The Inter-Generational Gap and the Contents of Religious Education in the Old Testament.

Abstract

• The Torah is the heart of the Old Testament and contains the important words that define Israel as God's people. In addition, the Ten Commandments can be said to be the core of the Torah and the root of Israel's religion and morals. The Torah, Shema, and the Ten Commandments are still important contents of religious education in Judaism and Christianity. However, there are many differences within those contents as well. For example, there are two ten commandments in the Torah, and the two have different contents (Exodus 20, Deuteronomy 5). This is because the generations who heard the Torah are different. Deuteronomy is a collection of sermons delivered by Moses to the generation of the wilderness, not the generation of Exodus, in the land of Moab on the verge of entering Canaan. The wilderness generation is those who have not experienced the sufferings and calamities in Egypt. They were the generation who had been told through their parents without experiencing the miracle crossing the Red Sea or the idolatry and punishment on Mount Sinai. Shortly before his death, Moses proclaimed to them God's teachings and laws again, including the Ten Commandments. The purpose of this study is to see if the contents of religious education in the Bible are still valid for us living in the technology era. Today, rapidly developing technology, and the change in social perception due to the ethical corruption of Christian leaders are widening the gap between generations. This intergenerational gap is also found in the Old Testament period. That is the gap between the Exodus generation and the wilderness generation. Moses, who led the generation of the Exodus, cried out to the wilderness generation, 'we, who are living here today' (Deuteronomy 5:3). What Moses, who lost the generation he had with him, held onto was the words of God that encompassed the generations. He was shouting 'the contemporaneity of the laws' across the generational gap. This contemporaneity still applies to us as we read God-given teachings. It is certainly difficult and not desirable to apply literally all the teachings that appear in the Old Testament to us. However, the reason why the contemporaneity of the law is applied in this age is because the spirit flowing in the teaching is still the same, then and now, as if the God who gave it was faithful.