Resumo

SNYMAN, SD (Fanie). The Old Testament as a book of relationships: A reflection on the value of the Old Testament. Tydskr. geesteswet. [online]. 2021, vol.61, n.3, pp.655-669. ISSN 2224-7912.  http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2224-7912/2021/v61n3a2.

On 29 November 2020, a new translation of the Bible in Afrikaans was launched. What makes this translation special in a certain way is the fact that two editions of this Bible were released - something that had never been done in the past. In the one edition, institutions and/or characters that are regarded by some theologians as direct prophecies or predictions of Jesus Christ as the Messiah are printed without using higher case letters. In the other edition, higher case letters are used to indicate that certain institutions and/or characters are indeed direct references to Jesus Christ in the New Testament. This extraordinary step by the Bible Society of South Africa to publish two editions of the Bible once again raised the thorny issue of the controversial place the Old Testament occupies in the canon of scriptures of the church. The main problem addressed is the value the Old Testament has for the church. To put the issue in a nutshell: Why does the church need an Old Testament if there is a New Testament? A brief overview of the reception of the Old Testament as part of the canon of scriptures in the church is given. At first, the Old Testament was simply accepted as the Bible in the early church, since the early Christians (being Jews) accepted the Jewish scriptures as authoritative. This can be seen by the many references to what is known today as the Old Testament in the New Testament by all authors of the New Testament writings. In a second movement, there were attempts to eliminate the Old Testament from the Christian church's canon of scriptures. Attention is briefly paid to Marcion, Von Harnack and Bultmann in this regard. In a third movement, the Old Testament was retained as part of the Bible of the church. However, the uneasiness regarding the Old Testament within the church remained, resulting in different hermeneutic formulae to capture the proper relationship between the Old and New Testament. It is argued that the current binary opposition of terms such as law: gospel; promise: fulfilment; continuity: discontinuity to describe the relationship between the Old and New Testament can no longer be upheld. How well intended all of these attempts may have been, it resulted in downgrading the Old Testament as a kind of second-class canon to the "superior" New Testament. An alternative view is suggested where the Old Testament has to be read through the lens of a relational God who enters into a relationship with human beings and, vice versa, human beings who enter into a relationship with God and other human beings. The value the Old Testament has for the church and the believing community is endlessly more than to view it as a collection of predictions concerning the coming Messiah. The result of this proposed fresh approach will allow a new understanding of the Old Testament to be heard on its own terms to the enrichment of the church and believers.

Palavras-chave : hermeneutics; relationship between Old and New Testament; canon; Afrikaans translation; law; gospel; promise; fulfilment; continuity; discontinuity; prophecy; prediction; relational.

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