Liverature.—Besides the works cited in the course of this
article, see Schirer, HJP 1. ii. Appendix ifi.; Dillmann,
NEW TESTAMENT
Exodus and Leviticus, p. 577t.; Pineles, Darcha shel Torah,
p. 251ff.; Epstein, Alterthuemer; Poznanski, JQR x. p. 152ff.
ae writer holds that the New Moon was also fixed empirically
yy some Rabbanites as late as the 10th cent.). A A gpa
account of the Jewish Calendar and the details as to the New
Moons will be found in J. Jacobs’ (annual) Jewish Year Book. 1. ABRAHAMS.
NEW TESTAMENT.—The name ‘testament’ is derived from the Latin testamentum, which was erroneously adopted in the Old Latin Version as the equivalent for the Gr. word διαθήκη employed in the LXX to represent the Heb. πη ‘ covenant.’ It is in this sense that διαθήκη is used in the NT to designate the old or the new Dispensation, and has come to be applied, in accordance with Heb. usage (Ex 247, 2 K 293,1 Mac 157, Sir 24%), to the literature in which the respective history and principles of the two Dispensations are autho- ritatively set forth. (Cf. Mt 26%, Lk 22”, 1 Co 11%, 2Co 3515, and Gn 174, Ex 248, Jer 315 et supra). In the OT Jerome usually took care to employ fadus or φαρένηι as the Latin equivalent for n>3; but in his revision of the NT tr® he unfortunately adhered to the old expression, the consequence being that the false meaning thus imported into the Latin passed into the EV, whose ‘testament’ is as misleading as testamentum, and has rightly been altered to ‘covenant’ in the RV, except in one doubtful passage, He 915 }7 (see Westcott, ad loc.).
i. RELATION OF THE NT TO THE OT AND TO THE APOCRYPHAL LITERATURE OF THE JEWS.—The NT forms the second and concluding portion of the sacred writings which embody the Divine revela- tion communicated in the line of Jewish history. Before any ἼΕν of the NT had been written, the Heb. canon had been virtually closed ; and the idea of a new collection of sacred writings which should be held in no less veneration than the old was slow to take possession of the Christian Church. Hence the OT aia to which the apostles constantly appealed for evidence that Jesus was the Messiah, continued to be for many years the only authori- tative writings in the Church. But the way had been so far prepared for the association of Christian Scriptures with the OT by the recent inclusion in the LXX of certain apocryphal works which had no place in the Heb. canon. The language of the
was also that in which the new religion was to express itself; and the character of the Gr. tongue, so rich and flexible and many-sided, even in its degenerate Hellenistic form, and so world- wide in its use, was itself a token of the freedom from Judaic bonds which Christian thought was to work out for itself, and gave promise of a literature which should be more or less in touch with the intellectual life of the whole civilized world. With the exception of Luke, who seems to have been a Greek (an inference from Col 41-4, which is borne out by the tone and style of his Gospel and the Bk. of Acts), the writers of the NT were of Jewish extraction, and they were all filled with the deepest reverence for the OT. They quote from it nearly 300 times, their quotations being drawn from almost all parts of it; while the instances in which its influence can be traced without any direct quotations from it are still more numerous. The whole NT from first to last reflects the characteristics of the OT in thought as well as in expression; and in the Epistles and Acts and Apocalypse as well as in the Gospels we find constant illustration of Christ’s words, ‘Think not that I came to destroy the law or the prophets: I came not to destroy, but to fulfil.’ The NT fullils the OT, not by supplementing it but by i cate izing it, transforming rules into principles, and resolving the outward, temporary, and national into that which is inward, permanent,and universal. In other words, it brings to light and sets free of
NEW TESTAMENT 523
limitations the essential principles lying at the root of the OT, on which the latter depends for its spiritual life and meaning,—according to the well-known words of Augustine, ‘Novum Testa- mentum in Vetere latet; Vetus Testamentum in Novo patet.’ Even in their bodily structure a close analogy has been traced between them, the first portion of each being mainly characterized by the personal manifestation of God, the next by the revelation of His will through the acts and words of His chosen servants, the third and last by pro- phetic visions of the future.
Yet, notwithstanding this intimate relationship between the two, there is at the same time a strong and essential contrast between them—a contrast as great in their character and contents as in the process of their growth. To some extent the difference in their character may be accounted for by the new conditions of existence to which the Jewish nation was subjected under the Roman Empire, of which we have many tokens in our Lord’s parables as well as in other parts of the NT. In some degree, also, it may be traced to the new elements of thought contained in the late: Jewish writings already referred to. While the