reynolds-the-quran-in-its-historical-context-2

396 Reuven FirestoneThe New Testament, on the other hand, emerged into history at a time when,reward and punishment in an afterlife had become well !mown and popular in the ··Eastern Mediterranean region, and it is infused with the notion. It also contains anotion of covenant with many parallels to that of the Hebrew Bible, and itsome of the same metaphors to demonstrate the authenticity of its own articulatilon.Wben Jesus eats his last meal with the disciples and discusses the symbolism .bread and wine; he instructs them, "Take this and eat; this is my body. Then he took·.a cup, and having offered thanks to God he gave it to them with the words:from it, all of you. For this is my blood, .the blood of the covenant, shed for many ·•for the forgiveness of sins" (Matthew 26:26-28). 9 And in Acts 13:47, Paul andBarnabas declare, "For so the Lord has commanded us, saying, 'I have set you tobe a light for the Gentiles, so that you may bring salvation to the ends of the earth." 'The New Testament parallels with the Hebrew Bible are many, but its notioncovenant is fundamentally different, and different in a variety of ways. For example,it is defined in terms of faith rather than law, and centers more on belief than onbehavior. 10 Those included in the covenant as articulated in the New Testamentbenefit from forgiveness of sin, which then results in the reward of salvation.'' Infact, the very name for Christian scripture is the. New Testament, a "testament" orwitness to a new covenant that will supersede the old: "And therefore he is themediator of a new covenant (or testament), under which, now that there has been adeath to bring deliverance from sins committed under the former covenant, those · ·whom God has called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance ... "(Hebrews 9:15). 12 Jesus is the guarantee of a better covenant (Heb. 7:22). "Byspeaking of a new covenant, he has pronounced the first one old; and anything thatis growing old and aging will shortly disappear" (Hebrews 8: 13).The new covenant applies to a new chosen people, those who have chosenChrist, who are redeemed by their acceptance of Jesus as savior. 13 The classiccriterion for defining membership in this new covenant is faith rather than kinship,and it would appear to open up the membership because all who have faith inChrist may be counted within it. According to this position, what Israel believedto be an eternal covenant, therefore, has in fact expired - according to standardreadings of the New Testament. Those who have rejected Christ have beenrejected from God's grace. The old Israel has been replaced by the "true Israel,"9 Cf. Mark 14:22-25; Luke 22:19-21.10 See, for example, Romans 4: l-5, 13-22; 2 Thessalonians 2:13-14; 2 Timothy 2:8-9; Titus I: l-4,Hebrews 9:1-22. A counter position also expects works to be necessary (James 2:18-24), butrepresents the exception that proves the rule.II Matthew 26:28; 2 Corinthians 3:6.12 The Greek term here (diathek€) can mean both covenant and will or testament, and the con•tinuation of the passage develops this extended meaning. In a personal examination of a dozenEnglish translations of this verse, both translations were common. Note again the importance ofblood in this covenant reference. See also 1 Corinthians 11:25; Romans 3:21-25.13 Ephesians 1:3-12; 1 Corinthians 1:26--31; 1 Thessalonians 1:1-5; 2 Thessalonians 2:13-14; 2Timothy 2:8-10.Is there a notion of''divine election" in the Qur'an? 397Jor "not all Israelites truly belong to Israel, and not all of Abraham's children are·his true descendants" (Romans 9:6-7). "For a person is not a Jew who is one·outwardly, nor is true circumcision something external and physical. Rather, aperson is a Jew who is one inwardly, and real circumcision is a matter of the heartit is spiritual and not literal" (Romans 2:28-29).This articulation is highly polemical. In fact, however, it only represents a somewhatmore strident articulation of a common trend found in the New Testament.The new dispensation represented by Jesus as Christ replaces the old dispensationof the Hebrew Bible. A new "chosen" replaces the old. Divine election has passedfrom the Jews to a "new" or, more accurately, "true" Israel, and the "true Israel" is: those who have faith in the saving power of Christ. 14 These are the new "chosen,"and although a minority position requires good works along with faith (e.g. James2: 18-24), the major thrust of the New Testament is that faith in Christ is the bottomlinecriterion for belonging to the tl.ew covenant with God.The New Testament representation seems to be far more inclusive than theHebrew Bible by expanding the pool of the elected beyond Israel. All nations maybe a part of this new "chosen" (Matthew 28: 18-20; Acts 10:34-36, 44-47).'5 Thisextended the pool of the chosen considerably. However, membership in the newelect community was restricted only to those who believed in the new dispensationthat it brings. No longer restricted to a community defined through kinship(though other boundaries such as circumcision and dietary restrictions were muchmore preventive of non-Israelites joining the community than kinship), the faithrequirement articulated in the New Testament limited the divinely elected to thosewho could believe in an 1 acceptable Christo logy. ·The New Testament clearly responds to and extends many of the paradigms!mown from the Hebrew Bible. The attempt of some early leaders of the Churchto remove the "Old Testament" from the canon of Christian scripture met withfailure because of its foundational role for the theology of fulfillment in the NewTestament. In fact, the Christian theologian Marcion (d. c. 160) was excommunicatedin part for this heretical position. 16 The New Testament seems to assume, asdoes the Hebrew Bible, that God can only be in a covenantal relationship with onereligious community. The articulation of that view in the Hebrew Bible reflects aworld in which only one religious community had come to the conclusion that asingle God is the creator ofthe world and the only force that powers the universe.Because in the context of the Hebrew Bible only one community realized thenotion of monotheism, it conveys the position that only that one community could14 M. Simon, Vents Israel, London: Littman Library, 1996, 65-97.15 This argument identifies Jewish identity as purely a matter of kinship. We noted above howIsraelite identity was articulated in terms of kinship as was the norm of the ancient Near East,but that it defined an increasingly religious character. As is well known, many Gentiles assimilatedinto the community oflsrael and thus became part of the "chosen people" as well (see, e.g., Gager,Origins of Anti-Semitism, esp. 39-88; J. Lieu, J. North and T. Rajak (eds), The Jews AmongPagans and Christians, London: Routledge, 1992; S. Cohen, The Beginnings of Jewishness,Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1999).16 "Marcion," New Catholic Encyclopedia, New York: McGraw-Hill, 1967, 9:193-94.il