Joe Harclerode
OT606E
Professor Kelly
05 March 2019
Response Paper 1
The primary topic I'd like to discuss in this response paper is the concept of Parallelism,
and more specifically the concept of Parallelism between the Old and New Testaments.
Parallelism clearly exists throughout the poetry in the Old Testament, though some argue it is not
as prominent as others suggest it is. To suggest that it exists between the entire Old and New
Testaments is an interesting concept, and is I think it is actually a good way describing the
relationship between the two.
Very often, Christians read the Old Testament through a Christocentric lens, failing to
realize that the original content is also very important in its own right. That being said, I think it
is also an equally treacherous mistake, if not more so, to read the Old Testament without keeping
Christ in mind. In fact, we have been given special revelation and are supposed to read the Old
Testament in light of Christ. Luke writes that after Jesus was raised from the dead, "...beginning
with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures
concerning himself." (Luke, 24:27b) Jesus, Himself, said that the Old Testament was pointing to
Him. Because of this, there is constantly a fine line that we need when reading the Old
Testament, not ignoring the fact that Christ is in the scriptures, but also not looking for things
that aren't there or missing the purpose of the original passage.
Similar to the Parallelism that we find in the original Hebrew, and other
nationality, poetry, we can look at the relationship between the two testaments almost as sort of a
Synonymous Parallelism; the Old describes a story and the New is a further elaboration on that
story. It can also be seen as a form of Antithetical Parallelism as the New Testament is a story of
Christ doing what Israel could not do. I do not think that the New Testament authors
intentionally did this, but there is certainly a type of poetry connecting the two testaments which
was orchestrated by the Holy Spirit.