By William Caven, D.D., LL. D., Late Principal of Knox College, Toronto, Canada.
Both Jews and Christians receive the Old Testament as containing a revelation from God, while the latter regard it as standing in close and vital relationship to the New Testament. Everything connected with the Old Testament has, of recent years, been subjected to the closest scrutiny - the authorship of its several books, the time when they were written, their style, their historical value, their religious and ethical teachings. Apart from the veneration with which we regard the Old Testament writings on their own account, the intimate connection which they have with the Christian Scriptures necessarily gives us the deepest interest in the conclusions which may be reached by Old Testament criticism. For us the New Testament Dispensation presupposes and grows out of the Mosaic, so the books of the New Testament touch those of the Old at every point: In vetere testamento novum latet, et in novo vetus patet. (In the Old Testament the New is concealed, and in the New the Old is revealed.)
We propose to take a summary view of the testimony of our Lord to the Old Testament, as it is recorded by the Evangelists. The New Testament writers themselves largely quote and refer to the Old Testament, and the views which they express regarding the old economy and its writings are in harmony with the statements of their Master; but, for various reasons, we here confine ourselves to what is related of the Lord Himself.
Let us refer, first, to what is contained or necessarily implied in the Lord’s testimony to the Old Testament Scriptures, and, secondly, to the critical value of His testimony.
I. THE LORD’S TESTIMONY TO THE OLD TESTAMENT
Our Lord’s authority - though this is rather the argumentum silentio - may be cited in favor of the Old Testament canon as accepted by the Jews in His day. He never charges them with adding to or taking from the Scriptures, or in any way tampering with the text. Had they been guilty of so great a sin it is hardly possible that among the charges brought against them, this matter should not even be alluded to. The Lord reproaches His countrymen with ignorance of the Scriptures, and with making the law void through their traditions, but He never hints that they have foisted any book into the canon, or rejected any which deserved a place in it.
Now, the Old Testament canon of the first century is the same as our own. The evidence for this is complete, and the fact is hardly questioned. The New Testament contains, indeed, no catalogue of the Old Testament books, but the testimony of Josephus, of Melito of Sardis, of Origen, of Jerome, of the Talmud, decisively shows that the Old Testament canon, once fixed, has remained unaltered. Whether the steady Jewish tradition that the canon was finally determined by Ezra and the Great Synagogue is altogether correct or not, it is certain that the Septuagint agrees with the Hebrew as to the canon, thus showing that the subject was not in dispute two centuries before Christ. Nor is the testimony of the Septuagint weakened by the fact that the common Old Testament Apocrypha are appended to the canonical books; for “of no one among the Apocryphal books is it so much as hinted, either by the author, or by any other Jewish writer, that it was worthy of a place among the sacred books” (Kitto’s Cyclo., art. “Canon”). The Lord, it is observed, never quotes any of the aprocryphal books, nor refers to them.
1. NO PART ASSAILED
If our Lord does not name the writers of the books of the Old Testament in detail, it may at least be said that no word of His calls in question the genuineness of any book, and that he distinctly assigns several parts of Scripture to the writers whose names they pass under. The Law is ascribed to Moses; David’s name is connected with the Psalms; the prophecies of Isaiah are attributed to Isaiah, and the prophecies of Daniel to Daniel. We shall afterward inquire whether these references are merely by way of accommodation, or whether more importance should be attached to them; in the meantime, we note that the Lord does not, in any instance, express dissent from the common opinion, and that, as to several parts of Scripture, He distinctly endorses it.
The references to Moses as legislator and writer are such as these: To the cleansed leper He says, “Go thy way, shew thyself to the priest, and offer the gift that Moses commanded” (Matt. 8:4). “He saith unto them, Moses because of the hardness of your hearts suffered you to put away your wives” (Matt. 19:8). “If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead” (Luke 16:31). “For Moses said, Honor thy father and thy mother; and, Whoso curseth father or mother, let him die the death” (Mark 7:10). “And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself” (Luke 24:27). “All things must be fulfilled which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning me” (Luke 24:44). “There is one that accuseth you, even Moses, in whom ye trust. For had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed Me: For he wrote of Me. But if ye believed not his writings, how shall ye believe My words?” (John 5:45-47). “Did not Moses give you the law, and yet none of you keepeth the law?” (John 7:19). “Moses therefore gave unto you circumcision. If a man on the Sabbath day receive circumcision, that the law of Moses should not be broken,” etc. (John 7:22, 23). The omitted parenthetical words - “not because it is of Moses, but of the fathers” - seem clearly to show, it may be remarked in passing, that the Lord is not unobservant of historical exactness.
The Psalms are quoted by our Lord more than once, but only once is a writer named. The 110th Psalm is ascribed to David; and the validity of the Lord’s argument depends on its being Davidic. The reference, therefore, so far as it goes, confirms the inscriptions of the Psalms in relation to authorship.
Isa. 6:9 is quoted thus: “In them is fulfilled the prophecy of Esaias, which saith, By hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand” (Matt. 13:14, 15). Again, chapter 29:13 of Isaiah’s prophecy is cited: “Well hath Esaias prophesied of you hypocrites. This people honoreth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me” (Mark 7:6). When, in the beginning of His ministry, the Lord came to Nazareth, there was delivered unto Him in the synagogue “the book of the prophet Esaias. And when he had opened the book, he found the place where it was written, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because He hath anointed me to preach the Gospel to the poor,” etc. (Luke 4:17, 18). The passage read by our Lord is from the 61st chapter of Isaiah, which belongs to the section of the book very often, at present, ascribed to the second, or pseudo, Isaiah; but we do not press this point, as it may be said that the Evangelist, rather than Christ, ascribes the words to Isaiah.
In His great prophecy respecting the downfall of the Jewish state the Lord refers to “the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet:” As in Dan. 9:27, we read that “For the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate,” and in chapter 12:11, that “the abomination that maketh desolate (shall) be set up.”