilled.

Persons have debated the validity of the New Testament for centuries.  Some believe it invalid or only partially valid, other scholars just as worthy of the letters after their names have deemed it entirely valid.  The Bible clearly says, both in the Old Testament and in the New Testament, "the righteous will live by faith," hence, I think God prefers it this way--if you believe the New Testament is valid, you do so by faith, if you believe it invalid, you believe that also by faith.  Whatever a person chooses to believe, he must choose, because nobody can disprove one side or the other beyond a shadow of a doubt.  

God is not perturbed by any of this.  You and I, we'll believe what we choose to believe by faith.  And that's the way God likes it.

Sincerely,

Marilyn