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The key to an answer is that the writings of the OT contain the most fundamental assumptions, and thus provide all the main terms, of the earliest instances of both the Jesus-kerygma and the Christ-kerygma. Put differently, the OT writings document the particular linguistic form of the existential question – -- the question as to the ultimate meaning of human existence – -- to which the earliest instances of both the Jesus-kerygma and the Christ-kerygma represent themselves as the true and decisive answer.

True, the linguistic form of both types of kerygma is derived most immediately, not from the OT, but from late Jewish apocalypticism, which is now widely recognized to have provided the main terms of the earliest instances of both types of Christian witness and theology. But, without a doubt, the most fundamental assumptions of apocalypticism, i.e., its existential and its existential-historical assumptions, and so also those of both types of Christian kerygma, have their source in the distinctive religious tradition documented by the OT writings. Consequently, if theology asks, as it must, for the meaning of the earliest instances of Christian witness, Christ-kerygma as well as Jesus-kerygma, and thus asks for the understanding of human existence – -- of ourselves, the world, and God – -- that these instances of witness assume, the answer, clearly, is that it is a later form or development of the understanding of existence already expressed more or less adequately by the various writings of the OT.

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