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Introduction
Once upon a time a young girl and boy were exploring the back streets of their town.
Halfway down a particularly long and winding road they spotted a wrought iron
gate that marked the entrance to a garden. As they peered through the bars of the
gate, the children were astounded by what they saw. All sorts of beautiful flowers
bloomed, their vivid hues of blue and red and yellow and green and purple made
even more vibrant by the brilliant morning sun. The trails within the garden seemed
to be inviting the children to come and explore as the paths disappeared into the
shade of the trees growing on either side. Try as they might, however, the children
could not enter the garden because the gate was firmly locked.
When they returned home that evening, they excitedly told their parents about
their discovery. Their mother and father smiled, for they remembered their own
enchantment with the garden when they were young. Then they sighed as they told
the children that even the best locksmiths and most inventive thinkers in the town
had failed to make a key to fit into the gate’s lock.
The children were so sad that they could not fall asleep at bedtime. By the light of the moon,
they climbed down the trellis between the windows of their bedrooms and returned to the
garden. As they approached, they saw the silhouette of an elderly man coming out of the
garden. They called to him. When the old man turned to face them, the children could see in
the moonlight an expression of complete benevolence on his face. The man smiled and said:
“Welcome, children! It is late tonight, but if you come back in the morning I will be happy to
show you all of the wonders of my garden.”
Just after dawn the next day the boy and girl returned to the garden. The old man
was there to greet them as promised, this time accompanied by his equally kind
wife. After the couple warmly embraced the children, they spent the rest of the
morning taking them for a walk through the garden and delighting in the young
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people’s joy.
As the boy and girl prepared to leave at the end of their visit, they thanked the
elderly couple for sharing the beauty of the garden with them. Then they asked the
man and his wife a question.
“If you like it so much when people come to visit,” the children asked, “why do you
make it so hard to get into the garden?”
The couple looked puzzled. “What do you mean?” they asked.
“Well,” the boy and girl explained, “no one—not even the smartest men and
women in our town—can figure out how to make a key that will open the lock.”
“Make a key!” the man exclaimed. “Why not just use the key we leave on the
hook?” And as the children looked at the stone wall to the right of the gate, they saw
the key stored snugly away in a small enclosure.
Differences in approach
When you read the Bible, you may sometimes experience the same kind of frustration as
those children who couldn’t find a way to enter the garden. The simple purpose of this
book is to help you find and use the key—four keys, actually—that will enable you to
unlock the beauty and the delights within the books that make up the Bible. If you are
reading this, you probably already have a basic familiarity with the unique collection of
writings that are the bedrock of both Judaism and Christianity. However, you may also
feel the need for a guide to interpreting these books. Approaches to biblical
interpretation vary significantly across the Christian spectrum.
Some Christians insist that every word must be read in the most literal sense
possible, much as one might read today’s newspaper. Any attempt at interpreting the
text, they believe, risks altering the divine intention of the passage. Other Christians
see little difference between the stories of the Bible and the myths of other ancient
religions, myths that personify the forces of nature—stories about Thor, the
Scandinavian god of thunder, for example—or assign a divine cause to natural
phenomena that science today can explain using the laws of physics. In between
these two extremes sit the majority of Christians whose particular faith
communities recognize that the biblical texts are the product of ancient societies
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whose worldviews were different from ours, as well as being the tangible
expressions of unique and profound experiences of God. Finding a good balance
between these two realities, however, is often easier said than done.
When faced with this apparent complexity, it’s easy to understand how a believer
might conclude that Bible interpretation is best left to the “professionals.” Such a position
is in direct conflict with the position of the Catholic Church, however: “Likewise, the
sacred Synod (Vatican Council II) forcefully and specifically exhorts all the Christian
faithful….to learn ‘the surpassing knowledge of Jesus Christ’ (Phil 3:8) by frequent
reading of the divine Scriptures” (Dei Verbum, 25). The Scriptures, which are the
foundation of the Liturgy of the Word, are meant to be devoured by each and every
believer—to be read and prayed over individually and shared by small groups. The
Scriptures provide the nourishment needed for a healthy faith life, just as much as the
Eucharist does.
The first part of this book will present the four simple principles that will serve as
your “keys” for unlocking the riches of the Bible. Parts Two and Three will get you
started on the texts themselves as we use these four principles in our exploration of
some critical stories in both the Old Testament (Hebrew Scriptures) and New
Testament. Having launched you on a journey of discovery, the book concludes with
an Epilogue that provides you with sources to help you continue on your way.
One last thought before you go. Let the Holy Spirit, your ultimate guide in
exploring the riches of the Bible, lead you down the paths of the garden you are
prompted to follow. Enjoy the trip.
Footnote: All of the keys, interpretations, and explanations in this book are based
on the Catholic understanding of the Bible as outlined in the Vatican II document Dei
Verbum and further developed by the Pontifical Biblical Commission. The origins of
the modern approach to Scripture presented there, however, are grounded in the
work of Protestant theologians of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Thus, many Christians beyond the boundaries of the Roman Catholic Church should
find much of what is presented here in conformity with the teachings of their own
faith communities.
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Four Keys to Unlocking the Storehouse of the Bible’s
Riches
Chapter ONE
The Bible is a Library
Picture this: One day the apostle Peter is taking a walk back home in Galilee some
time after Jesus’ resurrection. As he looks into the distance, he sees a rather large
book floating down from the heavens escorted by a number of angels. Excited to
know the meaning of this blessed event, Peter rushes forward, snatches up the
divine volume, and sees THE BIBLE written across its cover. As he eagerly begins to
flip through its pages—probably wondering how he is going to be remembered—a
voice from the sky thunders forth: “Take this, read it, and make lots of copies.”
Seems silly, right? Yet for many of us this scenario pretty well captures our concept
of what the Bible is. We often think of it as a collection of divine stenographic notes
dictated by God to a few close human friends. The various books of the Bible are,
therefore, a succession of chapters to be read much as one would read a novel. And
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as with any other book we are familiar with, we expect a pretty strict consistency
from being to end. When this view is taken to an extreme, the Bible becomes a kind
of magical good luck charm; what the Bible actually is becomes secondary to making
sure nobody monkeys with it.
It’s easy to understand how we can come to falsely perceive the Bible as a book. It
certainly looks like one. Even the word “Bible”—derived from the Greek biblios—
means book. For hundreds of years after the Protestant Reformation, Catholics were
either implicitly or explicitly discouraged from personally reading the Bible by
Church leaders concerned that some of the faithful would misinterpret the sacred
truths and fall into heresy. Finally, the Bible is always referred to as the Word of God.
So, why can’t we approach the Bible as we would any work with a single author?
The Bible was written over time
The problem becomes apparent after even a superficial review of some of the
books of the Bible. Consider the following two passages, for example. The first is
taken from the book of Joshua and describes what happens at the conclusion of the
Israelites’ siege of the town of Jericho.
So the people shouted, and the trumpets were blown. As soon as the people heard
the sound of the trumpets, they raised a great shout, and the wall fell down flat; so
the people charged straight ahead into the city and captured it. Then they devoted to
destruction by the edge of the sword all in the city, both men and women, young and
old, oxen, sheep, and donkeys. (Jos 6:20–21)
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The second is an excerpt from the Sermon on the Mount in the gospel of Matthew:
You have heard that it was said, “You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.”
But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that
you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil
and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous. (Mt 5:43–
45)
Clearly some significant development has gone on between the time of the ideas
expressed in the first passage—a story that at least implicitly gives God’s blessing to
genocide—and the strict admonition by Jesus not even to hold a grudge against one’s
enemies. How could God’s mind change so drastically from one chapter to another?
God doesn’t change God’s mind, but people do change their minds. The
consistency among the various books of the Bible is mostly an illusion. (We’ll
consider the concept of biblical inspiration specifically in the next chapter.) The
books of the Bible were in fact written over a great expanse of time and produced by
cultures that had profound experiences of God but didn’t necessarily understand the
full implications and meaning of those experiences.
Other factors affect consistency as well. Even contemporaneous cultures—
Egypt and Israel, for example—have distinct beliefs and customs. In any
library we have to allow for a wide variety of types of books. Prose and
poetry, fiction and non-fiction are the major divisions; myths and legends,
historical chronicles, and dramas are some of the particular types we’ll find.
Some authors were blessed with greater ability, some with less. Some books
were conceived of as part of a greater whole, others stand on their own or
openly challenge earlier perspectives. (We’ll explore these points further in
upcoming chapters.)
Even the position of two books in the Bible can suggest a seamless connection that
does not really exist. As is true of the books in any library, books in the biblical
library have been placed together for reasons that may have nothing to do with their
relationship to one another. In a public library, Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations, the
seminal work in the development of modern capitalism, could be just down the shelf
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from Karl Marx’s Communist Manifesto. In the biblical library, the satirical work
about a fictional prophet named Jonah has been placed right before the writings of
the real life prophet Micah. To think of the Bible as a library rather than simply as a
book has enormous implications.
A variety of genre
Let’s take a closer look at the variety of books in the biblical library beginning with the
basic distinction between prose and poetry. Both abound in our library; sometimes we
find them side-by-side in the same book. Chapter 4 of the book of Judges contains a
prose version of the story of Deborah, a charismatic leader of the Hebrew people at a
point of great crisis in their tribal history. Deborah persuades a reluctant Hebrew
general, Barak, to lead the army into battle against the Canaanite aggressors. (The
Canaanites were the occupants of the Holy Land when the Hebrew tribes began their
settlement in the 13th century B.C.) Deborah’s exhortation under the inspiration of God
pays off as Barak and the Hebrew army rout their enemy. Then the details of the battle
are recounted again in chapter 5, this time in the form of a sung poetic tribute to
Deborah.
Some books in the Bible are all poetry. The book of Psalms is a collection of the
prayers of the Hebrew people that were originally sung to the accompaniment of
musical instruments and dancing. (Some of the psalms still contain notes indicating
their intended purpose and the instruments to be used!) A common device in
Hebrew poetry found in abundance in the Psalms is parallelism—the same thought
is repeated twice, with significant variations. Consider the following example: “My
soul longs, indeed it faints for the courts of the Lord; my heart and my flesh sing for
joy to the living God” (Ps 84:2).
The same sense of longing is conveyed using two distinct but equally vivid
metaphors.
Close by the book of Psalms is the Song of Solomon, a brief work containing the most
sensuous love poetry in the Bible. Here’s a taste: “As a lily among brambles, so is my
love among maidens. As an apple tree among the trees of the wood, so is my beloved
among young men” (Sg 2:2–3).
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From myth to drama to suspense
To identify all of the types of prose literature within the biblical library would
require a separate book. Just a brief sampling, however, should demonstrate
what a creative library we possess. Chapters 1 to 11 of the book of Genesis
introduce us to some of the greatest myths in world history. Knowing that Adam
and Eve are not historical characters and that the Garden of Eden is not a
geographical place takes nothing away from the story’s grip on us. Once we
come to see Adam and Eve as personifying an essential conflict within our
human natures, the story’s power intensifies. The questions raised and conflicts
explored in this profound reflection on the nature of free will and temptation are
timeless.
We encounter some of the greatest legends in the Bible beginning in Genesis
chapter 12 and continuing right through the early chapters of the book of Exodus.
These stories centering around Abraham and Sarah, their descendents, and Moses
differ significantly from the stories of Genesis 1–11. Myths are imaginative tales that
explain a profound truth. Legends contain seeds of remembered historical events
and charismatic leaders. The stories have been reworked so many times through
oral tradition, however, that the tales have become personifications and illustrations
of the values, self-understanding, and view of God within the communities that
preserved them. More will be said about the book of Exodus in chapter 5 and of
Genesis in chapter 8.
Dramatic literature is frequently found in the Bible. How can anyone not be moved
by the ending of the book of Deuteronomy, for example? After all his struggles as
God’s appointed leader of the Hebrew people, Moses is allowed by God to see the
Promised Land but dies before he and his people can enter into it (Dt 34). In the first
book of Kings, you can feel the tension mounting as Elijah, the only prophet of
Yahweh left standing, challenges 450 pagan prophets to a showdown on Mt. Carmel
(1 Kings 18). The moments of confrontation between Jesus and those Pharisees who
oppose him are some of the most memorable scenes in the New Testament. (See, for
example, Mk 2:1–12.)
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Many of the books of the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) are labeled as “historical
books” because they appear to give a historical account of the rise and fall of the
kingdom of Israel. These books are more works of theology than of history, however,
generally composed at a much later date than the time periods described. Even so,
actual historical documents do sometimes seem to be faithfully preserved. The
decree of Cyrus, King of Persia, permitting the exiled Israelites to return to their
homeland in 538 B.C., is a good example of this (Ezra 1).
A brief glance at the New York Times’ bestseller list will show that romance and
suspense sell. In ancient times, the same was true. The book of Ruth is a wonderfully
romantic tale. It tells of a young Moabite widow whose unwavering loyalty to her
widowed Jewish mother-in-law leads her right into a marriage made in heaven
(literally, in this case, as it is part of God’s plan). The story concludes with a “happily
ever after” ending: Ruth and her husband Boaz, a wealthy landowner in Bethlehem,
go on to enjoy the blessings of children and grandchildren. One of these
grandchildren—David—would become the greatest king in Israel’s history. (This
simple story is packed with some profound implications; we’ll explore them in
chapter 6.)
For a sampling of biblical suspense writing, read the account of Paul’s adventures
in Damascus right after his conversion to Christianity. Chapter 9 of the Acts of the
Apostles opens with Paul’s overwhelming encounter with the risen Christ that
causes him to abandon his plan to persecute the Damascus Christians, to change his
name (formerly he is known as Saul), and to join the Christians instead. The story
concludes with Paul’s narrow escape from members of the local synagogue, who are
out to kill him for betraying his Jewish heritage. He escapes the city under the cover
of darkness in a basket lowered from an opening in the town wall, right in front of
the guards posted to try and arrest him.
The range of our biblical library is so vast that we can even find some unexpected
types of books within it. While the Bible may not contain works of science fiction in
the technical sense, images such as Ezekiel’s vision of the dry bones (Ez 37:1–14) or
those visions given to the prophet John in the book of Revelation (see Rv 1, for
example) bear a definite kinship to some of the science fiction and fantasy writing of
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our own time.
Even comedy and satire have their place. When the reluctant prophet Jonah hears God’s
call to head for pagan Nineveh, a city located northeast of the Promised Land, he immediately
hops on a boat bound for a port in the land of Tarshish. This region, located somewhere along
the coast of modern Spain, is at the opposite end of the known world from Nineveh! Through
a series of misadventures—including a few days spent in the belly of a large fish—Jonah does
finally make his way to Nineveh and preaches God’s message of repentance. The people
respond so zealously that even the farm
animals are required to be dressed in the
customary sackcloth of the penitent. (Try to picture a sorrowful-looking cow without
smiling.)
From all periods of history
This diversity in types of literature in the biblical library is matched by diversity in
the historical periods when various books were written. Candidates for the title “last
books of the Bible to be written” include the gospel of John, the book of Revelation,
and the second letter of Peter, all probably written around the turn of the first
century A.D. The story of Noah’s ark (Gn 6–9), on the other hand, has roots that go
back at least to the second or third millennium B.C.
We know that the Noah’s ark myth has such an ancient pedigree because of
archaeological discoveries in the lands between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers.
Today much of this land, known in ancient times as Mesopotamia (“The land
between the rivers” in Greek), is contained within the borders of Iraq. The roots of
civilization run deep here; artifacts have been found in abundance dating back to the
time of the Babylonians and even to the Sumerians, whose origins precede any
written historical records. The Sumerians and the Babylonians in a sense invented
history, as they became the first civilizations known to develop comprehensive
writing systems. As scholars learned to decipher these systems, based on surviving
clay writing tablets, they discovered the Epic of Gilgamesh, a saga that contains
within it the story of a global flood sent by the gods and of the preservation of one
heroic figure and his family. Somewhere along the way the ancient Hebrews
refashioned elements of this ancient myth for their own purposes.
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It is even possible that the roots of the Noah’s ark tale go deeper. A recent article in
National Geographic magazine (May 2001) presents the results of geological,
paleontological, and archaeological studies done hundreds of feet below the surface
of the Black Sea that conclusively prove the sea was once a freshwater lake. About
7,500 years ago, rising sea levels at the end of the last Ice Age flooded through the
valley separating the freshwater lake from the Mediterranean and raising the level of
the Black Sea by hundreds of feet over a short period of time. Any human
inhabitants living along the coast of that lake would have had to rapidly evacuate
their settlements as the water covered miles of previously dry land. Could this
catastrophic flood be the origins of the myth? If so, we are looking at a library whose
contents include stories created over nearly three-quarters of the history of human
civilization!
Books within the biblical library can be dated to all of the significant periods in the
history of Israel. Although the prose account of the escape of the Hebrew slaves was
composed centuries after the events portrayed in Exodus 1–14, the poetic
remembrance of the escape in chapter 15 has origins that are much closer to the
thirteenth century B.C. context of the actual events. The legends of Abraham and
Sarah and their descendents in Genesis reflect stories preserved by the individual
tribes that came together to form the nation of Israel, stories that were crafted well
before the Exodus events occurred.
