ABSTRACT
Theologians are at pains to insist that salvation or eternal life is a free gift from God. In the Old Testament God is represented as giving the Jews laws. The Old Testament writers sometimes compare the Jewish nation to a bride who is a princess. Mary applies to herself personally a word meaning a slave-girl, that is, an inferior being not fit for a royal marriage, but still one capable of an interpersonal relationship. The Old Testament shows God cultivating the Jews through the Jewish law and making them into a relatively sinless people, at least relatively free of the shortcomings and guilt transmitted from generation to generation in societies. If living by Mosaic law is superior to natural life in society, however the law came to be formulated there will have been no first moment at which Jewish life became supernatural.
