Some Thoughts on the Bible
What Christians call the Old Testament (OT) may be considered the seed of the New Testament (NT), the flower; they seem to differ widely, but yet there remains an essential link between them.
Jesus retained and referred to the OT, but he also reformed it. He brought out the inner meaning of its rules and regulations, he took its theories, and made them practical, just as he fulfilled the vision and dreams of its prophets.
The Master’s teachings can be fully understood and appreciated only by studying their relation to the OT (Matt 5:17).
The OT was Jesus’ textbook!
He quotes from it, he refers to it, he explains its meaning with a masterly ease.
The Talmud records a saying to the effect that “the world is saved by the breath of the school children,” adding that “even for the rebuilding of the Temple, schools must not be interrupted,” (“The Ancient Documents and the Modern Bible”).
Josephus, the famous Jewish historian writes, “ Our principle care of all is this; to educate our children well.”
Luke says that in Jesus’ day considerable attention was paid to education, for he refers to a group of teachers of the Law “which were come out of every town of Galilee and Judea, and Jerusalem.”(“EDUCATION “ James Hastings, A Dictionary of the Bible)
Jesus must have attended regularly a school in Nazareth, Beth-has-Sepher, meaning literally “The House of the Book,” the book in question being of course the OT.
The Talmud says of the book, “ Turn it, and turn it again, and meditate therein, for all things are in it.”
Every Jewish boy was expected to attend the Bible school up to the age of 12, and then he became a “ Ben hat-Torah,” literally, “Son of the Law” or to use the alternative Aramaic term, a “Bar Mitswah”—“ Son of the Commandment.”