The collection of stories contained in the book of Judges suggests an ebb and flow
to the Hebrew settlement of the Promised Land that may well reflect the actual
conditions of settlement during the two centuries following the Exodus. Many books
of the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) are packed with stories about or references to
King David and his unification of the kingdom of Israel around 1000 B.C. While some
of these books, such as 1 and 2 Chronicles, were likely written centuries after the
kingdom period, there are sections of 2 Samuel which are probably taken from
actual chronicles written about King David and the royal family during or shortly
after David’s reign. We’ll look at portions of these accounts in chapter 7 of this book.
Certainly many of the psalms were composed for liturgical services at the Temple
built by David’s son Solomon. This first Temple period, as it is known, ended
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decisively with the destruction of the Temple and most of the rest of the city of
Jerusalem at the hands of the Babylonian army in the 6th century B.C. The years
preceding that catastrophe, as well as the approximately three generations during
which thousands of Jews lived in exile in Babylon, were fruitful times for the creation
of biblical literature. The people of a ruined nation attempted to reconcile the
devastation they had experienced with their belief in an all-powerful Yahweh who
had pledged unconditional love and faithfulness to their ancestors.
Contained within the early prophecies of Jeremiah and in the early parts of the
book of the prophet Isaiah are attempts to come up with some kind of an answer.
Yahweh will chastise us for our lack of faithfulness to the covenant in order to reform us into the people of God the Almighty is calling us to be. As the centuries go by
after the Exile and Israel seems no closer to returning to the glory days of the
kingdom under King David, books such as Job and Ecclesiastes are created to
challenge this basic theological framework. These books, some of the most profound
in the Bible, grapple with the “Big Questions”: How can a loving God stand by while
so much misery is heaped upon his people? Can any human being truly find meaning
in a universe full of chaos?
The latest books of the Hebrew Scriptures begin to reflect some of the ideas which
have worked their way into Hebrew thought from the Greek world. The first mention
of a soul comes in the book of Wisdom. The first biblical mention of a belief in the
resurrection of the dead can be found in 2 Maccabees (chapter 7).
When we think of the Bible as a library and not as a book, we stop looking at the
Bible as the spiritual equivalent of a formal family portrait. In such a staged
photograph each member of the group strives to project a sense of perfect harmony
and togetherness that rarely exists in real family situations. The various books in the
biblical library are like the individual members of an extended family gathered
together at a holiday dinner, a gathering replete with conflicting opinions and
unresolved tensions as well as much good will and laughter. Individuals who are
distinctly different from one another try their best to express their shared
experience of family in ways that are often unique and even bizarre.
So it was with the various biblical writers who, under the guidance of the Holy
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Spirit, created books that faithfully express their communal experience of a God
whose unconditional love endures as the most profound of all mysteries.Questions
for Thought and Discussion
1) Create an imaginary library shelf on the topic of your choice. Pack the shelf with
books representing as many different views and approaches to your topic as you can
think of. (For example: a shelf of books about the Civil War could include: “The
Gettysburg Address” by Abraham Lincoln; Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
by Frederick Douglass; Co. Atch, the journal of a Confederate soldier; The Red Badge
of Courage by Stephen Crane.
2) After you have completed this first exercise, answer the following questions:
• What are significant points of agreement and disagreement?
• How have our understanding and interpretation of the event changed over time?
• Which types of literature provide the greatest/least amount of insight? Why?
• Which sources seem more objective? Any obvious biases?
3) Read 1 Samuel 8-—12. What are the two points of view concerning Israel’s
first king? Keeping the main points of this chapter in mind, suggest an
explanation of how these two opposing points of view found themselves
incorporated into the same text.
4) Read about Paul’s final journey in Acts 27—28. What are some elements of an
epic or saga contained within it?
5) Compare the account of the Council of Jerusalem in Acts 15 with Paul’s report
of the same events in Galatians 2. How does Galatians show the advantages of
immediacy in recounting an event? What is the advantage of a work such as
Acts, which was produced a significant amount of time after the events it
describes?
6) Read the following three gospel accounts of the infamous fig tree (Mt 21:18–
22; Mk 11:12–14; 20–24; Lk 13:6–9). What significant change in literary form
does Luke make? How does the change alter the impact and point of the story?
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Chapter Two
Inspiration is NOT Dictation
“That running back played like he was inspired today.”
“A good teacher will inspire her students to try their hardest.”
“Shakespeare wrote some of the most inspired works of literature in the world.”
“The Bible is the inspired word of God.”
Each of those sentences uses the word “inspiration” in a legitimate way. Is it any
wonder that when we speak of the Bible as the inspired word of God we often run
into some confusion? The key to understanding what makes this particular library of
books we call the Bible different from any other collection lies in working out an
appropriate definition of the term inspiration.
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When I was little, I loved to watch Sesame Street. One of the features in almost every
episode was a guessing game called, “One of These Things Is Not Like the Others.” As
the theme song played in the background, the viewer would see four objects—three
circle shapes and a square, for example—and would be asked to pick the one that
was not like the other three. In our particular case, when we say that the Bible is
inspired, we are saying something that is unique.
In the first three uses of the term “inspiration” at the beginning of this chapter, we
are talking about a quality grounded within the person himself or herself. To say
that the running back played like he was inspired or that the teacher’s students were
inspired to do their best is to say that these particular individuals performed at the
highest level their abilities permitted. The artistic inspiration manifested in a work
of literary genius is more of a mystery because of its subconscious roots, but still in
the realm of human creation. When we speak or write about biblical inspiration, we
mean that the Holy Spirit influenced the human writing enterprise so that it
produced something beyond the natural abilities, insights, talents, and psychological
predispositions of the biblical authors.
How did the Holy Spirit exert that influence? The Second Vatican Council produced a
document entitled Dei Verbum which summarizes essential Catholic beliefs concerning
revelation and the development of Scripture and tradition. Inspiration is defined as
follows:
To compose the sacred books, God chose certain men who, all the while he
employed them in this task, made full use of their powers and faculties so that,
though [God] acted in them and by them, it was as true authors that they consigned
to writing whatever he wanted written, and no more.
Since, therefore, all that the inspired authors, or sacred writers, affirm should be
regarded as affirmed by the Holy Spirit, we must acknowledge that the books of
Scripture, firmly, faithfully and without error, teach that truth which God, for the
sake of our salvation, wished to see confided to the sacred Scriptures. (DV, Sec. 11)
A careful balance
This definition is carefully balanced and nuanced to steer a middle course
between two extremes. At one end of the spectrum is the idea that the process of
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inspiration is some kind of divine dictation: God, the boss, whispered into the ears of
those who had been chosen to write the various books in the biblical library. These
human “authors,” therefore, would really be no more than extremely attentive
secretaries. This understanding of inspiration has a certain appeal; if the Bible is
truly the Word of God, then doesn’t it make to sense to think of God as the author?
Certainly God ought to be thought of as the author of the Bible in the same way
that God ought to be thought of as the author of all creation. To think of God literally
working as a human author works, however, is to greatly oversimplify the situation.
The Council’s definition of inspiration addresses this incorrect understanding when
it says that God “made full use of their (human authors’) powers and faculties” so
that they wrote as “true authors.”
The chief problem found at this extreme is the virtual elimination of all
human participation and creativity in the process of the transmission of
Divine Revelation—individually and collectively. The fruit of about two
hundred years of modern Bible scholarship is a deep appreciation for the rich
variety of stories and traditions that lie behind the written books of the Bible
transmitted through oral tradition—a process we’ll look at more closely in
chapter 4. The books of the Bible are the tip of an iceberg. They are written
works attempting to creatively capture the experiences of untold thousands
of people through the centuries, whose ways of thinking have been affected
by the development of many different cultures. At the heart of these
experiences is a profound and continuing encounter with God.
If every word in the Scriptures is the literal word of God, what language does
God speak? English? Latin? The Greek in which the New Testament books
were originally written? The Hebrew of the Old Testament and, if so, the
ancient Hebrew that King David spoke, or the Aramaic variation of Jesus?
Even the basic process of translation itself requires human creativity, as
translators must interpret what they read in one language in order to find the
closest match possible in another.
The evidence against this first extreme can even be found within the books of the Bible
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themselves. Sirach (Ecclesiasticus), one of the Wisdom books of the Hebrew Bible, begins
with a Prologue in which the book’s final editor gives us some background information:
Such a one was my grandfather, Jesus, who, having devoted himself for a long time to
the diligent study of the law, the prophets, and the rest of the books of our ancestors,
and having developed a thorough familiarity with them, was moved to write
something himself in the nature of instruction and wisdom, in order that those who
love wisdom might, by acquainting themselves with what he too had written, make
even greater progress in living in conformity with the divine law.
This does not sound like the description of a simple stenographer.
Differences in literary quality
It’s also instructive to consider the wide range in literary quality within the
biblical library. Some of the books contained within the Bible are masterpieces.
Others are literary duds. While we might be able to make a logical case for why God
would communicate with us either in the beautiful words of a great artist or in the
simple style of a daily newspaper, it’s hard to make a case for the arbitrary use of
both that we find within the Bible itself.
Two books that we’ll consider more fully in later chapters are good examples
of the literary heights the Bible can reach. The book of Job is a profound
reflection on the nature of human suffering that ranks, on its own merits,
with the greatest literary works on this topic of all time. The Greek in which
the author of Luke’s gospel and the Acts of the Apostles wrote is considered
by many Bible scholars to be the most beautiful in the entire New Testament.
When Luke and Acts are placed together, as they were originally intended to
be read, the breadth of Luke’s vision is magnificent.
Other portions of the Bible miss this literary high water mark. Early in my career I tried to
read the Bible in its entirety from cover to cover as a way of better familiarizing myself
with its contents. Everything was going fine through Genesis and the first part of the book
of Exodus as I read one gripping narrative after another. I just about gave up the attempt,
however, when I hit this list of building specifications for the sacred tent of the Hebrew
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people, in Exodus 26:
You shall make upright frames of acacia wood for the tabernacle. Ten cubits shall be
the length of a frame, and a cubit and a half the width of each frame. There shall be
two pegs in each frame to fit the frames together; you shall make these for all the
frames of the tabernacle. You shall make the frames for the tabernacle: twenty
frames for the south side. (Ex 26:15–18)
And on and on it went. In the context of ancient Hebrew religious belief the inclusion
of such painstaking detail is essential. This tent is to house the most sacred sign of
God’s presence among the people—the ark of the covenant. Even the smallest detail
cannot be overlooked. In our modern Christian context, however, such painstaking
description makes for pages and pages of reading that is about as gripping as
looking through the record of traffic court hearings in any major American city.
The literary limitations of some Bible authors manifest themselves in other ways as
well. A mention was made in chapter one of a Hebrew poetic device known as
parallelism: the same basic idea is repeated a second time within a verse of poetry
with some kind of variation. The author of the gospel of Matthew uses an example of
parallelism drawn from a Messianic prophecy in the Old Testament as the key verse
in his description of Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem: “Look, your king is
coming to you, humble, and mounted on a donkey, and on a colt, the foal of a
donkey”(Zec 9:9 as quoted in Matthew 21:5).
As any good Bible commentary will likely point out, there is only one donkey
featured in this verse. It is described a second time as “the foal of a donkey.” Matthew
doesn’t get it, and as Jesus enters Jerusalem this day it would appear he must have
had his hands full just to keep from toppling over: “The disciples went and did as
Jesus had directed them; they brought the donkey and the colt, and put their cloaks
on them, and he sat on them” (Mt 21:6–7).
The other extreme
In response to such obvious examples of human influence on the creation of the books of
the Bible, some conclude that the Bible is virtually revelation-free. At this extreme are those
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who see the contradictions and inconsistencies within the books of the Bible as proof that its
stories reflect the views of primitive cultures whose understanding of God and the world have
been largely proven false. Stories such as the garden of Eden myth or the accounts of the
Resurrection endure not because of any divine origins, but because they tap into our deepest
subconscious experiences of what it means to be human. In his fascinating study of
mythology, Joseph Campbell sees the dying and rising of Jesus as a possible variation of the
standard myth of any agricultural society: The seed goes into the ground and “dies” so as to
provide nourishment and thus life for the people.
The definition of inspiration in Dei Verbum clearly rules out this extreme.
Contained within the books of the Bible is, “that truth, which God, for the sake of our
salvation, wished to see confided to the sacred Scriptures.” The two centuries of
modern Bible scholarship mentioned earlier in this chapter have come up with
abundant evidence of how primitive understandings of the cosmos and widely held
myths were incorporated into the books of the Bible. Regardless of the raw material,
however, it was God in the person of the Holy Spirit who guided the selection and
refashioning process to make sure the completed texts of the Scriptures were
considerably more than the sum of their parts. Just as in the Eucharist the Holy
Spirit transforms the products of human industry into the divine Presence, so in the
Scriptures the Holy Spirit transforms the products of human creativity into the
divine Word.
Inerrancy
Notice that in Dei Verbum this process of transformation on the part of the Holy
Spirit is explicitly limited to that which is necessary, “for the sake of our salvation.” It
is in this sense that we express our belief in the Bible’s inerrancy. Simply stated,
inerrancy means that the books of the Bible can never mislead when we are talking
about religious truth. It is no contradiction to say that divine revelation can be
expressed in the books of the Bible through stories containing misunderstandings of
God and the universe or myths that predate biblical times. Remember that God
makes full use of the powers and faculties of the human authors.
The classic illustration of inerrancy at work can be found in the first chapter of
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Genesis. Over the course of six days God creates a universe in which the earth is at
the center and the sun, moon, and stars are affixed to the inside of the “dome of the
sky” spread over the presumably flat earth (Gn 1:14–19). About a thousand years of
scientific research and study in the West alone have demonstrated beyond any
reasonable doubt that we live in a heliocentric solar system, not a geocentric one.
The earth is not flat. And the convergence of evidence from biology, geology,
paleontology, astronomy, and physics overwhelmingly proves that the planet we live
on and the universe we occupy have reached the present state of things over the
course of billions of years.
The outdated cosmology of this story contains within it a profoundly true
understanding of God and the essential nature of creation, however. We learn that
there is only one God. All the elements of creation which represented the deities of
ancient religious belief—the sun and the moon, the birds and animals, the oceans
and mountains—are brought into being by this one God. In their perfection and
beauty these elements of creation reflect the nature of God but can never contain
God. And on the afternoon of the sixth day what is brought into being is the
masterpiece of God’s handiwork. God creates human beings in the divine image and
likeness and thus makes each one the possessor of an unimaginable sacredness (Gn
1:27). These are the inerrant truths of the story which will serve as the foundations
for much of the divine revelation to come.
The Catholic understanding of inspiration, then, allows for a full appreciation of the
gifts, talents, and belief of the human authors who wrote the books of the Bible and
the societies who nurtured them. At the same time, the awesome power of God’s
Word to reveal and transform is never limited by the partial understanding of truth
common to all cultures and all human beings. Gaining a proper understanding of
biblical inspiration helps us see the Bible as a tangible sign of what wonders are
worked when human beings join God in the creative enterprise. The divine Word
given “flesh” within the human words of the biblical books ultimately points us to
the person of the risen Christ in whom the divine Word takes on our humanity.
Questions for Thought and Discussion
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1) What are the key phrases in the Catholic definition of inspiration as presented
in Dei Verbum? In what ways is this definition similar to and different from your
understanding of inspiration in general? In particular as regards the Bible?
2) Read the account of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah in Genesis 19, and
do some background research on the geography of the Dead Sea. How might the
story of the fate of Lot’s wife have been influenced by this geography? Is there a
more enduring truth contained within the tale even after the mythology is accounted
for?
3) Do some research and some interviews among the members of other Christian
denominations concerning their understanding of inspiration. What are some
similarities and differences that you notice? Be as specific as you can.
4) Read the first four verses of the gospel according to Luke. Why would these
verses pose a challenge to a view of inspiration as divine dictation?
5) Read the account of the appearance of Jesus to his disciples after the resurrection
in Luke 24:36–49. What details does Luke include to indicate that this is a real event
taking place and not simply a myth?
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Chapter Three
Reading Contextually
Q: What did the man say when he walked into a bar?
A: Ouch!
My nine-year-old nephew told me this joke. It’s a good example of a play on words, the
kind of joke that depends on a person misunderstanding the context in which a word
or phrase is used in order for the punch line to work. (If you don’t get this one, I would
suggest you hear my nephew tell it. He’s very funny.) Humor in general, as well as
most of the embarrassing moments in our lives, depends on our being unaware of the
true context of a statement or situation.
Sometimes misunderstanding the context of a remark or action is not so funny. In my
years as a high school teacher I have seen a number of fights started because one
student misinterpreted a comment passed by a classmate. Friends and family
members sometimes stop talking for months or even years because of a perceived
slight which may never have been intended. And when an American surveillance
plane collided with a Chinese interceptor and was forced to make a crash landing in
China a few years ago, countless hours were spent by the State Departments of both
countries to produce a statement of apology in which no word would be taken out of
context. More than one war has begun because of such a misunderstanding.
Often our understanding and appreciation of the Bible falls victim to misinterpretations of texts
that have been taken out of context. Consider these two teachings of Jesus from the Sermon on the
Mount:
If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away; it is better for you to
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lose one of your members than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. (Mt
5:29)
You have heard that it was said, “You shall love your neighbor and hate your
enemy.” But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.
(Mt 5:43–44)
Imagine for a moment that you are a visitor to earth from another planet, who
understands English but who has never heard of Jesus. If you came across these two
statements in isolation, how would you know that in one case Jesus is speaking
metaphorically and in the other he means exactly what he says? In both cases Jesus
seems to be commanding us to do something that is quite unreasonable and painful.
