The Old Testament

Abstract

This chapter surveys the passages from the Old Testament that have traditionally been used in Christian churches in the Christmas season. It argues that sometimes these passages may have generated features in the Christmas story, and that their use is a reading of the Old Testament with the hindsight provided by Christian belief: some of the ‘prophecies’ of the coming of Jesus were not regarded as messianic before Christians began to read them in the light of their own distinctive beliefs, for example passages in Isaiah and Micah. The texts used in Christmas festivals were not taken over from contemporary Jewish reading of the Old Testament Scriptures.