Spiritual Descendants of Hebrews
The effect of the Gospels are easily understood. Even people today can become familiar with the situation in Palestine 2000 years ago. But the effect of the Old Testament in the Christian Bible is also significant.
When they read the Gospels, people of today even find that human situations in Palestine 2000 years ago are very easy to understand. Nothing so remote and uniquely foreign is depicted in the Gospels except some traditions and practices concerning spiritual and religious matters such as Satan and devils. Words of Christ Jesus and attitudes of disciples are rather modern. There are no barriers caused by the time gap of 2000 years that make people of today find it difficult to comprehend contents of the Gospels. Christ Jesus is depicted as if He was alive only decades ago. So, when reading the Gospels, even people of today believe that Christ Jesus was once alive and spoke and acted as the Gospels showed.
But when reading the Old Testament, what do people of today feel and find? It is the history of Hebrews, a tribe in the Middle East, in a time span between days 4000 years ago and 2000 years ago. But, people would learn the history of Hebrews as if it were the history of their ancestors. Some European Christians, American Christians, African Christians, and Asian Christians read the Old Testament as if it were the history of their ancestors.
The purpose of including the Old Testament in the Christian Bible was to prove that Christ Jesus was the Son of God or the Messiah who had been prophesied, predicted and expected long by Hebrews. But, Christian leaders in the first to fifth or so centuries must have thought that the only meaningful history for them was not the history of their ancestors, mostly Romans or the like, but the history of human ancestors of Christ Jesus.
When those books of the Christian Bible were being selected by Christian leaders around the fourth to the fifth century, the Roman Empire was being collapsed. Different tribes were invading the Empire from the north and the northeast. People must have been in confusion. All they could rely on was their religion Christianity. They chose to regard the history of human ancestors of Christ Jesus as their own to rely on as their backbone of existence.
So, if anybody in a conquered tribe or nation had become Christians, it could forgotten about or did not need to mind the history of its ancestors that was being lost due to dominance and occupation by other powerful force but it could find the history of Hebrews depicted in the Old Testament as its own.
So, pious Christians might believe that the history of their ancestors was written in the Old Testament no matter if they were not originally from Hebrews.
Indeed the history of Hebrews looked not so worse or better than any other tribe's. It is humane enough. In this context, people who believe Christ Jesus today, at least partially, share the same history as that of Judaists. And it might go the same with Muslims who respect Abraham, Moses, etc.
So, the representative history of the mankind up to 2000 years ago might be the Old Testament. It means that today there are so many spiritual descendants of Hebrews who had lived till 2000 years ago.
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Mar 8:4 And his disciples answered him, From whence can a man satisfy these men with bread here in the wilderness?
Mar 8:5 And he asked them, How many loaves have ye? And they said, Seven.