Clearly something is required beyond just a literal reading of the words.
Once you consider the Christian context in which both statements are based,
however, the distinction becomes quite clear. The call to extend the mercy and love
of God we have received even to our enemies is central to the entire Christian way of
life. Jesus’ exhortation to love our enemies ought to be taken very seriously.
What do we make of the first teaching? Our common sense provides us with the
sufficient context we need to conclude that Jesus could not be calling us to practice
self-mutilation. How could we possibly reconcile such a command with the
unconditional love Jesus demonstrated for others in his life and death? Still, the
author of the gospel of Matthew and the early Church thought that this teaching was
worth preserving. Why?
The use of hyperbole
We need to look more deeply into the first-century Jewish world in which Jesus
lived to find the necessary context clues to answer this question. The prophets
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and teachers of Israel made great use of hyperbole, creating exaggerated and
graphic images in order to make a point. When the prophet Jeremiah was going
about the streets of Jerusalem warning of an attack on the city by the Babylonian
army, he stood at a crowded main gateway and proceeded to smash a large
pottery flask onto the ground. Such a deliberate action in a public place must
have attracted quite a crowd. When a large enough one had gathered, Jeremiah
began to speak on behalf of God: “So will I break this people and this city, as one
breaks a potter’s vessel, so that it can never be mended” (Jer 19:10–11).
Within Jesus’ teachings themselves there are clear examples of sayings that would
only make sense as hyperbole. When Jesus says, “Again I tell you, it is easier for a
camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the
kingdom of God,” he creates an image that challenges all the known laws of physics
as well as our usual perspective on the value of material wealth (Mt 19:24).
Thoughts of gouging out an eye may be just repulsive enough to make us stop and
think: Is there anything I dearly value that is getting in the way of my relationship
with God?
It might seem after the above analysis that it requires an advanced degree in ancient
Middle Eastern studies in order to read the books of the Bible contextually. Certainly it is
true that as we learn more about the world in which Jesus lived, we can explore the
meaning of the Scriptures in greater depth. No such heroic efforts are required to read
the Scriptures thoughtfully and prayerfully, however. Reading the Bible contextually
really means using context clues to unlock the meaning of a Scripture passage in the
same basic way we use context clues to unlock meaning in our everyday lives.
Processing context clues
Imagine that you have made plans to meet a friend at the movie theater at 7:00 pm.
Things get out of hand that day, and you find yourself running late and arriving at
the theatre fifteen minutes after the movie has started. As your friend sees you
coming down the street, she says, “I’m going to kill you.” Unless you have some really
rough friends, you don’t immediately dive for cover underneath the nearest parked
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car or behind the closest mailbox. Probably, you smile sheepishly and apologize.
Why? Without even thinking about it, of course, you have automatically responded
to a host of context clues that tell you your friend means you no harm. For example:
1) My friends don’t usually try to kill me.
2) Sane people don’t hurt one another over such a minor offense.
3) My friend is probably very annoyed at me because I made her miss her favorite
movie.
When you process such clues as these, you conclude that your friend must be
speaking metaphorically and is really looking for an apology. You have now
successfully “read” your friend’s words contextually.
If this process of considering context in order to identify meaning is necessary in our
daily lives, why wouldn’t it be necessary when we search for meaning within the
books of the Bible? Anyone who has read this far already knows that the books of
the Bible were written over a long period of time and were influenced by a number
of ancient customs and beliefs. God worked through the human authors whose
talents and limitations influenced the final product. It simply doesn’t make sense to
think that normal rules for interpretation would be suspended when we deal with
texts formulated in times so different from our own.
Every good modern translation of the Bible acknowledges this fact. You will find
articles at the beginning of each biblical book providing you with the basic contextual
background you need in order to understand the type of book you are reading. Many
pages of the text itself will be laden with footnotes and cross references designed to help
you understand the meaning of obscure terms or actions, or to help you make
connections between one passage in the Bible and another. Reading contextually means
considering both sets of contextual clues—those that help us place the book properly
within our biblical library and those that guide us to deeper meaning within the book
itself. Let’s consider a couple of illustrations.
About sixty years ago, before the age of television, director Orson Welles decided to
give the listeners of the Mercury Radio Theatre a Halloween surprise. He
presented an adaptation of War of the Worlds, a science fiction novel by H.G.
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Wells, depicting an alien invasion as if it were a breaking news story. Welles
issued a disclaimer before the program began that this was a work of fiction, but
apparently a number of people hadn’t yet settled into their living rooms when the
disclaimer was made.
The program set off an overnight panic as many people tuned in their radios to hear
what they thought was an actual invasion from outer space! (Keep in mind all of
this happened well before the beginning of the Space Age.)When the listeners
learned that it was all a hoax, the radio station received so many calls and letters
of protest that Welles was forced to issue an apology.
What happened to cause such a terrific misunderstanding? Those people who did not
hear Welles’ disclaimer missed the key context clue they needed to properly interpret
the program. Most of the time a news report is a type of communication that’s meant
to be understood as fact. In this case, it was entirely a work of fiction.
There are books in the Bible which appear to be one type of literature but are
actually another. As mentioned in chapter one, the book of Jonah is located right in
the middle of the section of the Old Testament devoted to the prophets. Jonah is
unlike any other prophet you will encounter in the Bible, however. He is an almost
entirely fictional character (only the name is historical) who acts in a most
unprophetic way. The book of Jonah, written centuries later than the prophetic
books which surround it, is a satire much more concerned about the lesson God has
to teach Jonah—and through Jonah the reader—than it is about any lessons Jonah
preaches to the people of Nineveh.
The Book of Revelation
Probably the most misinterpreted book in the New Testament is the book of
Revelation. Any number of (mostly awful) Hollywood movies and alarmist books
have been written purporting to unlock the real meaning of the prophecies in the
book of Revelation, for our time. The beast marked with the number 666, for
example, has been identified with a variety of contemporary villains—from Hitler to
Stalin to Saddam Hussein. Even Ronald Reagan (whose six-letter middle name is
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Wilson) has been identified as the supposed anti-Christ! All of these
misinterpretations make the same basic mistake: they assume that the book of
Revelation is a prophecy of future temporal events.
As any good, basic background article will explain, Revelation is an example of
apocalyptic literature. This type of writing makes liberal use of imaginative symbols to
convey a spiritual prophecy—that at the end of time, God’s kingdom will encompass all
of creation. While many of the images in apocalyptic literature appear to be dramatic
descriptions of some particular future historical events, the writer’s attention is firmly
fixed on a crisis of his or her own time. The book of Revelation was probably composed
somewhere around the turn of the 1st century AD, so there’s a good chance that much of
the negative imagery is aimed at the Roman Empire, which was intensely persecuting
Christians under Emperor Domitian.
When Bible scholars studied the Greek in which the New Testament was originally
written, they discovered something intriguing about the number 666 that would further
support the connection between Revelation and the Roman persecutions. In the Greek
alphabet, letters also have a numeric value. (The same thing happens in Latin; consider
the Roman numerals V, X, C, D, for example.) One name that has the numeric value of 666
in Greek is “Nero Caesar,” the first Roman Emperor to persecute Christians in the mid60’s AD.
If we miss the basic context clue as to which type of book we are reading, we will find
ourselves as confused as those listeners who did not hear Orson Welles’ disclaimer in the
Halloween radio broadcast. Getting the basic framework right, however, won’t help us a
great deal unless we also tune into the more particular context clues within the text
itself. One of the most poignant moments in the story of salvation history is described in
Genesis 15. Abram (later to be called Abraham) has responded faithfully to God’s call and
has migrated hundreds of miles with his extended family from the lands between the
Tigris and Euphrates Rivers in the east to the land of Canaan in the west. The story
continues, giving us an image of the intimacy that exists between God and Abram, “God
brought him outside and said, ‘Look toward heaven and count the stars, if you are able to
count them.’ Then he said to him, ‘So shall your descendants be’” (Gn 15:5). God further
promises that the land of Canaan itself will belong to Abram and his descendants (v 7,
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18–21).
God gives Abram some strange instructions, however. ““Bring me a heifer three years
old, a female goat three years old, a ram three years old, a turtledove, and a young
pigeon.” Abram seems to know what God has in mind: “(Abram) brought him all these
and cut them in two, laying each half over against the other; but he did not cut the birds
in two” (v 9–10). Abram remains with the slaughtered carcasses until “a deep sleep fell
upon Abram, and a deep and terrifying darkness descended upon him” as the sun begins
to set (v 12).
God’s covenant with Abram
Now, Abram has a vision. “When the sun had gone down and it was dark, a
smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passed between these pieces. On that day the
Lord made a covenant with Abram” (v 17, 18). “Covenant” is the key word of the
entire Old Testament. (“Testament” in fact means “covenant.”) It is a term rich in
meaning which, when properly understood, describes the nature of the entire
relationship between God and the Hebrew people. Certainly something profound
must have just happened between God and Abram. But what?
The first context clue comes in a footnote attached to verse 17 in the New
American Bible: “Brazier (fire pot in NRSV): literally ‘oven’; a portable one is meant
here. The smoke and fire represent God’s presence. Although the text does not
mention it, Abraham no doubt also walked between the split carcasses.” The
footnote on verse 18 adds that in walking between the split carcasses, God and
Abram have, literally, “cut a covenant.”
So that we might understand what “cutting a covenant” means, the notes refer us
to the book of Jeremiah, chapter 34, verse 19. Once there we find this note:
As the Bible (Gn 15:10–17) and also contemporary inscriptions make clear,
agreements (in the ancient Middle East) were sometimes ratified by walking
between the divided pieces of animals while the contracting parties invoked on
themselves a fate similar to that of the slaughtered beast if they should fail to keep
their word.
Now the meaning of the passage in Genesis 15 is clear. God and Abram are
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engaging in the most solemn ceremony known to the ancient nomadic societies in
which the people lived who crafted the legends of Abram and his wife Sarah.
“Cutting a covenant” with someone meant that you were pledging your
unconditional fidelity to him. In a prophetic preview of what is to come in New
Testament times, God essentially meets Abram on a level Abram is sure to
understand, and Abram responds in kind.
Does God expect us to find the nearest available large farm animal and slaughter one
each time we wish to enter into serious prayer individually or as a community? Of course
not. Animal sacrifice as a means of worshipping God is not a part of our contemporary
religious experience. An essential aspect of Christianity, in fact, is our belief that through
Jesus, God has eliminated the need for any external mediation in our personal or
communal relationship with God. With the help of the specific context clues highlighted
above, we gain insight into the degree to which God again and again enters into
relationship with human beings without getting caught up in the details of the story
which describe an obscure ancient ceremony.
The books of the Bible are like messages that have been placed in bottles by a person
stranded on a desert island. Separated from us not by water but by time, the biblical
authors under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit strove to put their intangible
experience of God into tangible words. They could only do so, however, using the
words and images that made sense to them, and by incorporating an understanding
of the world as they envisioned it.
It is no criticism of our ancestors in the faith to recognize that the “bottles” in
which they have conveyed their experiences of God to us have become clouded and
worn with age. The almost unbelievable reality we experience when we approach
these texts in a spirit of reverence is that within those corroded bottles are messages
that continue to be fresh and alive and relevant. Reading contextually really means
allowing the Holy Spirit to guide us communally and individually in the process of
encountering the message, of letting it penetrate our hearts, and of crafting new
bottles able to withstand the waves on the way to future generations.
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Questions for Thought and Discussion
1) Explain the basic difference between a contextual and a literal approach to
reading the Bible.
2) Give one example of Jesus’ teaching from the Sermon on the Mount that is
meant to be understood literally and one that is meant to be understood
metaphorically. Explain some of the context clues that helped you properly place
each statement.
3) Reflect on a time in your life when misunderstanding contextual clues caused
you embarrassment or conflict. Explain as specifically as possible what the context
clues were that you missed. How would a correct understanding of the situation
have affected your words and/or actions?
4) Imagine that someone bursts into the room frantically gesturing and shouting.
List as many possible meanings for these actions as you can think of. (Have some fun
with this.) What additional context clues would you need in each case to determine
whether or not your explanation was correct?
5) What are the two primary ways that context clues can help us properly interpret the Bible?
Give an example of specific context clues a good modern translation of the Bible supplies in each
case.
6) Using a good modern translation such as the NAB, Jerusalem Bible, or NRSV, and/or biblical
commentary (see Epilogue), describe some specific insights you gain into each of the following
Bible stories when you consider appropriate context clues: Joshua 3, Crossing the Jordan River;
Mark 2:1–12, Jesus cures the paralytic.
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Chapter Four
Oral Tradition
As I am writing this paragraph I am looking at some pictures of my wife and
children. Like most people, I like to have these pictures close by as tangible
representations of the people I love. These photos are limited representations, of
course; they do not capture who my wife and children are but what they looked
like at one particular moment. Even if one of these photos was a work of art that
captured something of the essence of the person, it would still not tell the story of
who the person is. These photographs help me to connect more directly with
people who contain within themselves and in the context of our relationships so
much more than any picture could possibly convey.
This same principle holds when we consider the stories of the Hebrew Scriptures and of the
New Testament. Every story we read is a “snapshot” of a storytelling tradition that goes
back at least a few generations and may go back hundreds or even thousands of years.
This process of passing down stories from one generation to the next is known as oral
tradition. Understanding how oral tradition shapes the stories that pass through it is an
essential insight into the richness of meaning that lies behind the particular tales told in
the Bible.
Most of the people who lived in the societies which produced the books of the Bible
were illiterate. There were a number of reasons for this. Books had to be copied
by hand and thus were prohibitively expensive. No means of mass education
existed—a condition certainly encouraged and perpetuated by despots who knew
that a literate population would be more likely to organize against them. In order
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to preserve their most sacred and meaningful memories and to introduce their
children to the values they held dear, the people in these societies communicated
them through easy to remember stories in oral tradition.
The complexities produced by generations of varying interpretations of the same
basic story—sometimes appearing side by side—are especially important when
considering the books of the Hebrew Bible. As was discussed in chapter one,
some of these stories may have roots going back thousands of years. In the next
chapter we’ll be paying close attention to this process of oral tradition at work
over a long span of time as we explore the central event of the Hebrew
Scriptures—the escape from Egypt. Let’s take a simpler example to get us started,
however. Consider the fate of the gospels’ most famous villain, Judas.
The story of Judas
The consensus of modern Catholic Bible scholars is that the gospel of Luke and the Acts of the
Apostles is the two-volume work of one author. (We’ll explore this completed work further in
chapter 11.) It’s also widely accepted that Luke and Matthew, while probably having no knowledge
of one another’s work, wrote at approximately the same time. Thus, their obviously independent
versions of the death of Judas offer us an opportunity to actually see how the same historical
starting point can be significantly transformed through oral tradition.
Two versions of the story about the death of Judas? For most Christians, it may come
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as a surprise to find out that there is more than one. The following text from
Matthew’s gospel is probably the one that comes immediately to mind:
When Judas, his betrayer, saw that Jesus was condemned, he repented and brought
back the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and the elders. He said, “I have
sinned by betraying innocent blood.” But they said, ‘What is that to us? See to it
yourself.” Throwing down the pieces of silver in the temple, he departed; and he
went and hanged himself. But the chief priests, taking the pieces of silver, said, “It is
not lawful to put them into the treasury, since they are blood money.” After
conferring together, they used them to buy the potter’s field as a place to bury
foreigners.
(Mt 27:3–10)
Here’s a story that captures the reader’s mind and heart. There’s that clear sense
of irony—just as Jesus’ end came by Judas’ hand, so Judas’ end came by his own
hand. And yet this is balanced with an equally clear sense of compassion; Judas’
remorse and utter desolation at the story’s conclusion must leave all but the most
hard-hearted with a bit of sympathy for this tortured soul.
Matthew’s version may be the most well known, but it is not the only version of
this story. Notice the differences in this speech by St. Peter in Acts:
He [Peter] said, “Friends, the scripture had to be fulfilled, which the Holy Spirit
through David foretold concerning Judas, who became a guide for those who
arrested Jesus—for he was numbered among us and was allotted his share in this
ministry. (Now this man acquired a field with the reward of his wickedness; and
falling headlong, he burst open in the middle and all his bowels gushed out. This
became known to all the residents of Jerusalem, so that the field was called in their
language Hakeldama, that is, Field of Blood.) (Acts 1:16–19)
In Matthew’s account, Judas’ end is immediate and motivated by his remorse and
despair. In Luke’s version, Judas seems to have done well financially as a result of his
scheming—he is now a landowner. His end comes at some indeterminate time later
and under different circumstances. Whatever “he burst open in the middle” means,
it’s not a description of a hanging. No sense of remorse is suggested here; I imagine
the look on Judas’ face at his death to be one of complete shock.
How could two versions of the same event be so completely different? Can both
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versions lay claim to be divinely inspired, or do the differences draw into question
whether either one should be accepted as the truth? An understanding of oral
tradition can give us a new appreciation for the differences and the essential
religious truth revealed in both.
