Interview with John Goldingay on New Book, Do We Need the New Testament?

In 2012 I was in the Dominican Republic helping to rebuild a church when I got into a discussion about whether we really needed the Old Testament. I tried to defend the OT by arguing that the NT by itself would be like a childrens’ coloring book, with all the shapes drawn but with no color to fill in the pictures to get all the fullness of the biblical picture of God and his purposes. I also pointed out that many heresies likely would arise without the OT to guide us in our understanding of God.

Well, John Goldingay has done away with a defensive strategy and he’s gone on the offense. He flips the common question of whether we need the OT on its head and asks: Do we really need the New Testament? The title is effectively provocative, so much so that it elicited a typically humorous snark from Michael Bird on Facebook, “I think Goldingay is a naughty man” (quite sure he was only joking about the title).

John Goldingary, Do We Need the New Testament?: Letting the Old Testament Speak for Itself (IVP Academic, 2015).

 (Paperback)       (Kindle)

Goldingay filmed an interview after he had read a paper about this topic and was forming the outline for his book. In this interview, posted below, he gives an idea about his major arguments in the book.

1. Ethics: Jesus only develops what is inherent in the OT law; we do not gain new ethics in the NT.
2. Afterlife: The OT does not have a concept of heaven or hell, but only of Hades, a dark, boring place. The NT develops the idea of the afterlife, so that is a new element, but not so essential that the OT saints were lost without it.
3. Mission: The nature of mission in the OT is attractive, while the nature of mission in the NT is centrifugal.
4. Is the NT important? Yes because it tells us about Jesus. It’s not doctrine or ethics that we need from the NT, but it’s what God did in Jesus that we learn about in the NT. If you lived in the OT, you knew about God and his purpose for the world, but if you live in the NT age you know the fullness of all of God’s love and purposes for mankind, and you know how far God was willing to go to display his love and purposes in Christ.

Watch the full video here (it shows 30 minutes, but the interview is only 20). If you like what you see, buy it here on Amazon.