Dual-covenant theology

Dual-covenant or two-covenant theology is a school of thought in Christian theology regarding the relevance of the Hebrew Bible, which Christians call the Old Testament. Most Christians hold that the Old Testament has been superseded by the New Covenant, although the moral law continues to apply (cf. covenant theology); in contrast, a minority hold that the Mosaic covenant has been abrogated. Dual-covenant theology is unique in holding that the Mosaic covenant remains valid for Jews while the New Covenant only applies to non-Jews or gentiles. Judaism maintains that in the post-flood era there is a universally binding covenant between God and man in the form of the Seven Laws of Noah and that there is additionally a unique Sinaitic covenant that was made between God and the Hebrews at biblical Mount Sinai. However Judaism has not historically maintained that there is a separate covenant for gentiles wherein they should convert to Christianity. Indeed from the Maimonidean perspective, belief in the divinity of Jesus would be a breach of Noahide Law. The 18th-century rabbinic thinker Yaakov Emden has even opined: the original intention of Jesus, and especially of Paul, was to convert only the Gentiles to the seven moral laws of Noah and to let the Jews follow the Mosaic law — which explains the apparent contradictions in the New Testament regarding the laws of Moses and the Sabbath. Later, in the 20th century, the unorthodox Jewish theologian Franz Rosenzweig, consequent to his flirtations with Christianity, advanced the idea in his work the Star of Redemption that "Christianity acknowledges the God of the Jews, not as God but as 'the Father of Jesus Christ.' Christianity itself cleaves to the 'Lord' because it knows that the Father can be reached only through him ... We are all wholly agreed as to what Christ and his church mean to the world: no one can reach the Father save through him. No one can reach the Father! But the situation is quite different for one who does not have to reach the Father because he is already with him.