From actual events to oral tradition
Consider the gospels and Acts as the top layer of a three-layer cake. (Pick your
favorite frosting and filling.) As explained in Dei Verbum, the Vatican II document
which outlines the modern Catholic approach to Scripture study, the gospels were
composed two or three generations after the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus
(DV 19). Those who wrote them were not eyewitnesses themselves but relied on
traditions that had been handed down to them. Mark was most likely the first gospel
to be written, around the time of the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem in 70
AD. The other three gospels and Acts would have been written some time later; both
Matthew and Luke incorporate almost the whole of Mark’s gospel and therefore
must have used it as a source. By the early part of the second century, archaeological
discoveries and early Christian writings confirm that all four gospels were in
existence, although not necessarily universally accepted yet by the Church as
divinely inspired.
At the base of the gospel tradition—the first layer of our cake—is the life, ministry,
and death of Jesus of Nazareth. While precise dating is impossible, the traditional
belief that Jesus was crucified around 33 AD is as good a year as any to mark the
upper boundary of this first layer of tradition. Then something extraordinary
happened—the resurrection.
Those who experienced this event came away with a radically new
understanding of Jesus, and of God. In trying to come to terms with the
experience and convey the essence of it to others, they told stories, prayed,
celebrated the liturgy of the Eucharist together, and developed methods of
catechesis (religious instruction), virtually all of which remained exclusively
in oral tradition. We get a glimpse of just how rich this developing oral
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tradition, in the 30 or 40 years represented by the second layer of our cake,
must have been in the letters of St. Paul. These letters, probably produced in
the 50s AD, are the earliest written parts of the New Testament. Already Paul
is aware that he is handing on a well-developed expression of the core
Christian beliefs—kerygma, in Greek—that predate his ministry:
For I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received: that
Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, and that he was buried,
and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, and that
he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve.
(1 Cor 15:3–5)
Those years in which oral tradition was at work have left their mark on the story
of Judas. What oral tradition does very well is communicate the basic truth of a story.
Here, the moral lesson is clear. No good could ever come of such an act of betrayal.
Judas, in attempting to circumvent the will of God, finds himself God’s unwitting
instrument anyway.
Oral tradition is also effective when communicating dramatic stories or material
containing a rhythm or pattern of repetition that’s easy to remember. (Why else would
companies pour so many millions of dollars into formulating advertising jingles and
slogans?) Notice how many passages in the Bible consist of poems, songs, high drama, or
brief and colorful stories such as Jesus’ parables.
Putting it in writing
When it comes to communicating the specific details of a historical event, however—specific
names, dates, and other particulars that we consider essential in the recounting of an actual
event—oral tradition is much less effective. Keeping in mind that the skill of memorization was
much more highly developed among these ancient storytellers than in our own time and culture,
it’s still safe to say the standards of historical accuracy have changed significantly. So Matthew and
Luke start with the same basic framework given to them through oral tradition, but there is a lot of
empty space within its borders.
How do they fill those empty spaces? Let’s begin to answer this question by
looking at the only layer of our cake that we can see. When we look at the passages
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in Matthew and Acts, there are two things both accounts share in common. Certainly
the basic idea that Judas was among the inner circle of Jesus’ followers, and was
instrumental in Jesus’ arrest and subsequent death, is deeply rooted in the other two
layers of tradition.
But something else shows up. Both accounts speak of a “Field of Blood”
located somewhere in the immediate environs of Jerusalem. More to the
point, each story provides a reason for why this particular acreage is known
by such an unusual name. This second common element may seem surprising
at first glance. Didn’t we just say that oral tradition is not particularly good at
conveying such seemingly insignificant details?
Look more closely at Matthew’s account, specifically his statement that the field is
known by this name “to this day.” This is the insight we need to begin to enter the
complex tradition at work here. The “day” Matthew is referring to here is clearly the
time in which he is writing—a time two or three generations after Jesus’ arrest. So
the real situation here is the reverse of what it first seemed. It’s not that an ancient
reference to a “Field of Blood” is being transmitted through oral tradition. The
primary purpose of these two stories in their original context was to try and explain
the curious name of a field that existed in the evangelist’s own time!
Both versions of the Judas story are good examples of etiologies—imaginative
tales which attempt to explain the origins of some present reality. Etiologies are a
part of the literature of many ancient cultures; another example in the Bible that
we’ll examine in chapter 8 is the story of the tower of Babel (Gn 11). What our study
of the top layer of the cake reveals is that a connection exists between Judas and a
field well known to Luke and Matthew and their audiences. It’s also clear, however,
that the particular connection between the two, if it ever existed, has been lost.
Matthew and Luke, probably without any knowledge of one another, have each
expanded on a common memory preserved in oral tradition that connects Judas, the
betrayer of Jesus, with a location known as the “Field of Blood.” The particular
details are uniquely devised by each author. Can we fill in the blank spaces any
further and speculate on why they paint their respective canvases the way they do?
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Comparing versions
Often when comparing different versions of the same story in Matthew and Luke,
it’s helpful to take a look at Mark. Since it was a common source for both the other
gospels, Mark can often serve as the standard for determining which author is closer
to the story as Mark received it through oral tradition. That approach won’t help us
here, however. The last we see of Judas in Mark’s gospel is when he kisses Jesus in
order to identify him for the arresting soldiers (Mk 14:45). We’ll have to rely,
therefore, on whatever internal evidence we can find in the gospels themselves.
A good place to start when studying Matthew’s version of the story is the
prophecy he quotes.
Matthew sees the decision of the Jewish leaders to use the thirty pieces of silver
Judas has returned for the purchase of the “potter’s field” as a fulfillment of a
prophecy by Jeremiah:
Then was fulfilled what had been spoken through the prophet Jeremiah, “And they
took the thirty pieces of silver, the price of the one on whom a price had been set, on
whom some of the people of Israel had set a price, and they gave them for the
potter’s field, as the Lord commanded me.”(Mt 27:9–10)
This pattern of presenting an episode in the life and death of Jesus and
demonstrating how it fulfills a particular prophecy about the Messiah in the Hebrew
Bible is one that Matthew incorporates often into his gospel. (See Mt 21:1–11 for
another good example.)
There’s just one problem: Jeremiah never said it! The closest match to the
prophecy Matthew quotes are these words from the prophet Zechariah: “Then the
Lord said to me, ‘Throw it into the treasury’—this lordly price at which I was valued
by them. So I took the thirty shekels of silver and threw them into the treasury in the
house of the Lord” (Zec 11:13). A footnote on this verse in the New American Bible
mentions a collection of unrelated references in the book of Jeremiah concerning a
potter (18:2–3), the buying of a field (Jer 32:6–9), and the destiny of a valley
bordering Jerusalem (Ben-Hinnom) as a burial place (Jer 19:1–3) that Matthew
might also be referring to here. So perhaps Matthew stretches things a bit, believing
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as all Christians do that the Hebrew Scriptures if properly interpreted point to Jesus.
Luke’s version is harder to nail down, but a study of Genesis 15 suggests one
possibility.
In this chapter, God and Abraham mark the beginning of their covenant relationship
with a ceremony. Abraham is instructed to slaughter a three-year-old heifer, a threeyear-old she-goat, and a three-year-old ram. The carcasses are to be split in two so
that Abraham and God—symbolized by a flaming torch—can walk between the
halves. Archaeology has revealed that this ceremony, sometimes referred to as
“cutting a covenant,” was a way to formalize ancient treaties. What the parties who
walk between the animal halves seem to be saying is that if any one of them breaks
the covenant, the others may do to him what has been done to the animals. Is Luke’s
description of Judas’ being “split open down the middle” a creative way of indicating
the gravity of Judas’ breach of the covenant with God?
Having come this far, you might feel your head spinning as you wonder if your
faith in the inerrancy of Scripture has been shattered once and for all. If you take a
minute to think about it, however, you will notice how much more solid the ground
beneath your feet has become. The more familiar we are with the process of oral
tradition as it is preserved within the stories of the Bible, the more we come to
appreciate that the formation of the books of the Bible was truly a creative and faithfilled enterprise. Even in this relatively inconsequential bit of the traditions
surrounding Jesus, Matthew and Luke use all of their God-given and God-inspired
abilities to preach the core gospel message. When the evangelists emphasize the
tragic consequences of Judas’ choice, they are really reaffirming the glory of Jesus
and the crucial importance of his ministry.
An appreciation for the process of oral tradition and the role it played in the
formation of the books of the Bible can help us in two other important ways. By
understanding that specific details of a biblical narrative can develop or change
without affecting the essential truth the story communicates, we avoid locking
ourselves into any kind of fundamentalism when reading the
texts. Biblical
fundamentalism encourages an unreasonably literal interpretation of the text of the
Bible on the grounds that if one detail is proven false, then the entire whole
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collapses as well.
The books of the Bible are no house of cards. The various distinct traditions
preserved within the Scriptures are signs of how vibrant the oral tradition
supporting these writings was. So many generations of believers found
meaning through the stories that they heard and passed along. Each variation
in the telling of the story demonstrated in a new way how many paths there
are to an authentic experience of God.
Think again about the example of the photographs. Can we ever exhaust the
meaning that those we hold dear bring to our lives, in a few specific words or
phrases? Don’t the important relationships in our lives defy concise descriptions or
definitions? When it comes to the things that matter most, words are often a barely
passable conduit for partial expressions of the inexpressible.
The layers of oral tradition that support our written text, and consequently the
layers of interpretation laid on top of those written texts through the history of the
Church, remind us that divine revelation is a dynamic process that moves through
the words of Scripture but can never be completely defined by them. Always there
will be new insights into the application of ancient texts to modern life issues,
keeping the Word of God as fresh and vital as ever. Understanding the role of oral
tradition in the creation of the Bible is like suddenly realizing that the twodimensional photographs you thought you were viewing are in fact holograms,
three-dimensional images reflecting intricacies of detail we have only barely begun
to explore.Questions for Thought and Discussion
1) Define “oral tradition.” Why were Bible stories originally transmitted this way?
2) What kind of information is oral tradition most effective at transmitting? Least
effective?
3) Define “kerygma.” What are the essential elements of the Christian kerygma
according to St. Paul?
4) List and describe the three stages in the development of the gospels.
5) In a small group or classroom setting, simulate oral tradition through the
“Telephone Game.” (One person makes up a story and tells a second person. The
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second person then tells a third person who is hearing the story for the first time.
Extend the chain of storytellers/listeners for as long as you like.)
How does the story change? What remains unchanged? What conclusions
about oral tradition can you draw?
6) Think about how oral tradition operates in your life. What are the stories that
are constantly repeated among your family and friends? What makes the stories so
important or so memorable? How do these stories help to build the bond of
community among the members of the group?
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Covenant
Chapter Five
The Exodus Event
A few years back I remember seeing a TV commercial featuring the tread imprints of
four tires near the four corners of a blank white screen. After a few seconds of
silence, a voice reminded us that while cars come with a number of safety
features, the vehicle’s set of tires is the only safety feature that actually comes into
contact with the road. This image can be really helpful in trying to understand the
communal experience of God that gave birth to the oral traditions which would
one day become the written Scriptures of the Hebrew people.
In the Old Testament or Hebrew Bible, the essential experience of God that influenced the way in
which Israel understood its subsequent history and that colored the legends already held dear
by the twelve Hebrew tribes were the collective memories of events preserved in the book of
Exodus. The circumstances surrounding the Hebrews’ journey out of Egypt and their
subsequent adventures as they made their way into the hills of the Jordan River valley—the
Promised Land—transformed a loose confederation of Egyptian slaves into a community
united by a new identity as God’s chosen people. At the epicenter of this saga is the story of the
Hebrews breathtaking escape from the Egyptian army in the vicinity of the Red Sea.
It is here that “the rubber meets the road,” to quote another tire commercial, as a
group of terrified slaves in the process of fleeing from the Egyptian army find
themselves caught up in a profoundly transforming encounter with God. The
entire corpus of books in the Hebrew Bible formed over hundreds of years under
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the watchful guidance of the Holy Spirit is an effort to come to terms with and to
express the divine mystery revealed.
The story in Scripture
At first glance, it seems easy to reconstruct what happened. The book of Exodus
gives us the background in chapters 1 to 13. Moses, a Hebrew raised as an Egyptian,
responds to God’s call to return from his exile in the land of Midian and inform the
Pharaoh that Yahweh—the divine name God reveals to Moses—wants the Hebrew
slaves to be freed. Pharaoh resists, and a cycle of nine plague stories describe the
various horrors inflicted on Egypt by God. Still the Pharaoh refuses, and God delivers
the crushing blow in the form of the tenth plague: the death of the firstborn. The
Hebrews are spared the devastation because they follow God’s instructions and
apply the blood of unblemished lambs to their door lintels, as a sign for the angel of
death to see.
The Pharaoh temporarily relents and allows Moses and the Hebrew slaves to depart.
Before they go, they eat a hurried supper made of roasted lamb, unleavened bread,
and bitter herbs—the first Passover meal. Having eaten, the people head towards
the “yam suf,” generally the biblical name for the Red Sea. They arrive followed by
Egyptian chariots sent by the Pharaoh in hot pursuit. And then comes the turning
point:
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Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea. The Lord drove the sea back by a
strong east wind all night, and turned the sea into dry land; and the waters were
divided. The Israelites went into the sea on dry ground, the waters forming a wall for
them on their right and on their left.
The Egyptians pursued, and went into the sea after them, all of Pharaoh’s horses,
chariots, and chariot drivers. At the morning watch the Lord in the pillar of fire and
cloud looked down upon the Egyptian army, and threw the Egyptian army into panic.
He clogged their chariot wheels so that they turned with difficulty. The Egyptians
said, “Let us flee from the Israelites, for the Lord is fighting for them against Egypt.”
Then the Lord said to Moses, “Stretch out your hand over the sea, so that the water
may come back upon the Egyptians, upon their chariots and chariot drivers.” So
Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and at dawn the sea returned to its
normal depth. As the Egyptians fled before it, the Lord tossed the Egyptians into the
sea. The waters returned and covered the chariots and the chariot drivers, the entire
army of Pharaoh that had followed them into the sea; not one of them remained. But
the Israelites walked on dry ground through the sea, the waters forming a wall for
them on their right and on their left. Thus the Lord saved Israel that day from the
Egyptians.
(Ex 14:21–30)
You’ve probably seen this event recreated many times. This dramatic escape has
been immortalized by Cecil B. DeMille in The Ten Commandments, animated in The
Prince of Egypt, and made the climax of a recent mini-series entitled In the
Beginning. It’s easy to get caught up in the drama of a vast sea opening up, then
crashing down on the ill-fated Egyptian army.
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Looking at the details
Yet certain details demand closer attention. While the popular images cited above
give us the impression of an immediate miracle, the text says the sea divided
because “The Lord drove the sea back by a strong east wind all night” (v 21). And
what about that sudden and utter destruction of the Egyptian chariots? Compare
verse 25: “He clogged their chariot wheels so that they turned with difficulty. The
Egyptians said, ‘Let us flee from the Israelites, for the Lord is fighting for them
against Egypt’” and verse 27: “So Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and at
dawn the sea returned to its normal depth. As the Egyptians fled before it, the Lord
tossed the Egyptians into the sea.”
Even allowing for some variation in translation, it’s hard to imagine an army in
retreat and charging at the same time.
Things get a little more confusing. According to chapter 15 in the book of Exodus,
immediately after completing the crossing and seeing the bodies of the dead
Egyptians washed up on the opposite shore, the escaped slaves are lead in a song of
celebration by Moses’ sister Miriam. Not only does this song recount in specific
detail the events that have just occurred (see v. 4 for example: “Pharaoh’s chariots
and army he hurled into the sea”), but goes on to make reference to specific events
related to the conquest of the Promised Land (v 14–17). Even if we could stretch our
imaginations and picture a band of terrified slaves running for their lives composing
a song to commemorate the event and then making sure everyone gets a copy, how
could they commemorate events that would not happen until generations later?
Geography also works against interpreting the story in Exodus as an eyewitness account. The
consensus among archaeologists and Bible scholars is that the “cities of Pithom and Rameses”
(Ex 1:11) which are being built by the Pharaoh with Hebrew slave labor, were located in the
Nile delta region—the population center of ancient Egypt. A glance at any map of the region
will clearly show that travelers seeking to go from this area towards the Promised Land of the
Bible would find themselves miles north of even the northernmost arm of the Red Sea, the
Gulf of Suez. The most likely route taken by those fleeing Egypt would be through the swampy
area of the Bitter Lakes located about halfway between the Mediterranean coast to the north
and the Gulf of Suez to the south. No “walls of water” here.
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Using the four keys
How can our four keys to interpreting the Bible help us through our difficulties
and questions concerning this crucial part of the book of Exodus? Let’s first apply
our understanding of oral tradition. In the example of the death of Judas in chapter
4, we saw how specific details sometimes become difficult to retain over time. In this
case the difficulty is greatly magnified.
While there is no way to precisely date the historical events behind the
stories in Exodus, many scholars believe the basic situation matches closely
the period of major building projects undertaken by Egyptian Pharaoh
Ramesses II in the mid-thirteenth century B.C. The final editing of the
Pentateuch—the Greek name given to the first five books of the Bible
(Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy)—took place sometime
after the Jews returned from exile in Babylon in the sixth century B.C. That
allows for possibly seven hundred years of development of the stories
concerning the Exodus events. To get a sense of how much time and cultural
change these stories would have had to endure, consider that traveling back
an equivalent amount of time today would place us right at the height of the
Middle Ages!
