What is the difference between the Old and New Testament in the Bible?

As a Christian, let me ask you this question; Do you remember what you were told the difference between the Old and the New Testament was? Now, if I asked you to show me that in scripture would you be able to do so? The reason I ask is because for the majority of my young life I did not truly understand the significance of this split. I was told that the Old Testament was God’s original covenant with his people, and that the New Testament represented the new covenant brought to us by Jesus. Simple enough right? Well, so I thought, but as always there was more to it. In their defense I was a child when it was explained, so I don’t believe I would have been able to grasp a whole lot more than that anyway.

So the reason this question even came up in the first place was because during Sunday school, I always had questions about what I was reading that either no one wanted to answer, or didn’t know how to answer. As you can probably already tell I was an inquisitive child. I was the kind of kid that wanted to know why “water”, was the only thing that fell from the sky. Sometimes these questions were valid, other times not so much. However, “all the time”, it annoyed people and frustrated them if I kept asking. So, in time I learned to keep these thoughts to myself.

In any case, like others who’ve read the bible, I started with Genesis and by the time I’d gotten passed Moses, I had so many questions. So, I asked around, and in my church it was a typical thing to say, “Those were the old ways before the coming of Christ. Thankfully, we are now part of a new covenant under the teachings of Jesus”. They would then add to it by saying something like this; “Aren’t we glad that he died for our sins? Look at how wicked things could be in the world back then. Now let’s turn to (any scripture in the NEW Testament of course), so we can discuss it and join each other in prayer afterwards.”

So do you see what just happened there? None of my questions were truly answered. Instead, the issues were sidestepped and averted by pointing me to the Gospel, participating in prayer, and focusing my attention on that. This didn’t help me. I don’t know if there is an already an established term for this, but I like to refer to it as “Christian Redirecting”.

As the years went by, I would go from church to church and speak with one Christian to another. Trying to see if they had similar questions as I did or maybe even some answers. Unfortunately, no. More than often, they would “redirect” me in the same manner that everyone else had done before. To be honest, if there was ever a time in my life where I felt that Christians were brainwashed…this was it.

In time I began to resent this way of thinking. I slowed down from going to Church, I stopped discussing religion with people, and I no longer read from my bible the way I used to. I mean what was the point? I couldn’t get an answer for what I was reading anyway. At least not a satisfactory one. It would be years before the internet would become accessible to me and allow me to surpass boundaries in learning and networking than I ever had before.

One profound thing I discovered as I educated myself about my faith. Was that the Old Testament wasn’t simply the Old Testament…it was Judaism. I know, it may sound crazy to some, but for my entire childhood, and the younger part of my adult life, I never knew that. Also, to be honest, I don’t think anyone in my family knew that either. All this time I had been trying to understand an entirely different faith! I mean sure the characters and stories were the same, but the belief structure, rituals and practices were where the differences lay.

Now I looked at the Bible with new eyes. This explained why no matter where I went in Christianity, I kept getting “redirected” to the New Testament. This is because the New Testament “IS” Christianity! “Well why dosen’t anybody just say that!” I said to myself upon realizing the time I had wasted trying to understand the differences between the two. Now I felt ridiculous for asking questions of my Pastor, that I should have been asking a Rabbi.

So after picking the Bible back up and reading it with this in mind, the pieces fit together a lot better….or at least I thought. But now I had a new set of questions. Such as…

1. It seems that God himself never told those in the Old Testament (Judaism) that they would be going to heaven for their actions in life. I don’t believe that Adam, Noah, Abraham, Jacob, Joseph, Job, Moses, David, Solomon or anyone in between were told this. Instead their blessings were given to them “in life and through their future descendants.” So does the whole Judgement process and concept of going to Heaven or Hell come from the New Testament as a (Christian) Belief?

2. The Old Testament (Judaism) never told us that the serpent in the Garden of Eden was Satan, the New Testament (Christianity) loosely does. Can we really explain what happened in “Genesis”, with another text written of hundreds of years later in a separate book called “Revelations?”

3. The Old Testament (Judaism) does not believe in the Trinity, The New Testament (Christianity) does. The Old Testament clearly tells us that there is only one God, not one God split into three parts. To put anyone or anything else above or equal to God is to commit sin by breaking both the first & second commandments. So, as a Christian when we kneel, wear crucifixes, and pray “in the name of Jesus”, which scriptures are we using to justify that we aren’t breaking Old Testament Law?

These are just a few of the questions I have, but there are definitely more. As always, I am curious to know if anyone else has contemplated the same things. If so, what do you believe? It’s also worth pointing out that it seemed that those of us who did not carry the genes of the Hebrews and Israelites were not shown very much favor in the in the Old Testament (Judaism) to begin with. In many ways it appeared that we should be thankful for Jesus and the New Testament (Christianity), otherwise we would have been left out as gentiles, getting circumcised and practicing the faith hoping that we could fit into heaven with the rest of God’s chosen people correct?

In any case, this concludes my thoughts on the topic. Let me know your views and experiences. I’m looking forward to hearing it.

-J.G. Robinson