The Design and Layout of the Old Testament
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The Jews preserved the Hebrew Scriptures. Romans 3:1-2 tells us: “What advantage then has the Jew? Or what profit is there of circumcision? Much every way: chiefly, because that unto them were committed the oracles of God.”
The oracles of God consist of the Sacred Scriptures and the Sacred Calendar. To find the source of the true Scriptures, we must look to the Jews, whose leaders were commissioned to both preserve and protect them. How certain can we be that God is able to preserve His Word for us today—over 1,900 years after the final canonization of the New Testament? Christ answers this in Matthew 24:35: “Heaven and earth shall pass away, but My words shall not pass away.”
Notice another statement by Jesus that expands on this principle: “Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled” (Matt. 5:17-18).
The phrase, “the law or the prophets,” is a short term for the Hebrew Sacred Scriptures, as we will see shortly. Christ did not come to destroy the Scriptures, or nullify the Law of God, but to fulfill them—the prophecies of His human existence and sacrifice.
Notice the following verse, which indicates that Christ realized that the Jews possessed the proper Scriptures, prophesying a specific fulfillment: “But how then shall the scriptures be fulfilled, that thus it must be?…But all this was done, that the scriptures of the prophets might be fulfilled. Then all the disciples forsook Him, and fled” (Matt. 26:54, 56).
Acts 17:10-11 shows where the brethren looked in order to find the true Scriptures: “And the brethren immediately sent away Paul and Silas by night unto Berea: who coming there went into the synagogue of the Jews. These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so.”
Timothy, the son of a Jewish woman, had always been familiar with the true Scriptures: “And that from a child you have known the holy scriptures, which are able to make you wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness” (II Tim. 3:15-16).
Many other verses could be cited to reinforce this fact, but the point is clear. Every synagogue possessed exact replicas or copies of the texts found in the Temple. Even the term “holy scriptures” literally meant “Sacred Scriptures.” Sacred refers to the Holy Place of the Temple. The term “holy scriptures” is actually translated “Temple Scriptures” in the Englishman’s Bible. Again, all the sets of Scriptures in the synagogues were replicas of the texts found in the Temple.