Also keep in mind that by the time these collective reflections do reach their
written form—the “snapshot” of the analogy in chapter 4—the traditions
surrounding the escape have long become a part of Jewish liturgical worship
and celebration. You have to think backwards. When you read about the
preparations and instructions for the first Passover meal in Exodus 12 and
13, for example, it seems as if the Jewish Passover celebrations throughout
the ages have been simple replications of that first celebration so many
centuries ago. But in reality, the picture presented in Exodus reflects the
practices of the Jewish community seven hundred years later.
The stories of the Bible are not primary sources of the events they describe.
They are primary sources of the faith life and beliefs of the communities who
committed the oral traditions to written form. Can we ever reconstruct
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exactly what happened during the time of the Exodus, based on the texts we
have? An understanding of the way in which oral tradition works must lead
us to the conclusion that this is not possible. This is not the same as saying
that the events did not occur, however.
In the case of our story at hand, Bible scholars can construct a plausible scenario
for what might have happened, based on a careful reading of the text and a
knowledge of the geography of the area north of the Red Sea. Recall the words of
verse 25. One thing that could effectively clog the wheels of a chariot is mud. What
would be the result if heavy chariots made of wood and metal, pulled by one or more
horses and possibly carrying two or three riders, followed a group of fugitives
fleeing on foot through an excessively boggy or swampy area? This intriguing
possibility would be even more likely if the “strong east wind blowing through the
night” mentioned in verse 21 is a description of a storm making the ground
impassable. Under these conditions, it would be easy to understand why the
Egyptian force, embarrassed by its inability to capture a group of rag-tag fugitives,
simply gave up and went home.
The Bible tells the story of faith
What’s most important to keep in mind at this point, however, is that the specific
historical details really don’t matter. Remember our understanding of inspiration. The
stories of the Bible, while often imaginative and even at times mythical retellings, are
creative attempts to convey the meaning of real events in which God broke into human
history and revealed something essential to our faith and salvation. Whatever the core
historical experience was, the central importance of the escape from Egypt for the
generations of Hebrews transmitting the story through oral tradition under the
inspiration of the Holy Spirit, is clear within the books of the Hebrew Bible themselves.
To begin with, look again at the two different versions of the story in Exodus 14 and 15.
Generally speaking, scholars view poems and songs contained within the Bible as
belonging to earlier levels of development. Poems and songs are easier to remember
than prose passages and thus are better vehicles for transmitting stories in oral tradition.
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(Notice what happens when you hear the first few notes of your favorite song.) Again we
need to think backwards: the song that Miriam and the people sing is an earlier version
of the story than the prose version of chapter 14.
How far apart in time are the two versions of the escape? While precise dating is
difficult, Richard Clifford in The New Jerome Biblical Commentary would date the song
in chapter 15 before the time of King David, who ruled Israel in the tenth century B.C.
Along with many other Bible scholars, Clifford sees within the prose account of chapter
14, the combination of two of the four ancient strands of tradition running throughout
the first five books of the Bible. This process of combining the various separate strands
was not completed until the time the Pentateuch reached its final form after the
Babylonian Exile. The two stories placed side by side in Exodus, therefore, are likely
separated in time by hundreds of years!
Descriptions and references to the escape from Egypt can be found in a number of
places within the Hebrew Bible outside of the book of Exodus as well. In his book,
The Bible As It Was, James L. Kugel does an exhaustive study of the ways in which
various passages within the first five books of the Bible were interpreted and reinterpreted in ancient times. In this particular case, variations of the escape story
can be found in Psalm 77, the book of the prophet Isaiah, the book of Nehemiah, and
the book of Wisdom. We’ll talk about each passage briefly here.
The book of Psalms is actually a compilation of the songs and prayers used by the
Hebrews thousands of years ago during the time of the kingdom. From the time that
it was constructed during King Solomon’s reign in the late tenth century B.C., until
its destruction by the Babylonian army in the sixth century B.C., the Temple in
Jerusalem was the focus of Jewish prayer and worship. The psalms were the
lifeblood of the worship services which took place there. Often they celebrated the
majesty and goodness of God by recounting the important events of Jewish history.
In Psalm 77, the allusion to the escape from Egypt is unmistakable:
When the waters saw you, O God, when the waters saw you, they were afraid; the
very deep trembled.... Your way was through the sea, your path, through the mighty
waters; yet your footprints were unseen. You led your people like a flock by the hand
of Moses and Aaron. (Ps 77:16, 19–20)
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And yet it was not only during the glory years of the kingdom that the Jews celebrated
the events of Exodus. The second part of the book of Isaiah (referred to as deutero or
“second” Isaiah) and the book of Nehemiah were both composed in the shadow of the
destruction of Jerusalem and of the Exile. (See chapter one for a more complete history
of this event.) Most Bible scholars date deutero-Isaiah’s prophecies to a time just before
the return of the exiles to Jerusalem. Nehemiah was the governor appointed by Emperor
Cyrus of Persia, the conqueror of Babylon, to help the Jews rebuild their shattered city.
Both books look to the escape from Egypt for a sign of hope in times of great darkness
and distress.
[God] who led them through the depths… Like a horse in the desert, they did not
stumble. Like cattle that go down into the valley, the spirit of the Lord gave them
rest.
(Is 63:13–14)
You divided the sea before them, so that they passed through the sea on dry land,
but you threw their pursuers into the depths, like a stone into mighty waters. (Neh
9:11)
Even within the book of Wisdom, written only a century before the birth of Jesus,
the reference to the story is clear: “The cloud was seen overshadowing the camp,
and dry land emerging where water had stood before, an unhindered way out of the
Red Sea, and a grassy plain out of the raging waves” (Wisdom 19:6).
A common thread
So much of the oral tradition that transmitted and shaped the stories of Exodus is
hidden from view. Two points stand out, however. Even the small glimpses outlined
above demonstrate what a tremendously creative enterprise this oral
communication must have been. No two interpretations of the escape are exactly the
same; imagery varies greatly. A common thread unites them all, however: in their
descriptions, the various authors are clearly aiming for something more than a
literal retelling of events.
This means of remembering is an easy one for us to understand. Our memories are never
simple, objective recordings of the events of our life. There are vast portions of the average
day that we don’t remember at all. Always our recollections are colored by our perceptions of
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reality. All of us can recall moments of joy or love or hope and even of despair that we
remember as if time had stood still.
There are a thousand details concerning the day I first met my wife that I’ve
forgotten, or that have even changed in my memory, but I’ll never forget the way she
smiled at me that day. Each time any one of us tells the story of our proudest
accomplishment, it comes to life within our mind more vibrantly than ever—
perhaps the fish gets bigger, or the bully that we faced down gets meaner, or the boss
we impressed is ever more demanding. Although I am sleep deprived now, I know
that the day will come when I won’t even remember that but will yearn again to hold
my children the way they were when they were little. So it was for the people of
Israel as they recounted the time that they first fell in love with God.
These remembrances of the Hebrew people do differ from ours in one crucial way,
however, and this is the second point to keep in mind. Through all of the various
retellings and reinterpretation of the Exodus events, the people of Israel never lost
sight of Who was behind them. The deeper message is always the same: we didn’t
escape slavery due to our own cleverness, or to chance, or to Egyptian
incompetence. We escaped our bondage because God heard our cries and rescued
us. And still does.
This profound sense of God’s unconditional love and faithfulness that the Exodus
event gave birth to, is behind all of the stories and prophecies of the Hebrew Bible
aimed at giving us insight into the covenant relationship between God and the
Hebrew people. In the next chapter, we’ll look more closely at some key insights into
and development of the idea of covenant.Questions for Thought and Discussion
1) What are your “Exodus events”? Reflect awhile on the moments and
experiences of your life that have shaped your understanding of God.
2) Do the same for the moments and experiences that have shaped your
understanding of Church.
3) Read the first nine plague stories (Ex 7—10). Do you notice any kind of a
pattern of repetition that might indicate the story’s origins in oral tradition?
In what way does the dynamic between Pharaoh and Moses in these stories
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complement or parallel the events that occur at the Red Sea? Can you find any
information on possible historical backgrounds for the plagues? (The
research sources listed in the Epilogue can help.)
4) Read the accounts of the Passover in Exodus 12 and 13, and contrast these
accounts with the descriptions of the Last Supper in the four gospels. What
similarities and differences do you notice? Can you find any information in
the research sources that may account for the connections?
5) Exodus 19 and 20 recount that Moses received the Commandments from God at
Mt. Sinai. In the context of the first part of the book of Exodus, what role do the
Commandments play for the Hebrew people? How does this view of the
Commandments compare and contrast with the Christian view? With your own
view?
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Chapter Six
Living In Covenant: Quantum Leaps
Seinfeld was probably the most popular television comedy to air in the 1990’s. Although
every episode of the series contained its share of quirky characters and off-beat
situations, one episode stands out in that regard. The episode unfolded backwards; it
began with the show’s final scene and took us through the preceding scenes in reverse
order. The image that cued the viewer in as the show moved further back in time was a
lollipop. The fragments seen as we first started viewing gradually became larger until the
full size of the pop was revealed at the ending—make that the beginning—of the show.
When you apply the four keys to the story told in the Old Testament, something
similar happens to our perception of the action that unfolds there. That which seems
to be the oldest part of the story often turns out to be one of the most recent parts to
have been written down. As you walk with the Hebrew people between the piled-up
waters of the Sea of Reeds in Exodus 14, you can almost hear the sound of the
Egyptian chariots rapidly gaining ground behind you. This ability to transport you to
a distant time and place and to make you feel like you are part of the action, is the
mark of any good narrative, however. As we discovered in chapter 5, the prose
account of the escape in Exodus 14 reached its final written form much later than
the poem which commemorates the events in Exodus 15. Even the poem is
separated from the actual events by centuries.
Importance of the covenant
But the “lollipop” that is present through all of the biblical stories—introduced in
the older portions of the Old Testament in a more limited form and then gradually
revealing its fuller dimensions in the library’s later portions—is the covenant. The
term originally referred to formal treaties among various tribes and clans in the
ancient Middle East. When the two parties “cut a covenant,” they pledged their
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fidelity to one another under pain of death (See page 31). In a world that did not
possess the developed legislative and political systems we take for granted today,
these covenant agreements were the most solemn and binding kind possible.
While the concept of covenant was well-established in antiquity, the idea that God
would enter into a covenant with human beings is the revolutionary thought of the
Old Testament. As the Hebrews came to terms with their experience of God in the
Exodus events—the events that stamped them with their identity as a people—they
began to think of their relationship with God as the ultimate covenant. In the
Collegeville Pastoral Dictionary of Biblical Theology, Marilyn Schaub puts it this way:
“Central to Israel’s faith, life, and worship is the conviction that God, at a particular
time and place, freely chose to enter into communion with Israel, to constitute it as
the people of God, and to impose upon it specific obligations” (Covenant, p. 179).
The most revolutionary aspect of this new concept of covenant is the motivation for
bringing the agreement into being and for maintaining it. In traditional covenant
agreements, a lesser power such as the Hebrew people might initiate a covenant
with a greater power—in this case, God—for protection. This kind of covenant
would resemble an agreement between lord and vassal in medieval feudalism.
Although the immense power of God is revealed through the events of Israel’s
history in the books of the Old Testament, the prophets of Israel who speak on
behalf of God time and time again reject the idea that Israel’s attempts to please
God through ritual worship, and thus benefit from this power, is the basis of
covenant. Their message is always the same: God makes God’s self known to the
Hebrew people out of a deep love for them, even in the midst of all of their
weakness and poverty and oppression. And an authentic covenantal response by
the people can only be made through love.
Just as our first key would lead us to suspect, there is no simple and direct unfolding
of the idea of covenant as we move from one book of the Old Testament to the
next in our biblical library. Some books contain clearly defined references to the
covenant (see Gn 9; 15; Ex 24, for example). In many books the covenant is
usually not explicitly mentioned but rather assumed. According to John L.
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McKenzie, author of the Dictionary of the Bible:
[The scarcity of the word covenant]…in the writings of the prophets of the 8th and
7th centuries (B.C.)…cannot be explained by the assumption that the idea of
covenant is entirely the creation of later writers.… The reality of the covenant
idea that Israel has been chosen by Yahweh, that Yahweh is its God, and that it has
peculiar obligations not shared by other peoples to observe the standards of
worship and conduct which Yahweh has given it, is basic in the prophets.
(Covenant, p. 156)
We’ll look at a few examples of these prophetic writings, and what they reveal about
the nature of covenant, later in this chapter.
Fundamental developments
To get any sense of the development in the way the Hebrew people understood their
covenant relationship with God, it’s not enough to reshuffle the books of the biblical
library according to type and approximate age. We must also go inside particular
books and make distinctions among the first portions of the book to be composed
and the last portions of the book to be composed. While this task sounds daunting,
there are many good, easy-to-read biblical commentaries and other resources that
will help you expand upon the extremely basic sketch attempted here. You’ll find a
number of such resources listed in the Epilogue.
As we compare older portions of the Hebrew Bible related to covenant to those
portions that came into being closer to the time of the Babylonian Exile, two
fundamental developments in the experience of the covenant relationship can be
clearly seen. The earlier view focuses on the charismatic leaders of the Hebrew
people—Moses and King David, for example—and their responsibility to be
mediators of the covenant between the Hebrew people and God. As time goes on, the
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prophets shift the responsibility to the people themselves. Each and every Israelite
must practice covenantal living in his or her own life if the covenant relationship is
to thrive.
Second, earlier portions of the Old Testament present God’s covenantal faithfulness
in the form of dramatic and powerful interventions by God against the enemies of
Israel. Later portions reveal the incredible depths of God’s commitment through
references to God’s continuing and seemingly inexhaustible efforts to call the
straying people of Israel back to covenant living. A selection of some examples from
our biblical library can help to illustrate these two basic shifts.
The story of King David
The story of King David and Bathsheba in 2 Sam 11–12 is riveting. David commits
adultery with the wife of an army officer who is away fighting a battle with the rest
of the army. When David finds out that Bathsheba is pregnant with his child, he calls
Uriah home from the battlefront on the pretext of needing information about how
the battle is progressing. The king first tries a series of unsuccessful ploys to get
Uriah to return home and sleep with his wife, thus getting David off the hook. But
Uriah refuses to do so:
Uriah said to David, “The ark and Israel and Judah remain in booths; and my lord
Joab and the servants of my lord are camping in the open field; shall I then go to my
house, to eat and to drink, and to lie with my wife? As you live, and as your soul lives,
I will not do such a thing.” (2 Sam 11:11)
David’s response to Uriah’s noble act of self-denial is even more dastardly than the
act of adultery itself. The king arranges for Uriah to be killed in battle and, after the
appropriate period of mourning, takes Bathsheba into his harem as his wife.
Just when it seems as if David’s cover-up has succeeded, the prophet Nathan visits
him with a request to judge a case. Nathan tells the story of a rich man possessing
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many flocks of his own, who has slaughtered the single ewe lamb of a poor man so
that he might feast on it with his guests. David is outraged and calls for the name of
the rich man that he might punish him. In one of the most dramatic moments in the
Bible, Nathan replies: “You are the man!” (2 Sam 12:7). “I have sinned against the
Lord,” David says, realizing that the story is about his own horrendous actions (v
13).
Now in the context of David’s times there is nothing about the king’s behavior that
would be outside the pale for an absolute monarch who was accountable to no one.
David isn’t your average king, however. He represents the people of Israel as a
whole; how he responds to the covenant will determine how the people of Israel are
judged by God collectively.
And so in this story, probably composed shortly after the time of King David
in the tenth century B.C., David’s act of repentance has a significance far
beyond David’s individual destiny. Having committed a serious violation of
the covenant, David must now reorient himself to covenant living. There is no
need to explicitly make this connection in the story. Any Israelite who heard it
would know the implications.
The responsibility of each person
As the centuries pass and the fortunes of the kingdom of Israel begin to turn
downward, the strict identification between the leader’s response to the covenant
relationship and the people’s response is challenged. After the time of David’s son,
Solomon, the kingdom of Israel is split in two by civil war. Through the next few
centuries, each half is governed by a series of kings who, with a few notable
exceptions, fail to provide good spiritual leadership. This vacuum is increasingly
filled by the prophets. According to the references in the Old Testament, these holy
men and women have been set apart and sanctified by God so that they might speak
on God’s behalf to the people. (The word “prophet”—in Hebrew nabi’im—literally
means, “one who speaks for another.”) The prophets increasingly exhort the people
to look at their own actions towards one another as the true indicator of their
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faithfulness to the covenant.
Called by God to prophecy in the northern kingdom shortly before its catastrophic
collapse at the hands of the Assyrians in the eighth century B.C., the prophet Amos
has some particularly harsh words to say to the rich: “[The Lord says]: Hear this, you
that trample on the needy, and bring to ruin the poor of the land.... The Lord has
sworn by the pride of Jacob: Surely I will never forget any of their deeds” (Amos 8:4,
7).
In another place, Amos makes it clear that simply following the king and priests in
worshipping God according to the proscribed covenant rituals is no guarantee that
an Israelite is actually living a life faithful to the covenant’s demands: “Take away
from me the noise of your songs; I will not listen to the melody of your harps (says
the Lord). But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an everflowing stream” (5:23–24).
Perhaps Amos puts the point most succinctly in the following passage: “Seek good
and not evil, that you may live; and so the Lord, the God of hosts, will be with you,
just as you have said” (Am 5:14).
