PC or Common Sense?

We all have experienced PC (politically correct) language. For example, people who we once described as handicapped or disabled become differently-abled because it doesn't sound so negative. Sometimes it is just silly (see my post about the Blind Curve), but not all examples of what some people call PC speech are necessarily so.

I have come into the habit of referring to the Old Testament as the Hebrew Bible. This happened because of my dissertation work on an OT topic and through my involvement with the regional arm of the Society of Biblical Literature. It has become the preferred scholarly term within many in that guild.

This definitely makes sense in the SBL. This is not a Christian organization; it is a scholarly one. It includes scholars and teachers who are dedicated churchmen, lapsed Christians, Jews, and hard-to-pin-down-religiously. You may be surprised to know that not everyone who studies and teaches the Bible for a living is a strong Christian. Just check out the religion faculty at your local community college sometime.

For an organization like this, though they recognize that the Bible is claimed as sacred Scripture by Christianity, the purpose of SBL is not to promote it as such. Therefore, the Bible does not properly belong to the Church, since it is also claimed by Jews and less-than-orthodox Christians. The purpose of SBL is to study the Bible academically, and let religious groups do as they wish with the findings.

Old Testament is not properly a scholarly term (neither is New Testament, but SBl and others use that term without problem), rather it is a church term. It describes that part of the Bible which the Jews considered sacred at the time of Jesus and which the church considers to be also part of its scriptures since the New Testament continues the plan of God begun in the OT.

To Jews, however, Old Testament implies two things: (1) that their Bible is outmoded when compared with the NT and (2) that it somehow belongs to the Christian church. Using the term Hebrew Bible, however, solves all difficulties and allows all scholars to speak together. Hebrew Bible (note--not Jewish Bible) refers to those parts of what is considered to be the Bible that were originally written in Hebrew (with a smattering of the related Aramaic).

In fact, there is a question as to how well the terms Old Testament and New Testament reflect good Christian theology. Did God have one plan that was replaced? If so, is there any benefit to reading the first plan at all? Or is it all just one plan?

There is no way that the modern church is going to adopt Hebrew Bible and Greek Scriptures or something similar for OT and NT. The familiar terms are just too familiar. But if you hear me or anyone else refer to the Hebrew Bible, don't accuse us of being PC; we are just using a term that is better for the circles in which we sometimes travel.