Covenant and Scripture in Second Temple Judaism

What is it about?

Chapter 3 of Levi S. Baker, Why a New Testament? Covenant as an Impetus for New Scripture in Early Christianity, Texts and Editions for New Testament Study 19 (Leiden: Brill, 2025). Chapter 3 explores early Christianity’s conceptual environment by examining several second temple (2T) texts. This chapter displays the pervasive connection between covenant and scripture in 2T Judaism, in relation to both the reception of Israel’s Scriptures and new scriptural claims. This evidence suggests that early Christians, who inhabited the world of 2T Judaism and believed that Jesus had inaugurated a new covenant, would likely have anticipate new scriptures for the new covenant.

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Photo by Tim Wildsmith on Unsplash

Photo by Tim Wildsmith on Unsplash

Why is it important?

Chapter 3 explores the conceptual environment of early Christianity, namely 2T Judaism. This chapter examines representative texts among the OT Apocrypha (1 Maccabees, Sirach, 2 Maccabees), OT Pseudepigrapha (2 Baruch, 4 Ezra), Rewritten Scripture (Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum, Jubilees, Temple Scroll, Testament of Moses), Philo, and Josephus for evidence of the connection between covenant and scripture and ranks this evidence from “strongest” to “suggestive.” The results are remarkable. Space limitations prohibit listing the evidence from each text; however, four important observations warrant mention. First, the body of evidence far exceeds the typically acknowledged titular use of “the book of the covenant” for (at least) the Torah in 1 Maccabees and Sirach. Second, the connection between covenant and scripture in 2T Judaism is pervasive, being manifested in how Jews received the HB and expressed an openness/claim to new scripture. Third, the findings resist any restriction to a particular genre or “stream” of Judaism. Some of the strongest evidence appears amongst likely representatives of “mainstream” Judaism, including 1 Maccabees, Sirach, 2 Baruch, and 4 Ezra. Fourth, since one’s conception of what constitutes scripture is conditioned by one’s received scriptures, new scriptural claims are often made by modeling or evoking the latter. Consequently, among the texts examined, the vital connection between covenant and scripture manifests repeatedly by how elements of the Sinai event and the Deuteronomy renewal are frequently recalled or modeled, including the New Moses/ New Sinai/ New Torah motif and the association of revealed scriptural texts with a covenant renewal, covenant mediatorship, or a covenantal function as “witness.” Perhaps the most impressive evidence comes from 4 Ezra, where Ezra emulates a New Moses in a re-enactment of Sinai and reproduces the previously lost “written covenants.” On this new Sinai, Ezra and his scribes write out the twenty-four books of the HB and seventy additional writings, likely including 4 Ezra. Given the evidence surveyed in chapter 3, early Christians, who inhabited the world of 2T Judaism and believed that Jesus had inaugurated a new covenant, would likely anticipate new scriptures for that covenant.