XtianChris Posted May 6, 2007 Share Posted May 6, 2007 I've read and heard at least a dozen times arguments that Jesus established a new covenant so that we wouldn't have to live under the law. The more I think about it, I realize that at least 90% of sermons that I've sat through were taught on the New Testament. This all kind of makes sense. After all, it's been proven time and time again that the Old Testament was written by barbaric people and that it's message is not accepted well at all among adults. The New Testament is much less barbaric and even has some good moral teachings in it. Any adult that is looking for the right way to live will naturally accept much of its teachings. On the other hand, I think about what I was taught in Sunday School as a kid. Probably about 90% of that was from the Old Testament. That's where I learned about creation, the flood, the ark, the other ark, Jericho, Esther, the lion's den, the fiery furnace, David and Goliath, and all that other bunk. It's quite interesting to me that the Old Testament is somehow considered better material for kids to read. I look at VeggieTales and other kids' programs and I realize that most of those stories come from the Old Testament too. I have two hypotheses about this: 1) The Old Testament is taught to children to soften the message so that when they read it as adults it doesn't seem so bad. 2) The Old Testament is much more believable to kids than to adults, so churches are afraid to present it to adults. Anyone else care to weigh in? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grandpa Harley Posted May 6, 2007 Share Posted May 6, 2007 The managed to sell virtually none of it to me as a child. Made life interesting. Thing is, the NT is DULL for kids... OT there's floods, towers demolished, cities destroyed, running battles... it's like the lord of the rings, just badly written. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mwc Posted May 6, 2007 Share Posted May 6, 2007 First of all...welcome aboard. 1) The Old Testament is taught to children to soften the message so that when they read it as adults it doesn't seem so bad.2) The Old Testament is much more believable to kids than to adults, so churches are afraid to present it to adults. Anyone else care to weigh in? I have to agree with GH on this. The NT is piss poor in the excitement department. They do teach "neutered" versions of the stories so that the many of the outright slaughters are removed from the stories and they then interject the "foreshadowing" aspect that doesn't really exist. But the "epic" aspect of those stories overshadow by far some guy walking around a big lake randomly healing people then sailing to the other side to talk a lot and heal someone else to do it all over again. Blah blah blah. Yawn. If they ever taught kids the full, unedited, versions of most of the stories that are in any part of the bible I think a lot of parents would scream bloody murder at the people that did it. It would be like telling kids the real Grimms fairy tales today instead of the Disney versions. People think they know them...but they don't. mwc Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grandpa Harley Posted May 6, 2007 Share Posted May 6, 2007 Can you imagine the mass spontaneous miscarriages visted by God on one tribe... "and they were ankle deep in boold and foetal matter in some settlements..." But kids love that stuff... the more blood the better... you could use the opening of the Ark scene for the Angel of Death visiting Egypt... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mongo Posted May 6, 2007 Share Posted May 6, 2007 Great friggin' question CGCJ. Welcome abord. I think there are definite differences between churches so I assume that you come from a fundamentalist background. Interesting to me is that the kids stories are really 'grim' tales that are largely cleaned up. When I heard about the ark, I never considered that millions of humans died along with the animals. But I was brought up Catholic so they gloss over that stuff with kids. Kids have a nasty habit of not challenging the 'dodge' that SS teachers give kids. Those that do get marked as behaviour problems. Most of the NT stories are about Jesus or others doing good things and the miracles are basic healings and such. I agree they are quite lame. This is really higher level theology that most kids can't possibly grasp at a young age. I believe this poses a problem for the 'liberal' denomination that don't want to teach about 'angry god'. Mongo Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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