Changes

The Old Testament is scripture, and the New Testament is a 'peshar' <ref>Peshar has a bad connotation in Christian circles because the rabbis use so much unverifiable invention and free-for-all allegory. But Jesus and the apostles did it in a verifiable and reproducible manner giving it an authority in truth not offered by other methods, and it is from them that we get our cues.</ref> or interpretation of scripture in light of the mystery hidden from the beginning being revealed in Christ and the cross. All New Testament teaching has a source in the Old <ref>This is important. The New Testament is not 'magic' new doctrine, but the fulfillment of the mystery</ref>. This does not denigrate the New Testament in any way, but elevates it at as the proper (Christian) <ref>This commentary does not address concerns of Jews nor Muslims</ref> interpretation of 'scripture' by those who would know: Jesus and his disciples. It is a shame that some scholars would dare to hint that Jesus and the apostles 'misappropriated' scripture since they violate Greek rules of interpretation imposed hundreds of years later. Our goal is to learn how they produced the pesher; to learn their rules of hermeneutics.

Did the Old Testament authors know they were writing a literal record with a mystery hidden inside? Probably not. They only had hints of the riddles, not the solutions. The Hebrew word for skins 'owr' עור sounds like the word for light 'owr' אור. Did Adam understand that light represented the Holiness of God, and that his garments were 'something like' God's holiness? Probably not, but he could marvel at the pun, without having a hint that Christ's holiness would cover him.

Scholars have used the term 'sensus plenior' to describe the phenomenon that the original authors did not know what they were writing in the mystery. But the term as used by them is limited to a few dozen scriptures which are not easy to wrest into a literal-historical interpretation. The mystery is the warp and woof of scripture.

Literary scholars are familiar with the device used when time ~~become~~ becomes a construct. Parts of a record may be missing, time can be compressed or extended. Though the Bible does use this, it also only records the aspects of literal history required to construct the mystery. Whole portions of the literal history are missing.

Words are metaphors for ideas. In the mystery, not only do the words have multiple meanings which produce the low level content, but the lives become like the words and sentences of the idea. Only those portions of their lives are used, which produce the mystery on multiple layers.

We are to God like fish in the river. We swim where we will, and he invisibly and quietly nudges us where he would have us go. The scriptures were produced as an analogy to this. We live our lives producing a literal-historical record, but he subtly 'inspires' the authors to produce a record , which is invisible to them.

Alter: Introduction to the Old Testament