{"id":250,"date":"2008-07-31T15:32:00","date_gmt":"2008-07-31T15:32:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/bibleandculture\/2008\/07\/jesus-as-the-unifier-of-the-bible.html"},"modified":"2008-07-31T15:32:00","modified_gmt":"2008-07-31T15:32:00","slug":"jesus-as-the-unifier-of-the-bible","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/2008\/07\/jesus-as-the-unifier-of-the-bible.html","title":{"rendered":"Jesus as the Unifier of the Bible"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/p>\n

I am reading a manuscript by Phillip King entitled The Bible is for Living, in which the following comment struck me—<\/p>\n

“the New Testament is not necessarily a commentary on the Old
Testament, that is to say, Jesus is not to be found on every page of
the Old Testament. The Old Testament text is not simply shining
in reflected glory; it has rich meaning in its own right. Without
the Old Testament, the New Testament is a superstructure suspended
in midair. There is both continuity and discontinuity
between the Testaments. Jesus is the unifier of the Bible, both
Old Testament and New Testament; for example, the two great
commandments\u2014love of God (Deuteronomy 6:5), and love of
neighbor (Leviticus 19:18). These two Old Testament injunctions
are combined in the New Testament: \u201cYou shall love the
Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and
with all your mind, and with all your strength \u2026 You shall love
your neighbor as yourself\u201d (Mark 12:30-31; Matthew 22:37-39).” (p. 12 of mss.)<\/p>\n

In what way are the two testaments united in and by Jesus, especially since the OT is not in the main about Jesus? One way would be to say that if we fulfill the Great Commandment(s) as Jesus said we should we would love Jesus with all our hearts as God and also love Jesus as our nearest neighbor (and so as our nearest and dearest human relative). A second way to look at this, is our modeling our love of God the Father and neighbor as Jesus himself practiced it, showing us the way. <\/p>\n

Think on these things.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I am reading a manuscript by Phillip King entitled The Bible is for Living, in which the following comment struck me— “the New Testament is not necessarily a commentary on the OldTestament, that is to say, Jesus is not to be found on every page ofthe Old Testament. The Old Testament text is not simply…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":199,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-250","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"yoast_head":"\nJesus as the Unifier of the Bible - The Bible and Culture<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/2008\/07\/jesus-as-the-unifier-of-the-bible.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Jesus as the Unifier of the Bible - The Bible and Culture\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I am reading a manuscript by Phillip King entitled The Bible is for Living, in which the following comment struck me— “the New Testament is not necessarily a commentary on the OldTestament, that is to say, Jesus is not to be found on every page ofthe Old Testament. The Old Testament text is not simply…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/2008\/07\/jesus-as-the-unifier-of-the-bible.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Bible and Culture\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2008-07-31T15:32:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/bp3.blogger.com\/_MCBNSn1DlAU\/SJITc5iEjAI\/AAAAAAAABFM\/EgSlrMihcr0\/s400\/rembrandt170.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Ben Witherington\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Jesus as the Unifier of the Bible - The Bible and Culture","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/2008\/07\/jesus-as-the-unifier-of-the-bible.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Jesus as the Unifier of the Bible - The Bible and Culture","og_description":"I am reading a manuscript by Phillip King entitled The Bible is for Living, in which the following comment struck me— “the New Testament is not necessarily a commentary on the OldTestament, that is to say, Jesus is not to be found on every page ofthe Old Testament. The Old Testament text is not simply…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/2008\/07\/jesus-as-the-unifier-of-the-bible.html","og_site_name":"The Bible and Culture","article_published_time":"2008-07-31T15:32:00+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/bp3.blogger.com\/_MCBNSn1DlAU\/SJITc5iEjAI\/AAAAAAAABFM\/EgSlrMihcr0\/s400\/rembrandt170.jpg"}],"author":"Ben Witherington","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/2008\/07\/jesus-as-the-unifier-of-the-bible.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/2008\/07\/jesus-as-the-unifier-of-the-bible.html","name":"Jesus as the Unifier of the Bible - The Bible and Culture","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/2008\/07\/jesus-as-the-unifier-of-the-bible.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/2008\/07\/jesus-as-the-unifier-of-the-bible.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/bp3.blogger.com\/_MCBNSn1DlAU\/SJITc5iEjAI\/AAAAAAAABFM\/EgSlrMihcr0\/s400\/rembrandt170.jpg","datePublished":"2008-07-31T15:32:00+00:00","dateModified":"2008-07-31T15:32:00+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/#\/schema\/person\/d1fd6c7893819eabc624db38ecfd8426"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/2008\/07\/jesus-as-the-unifier-of-the-bible.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/2008\/07\/jesus-as-the-unifier-of-the-bible.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/2008\/07\/jesus-as-the-unifier-of-the-bible.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/bp3.blogger.com\/_MCBNSn1DlAU\/SJITc5iEjAI\/AAAAAAAABFM\/EgSlrMihcr0\/s400\/rembrandt170.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/bp3.blogger.com\/_MCBNSn1DlAU\/SJITc5iEjAI\/AAAAAAAABFM\/EgSlrMihcr0\/s400\/rembrandt170.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/2008\/07\/jesus-as-the-unifier-of-the-bible.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Jesus as the Unifier of the Bible"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/","name":"The Bible and Culture","description":"All Things Biblical and Christian","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/#\/schema\/person\/d1fd6c7893819eabc624db38ecfd8426","name":"Ben Witherington","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/75e\/75ec11e1916a2008bc4cc638a0a0de2fx96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/75e\/75ec11e1916a2008bc4cc638a0a0de2fx96.jpg","caption":"Ben Witherington"},"description":"Bible scholar Ben Witherington is Amos Professor of New Testament for Doctoral Studies at Asbury Theological Seminary and on the doctoral faculty at St. Andrews University in Scotland. A graduate of UNC, Chapel Hill, he went on to receive the M.Div. degree from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary and a Ph.D. from the University of Durham in England. He is now considered one of the top evangelical scholars in the world, and is an elected member of the prestigious SNTS, a society dedicated to New Testament studies. Witherington has also taught at Ashland Theological Seminary, Vanderbilt University, Duke Divinity School and Gordon-Conwell. A popular lecturer, Witherington has presented seminars for churches, colleges and biblical meetings not only in the United States but also in England, Estonia, Russia, Europe, South Africa, Zimbabwe and Australia. He has also led tours to Italy, Greece, Turkey, Israel, Jordan, and Egypt. Witherington has written over thirty books, including The Jesus Quest and The Paul Quest, both of which were selected as top biblical studies works by Christianity Today. He also writes for many church and scholarly publications, and is a frequent contributor to the Beliefnet website. Along with many interviews on radio networks across the country, Witherington has been seen on the History Channel, NBC, ABC, CBS, CNN, The Discovery Channel, A&E, and the PAX Network.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/author\/bwitherington"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/199"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=250"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=250"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=250"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=250"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}