Dr. Roni Kedmi
The holy book of the Jewish people is called the Tanach (which is an acronym for Torah [the Five Books of Moses], Nevi'im [Prophets] and Ketuvim [the Writings]). The Tanach tells, among other things, of several covenants that God made with Israel:
1) The covenant with Noah (Genesis 9:8-17) - God promises Noah that mankind will not be completely destroyed in the flood. This covenant is unilateral and has been fulfilled by God. "I will remember My covenant between Me and you and every living creature among all flesh, so that the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh." (Genesis 9:15)
2) The covenant with Abraham (Genesis 15:18-21) - Called the Covenant Between the Parts, in this covenant, the Land of Israel was promised to Abraham's descendents.
"On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, 'Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates: the Kenites, and the Kenizzites, and the Kadmonites, and the Hittites and the Perizzites and the Rephaim, and the Amorites, and the Canaanites and the Girgashites and the Jebusites." (Genesis 15:18-21) This covenant is unilateral and depends solely on God.
3) The covenant with Moses (Exodus 19-31, Deuteronomy 27-30) - God undertakes to give the people of Israel the status of a chosen people if they fulfill his commandments. This covenant is bilateral. If the people of Israel breach the terms of the covenant, God will punish them. "Keep, therefore, the words of this covenant, and do them, that you may prosper in all that you do." (Deuteronomy 29:8).
4) The covenant with Phinehas the priest and his descendents (Numbers 25:10-13) - God promises Phinehas and his descendents that they will serve Him as priests: "And he shall have it, and his seed after him, the covenant of an everlasting priesthood, because he was zealous for his God, and made an atonement for the children of Israel." (Numbers 25:13).
5) The covenant with David and his descendents (II Samuel 7:8-16) - God promises David that his descendents will rule the world. "I will raise up your offspring after you, one of your own issue, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for My name and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. I will be his father and he shall be my son. If he commit iniquity, I will chasten him with the rod of men and the affliction of mortals. But my mercy shall not depart away from him as I took it from Saul whom I put away before thee. And thine house and they kingdom shall be established forever before thee: they throne shall be established forever." (II Samuel, 7:12-16).
6) The new covenant (Jeremiah 31:31-34; Ezekiel 37:26) - God promises to make a new covenant with Israel, different from the covenant that He made with Moses, because that covenant was broken. "Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Judah. Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, a covenant which they broke, though I espoused them, saith the Lord. But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord, I will put my law into their inmost being and inscribe it upon their hearts; and I will be their God and they shall be my people. And they shall teach no more every man his neighbor and every man his brother, saying Know the Lord, for they shall all know me, from the least of them onto the greatest of them, saith the Lord: for I will forgive their iniquity and remember their sin no more." (Jeremiah 31:31-34).
In the second epistle to the Corinthians, 3:6, Paul declares himself to be a minister of the "new testament," and as to the words of Moses in the Old Testament, "But their minds were blinded: for until this day remaineth the same vail untaken away in the reading of the old testament." (II Corinthians 3:14). Hence, the canonical books that make up the Tanach are called the Old Testament: "In that he saith, A new covenant, he hath made the first old. Now that which decayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish away." (Hebrews 8:13).
The books of the Tanach compose the first part of the cannon of the Holy Scriptures of the Christians. The second part deals with the life of Jesus and his teachings, the deeds of the apostles and the End of Days. It is called the New Testament in accordance with the new covenant that was made with God following the crucifixion of Jesus: " But now he hath obtained a more excellent ministry, by how much also he is the mediator of a better covenant, which was established upon better promises" (Hebrews 8:6). "… that by means of death for the redemption of the transgressions that are under the first testament, they which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance." (Hebrews 9:15).
According to Christian doctrine, people and events that appear in the Tanach are interpreted as harbingers or as symbols of events in the New Testament that are connected to the life of Jesus. Thus, the Tanach is perceived as a prefiguration of the New Testament. Thus, for example, the binding of Isaac symbolizes the crucifixion of Jesus.
In accordance with this interpretive concept, subjects from the Tanach find expression in Christian art.