Posted: May 05, 2021 12:12 am
Exegetes increasingly saw Christ in the Old Testament, to the point they saw Him everywhere in it, and thus increasingly appropriated OT passages and allegorized them for the Church. Use of the Jewish scriptures lent authority to Christianity's new good news: without them, Christianity would have been completely new – something unlikely to have gained traction in those days in the Greco-Roman philosophical world.
Through their continuous exegetical interpreting and re-interpreting of the Greek versions of the Hebrew texts, Christians formed their own discourse eg. the Song of Songs was no longer considered an earthly love song, but was said to describe Christ’s love for the Church.
Marcion criticised the Jewish scriptures (but not the Jewish people) and lauded Paul as the only apostle who had rightly understood the new message of salvation as delivered by Christ. In reply to Marcion, other Christians established their own canon, defending the Jewish scriptures. They felt that the Gospel of Christ had to be presented as the fulfilment of the promises inherent in Judaism.
Justin Martyr used the Legend of the Septuagint for Christian purposes: he describes how Jewish prophecies of Christ were delivered 'a long time ago' by people who were ‘prophets of God'. He said that legend established the antiquity of the prophetic books and them as a source of authority. Justin referred to key texts as ‘the Books of the Prophecies’, in contrast with previous descriptions of them as ‘the Laws of the Jews’ in the key text tied to the Legend of the Septuagint, Letter to Aristeas, and as ‘laws made by Moses’ in Philo’s De Vita Mosis 2:37-40.
Furthermore, Justin plays down the Jewish connections in the Legend; he presented the prophecies as the work of ancient wise men who just happened to have emerged from among the Jews (First Apology 31.1). He said the prophecies spoken by the ‘prophets of God’ were ultimately not their own words, but utterances inspired by 'the Prophetic Spirit', something he refers to several times and which he said spoke as a single voice.
Through their continuous exegetical interpreting and re-interpreting of the Greek versions of the Hebrew texts, Christians formed their own discourse eg. the Song of Songs was no longer considered an earthly love song, but was said to describe Christ’s love for the Church.
Marcion criticised the Jewish scriptures (but not the Jewish people) and lauded Paul as the only apostle who had rightly understood the new message of salvation as delivered by Christ. In reply to Marcion, other Christians established their own canon, defending the Jewish scriptures. They felt that the Gospel of Christ had to be presented as the fulfilment of the promises inherent in Judaism.
Justin Martyr used the Legend of the Septuagint for Christian purposes: he describes how Jewish prophecies of Christ were delivered 'a long time ago' by people who were ‘prophets of God'. He said that legend established the antiquity of the prophetic books and them as a source of authority. Justin referred to key texts as ‘the Books of the Prophecies’, in contrast with previous descriptions of them as ‘the Laws of the Jews’ in the key text tied to the Legend of the Septuagint, Letter to Aristeas, and as ‘laws made by Moses’ in Philo’s De Vita Mosis 2:37-40.
Furthermore, Justin plays down the Jewish connections in the Legend; he presented the prophecies as the work of ancient wise men who just happened to have emerged from among the Jews (First Apology 31.1). He said the prophecies spoken by the ‘prophets of God’ were ultimately not their own words, but utterances inspired by 'the Prophetic Spirit', something he refers to several times and which he said spoke as a single voice.