A very similar message is being delivered to the southern kingdom by the prophet
Isaiah:
What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices? says the Lord…. Wash yourselves;
make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your doings from before my eyes; cease to
do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan,
plead for the widow. (Is 1:11, 16–17)
The words that follow seem clearly intended by God to touch the heart of the
particular believer as well as the nation as a whole: “Come now, let us argue it out,
says the Lord: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be like snow; though they
are red like crimson, they shall become like wool” (Is 1:18).
In the prophecy of Micah, a contemporary of Isaiah, we can see how radically
the biblical understanding of covenant has been transformed in one of the
great summary statements of the entire Old Testament: “He has told you, O
mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice,
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and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” (Mi 6:8). Note
especially that this prophecy is addressed not to any ruler or privileged
group, but in the most populist fashion possible within the context of the Old
Testament.
Jeremiah, whose career extends into the time of the Babylonian Exile itself,
provides a great insight into the nature of covenant. He suggests that the basis of the
covenant relationship lies even beneath the actions of the individual believer
towards the other members of the community. Covenant is rooted in the very heart
of each and every believer. In his famous prophecy of a “new covenant” Jeremiah, in
fact, redefines the nature of the existing covenant between God and the people of
Israel: “But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those
days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts;
and I will be their God, and they shall be my people” (Jer 31:33). Far from depending
on the actions of the high and mighty, covenant living is the calling and the hope of
even the most humble member of the community.
A second shift in understanding
The second major shift in the Hebrew understanding of covenant can be
illustrated through looking at the poem in Exodus 15, and at some passages in
Judges and in the writings of the prophet Hosea. As was mentioned in the last
chapter, many scholars date the poem’s origins to the vicinity of 1000 B.C.—the
“glory days” of the kingdom of Israel. The poem expresses a clear sense of God’s
special covenant relationship with Israel: “In your steadfast love you led the people
whom you redeemed; you guided them by your strength to your holy abode” (v 13).
It ends with a resounding confidence in the continuing faithfulness of God: “The
Lord will reign forever and ever” (v 18).
Certainly there are elements of covenant here that will be found again and again in the later
books of the Old Testament. The pivotal event that the poem is constructed around, however,
is the destruction of the entire Egyptian army, a most dramatic manifestation of God’s power:
“The Lord is a warrior; the Lord is his name. Pharaoh’s chariots and his army he cast into the
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sea; his picked officers were sunk in the Red Sea” (v 4). While the work states that God’s
actions are motivated by mercy, the relationship between God and the Hebrew people does
bear some resemblance to that between a powerful warlord and his vassals. This
understanding of covenant would be particularly appealing at the time when Israel was at the
height of its power and influence in the ancient Middle East. Wasn’t the kingdom’s prosperity
itself the clearest sign of God’s faithfulness?
As in the case of the first major shift, the slow but steady decline in the divided
kingdom’s fortunes posed a serious challenge to this last idea. Given Israel’s deep faith in
the reality of the covenant relationship, the real historical events of her national life
caused the biblical authors to rethink this traditional view of God’s power working in
Israel’s favor. A new idea took shape: The various setbacks encountered by the two
kingdoms are chastisements sent by God so that Israel might see her failure to live in
covenant and might repent. God disciplines the nation of Israel, the theory goes, just as a
loving parent must discipline a child who strays from time to time.
Chastisement theology
A good example of this “chastisement theology” can be seen as part of a repeated
pattern in the book of Judges. As is true of so many of the books in our biblical
library, Judges is a complex creation. The book contains legends and historical
remembrances of the earliest charismatic leaders of the twelve tribes of Israel
known as the judges. These stories originated in the two centuries before the
establishment of the kingdom of Israel under David’s immediate predecessor, Saul.
The final shaping of this book, however, probably did not take place until shortly
before, during, or after the Exile itself. The finished product, therefore, incorporates
the chastisement theology of the divided kingdom period.
The stories of heroic deeds connected with each judge follow the same basic
pattern. As seen in the opening verse of the story of Gideon, the Hebrew people get
into trouble because they have betrayed the covenant relationship: “The Israelites
did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, and the Lord gave them into the hand of
Midian seven years” (Jgs 6:1).
God then raises up a judge—often from the most unlikely place (see the story of
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Jephthah in Jgs 11)—to gather together the people and defeat the enemy. For a
while, at least, the people repent.
As the prophets reflect on this continuing pattern of chastisement and
renewal in the centuries approaching the time of the Exile, they begin to
express a divinely inspired insight into the tremendous reservoir of God’s
mercy and patience. Much more impressive to them than the stories of God’s
might over Israel’s enemies, it seems, is this inexhaustible mercy God shows
toward a people who can’t seem to help but wander from covenant living
both individually and collectively.
A most beautiful expression of this understanding of God’s “hesed”—the Hebrew word
describing the unfailing loyalty and kindness found in the deepest of friendships—can be
found in the prophecies of Hosea. According to the prophet’s writings in the early part of
the book, Hosea’s married life was marked by a great sadness. The woman he married, a
former prostitute, later returned to her profession, leaving Hosea to painfully but
steadfastly await her return. With the aid of divine inspiration (properly understood!)
Hosea was able to gain from the tragedy of his life a tremendous insight into the
relationship between God and the people of Israel. Hosea’s patient vigil on behalf of his
wife, Gomer, reflected in some small but real way God’s experience with the people of
Israel.
God’s yearning to be reunited with God’s people is grounded in a love whose
strength is beyond the ability of human beings to comprehend. This passionate love
for the people of Israel is beautifully expressed through these words of the prophet
Hosea:
When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son. The more I
called them, the more they went from me; they kept sacrificing to the Baals, and
offering incense to idols. Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk, I took them up in
my arms; but they did not know that I healed them. I led them with cords of human
kindness, with bands of love. I was to them like those who lift infants to their cheeks.
I bent down to them and fed them.… How can I give you up, Ephraim? How can I
hand you over, O Israel? (Hosea 11:1–4, 8)
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Those loosely confederated bands of former slaves were forged together as a people as a
result of their overpowering experience of God’s presence and beneficence in the Exodus
events. Their understanding of the nature of that relationship with God deepened and
matured under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, through the events of their tribal and
national life over the next six or seven centuries. Then a catastrophe fell upon the southern
kingdom, like nothing the Hebrew people had ever experienced before. The spiritual crisis
that was about to begin would shake to the core the people’s understanding of living in
covenant. In doing so it would open up new vistas on the covenant relationship that were
unimaginable in previous ages.
Questions for Thought and Discussion
1) A direct and beautiful way to get to the heart of the Jewish experience of the
covenant relationship during the periods of the united and divided kingdoms is to
spend some time prayerfully and thoughtfully reading the psalms. These prayerpoems, many if not all of which were originally set to music, were the heart and soul
of Hebrew prayer and communal worship.
As is true of any letters or e-mails between passionate lovers, the psalms express
the gamut of emotions Israel experienced living in covenant with God. There are
psalms filled with joy and praise, gratitude and hope. Others express a deep anguish
or sadness. Still others are brimming with sober reflections. Every psalm, however,
concludes with an absolute affirmation of faith in God and in God’s covenant
promises.
Read the following samplings from the book of Psalms: Ps 8; 11; 22; 23; 30; 40; 88;
93; 111; 116; 122; 137; 150.
For each one reflect on the following questions:
•What seems to be the overriding mood of the psalm? How can you tell?
•What understanding of God and the nature of covenant does the psalm seem to
reflect? Give specific examples from the psalm.
•In what ways does the psalm demonstrate Israel’s confidence in God’s love and
faithfulness?
2) What was the basic purpose of “cutting a covenant” in the ancient Middle East?
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What is revolutionary about the Hebrew understanding of covenant in the Old
Testament?
3) Describe the major developments in the biblical understanding of covenant
from the time of the united kingdom to the time of the Exile. Give specific examples.
4) Psalm 51 has been connected with the story of David and Bathsheba since
antiquity. Why? What purpose could this psalm have served in the worship life of
Israel?
5) Jeremiah was one of the great prophets to rise up in the southern kingdom
in the years just before the beginning of the Exile. Read the account of
Jeremiah’s personal spiritual crisis in Jer 20:7–18. What insights into the
nature of living in covenant with God do you gain from the passage?
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Chapter Seven
Living In Covenant: Crisis and Discovery
Before it was eclipsed by the terrorist attacks of September 11th, 2001, the most
horrific event in recent memory involving an American commercial airliner was the
explosion of a trans-Atlantic flight that had just taken off from New York City’s
Kennedy airport. About 200 people lost their lives. A few years later, those whose
loved ones had been killed in the crash were interviewed at a memorial service.
When asked how a person can get on with his or her life after suffering such a
devastating loss, one man responded that you don’t get on with your life. What you
have to do, the man said, is realize that the life you had no longer exists. Then you
can begin to build a new one.
This was the situation facing the people of Judah, the southern kingdom of Israel, in
the aftermath of 587 B.C. Jerusalem lay in ruins. At the epicenter of the war zone
were the desolate remains of the Temple—for Jews, the holiest spot on earth. Many
Israelites, including the richest and the most influential, had been forcibly relocated
hundreds of miles east to the heartland of the Babylonian Empire. The gruesome
vengeance taken by the Babylonians against Judah was prompted by Judah’s alliance
with Egypt, Babylon’s most powerful enemy. Approximately 70 years would pass
before the Jews would be allowed to return to their land to try and rebuild.
A time of darkness
So often in making our way through the texts of the Old Testament, we have to make the
distinction between the events portrayed in a book and the time period in which they were
written. Not here. The book of Lamentations contain five poems expressing the numbing
grief of an eyewitness to the destruction. “How lonely sits the city that once was full of
people!” the first poem begins. “How like a widow she has become, she that was great
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among the nations! She that was a princess among the provinces has become a vassal” (Lam
1:1).
A few verses later, the author gives us a glimpse of the harshness of life for those
left behind by the Babylonians because it was not deemed necessary to exile
them: “All her people groan as they search for bread; they trade their treasures
for food to revive their strength…. Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by?
Look and see if there is any sorrow like my sorrow” (Lam 1:11–12).
As horrendous as the physical and emotional devastation must have been, however, it
was eclipsed by the tremendous blow dealt to the spiritual life of the people of
Israel. The chastisement theology that had helped Israel cope with past setbacks,
without compromising their faith in God’s eternal commitment to the covenant
relationship, had been stretched to its limits. “Look, O Lord, and consider! To
whom have you done this?” (Lam 2:20). Earlier in the same poem the author puts
into words what must have been the immediate feelings of many who had
managed to survive the devastation: “The Lord has become like an enemy; he has
destroyed Israel; He has destroyed all its palaces, laid in ruins its strongholds…. In
his fierce indignation [he] has spurned king and priest” (Lam 2:5–6).
We can gain a more penetrating insight into the depth of the crisis if we consider
for a moment the context in which the people of Israel experienced the
covenant relationship at this time. Thanks in large part to the efforts of the
pre-exilic prophets, the people had become ever more aware of the importance
of taking to heart the Great Commandment in Hebrew, the Shema: “Hear, O
Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. You shall love the Lord your God
with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might” (Dt 6:4–5).
Written compilations of the particular requirements of Torah—the Law of God—
spelling out the specific demands of love of God and love of neighbor, seem to
have existed at least as early as the 7th century B.C. There is a reference in 2
Kings 22 about a high priest during the time of King Josiah finding the “book of
the law” in the Temple (v 8).
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The three pillars of the covenant
The Torah was only one of three pillars that supported the Jewish belief in an ongoing covenant
relationship with God, however. First and foremost it was the Promised Land itself—every
sacred square inch of the Jordan River valley and the neighboring hill country—that was the
rock solid surety of God’s continuing love and care for God’s people. Hadn’t the people’s oldest
tribal narratives, many of which would be incorporated into the book of Genesis, always said so?
Second was the Temple in Jerusalem. It was fervently believed that within its precincts
God made God’s dwelling with the people of Israel. Within the inner sanctum of the
Temple building itself, the Holy of Holies, sat the ark of the covenant, the most sacred
relic the Hebrew people possessed. It was reputed to contain the most tangible sign of
the covenant the people had ever received—the stone tablets of the Ten
Commandments given by God to Moses. This Holy of Holies was so filled with the
sacred presence of God that while burnt offerings (holocausts) were offered on a
regular basis on the altar located just outside of the Temple building, only one
sacrifice would be offered each year in the Holy of Holies. On the solemn feast of Yom
Kippur the High Priest would enter the sanctuary, carrying a blood offering made in
atonement for the people’s sins.
Losing the Temple meant losing the dwelling place of God. Losing the opportunity to
practice the prescribed rituals of worship meant losing the vocabulary needed to
communicate with God. And losing the land meant losing not just the geographical
bedrock but the bedrock upon which the covenant relationship was founded. How
could the people of Israel ever find their way back to God now? Did the covenant
relationship still exist? These kinds of questions must have tormented the souls of
the faithful living through an experience that was the antithesis of the Exodus
events.
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Seeds of hope
Yet even within the depths of despair expressed in the Lamentations can be found
the seeds of a renewed hope: “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his
mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your
faithfulness. ‘The Lord is my portion,’ says my soul, therefore I will hope in him”
(Lam 3:22–24).
Prophesying some years later in Babylon itself, the prophet Ezekiel provides an
expanded message of hope through the description of a vision God had given to him.
As the prophet gazes over a plain filled with dry bones, something begins to happen:
Then he said to me, “Prophecy to these bones, and say to them: O dry bones, hear the
word of the Lord. Thus says the Lord GOD to these bones: I will cause breath to enter
you, and you shall live”…. So I prophesied as I had been commanded; and as I
prophesied, suddenly there was a noise, a rattling, and the bones came together,
bone to its bone. I looked, and there were sinews on them, and flesh had come upon
them, and skin had covered them; but there was no breath in them. Then he said to
me, “Prophecy to the breath, prophecy, mortal, and say to the breath: Thus says the
Lord GOD: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that
they may live.” I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them,
and they lived, and stood on their feet, a vast multitude…. Thus says the Lord GOD: I
am going to open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people; and I
will bring you back to the land of Israel. And you shall know that I am the Lord, when
I open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people. (Ez 37:4–5, 7–
10, 12–13)
In a series of developments as astounding in their own way as the events of the
Exodus, the people of Israel turned to prophecies such as these, and to their
collective and personal experiences of covenant, to help them keep their faith in God
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alive through the long years of exile. A new understanding of covenant began to take
shape, one that would place a great premium on the Torah, the only one of the three
pillars still in place. This emphasis on Torah would intensify as the exuberance of a
people, returning from exile at the end of the sixth century B.C., met with the harsh
realities of the devastated land they had to resettle. The Persian ruler who defeated
the Babylonians, Cyrus the Great, allowed the people to return to their land merely
as subjects of a foreign power. The people would in time rebuild the Temple (see the
books of Ezra and Nehemiah for more about this era), but it would be a much more
modest structure than that of King Solomon’s time.
A new understanding of the Torah
Once again what appears at first glance to be one of the oldest texts in the Old
Testament can help us understand Israel’s new understanding of the place of Torah
in the covenant relationship. While the stories in the book of Exodus are rooted in
traditions going back hundreds of years, many scholars place the final editing and
shaping of this book and of the entire Pentateuch—Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus,
Numbers, and Deuteronomy—in this century following the return from exile. In an
attempt to reconstruct a workable covenant theology, the biblical writers and
editors go back to the beginning.
The dramatic climax of the book of Exodus happens in chapters 19—20. After all of the
miraculous interventions by God culminating in the escape from the Egyptian chariots
and charioteers, the Hebrew slaves are led to the deserts surrounding Mt. Sinai. Moses
goes towards the clouds amid lightning blanketing the mountain’s peak, and returns to
the people with instructions from God. At that point “God delivered” the Ten
Commandments (Ex 20:1). The next several chapters of the book elaborate on the more
particular requirements of the covenant concerning various aspects of the people’s ritual
and social life. In chapter 24 two separate covenant ratification ceremonies—probably
originating from different sources—are combined. The first depicts a traditional banquet
between the leaders of the two parties who have just sealed a covenant.
In this case, it is God and the leaders of the Hebrew people including Moses (v 1–2,
9–11). The second focuses on Moses and all of the Hebrew people. After Moses
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sprinkles the people with the blood of a bull that has been sacrificed according to
the prescribed ritual, the people collectively pledge their enduring faithfulness to
the covenant relationship: “All the words that the Lord has spoken we will do” (v 3–
9).
The context in which the Torah is featured in the Exodus narrative is key here. The
presentation of the Ten Commandments—both the symbol and essence of the entire
Torah—is situated right between the dramatic escape of the Hebrew people from
Egypt and the inauguration of the covenant relationship between the Hebrew people
and God. The implication is clear: If the people of Israel are to truly live in covenant
relationship with God, then the Torah must be at the center of their individual and
collective lives. Temple worship and nationhood are important but not essential. In
the “back to basics” re-creation of history presented in the Exodus narrative, the
Hebrew people originally enter into covenant with God without either of those
elements.
The Day of the Lord
A second significant way the people of Israel cope with the loss of nationhood in
the post-exilic period is to look forward rather than backward. While the people of
Israel might be oppressed now, the “Day of the Lord” will come. On that day, the
wicked would be separated from the righteous, evil would be purged from creation,
and the people of Israel would be restored not to an earthly kingdom but brought up
to a heavenly Jerusalem in the kingdom of God.
According to The Collegeville Pastoral Dictionary, the origins of the belief predate the Exile:
“The earliest reference to the Day of the Lord in the Old Testament is found in Amos 5:18–20:
‘Woe to those who yearn for the day of the Lord! What will this day of the Lord mean for you?
