For Christians much of the Old Testament provided simply a picturesque and enthralling sequence of dramas suitable for wall decorations and engravings. It was understood that the Old Testament was crammed with clues that, in an immense effort of futile scholarship, were made anticipations of the New Testament. For the Jews the same material, grotesquely abused and misunderstood by Christians, was an endlessly rich source of reassurance and challenge, a constant reminder of the need for constancy in exile and the keeping of the laws maintained at such cost by their ancestors. This oddly shared
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