Tuesday, October 04, 2011

Alternative Culture: Gutters-- the New Testament, a new reboot?



Recently, the webcomic Gutters portrayed the New Testament as a reboot of the Old Testament, parodying the 2011 DC comics reboot.

Wait... what is a reboot?
In the comic industry, a reboot is to discard all or much of previous continuity of the series to accomodate new ideas. An example of this in the film industry is the 2005 movie Batman Begins, which discards canon in the previous canon.

So is this portrayal of the New Testament accurate? Does it discard the canon of the Old Testament?

What did Jesus say?
When we look at Christainity, we first have to look at Christ, and in this case on how he treated the Old Testament. Jesus treated the Old Testament as something he came to fulfil (Matthew 5:17-21). Jesus also had a high regard for Scripture (John 10:35), and referred to events that happened in the Old Testament (eg: Mark 12:26).

What did his followers say?
The followers of Jesus also made frequent reference. It would make little sense if the disciples intended to discard the Old Testament and yet frequently referred to it (eg: Romans 2:24; 1 Peter 1:16).

So did Jesus disregard anything from the Old Testament?
If he made anything new, Jesus gave a new convenant- one of his blood (Luke 22:20-23). The writer of Hebrews makes this even clearer, especially in Hebrews 8 (and at the same time, alluding to events in the Old Testament.

Wait, but reboots do make references to the past too, right?
That is true. For instance, the Iron Man comic book series received a reboot, which updated his origin from Vietnam to Afghanistan. However, that reboot did not dicard any of his previous stories. However, the New Testament cannot be loosely compared like that as the Old Testament does alludes to events in the New Testament (specifically the life of Jesus), while older story lines in the Iron Man stories do not intentionally allude to the future retcons.

Allusions to the New Testament went as far back as Genesis (eg: Genesis 3:14-15) and found in many of the prophets (eg: Isaiah 53, Isaiah 9:1-2, Micah 5:2). In fact Micah 5:2 was the verse that the wisemen quoted in finding Jesus (which frightened Herod) (Matthew 2: 1-12).

Conclusion
Hence, we see that the New Testament is not a reboot (in the literature sense) because
a) Frequent reference to Old Testament from the New Testament (including Jesus)
b) Future allusions from the Old Testament to the New Testament.

If the New Testament brings anything new, it is the fact that God came down in Jesus, so that we can look at Him for our righteousness and forgiveness.

For further reading

Alpha-- do prophecies about Jesus Matter?
Bethinking-- how did Jesus view the Old Testament?


PS: Gutters is a great parody site for comic book fans!