Darkness and not light!…Will not the day of the Lord be darkness and not light, gloom
without any brightness’” (p. 261).
Also in this pre-exilic period Isaiah connects this future hope with a Messianic figure—an
“anointed one” who has been chosen by God as the instrument through which God will
liberate the people:
A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his
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roots.
The spirit of the Lord shall rest on him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding,
the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.
His delight shall be in the fear of the Lord. He shall not judge by what his eyes
see, or decide by what his ears hear; but with righteousness he shall judge
the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth; he shall strike the
earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall kill
the wicked.
Righteousness shall be the belt around his waist, and faithfulness the belt around
his loins.
The wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf
and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them.
The cow and the bear shall graze, their young shall lie down together; and the lion
shall eat straw like the ox.
The nursing child shall play over the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put
its hand on the adder’s den.
They will not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain; for the earth will be full of
the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. (Is 11:1–9)
Originally this prophecy was interpreted as a sign that the family of David would
be restored to the throne of Israel. (Jesse is the father of David according to the first
book of Samuel.) As the hopes for such a restoration faded after the return from
exile, however, the prophecy was reinterpreted. God’s chosen one would come, but
perhaps not until the end of time. His arrival on the Day of the Lord would
inaugurate an age of spiritual liberation from the forces of evil. In this way, the
covenant relationship would reach its completion. (The theme of messianism—one
of many threads in Old Testament theology—becomes in its reformulated version
the central strand of early Christian theology. We’ll explore this theme more fully in
the next section of this book.)
Visions of this Day of the Lord and its aftermath take on increasingly vivid and symbolic
imagery as the centuries after the Exile unfold, becoming most dramatic in the apocalyptic
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literature of the Old Testament written during the two centuries before the birth of Jesus.
Apocalyptic literature makes use of imaginative and often difficult-to-decipher symbols to
provide insight into the spiritual realities that will mark the end of time. Long considered to
be contemporary with the prophetic books of Jeremiah and Ezekiel because of its superficial
setting in the time of the Exile, the book of Daniel is actually a masterpiece of apocalyptic
literature in the Old Testament.
Daniel 7 is a particularly good example of how high the hopes of the Jewish people
soared in anticipation of the Day of the Lord. As it is depicted here, that final reckoning
by God will pit the most powerful empires of the world, symbolized by the four beasts,
against God (the Ancient One) and “one like a son of man” appointed by God to receive
“dominion, glory, and kingship” over all of the nations and people of the earth (Dn 7:1–
13). Thus, there is no reason for the people of Israel to lose hope. For no matter what
trials Israel might be subjected to in the present or in the future, the covenant
relationship will prove stronger and more lasting.
God’s ways are inscrutable
And yet that faith in the covenant relationship, while still vital, was fundamentally
transformed in the post-exilic period. What emerges in some of the latest books in
the Old Testament library—especially in the Wisdom books of Ecclesiastes and
Job—is reminiscent of the spiritual struggles of our own time. God’s loving “hesed”
for Israel is perceived as strongly as ever, but the ways of God and the true manner in
which God’s plans unfold are increasingly seen as inscrutable. God may know each
person intimately, but no human being can ever know the mind of God.
The author of the book of Ecclesiastes, Qoheleth, puts the idea most bluntly: “I
have seen the business that God has given to everyone to be busy with. He has made
everything suitable for its time; moreover he has put a sense of past and future into
their minds, yet they cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the
end” (Eccl 3:10–11).
Faced with such a mystery, the covenant relationship, however dimly
understood, becomes a person’s only reliable anchor and path to meaning:
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“The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God, and keep his
commandments; for that is the whole duty of everyone” (Eccl 12:13).
This struggle to hold onto meaning in a world of ambiguity reaches its
greatest literary heights in the book of Job (sounds like “robe”). Job, a good
man by God’s own admission (Jb 1:8), lives to see all of the signs of God’s
blessings in his life—his children, his health, and his prosperity—capriciously
stripped away. As he sits numbed by pain amid the ashes of a garbage dump,
he is visited by several friends. One by one, they present variations on the
same chastisement theology theme: somehow, this sudden turn of events in
Job’s life can be linked to Job’s sinful behavior.
There’s a real irony here. We already know that the reason for all of Job’s misfortunes has
nothing to do with Job’s actions. As revealed in the dramatic dialogue between God and
“Satan” ( literally, “adversary”; in this context the figure of Satan serves the role of God’s
prosecuting attorney), God allows Satan to ruin Job to prove that Job’s piety is not
grounded in the good life he is enjoying (Jb 1:6—2:10). Therefore, even as Job’s friends are
presenting the most explicit and comprehensive treatment of the chastisement theology of
the Old Testament, the reader is painfully aware of its inadequacy. So is Job: “If you would
only keep silent, that would be your wisdom!” (Jb 13:5).
Job demands an audience with the God whom he is convinced has acted
unjustly.
“Out of the storm” God speaks, firing one question after another at Job about
the nature of the universe and the workings of creation. The withering crossexamination goes on for several chapters (38—41). Finally, Job gets the point:
“Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for
me, which I did not know” (Jb 42:3).
In attempting to defend his innocence, Job has made the same mistake as his
friends. Just as they did, Job began with the assumption that human beings
have the information and insight necessary to make judgments about how
God and the world ought to work. Yet in the end, human beings are not able
to draw any definitive conclusions. The advice offered in the book of Job is
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reminiscent of Qoheleth’s: “Truly, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom; and to
depart from evil is understanding” (Jb 28:28).
In significant ways Job personifies the spiritual life of the people of Israel
during the post-exilic period in which the book was written. Like Job, the
people struggled, without much success, to make sense of the misfortunes
that had befallen them. Yet centuries of living in covenant with God had
convinced them that their past and present sufferings could not possibly
mean that God had abandoned them. It is this sense of God’s abiding
presence in the midst of God’s people that forms the basis of covenant
theology and is the unifying thread between the post-exilic stories and the
earliest portions of the Old Testament.
The Jewish experience of God could no longer be contained by any particular
intellectual concepts or theology. God’s very incomprehensibility is a proof of
God’s reality; authentic faith time and time again transcends all attempts to
define it. In learning how to live in faith amid ambiguity, the people of Israel
became fertile ground for seeds that would in time yield the most profound
revelation of God the world has ever known.
Questions for Thought and Discussion
1) Poems and songs such as the Lamentations have the power to express deeply
felt emotions in ways that prose can’t. Find some examples of songs or poems that
have been inspired by significant modern events.
2) What were the three pillars of Old Testament covenant theology? Describe each
in some detail.
3) How does the context in which God delivers the Ten Commandments to Israel in
the book of Exodus express the meaning and importance of the Law (Torah) to the
post-exilic Jewish community? Be as specific as you can in answering this question.
4) What significant changes in Israel’s understanding of covenant are introduced
in Wisdom books such as Ecclesiastes and Job? Compare and contrast the views of
God and life’s meaning expressed in these books with the views of modern
philosophical movements.
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5) The book of Proverbs is a divinely-inspired distillation of wisdom accrued
through the centuries of Israel’s history.
Read a few sample chapters such as Prv 10—11 and consider the following
questions:
• What is the connection between moral goodness and wisdom in these proverbs?
• Why are proverbs effective ways to communicate important information?
• What are some modern examples of proverbs? Your personal favorites?
6) Read the tribute to Lady Wisdom in the book of Sirach (Sir 24). Do the ideas
expressed here concerning the nature of truth complement or contrast with those
expressed in Ecclesiastes and Job? Explain.
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Chapter Eight
Genesis
“Sometimes the light is shining on me.
Other times I can barely see.
Lately it occurs to me
What a long, strange trip it’s been.”
These lyrics from a Grateful Dead song provide a good summary of the book of
Genesis. Within its pages are some of the best-known and loved stories of the entire
Bible. As we travel from dramatic narrative to dramatic narrative, the whole scope of
salvation history is revealed—from the bright beauty of creation to the pitch black
darkness of a sin-sick world to the dawning of a new era of covenant living. If
Genesis were the only book of the Old Testament to survive, a thoughtful and
prayerful reader could reconstruct the major themes of the entire Hebrew
Scriptures.
While these reasons alone justify devoting an entire chapter to Genesis, the work is
of particular interest here because it provides so many opportunities to apply
each of the four keys introduced in part one. We have already considered the first
creation story (Gn 1) as a means of understanding biblical inspiration. Genesis
contains distinct types of literature that remind us that the Bible really is a
library. The seemingly scandalous conduct of the main characters in Genesis 12—
50 at times illustrates the misunderstandings that can arise when we fail to
consider the context of the biblical stories. Finally, the effects of oral tradition are
clearly evident in a book that contains the most ancient stories of the biblical
library but did not reach its final form until the post-exilic period. As we briefly
survey the content of the book of Genesis, we’ll look for specific illustrations of
the three remaining keys and consider some final reflections on covenant.
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Myth: expressing the inexpressible
Genesis is a library within a library. Even a quick reading of the book will
demonstrate that something is fundamentally different between Genesis 1—11—
the “prehistory” stories—and the stories of the Hebrew ancestors contained in
Genesis 12—50. These first eleven chapters of Genesis consist of myths,
imaginative stories that convey a profound truth. While this literary form
continues to have meaning for us—consider the popularity of the Star Wars
movies, for example—we often tend to dismiss myths as primitive stories used by
pre-scientific civilizations to make sense of the world.
It’s true that myths served as explanations of the workings of the world for people
mystified about causes and effects of natural events, and in that sense we are correct
in discarding them. (Think about the distinction we made between scientific and
religious truth concerning the first creation story.) However, myths also express
through tangible symbols the inexpressible experience of being human. An important
reason why the myths of Genesis maintain their grip on our imaginations is that they
address questions and conflicts that are deeply grounded within the human psyche.
When the man (the Hebrew word “adam” means “the man” in English) and the
woman stand face to face with the serpent in the Garden of Eden in Genesis 3,
they are in the midst of a fundamental human conflict. The God who has
created them and who continues to nurture them has set the tree of the
knowledge of good and evil off limits: “God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of
the tree that is in the middle of the garden, nor shall you touch it, or you shall
die’ ”(Gn 3:3).
Yet the fruit of the tree is so attractive, and the serpent’s words are so seductive:
“But the serpent said to the woman, ‘You will not die; for God knows that when
you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good
and evil’” (Gn 3:4). Has there ever been a better dramatic expression of what
the experience of temptation is like?
Mythology is a particularly effective way to explore the mysteries of free will and
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sin. In vivid, easy-to-understand images the second creation story presents all
the essential components: God makes clear to the man and the woman what
they ought to do but allows the serpent access to them. These two unique
creations of God have the ability to cooperate with God but not the necessity to
do so. Perhaps the greatest irony of the story is that by choosing to go against
what they know to be the will of God—a classic definition of sin—the man and
the woman demonstrate the free will which sets them apart from the rest of
creation. God’s decision to give human beings the freedom to cooperate with
or to circumvent the divine will is a tremendous act of faith on God’s part in the
enduring holiness of humanity. God, in other words, sees something in us we
often don’t see in ourselves.
While human beings are free to choose whether or not to cooperate with God,
they are not free to choose the consequences of their actions. The fundamental
religious truth of the first creation story is that God fashioned a universe
possessing an inner harmony. Each and every part of creation connects with all
the other parts of creation in particular and unique ways. Altering even one
small part of the larger plan can wreak havoc.
The initial consequence the man and woman (now named “Eve”) suffer is
banishment from the garden of Eden (Gn 3:23). Like a car skidding across a patch
of ice, however, the consequences of that first sin reverberate uncontrollably. The
bloodshed that has characterized so much of human history makes its first
appearance in the myth of Cain and Abel (Gn 4), the sons of Adam and Eve. In
Genesis 6, that original sin has proliferated to such a degree that creation is past
the point of saving. God must start over with a small remnant—Noah, his family,
and two of every animal on the earth—and literally wash the earth clean.
While the consequences of sin in the story of the tower of Babel (Gn 11) are not
nearly as catastrophic as those in the story of Noah’s ark, the myth of the tower is
entirely devoid of hope. For the first time since God created human beings, there is
no dialogue between creature and Creator. Even as God breaks down communication
among the people of earth by scrambling their language, the reader is aware that a
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much greater breakdown in communication has already occurred—that between
God and humanity.
It is at this darkest point in the book of Genesis that the first rays of a new dawn
break through. The type of literature we encounter in the Genesis library shifts
abruptly now, as the first cycles of stories begin in which God enters into covenant
with the ancestors of the Hebrew people. The adventures and misadventures of
Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah, Jacob, Leah and Rachel, and Joseph are
related to us through a series of legends that must have originated among the
Hebrew tribes long before the Exodus events.
Legends of Abraham and Sarah
A legend is mostly dramatic fiction, but differs from a myth in one crucial
way. A myth’s origin exists somewhere within the collective unconscious
mind of a particular culture. A legend contains a historical “seed” out of
which has grown one or more elaborate stories. While it is impossible to
speak in any definitive way about the “real” Abraham and Sarah, for example,
many Bible scholars feel it is possible to place their stories in an approximate
historical and social context. Archaeology and the study of ancient literature
have given us some real insights into nomadic cultures of the Middle East that
existed in the second millennium B.C.—the background for the stories in
Genesis 12—50.
An understanding of this historical and social context becomes crucial in
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making sense of the sometimes peculiar actions of the Hebrew ancestors in
the legends of Genesis. In Genesis 16, Abram’s wife Sarai—these are the
names of Abraham and Sarah before they enter into covenant with God—
insists that her husband have sexual intercourse with her maid servant
Hagar, so that Abram might conceive the son Sarai has not been able to give
him. Not surprisingly this decision creates such great strife between Sarai
and Hagar that eventually Hagar is forced to take her son Ishmael and head
into the wilderness.
By our moral standards such a decision—and Abram’s implicit approval—would
seem a blatant case of adultery and manipulation. Abram and Sarai lived in a culture,
however, where polygamy was not only permitted but encouraged as an indication
of a man’s wealth and virility. A wife’s primary function in this patriarchal society
was to bear her husband sons, and if she could not, to provide a surrogate who
could. By insisting that Abram sleep with Hagar so that God’s promise made to
Abram in Genesis 15:5 might be fulfilled, Sarai demonstrates the same faith in God
and desire to do God’s will that Abram gets credit for in Genesis 15:6.
Even more troubling is the story that unfolds in Genesis 22. Miraculously (see Gn
18), Sarah has conceived and given birth to Isaac. The joy that Abraham and Sarah
experience is short-lived, however: “After these things God tested Abraham…. ‘Take
your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer
him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains that I shall show you’” (Gn
22:2). A holocaust is a burnt offering; in this ritual, the participants slaughter the
sacrificial victim and burn the carcass in a prescribed manner on an altar erected for
this purpose.
What is the reason for God’s horrific request? An angel of the Lord, who has been
sent to stop Abraham the moment before he plunges the dagger into Isaac’s heart,
supplies the answer: “Now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld
your son, your only son, from me” (Gn 22:12). Even as I try to keep in mind the sage
advice the book of Job gives against making judgments about God, I shudder. It’s
hard to imagine a malicious tyrant testing the loyalty of his subjects in such a way.
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How could a God who is the personification of unconditional love torment three
human beings like this?
The dimensions of context that we need to explore are more complex than in the
previous example because the story takes us so far into the mystery of God. Initially
we need to remember that we are reading a legend. The primary purpose of this
story is not to provide biographical information about Abraham—this would be
impossible—but to give us a dramatization of the quality of faithfulness for which
Abraham is revered. This story is not so much about God as it is about Abraham’s
incredible faith in God. The Collegeville Pastoral Dictionary of Biblical Theology puts
it this way: “God had asked Abraham to leave his home, thus sacrificing his past; God
was now asking him to sacrifice his future” (p. 5). Abraham’s willingness to meet
God’s request proves that Abraham has thrown in his lot with God absolutely and
without hesitation.
In its own way this story serves a purpose similar to the American legend about the
young George Washington. When his father confronts him about a downed cherry
tree, the story goes, George says, “I cannot tell a lie. It was I who chopped down the
tree.” Our respect for George Washington’s uncompromising integrity gave birth to
this story of very dubious historical validity. Were it not for that integrity, shown
especially in Washington’s support for the fledgling Confederacy, the American
Revolution might simply be another footnote in the history of failed experiments in
democracy.
The development of Genesis
Another important dimension of context is Genesis’ long history. The story’s roots
go back to the centuries before the formation of the kingdom of Israel. The Hebrews
lived among peoples such as the Canaanites who practiced human sacrifice as part of
their religious rituals. There are numerous accounts in the Old Testament of Israel
backsliding into pagan religious rituals and worshiping pagan gods. (See the
dramatic—and sometimes funny—story of Elijah’s standoff against the prophets of
Baal in 1 Kings 18, for example.)
Remember that God does not actually let Abraham kill Isaac, but at the last minute
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substitutes an animal sacrifice—the fundamental act of worship in the Temple in
Jerusalem during the centuries of the united and divided kingdom of Israel. It’s more
than likely, therefore, that this story served as a reminder to the Israelites that pagan
rituals had been replaced by the rituals prescribed by Yahweh (the Hebrew name for
God). Finally, remember that the notion of questioning the motives of God really
doesn’t even come up until the post-exilic literature in the biblical library. By that
time the story would have been firmly ensconced in Hebrew tradition.
