Biblical Hebrew Forum

["K Randolph" <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>]

Dear list members:

This is getting dangerously close to becoming a theological spat.

There are uses of "to make new" as in renovating the temple, so the
"renewed" idea is not totally excluded. But is this what is meant in
Jeremiah?

> From a theological viewpoint, I was taught that all of Scripture is
context for individual verses. The idea that the Mosaic law could be
replaced can be deduced from Torah (in the narrow sense of Pentateuch)
itself. Twice Deuteronomy makes the command that the law was neither
to be taken away from nor added to (Dt 4:2, 13:1). Yet in Deuteronomy
18:15 and following a new prophet is listed who will be like Moses.
What was Moses' main accomplishment, if not being the mediator through
whom the covenant with all its accompanying laws was imparted?
Therefore, if this new prophet is to be like Moses, he will be the
mediator of a new covenant from God. Seeing as the old covenant was
neither to be added to nor taken away from, therefore the new covenant
will not be merely a renewal of the old, rather a replacement of it.
What Jeremiah has done is to restrict that replacement to only the
covenant given at Sinai, other covenants that preceded it are still in
force (e.g. the covenant never to have a world wide flood again).

On 4/13/07, Steve Miller <smille10 AT sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> > From: Harold Holmyard
> >
> > Dear Yohanan,
> > > I think the issue here is that you are creating a difference between
> > > God's Torah and Mosaic Torah, as if they are not one, and the same.
> > > But the issue is that they are one, and the same to, and I do not
> > > think that there is any place in the Miq'ra that proves otherwise as
> > > far as text is concerned.
> > >
> > HH: The Mosaic covenant was certainly a conduit of God's law and the
> > expression of it which Israel was obliged to keep. That covenant was the
> > vehicle by which he chose to communicate his law to Israel. But God had
> > laws before there ever was a Mosaic covenant:
> >
> > Gen. 26:5 Because that Abraham obeyed my voice, and kept my charge, my
> > commandments, my statutes, and my laws.
>
> [Steve Miller] The basis for the New Covenant is Jer 31:34b "for I will
> forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more."
>
> A big part of the Mosaic law is the sacrifices for sin. In every sacrifice
> for sin, there is a remembering of sin....
>
> Another evidence is Psalm 110:4, where God designates the Messiah as Priest
> according to the order of Melchizedek, not according to the order of the
> Mosaic Aaronic priesthood. "For the priesthood being transferred, there is
> of necessity a transfer of law also." (NT Hebrews 7:12)
>
> ...
>
> -Steve Miller
> Detroit
> www.voiceInWilderness.info

Steve, what you have done is the same as I, using all of Scripture as
context to explain individual verses. Not everyone on this list agrees
with this principle. But it is sufficient to show that Jeremiah was
not operating in a vacuum, stating something "out of the blue" so to
speak, that the idea that a new covenant would replace, not just
renew, the old is an idea that is already implicit in writings that
preceded him and that he considered sacred.

Karl W. Randolph.