Don't Let Anyone Rip Your Book in Half

There are some perennial questions that tend to annoy me, because too often they aren't handled carefully. One of these is “which Testament is more important?” A (very pleasant) Facebook exchange with a friend got me thinking about how best to handle this thorny issue. I think it's best explained via an illustration:

Characters:

Me.

A friend (who, I assure you, would not be my friend much longer).

Friend: (takes a novel that I haven't read and rips it in half) Which half do you want?

Me: Dude! You tore my book?!?

Friend: But which half do you want? I'm only giving you back half.

Me: But you tore my book! It's incomplete now!

Friend: You gotta* pick.

Me: (sigh) I guess I'll take the second half.

Friend: Yeah, it's probably more important.

Me: Well, not exactly. But you can discern more about the beginning of the story by reading the end than you can about the end of the story by reading the beginning. So I guess if I'm stuck, I'll take the end.

--Exit stage whatever--

*Anyone who would rip a book in half is, I'm sure, capable of such atrocious grammatical gaffes.

This illustrates well how I feel about “which Testament is more important?” I understand why Bible translators translate the New Testament first. Logically, the end of the story bears more weight than the beginning, but it's not a matter of importance. The character and nature of God, human sin and need for forgiveness, the promise of the restoration of all things – all of these are taught in detail in the Old Testament.

Don't let anyone rip your book in half.