Yes

by John Noppen

Created on: July 16, 2009

For Christians, the written word is a critical component of faith. Everything Christianity teaches has a reference point somewhere in Scripture. The foundation of Christian morality appears in the book of Exodus in the form of ten essential commands; in the book of Isaiah, we find an eerily accurate portrayal of Christ's passion (although that may not have been the document's original intent); the four gospels contain everything a Christian needs to know about the messianic mission of Jesus Christ; the letters written by St. Paul flesh out the unique Christian doctrine of substitutionary atonement; etc.

It's very difficult to talk about Christianity for any substantial length of time without mentioning Scripture at some point or another. One half of the Catholic mass is taken directly from the Bible; Protestant clerics base their sermons on Bible passages; catechisms validate doctrine by comparing it against specific Bible chapters and verses. Faith and word are so closely intertwined, in fact, that many Christians routinely confuse the "word of God" (Bible) with the eternal Word (Jesus Christ), and discuss the two of them as if they were the same thing.

Having said all this, it's important to keep in mind that before there was Christianity, there was Tanakh, i.e., the Old Testament. After the Crucifixion and Resurrection, Christians appropriated these venerable scriptures, finding in them precursors to, and prophecies of, the Christian messiah . . . precursors and prophecies no Old Testament writer had in mind when he wrote them, and no Old Testament reader recognized when he, or she, read them. So, while the Old Testament may have preceded the Christian faith, it did so as the word of Judaism, not of Christianity.

Not so, however, with the New Testament. St. Paul wrote letters to already-established churches in Asia Minor, churches that were already preaching "Christ, and him crucified". The four gospels were written even later. The birth of Christianity did not, in other words, require a New Testament midwife. Faith preceded word.

Or did it?

In order to substantiate this new faith called Christianity, believers turned to the Old Testament writings and, as already mentioned, "Christianized" them: just as Moses led Israel out of Egyptian bondage, so did Jesus Christ deliver us from the bondage of sin; the suffering servant of Isaiah 53 became the crucified Christ; the prophecies written in the book of Zechariah were applied to the Second Coming of Jesus at the end of time; St. Paul labeled all believers as prophets, priests, and kings . . . New Testament Jeremiahs, Aarons, and Davids, if you will. The new Christian faith relied heavily on the old Judaic laws, narratives, and prophecies.

So, was it necessary to have a New Testament before a Christianity? Obviously, no. But what about the Old Testament? Could Christianity ever have been born without the Tanakh? Probably, yes. The Old Testament didn't invent Christian faith; it simply gave it some measure of validity.

But what if there had never been an Old Testament? And what if Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John had never written their gospels, or St. Paul his letters? Would we still have the same Christian faith we presently have? Would the Christian proclamation be the same message we proclaim today? There you have me. I don't know. I do know that oral tradition is an easy, and inevitable, victim of faulty memory, elaboration, reduction, inaccurate translation, and competency in the telling of it. If there were no written record of the faith, there's a reasonable chance we might today be preaching a "modified" gospel of Jesus Christ . . . not necessarily a wrong gospel, mind you, but probably a gospel differently colored, differently spoken.

Of course, a written record such as we presently have does not guarantee doctrinal unanimity. If a written record and exposition of Christian faith could indeed ensure dogmatic agreement, there would never have been a Protestant Reformation, and Protestants would not be divided by denominations.

Faith precedes word. The Christian proclamation does not need a Testament, old or new, in order to save souls. But those Testaments do make the proclamation easier to voice, and I'm glad we have them.

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