When Words Rewrite Theology: Rethinking “Old” and “New”
How Christian Vocabulary Reshaped the Story of God — and How Recovering Hebraic Language Restores It
There are times when the problem is not doctrine, interpretation, or even theology.
The problem is the vocabulary we inherited.
We grew up hearing phrases like Old Testament and New Testament as if they were biblical, as if Yeshua Himself handed us these labels. But if you trace the lineage of these terms, you discover something unsettling: these words did not come from the apostles, the prophets, or the Hebrew worldview that shaped Scripture. They came from centuries of gentile theological framing that slowly — almost imperceptibly — rewrote the story.
When words change, meaning changes with them. And once meaning changes, theology follows. This is the power of vocabulary: it can preserve Scripture’s world or replace it with a more convenient one.
This essay is not interested in convenience.
It’s interested in truth.
In continuity.
In repairing the fracture between the Tanakh and the New Covenant writings.
In confronting how language shaped Christian imagination far more than the text itself.
So let’s step into it quietly, honestly, and without the layers of defensiveness we usually carry. Let’s ask a harder question:
What if the Christian story hasn’t been misunderstood — it has been mistranslated?
The Subtle Violence of Vocabulary
Words preach before any sermon begins.
Call the Hebrew Scriptures the Old Testament, and you have already taught the audience that they are outdated — even before they read a single verse. The term “old” subtly implies inferiority, expiration, and replacement. It whispers that God tried something once, abandoned it, and pivoted.
No prophet taught this.
No apostle taught this.
No Hebrew writer imagined this.
The Tanakh is not “old.” It is everlasting — the covenant God bound to Israel with His own Name, His own character, His own irrevocable promises.
Labeling it “Old Testament” does not describe the Scriptures; it describes a theological conclusion masquerading as a title.
Likewise, “New Testament” is not a biblical label. It is a Latinized, gentile term imposed long after the apostles died. The Hebrew phrase Scripture gives us is Brit Chadashah — New Covenant — a renewal of the existing covenant with Israel and Judah. It is relational. Covenantal. Promise-based.
The term “New Testament,” however, sounds like a new set of books replacing an old set — a subtle editorial note that the second half supersedes the first.
Vocabulary is not innocent.
It is formative.
Especially when it is repeated for centuries.
Where These Terms Actually Came From (And Why It Matters)
Most believers assume the terminology is ancient. But let’s name it clearly:
“Old Testament” and “New Testament” are not Scriptural terms. They are Roman terms.
Jerome cemented them in the 4th century when he translated the Bible into Latin. The Roman church institutionalized them. The Reformers inherited them uncritically. English translators carried them forward with enormous authority.
By the time the King James translators used the labels, the theological damage was already complete:
The Tanakh had been reduced to a prelude.
The New Covenant writings had been framed as a replacement.
Jewish continuity was severed.
Torah was downgraded from instruction to legalism.
The church saw itself as the new Israel.
And “supersessionism” became the default Christian posture — sometimes explicit, sometimes unconscious.
Not because Scripture taught these things, but because vocabulary did.
The tragedy is that believers often defend these terms as harmless tradition. But tradition only feels harmless when we’re standing on the side that benefited from it.
Language shapes theology.
Theology shapes imagination.
Imagination shapes identity.
And identity shapes how we read the Bible.
Three Mistranslations That Distorted Everything
If we stopped with “Old” and “New,” the damage would already be significant. But English translations compounded the fracture by flattening key Hebrew and Greek terms into English words that carried unintended — and sometimes destructive — meanings.
Let’s go deeper.
1. Ioudaios → “The Jews”
When the English language created a villain that didn’t exist
In Greek, Ioudaios can mean:
Judean leaders
Judean authorities
Residents of Judea
Or the Jewish people as a whole
Context determines which one.
English often ignores all four options and simply says: “the Jews.”
This creates the illusion of conflict between Jesus and His own people — as if He came to dismantle Judaism rather than fulfill the promises made to the Jewish people.
Worse, this mistranslation pushed centuries of Christians into reading whole populations as villains in the story — a reading that birthed anti-Jewish sentiment, violence, and theological arrogance.
Precision is not nitpicking.
It is obedience.
