Why is the Old Testament (and New Testament) not really a testament?
Legal Perspective Based on the Law of Obligations
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.46282/afi.2026.1.06Keywords:
New Testament, contract, obligation, Roman law, Jewish law, covenantAbstract
The title New (and Old) Testament is commonly used in the English-speaking world to denote the corpus of biblical books that form the key source for the teaching of one of the most widespread religions in the world, Christianity. However, the first part of the book, as the source for the second part, is central to another world religion, Judaism, which is the cornerstone for the emergence and subsequent development of Christian teaching. The issue of terminology for the designation of these books is not relevant for the source religion (Judaism), but is somewhat crucial for the understanding and interpretation of the Scripture in the Christian theology. Just as it is not right to divide the sacred and secular in ancient times concerning everyday life, it is not proper to set aside the law from the divine, since the right relationship with a deity was key to the prosperity of the nation and this relationship was based on mutual expectations and obligations. This aspect of the relationship with the divine in the sense of an obligation is what we want to explore in this article, thus answering also the terminological issues arising from the use of the word testament to designate the biblical corpus, along with other terms such as πίστις and ομολογώ.
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