(Un)Clarity

Dad, your links still aren't working - I don't know what you're doing, but it's bizarre! Copying and pasting straight from the address bar usually works fine for me.

Seems my comments on the clarity of Scripture were anything but clear. Guess that means I won't be writing the 67th book of the Canon any time soon! Allow me to try to clear things up...

In Matthew 2-7, Matthew records the events he's writing about so as to make parallels to the Exodus. So, he's the only one to refer to Jesus' family spending time in Egypt and the killing of baby boys (cf Exodus 1:16,22) then he orders the beginning of his account to present Jesus' baptism (paralleled in passing through the Red Sea), the 40 days in the desert (40 years for the Israelites) and Jesus' teaching from a mountain (paralleled by the 10 Commandments at Mount Sinai). Matthew spends more time than the other gospel writers portraying Jesus as the fulfilment of prophecy and this is one of them - he fulfilled the story of Israel and of Moses and is the "prophet like Moses" of Deuteronomy 18:18.

I agree that you get more from the OT quotations/allusions if you have the OT with you - I just couldn't decide whether my definition of "fully understand" meant that you could "fully understand" without discovering the richness of those details. I think that's just semantics, though!

It seems I forgot to actually ask the question on Nehemiah 8:8 that I meant to, so here it is. Does the fact that it seems the Israelites needed help (interpretation/teaching) to understand the Law cause a problem with the view of clarity of Scripture that Systematic Theology puts forwards? If it does then how serious is it, and if not then why not?

Hope that's a little easier to follow.