2. Torah → “Law”
The most damaging downgrade in Christian vocabulary
Torah does not mean law. It means instruction, guidance, the path of covenant wisdom.
Translating it as “law” turned God into a legal authority rather than a covenant Father. It made the Tanakh look like a harsh system and the New Covenant look like a divine loophole.
Christians then treated Torah as the opposite of grace, when Scripture presents it as the expression of God’s grace.
The psalmist didn’t write,
“Oh how I love Your rules!”
He wrote,
“Oh how I love Your Torah.”
You don’t love rules.
You love guidance from Someone who loves you.
3. Telos → “End”
When Paul was misquoted into abolishing the very thing he loved
Romans 10:4 is usually translated:
“Christ is the end of the law.”
But the Greek word telos carries the meaning of goal, purpose, fullness, completion — not termination.
Yeshua is the fullness of Torah.
The embodiment of covenant.
The goal toward which the Torah has always pointed.
Not the cancellation of it.
When English renders telos as “end,” Paul appears to contradict Yeshua in Matthew 5:17.
But when we honor the actual meaning, continuity is restored.
The Deeper Issue: Christianity Inherited a Gentile Lens, Not a Hebrew One
This is the part most believers never hear:
Christianity did not inherit its terminology from the apostles.
It inherited it from Rome.
And gentile vocabulary birthed a gentile imagination — one that unintentionally cut itself off from the very root it was grafted into (Romans 11:17–18).
Once the church changed the words, it changed the worldview.
The Hebrew story became a Christian story.
The covenant with Israel became a metaphor.
The people of Israel became a theological object lesson.
And the Tanakh became a precursor instead of a covenant.
This is not how Scripture presents itself.
This is how language reframed it.
And eventually the vocabulary shaped a new religion that looked at the Jewish world of Yeshua and saw something foreign — even though it was the soil He Himself chose to be born into.
Why Modern Believers Must Recover Better Language
Not for political reasons.
Not for interfaith diplomacy.
Not for academic respectability.
But because truth requires accuracy.
Using Tanakh instead of “Old Testament” restores dignity to the Scriptures Yeshua read and loved.
Using “New Covenant” instead of “New Testament” returns us to the prophetic framework God Himself established in Jeremiah 31.
Using “Torah” instead of “law” restores God’s character as relational rather than bureaucratic.
Using “Judeans” where appropriate prevents the historical harm caused by careless translation.
This is not about being clever.
This is about returning to the worldview of Scripture instead of the worldview of Rome.
A Quiet Thought Experiment:
What Happens If We Change the Words Back?
If Christians stopped saying “Old Testament,” what would change in their theology?
If pastors began saying “Tanakh,” would the congregations begin to see continuity instead of contradiction?
If believers said “New Covenant,” would they finally hear Jeremiah’s promise instead of a literary classification?
If the word “Torah” returned to its rightful place, would grace and obedience stop being pitted against each other?
If “Ioudaios” were translated accurately, would the church finally recognize that Jesus was not anti-Jewish — He was Jewish?
Ask yourself:
How much of your theology came from the Bible itself — and how much came from the labels placed on it before you ever opened it?
The answer to that question often reveals more than we expect.
What This Means for Christians Today
Recovering Hebraic language does not diminish Yeshua.
It magnifies Him.
Because He did not appear out of thin air. He appeared in continuity with everything God promised, everything the prophets declared, everything the covenant foretold.
And the more accurately we name the story, the more clearly we see its Author.
It is time to dismantle the vocabulary that distorted the narrative.
It is time to restore the words that preserve its truth.
The Tanakh is the root.
The New Covenant writings are the fruit.
They are not rivals.
They are one story — God’s story — unfolding with precision.
And that story deserves the right words.
A Final Stillness
Sit with this question — slowly, without rushing to defend anything:
What if God never divided the Bible into two testaments?
What if we did?
And if we did…
What else have we mislabeled?
What else have we inherited without questioning?
What else have we misunderstood simply because our vocabulary taught us to?
Let this question remain open.
Let it unsettle.
Let it guide you back to Scripture with fresh eyes.
Because sometimes repentance begins not with a moral correction —
but with a correction of language.
Thank you for the clarification. Rome has hidden A LOT of things over the centuries.
Rome has so much to answer for and it’s no better today !