Second, the acceptance of the Old Testament as part of the church’s canon acknowledges that there is an organic relationship between Christianity and Judaism. The church has been grafted into Israel, as the New Testament affirms, not only by direct statement but by the way it is so densely referenced to the Old. As Paul put it, Abraham “is the father of us all” (Rom. 4:16 NIV). So we cannot view the wars of Judges as a purely Jewish affair—something that Jews have to own as part of their story, as
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