(Note – This Grew Out Of A New Year’s Greeting Email By Jacob)
A happy and healthy New Year to everyone, in Yeshua’s wonderful name!
A quick but important note about the word ‘new’ in the Greek text of the RCS.
Followers of course are used to hearing the term “New Testament”. Oftentimes what is taught is the idea that there’s a “brand new covenant” that Yeshua makes at the Last Passover Seder.
First though, we need to point out that of course Yeshua is not at all thinking about or expressing a “testament”. Evangelical scholars point out that the King James translators were better versed in Latin than KG (Koine Greek).
“Testament” is from the Latin testamentum. Yeshua no more thinks or expresses this than William Shakespeare thought or expressed himself in Hebrew!
It is of course Covenant that Yeshua speaks of.
Now an extremely key question about the word “new”. Hebrew uses the same word for new and renewed. KG has two words for new. Lexicons define neos as “new in time”, i.e., in effect “brand-new”.
Again, based on Traditional teaching, it is thought that Yeshua makes a “brand new” Covenant. This is also influenced by Western culture which constantly bombards us with needing all kinds of brand-new things; cars, gadgets, clothes, etc., even spirituality.
You’ll now see why we teach only from the original languages, and why it’s the best way to learn!
In Lk. 22:19-20, very significantly Luke’s Greek rendering of a Hebrew or Aramaic original regarding “new”, is not a form of “neos“, but rather a form of the word “kainos“.
“Kainos” is defined in lexicons as “renewed, new in quality”. An easy way to understand this is to think of the new moon we get every month. Do we get a brand-new moon? No, we get in effect a renewed moon.
Luke writes under Ruach Hakodesh (original Hebrew term for the Holy Spirit) inspiration. Since he is not at the Last Passover Seder, the source he draws from is Jewish for the events that happened.
If one of the Jewish Brothers at that seminal event thought that Yeshua was making a “brand-new covenant”, then Luke would have used a form of “neos“; Luke doesn’t!
The good doctor uses a form of “kainos“, in which it is the specific subject named. Thus, Luke clearly understands and communicates to his original audience, that his Jewish source understood Yeshua to be making a “renewed, new in quality Covenant”; NOT a “new in time/brand-new covenant (Greek “diatheke“).
Two other quick but extremely significant points on this:
As even some evangelical commentators point out, there are no Gentiles at the Last Seder. Yeshua does not violate the Torah, by inviting or having Gentiles at it. Cf. Ex. 12.
Some astute evangelical commentators also correctly point out that since there are only the Jewish Brothers at the Last Seder, the Covenant is made with them. One evangelical commentator astutely and correctly points out, that there is no Covenant with the “Church”, anywhere nor, with the Gentiles.
A couple of other key points:
Yeshua never uses the term “OT” – period.
Yeshua never makes the “OT/NT” dichotomy that his followers very very much have emphasized to them by Western Tradition teaching.
If Yeshua himself thinks and teaches the way Western Tradition does and emphasizes, wouldn’t we have expected him to have done so, at the Last Seder? Why doesn’t he….
Two quick but key uses of kainos by Paul:
2 Cor. 5:17 and the new creation. An evangelical commentator put it very well when he said that rather than talking about a new man, Paul speaks of the old one properly reconstituted.
Eph. 2:14-17 – many are familiar with “the one new man”. In short for here, very significantly in Greek Paul does not use “the”. He is probably speaking of something qualitative, a description of the quality of something.
Another thing is this is not Paul’s emphasis. I would posit this on the basis of two things. One is that Paul’s sentence structure doesn’t emphasize it.
Paul does not talk about a brand-new man but rather a man renewed new in quality. This is very significant in the context of Paul talking about Jew-Gentile. Paul uses a form of kainos “renewed new in quality; not neos “new in time/brand new”.
Some years ago, a Christian sister said to me “There’s the one new man; that means we don’t have to listen to you Jews anymore”.
Again, significantly Paul does not talk of a brand-new man but rather one renewed, new in quality. That would be one without the “exthros” “enmity/ bitterness” that normally existed between Jew and Gentile cf. Eph. 2:14.
The real key and I believe Paul’s emphasis, which unfortunately is missed is this:
3 times Paul uses the KG word for “shalom” in Eph. 2:14-17. Shalom is thus his emphasis, rather than a new man. It is the shalom Yeshua makes that Paul actually emphasizes! In Eph. 2:17 Paul places the 3rd of his 3 different forms and uses of “eirene” in vss. 14-17 “peace” last, for emphasis.
This is what Paul more deeply emphasizes in that section of Ephesians; that Yeshua has taken the disparate elements of Jew Gentile and made shalom!
It should be noted let Paul uses “shalom” in all 13 of his Letters. By comparison Paul only uses “lalein glossai” ” speaking tongues” (there’s no “en” “in” in Greek) only in 1 Cor. (another term also not used by Yeshua). “Shalom” is found almost 100 times in the RCS.
Very quickly for here there is a particularly significant and well-known use of shalom by Yeshua; Yochanon 14:27.
Yeshua very Hebraically repeats shalom for emphasis. It is also given emphasis the way it’s used in the sentence.
The Beloved Taught Ones, after the Last Passover Seder (“Order”), did not hear “peace”, as typically translated. Shalom more deeply means in part, not just the absence of negatives, but deep positive piece, health, wholeness, restoration of relationship, and, to bring disparate elements together.
They also heard ‘you’ – plural – not ‘you’ singular, in the original.
The Western Tradition emphasis on ‘me’, rather than ‘we’, doesn’t exist in Yeshua’s 1st-Century Israel – nor in the KG text of the RCS nor the Hebrew Bible!
So, while we do have a new in time New Year, let us seek to have a renewed new in quality relationship with the Body and with each other. That we be encouraged to increase the shalom between ourselves and others!
All the very very best to you and yours in Yeshua’s wonderful name!
Jacob
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