The long expanse of time during which the book of Genesis came into being afforded
much opportunity for stories to be worked and reworked through oral tradition. The
scholarly consensus first articulated in its entirety by Julius Wellhausen in the late
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries sees Genesis and the next three books of the
Pentateuch as the product of two distinct strands of oral tradition: J (“Yahwist” tradition)
and E (“Elohim” tradition). These two strands were edited and combined by a third
person or school (P: “Priestly” tradition) during the Exile. Finally, the finishing touches
were placed on Genesis in the post-exilic period.
The story of Joseph
There are many stories within Genesis that give us a chance to peer into the
depths of this rich oral tradition. Skipping a generation from Isaac to his grandson
Joseph (we’ll return to Isaac’s son, Jacob, in a moment) takes us to the cycle of
stories upon which the musical Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat is
based. Joseph is the favored son of Jacob, who gives the boy a “long tunic” (or, “coat
of many colors” depending on your translation) as a token of his affection (Gn 37:3).
Joseph plays on his favored status by being a tattletale (Gn 37:2) and by revealing a
dream to his brothers in which they symbolically become subservient to him (Gn
37:5–11). The resentment of Joseph’s eleven brothers towards their sibling mounts
until the clan reaches a final solution.
As the ten eldest are tending their father’s flocks in the fields of Shechem, Joseph
comes to them with a message from their father. Seeing Joseph traveling alone, the
brothers act quickly. “They said to one another, ‘Here comes this dreamer. Come now,
let us kill him and throw him into one of the pits; then we shall say that a wild
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animal has devoured him’” (Gn 37:19–20).
One of the ten intervenes at the last minute:
But when Reuben heard it, he delivered him out of their hands, saying, “Let us not
take his life.” Reuben said to them, “Shed no blood; throw him into this pit here in
the wilderness, but lay no hand on him”—that he might rescue him out of their hand
and restore him to his father.
(Gn 37:21–22)
It would seem that Reuben saves the day. Or does he?
Then they sat down to eat; and looking up they saw a caravan of Ishmaelites
coming from Gilead, with their camels carrying gum, balm, and resin, on their way to
carry it down to Egypt. Then Judah said to his brothers, “What profit is it if we kill
our brother and conceal his blood? Come, let us sell him to the Ishmaelites, and not
lay our hands on him, for he is our brother, our own flesh.”
(Gn 37:25–27)
The end result of this skillful stitching together of two distinct ancient narratives
is to move Joseph, via the Ishmaelite traders, into slavery in Egypt where the exciting
narrative continues. This passage is a small window into the past, but one that
allows us to see the beginning of the trail back towards the many incarnations the
stories of Genesis must have passed through.
The rich collection of inspired myths and legends in the book of Genesis in and of
themselves capture our imagination and enlighten our views of God and humanity.
When we read them as the culmination of a centuries-old oral tradition, however,
the stories take on a deeper meaning. They are the imaginative and profound
expressions of generations of Israelites reflecting on the meaning of covenant.
In Gn 32, for example, Jacob is about to return to the land of Canaan after spending
years away from home in the company of his uncle Laban. Jacob did not leave home
on the best of terms; according to Genesis 27, he deceived his father Isaac in order to
gain the blessing Isaac had intended for Jacob’s twin brother, Esau. Imagine Jacob’s
prayer the night before he must reconcile with the brother he has wronged, as the
prayer of a post-exilic people searching for the courage and the faith they need to
rebuild their devastated homeland.
O God of my father Abraham and God of my father Isaac, O Lord who said to me,
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“Return to your country and to your kindred, and I will do you good,” I am not
worthy of the least of all the steadfast love and all the faithfulness that you have
shown to your servant, for with only my staff I crossed this Jordan; and now I have
become two companies. Deliver me, please, from the hand of my brother…. Yet you
have said, “I will surely do you good, and make your offspring as the sand of the sea,
which cannot be counted because of their number.” (Gn 32:9–13)
At the conclusion of the book of Genesis, Jacob’s son Joseph also meets up again
with his brothers after a long separation. Joseph has gained great power and wealth
in Egypt, and his brothers have come to beg for food in the midst of a terrible famine
throughout the whole of Egypt and Canaan. Almost dead from hunger and unaware
that they are in Joseph’s presence, they place themselves completely at his mercy or
his vengeance.
The last time we read a story in Genesis involving jealousy between brothers, the
conflict ended in violence (Gn 4). We have come a long way from the story of Cain
and Abel, however, through the exploits of a family that, with all of its human
failings, time and time again turns to God. When Joseph performs the supreme act of
covenantal living—forgiveness—he demonstrates by his actions that he has truly let
God into his heart. Thus ends the story of Genesis, and our consideration of the
books which, each in its own way, tell the story of a people who, despite all of their
internal and external struggles, continued to walk with God.
Soon, some of these people would be called to do so in a brand new way. That is the
story of the New Testament.
Questions for Thought and Discussion
1) Explain the difference between a myth and a legend. Give an example of each from
the book of Genesis.
2) Read Gn 6:14–22 and Gn 7:1–5. What is the evidence that these passages from the
story of Noah’s ark originated from two separate sources? Why keep both?
3) Using this chapter and another research source, discuss the significance, the
main themes, and the most troubling questions raised in Genesis 22 (Abraham and
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Isaac).
4) In the ancient Middle Eastern society that forms the background for the stories of
the Hebrew people’s ancestors, the eldest son inherited all of his father’s goods and
authority. Women, including the man’s wife, could not own property, nor did they
have any say in how their husbands’ goods were to be apportioned.
Read the story of Jacob’s deception in Gn 27. Does the contextual
information above shed any light on Rebekah’s actions in this story? Explain.
(Keep in mind also that Jacob and his brother Esau are twins.)
5) Compare and contrast the actions of the following pairs: Cain and Abel (Gn 4);
Jacob and Esau (Gn 32); Joseph and his brothers (Gn 41–50). How are their
relationships towards each other affected by their relationships with God? Give
specific examples of how they model covenant living or reject it.
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Jesus Christ
Chapter Nine
Resurrection
In my spare time I like to collect fossils. As I am writing this I am looking at
the perfectly preserved shell of an animal that lived at the bottom of an ocean
about 400 million years ago. Each and every fold and growth line in the shell
is visible in sharp detail, despite the incomprehensible amount of time it sat
buried deep within the earth. The final moments in this creature’s life remain
permanently on display, fully transformed into rock.
When we speak of the resurrection of Jesus, we are speaking of a process that is
the exact opposite of the process of fossilization. It takes millions of years for
minerals to leach into decaying organic matter and replace it. The resurrection
occurred in no time, or more exactly, outside of time. Fossilization produces an exact
replica of the life form that has been turned into rock. The body of the resurrected
Christ was radically transfigured from the crucified body of Jesus of Nazareth; this is
what we mean when we speak of Jesus’ “glorified” body. And while the fossil is an
empty vessel void of life, the body of the risen Christ contains such fullness of life
that human existence seems empty by comparison.
What the Exodus event is to the Old Testament, the resurrection of Jesus is to the
New Testament. The disciples’ experiences of the risen Christ transformed how they
understood the life and death of the man they knew as Jesus of Nazareth. In time, the
experience would transform how they saw themselves. Through its belief in Jesus as
Messiah and Son of God, this small band of Jews became the first to bear witness to
the fulfillment of the covenant promise made by God to the Hebrew people. Right
relationship between God and human beings had finally been restored through
Jesus. God’s love without limits had overpowered every form of alienation spawned
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by sin—even death, the last and greatest obstacle.
Hans Küng makes the point in his book, On Being a Christian, that Christ does not
live because the resurrection is proclaimed. The resurrection is proclaimed, he says,
because Christ lives. The risen Christ lives fully and completely in the present
moment. His life is not limited by time or space. Encountering the risen Christ was
an experience so profound and so mysterious for the eyewitnesses that it took
several generations for stories to develop that would give these encounters with the
divine some kind of a tangible form. The gospel accounts of the resurrection are the
culmination of the collective attempts several generations of Christians have made
to put the essence of these experiences into words. We’ll spend some time in this
chapter using the four keys to help us explore the process and to gain some insight
into the meaning of these very unique stories.
Our discussion of oral tradition in chapter 4 included a brief sketch of the three
stages of development that underlie the written books of the New Testament.
(Remember the three-layer cake.) There is widespread agreement among Bible
scholars in particular and theologians in general within the Catholic Church that the
belief in Jesus as both human and divine, reflected in the gospel stories about Jesus’
ministry, do not reflect the understanding of the disciples during the life of Jesus of
Nazareth (Stage One). That insight was born in the resurrection experience marking
the beginning of Stage Two, that is, the preaching of the good news by these
disciples under the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
The letters of Paul
This second stage consists primarily and (possibly) completely of oral tradition. It’s
not possible, therefore, for us to know the immediate reactions of those who
encountered the risen Christ. We can come reasonably close, however, by looking
at the letters of St. Paul. Beginning about a generation after the crucifixion, Paul
began to write letters mostly to the churches he had founded. These letters cover
a wide array of subjects, ranging from practical matters of conduct to some of the
most profound reflections on the mystery of the resurrection found anywhere in
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the New Testament.
A look at Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians (chapter 15) makes it clear that, even at this
early moment in Church history, the central importance of the resurrection of Jesus is fully
recognized and that significant thought has been given to the implications of this mystery.
We have already considered Paul’s statement of the kerygma or core Christian
proclamation contained in this chapter of Paul’s letter (1 Cor 15:3–5). Notice in these
verses that Paul makes no mention of the life and ministry of Jesus of Nazareth and only a
vague reference to the passion account (“that Christ died for our sins in accordance with
the Scriptures”). Paul’s focus is on the resurrection that had been prophesied in the
“scriptures”—that is, the Hebrew Scriptures. The risen Christ has appeared to all of the
core disciples of Jesus (“Cephas (Peter) and the Twelve”), to the head of the Jerusalem
church (James), and to many others, including Paul himself.
What was the experience like? Paul gives no details here but does elaborate
somewhat on his own encounter with the risen Christ in his letter to the
Galatians:
You have heard, no doubt, of my earlier life in Judaism. I was violently persecuting the
church of God and was trying to destroy it…. But when God, who had set me apart
before I was born and called me through his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son to
me, so that I might proclaim him among the Gentiles, I did not confer with any human
being, nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were already apostles before me, but
I went away at once into Arabia, and afterwards I returned to Damascus. (Gal 1:13,
15–17)
Pheme Perkins notes in the Collegeville Pastoral Dictionary that “Paul’s…references
to his own experience suggest a revelation from heaven that is in part an internal
experience” (p. 837). Paul’s need to withdraw to a deserted place (Arabia) would
further suggest that Paul needed some time to reflect on and pray about what had
happened to him.
The Acts of the Apostles
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Paul’s description of his encounter with the risen Christ is developed by Luke in the Acts of
the Apostles. This work, written about forty or fifty years after Paul’s letter to the Galatians,
offers us a good opportunity to see the effects of oral tradition at work. Luke describes Paul’s
encounter with the risen Christ not once but three times, beginning with his description of
Paul’s conversion (Acts 9:1–9). Luke later presents Paul himself recalling the encounter
before a Jewish assembly in Jerusalem and then in an audience with King Herod Agrippa
(Acts 22:3–16; 26:2–18). While particular details differ—and it’s worth taking the time to
note them—the three accounts demonstrate a few basic developments that have occurred:
1) As Paul is on the way to persecute Christians, the risen Christ says to Paul (known
as Saul before his conversion): “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?”
2) Those traveling with Paul either hear the voice or see a flashing light. These
details suggest that Paul’s encounter is not only an internal experience but also
included some objective manifestations.
3) Paul receives specific instructions from the risen Christ about what to do next.
Remember that oral tradition is good at conveying and creating dramatic details as
well as bringing out the essential truth within a story. In this particular case, the
specifics of Paul’s conversion capture our imagination while communicating to us a
crucial point: the resurrection is not simply a subjective spiritual conversion
experienced by a select group of Jesus’ followers, but is an objective reality. All
Christians, guided by the inspired testimony of the first eyewitnesses preserved in
the stories of the New Testament, encounter the risen Christ in the Church.
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The gospel of Mark
Beginning with Mark, the gospels explore the subjective and objective dimensions
of the resurrection experience through stories that have a unique category in our
biblical library. They are not myths because they capture the essence of an event
that really happened. The resurrection is not a historical event in the same sense
that the crucifixion is, however. If we could build a machine that would enable us to
travel back in time to the exact moment of Jesus’ crucifixion, then we would be able
to witness it. But even under those circumstances we could not witness the
resurrection—no one in the resurrection accounts does. The empty tomb is
discovered first and then the risen Christ appears to his disciples.
In his book Who Do You Say That I Am?, Edward J. Ciuba describes the resurrection as a
“metahistorical” event. What he means by the term is that the resurrection itself—the action
in which Jesus transcends death and in doing so manifests the act of salvation accomplished
in his human and divine natures through the crucifixion—is an action or event that really
occurs outside of time and space. The “launching pad” for the event is a particular tomb in the
vicinity of Jerusalem, and in some real way the risen Christ appears to the eyewitnesses. The
actual resurrection itself, however, is impossible to capture within any particular historical
context. So the resurrection narratives are trying to create vivid and tangible impressions of a
real event that is essentially spiritual and intangible.
Our proper understanding of inspiration can help us make more sense of the process
that took place during Stage Three. Remember that the Holy Spirit works in such a way
that the human author fully employs all of his or her particular talents, point-of-view,
and life situation. In the case of the resurrection stories, the Holy Spirit made sure that
the evangelists were truly in touch with the authentic resurrection experience of the
“eyewitnesses.” It was the evangelists known as Mark, Matthew, Luke, and John however,
who each determined how to capture that experience in the most meaningful way
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possible for their particular audiences. It should not be disturbing or surprising to learn
that when we look at the collection of resurrection accounts in the four gospels, we find a
number of discrepancies as we move from one gospel to another. The differences bear
witness to the many dimensions of the resurrection mystery.
Mark’s primary contribution to the resurrection narratives is the story of the
empty tomb. Although Matthew, Luke, and John will vary the details and incorporate
other traditions and stories, Mark lays the basic groundwork. At the conclusion of
the Jewish Sabbath, that is, on the third day after the crucifixion:
When the sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and
Salome bought spices, so that they might go and anoint him. And very early on the
first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb. They had been
saying to one another, “Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the
tomb?” When they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had
already been rolled back.
As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man, dressed in a white robe, sitting on
the right side; and they were alarmed. But he said to them, “Do not be alarmed; you
are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not
here. Look, there is the place they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he
is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you.”
So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized
them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid. (Mk 16:1–8)
It’s worth noting that the original Greek word Mark used, which is translated into
“bewilderment,” is “ekstasis,” that is, ecstasy. Mark’s story of the empty tomb firmly
grounds the resurrection in history. The description of a “young man in a white
robe” suggests the presence of an angelic visitor, reminding us of the spiritual
dimensions of the event.
The gospel of Matthew
Matthew develops both the historical and the spiritual dimensions of the
resurrection presented in the story of the empty tomb. When the women arrive at
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the tomb—in this case, Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James—they
experience a “great earthquake” as an “angel of the Lord, descending from heaven,
came and rolled back the stone and sat on it” (Mt 28:1–2). As in Mark’s story, the
angel announces that the tomb is empty and that Jesus has been raised from the
dead.
Matthew also states that there were some guards present who “became like dead
men” out of fright when the angel arrived. His purpose in adding this detail is
evident a few verses later when these same guards report to the chief priests what
they witnessed at the tomb. These chief priests along with others in the Jewish
ruling council (the Sanhedrin) give the soldiers a large sum of money to buy their
silence. The story that the conspirators circulate— “to the present (day)” according
to Matthew—is that Jesus’ followers stole the body during the night (Mt 28:11–15).
It appears, therefore, that while opponents of the Christians are disputing the means
by which the body of Jesus was removed from the tomb, no one is disputing the fact
that the tomb is empty.
The empty tomb tradition lends implicit support to a crucial point in the appearance
stories. While the resurrection is essentially a spiritual event, it is one that
incorporates the body of Jesus of Nazareth as well. In fact it could be no other way;
the idea that the body and soul are somehow two distinct entities coexisting in a
human being is a product of Western philosophy. No such split existed in traditional
Jewish understanding. Consider Gn 2:7 for example: “The Lord God formed man
from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the
man became a living being.” This living being is not an amalgam of clay and spirit but
an entirely new and complete entity—man.The gospels of Luke and John
The gospels express this truth in some creative ways. In the gospel according to
Luke, when the risen Christ appears to the apostles and to those gathered with them,
the group is initially “startled and terrified, and thought that they were seeing a
ghost” (Lk 24:37). Jesus invites the witnesses to touch him, “for a ghost does not
have flesh and bones as you see that I have” (24:39).
What really clinches the deal for the followers of Jesus—and presumably for
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the reader—is what Jesus does next: “While in their joy they were
disbelieving and still wondering, he said to them, ‘Have you anything here to
eat?’ They gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it and ate in their
presence” (24:41–43).
Thomas is not present with the rest of the apostles in John’s version of the
story. When told of the event, “doubting” Thomas says that he will only
believe if he can place his hand in the wound in Jesus’ side and place his
fingers in the nail marks in Jesus’ feet and wrists. One week later, Jesus comes
again “although the doors were shut” and says to Thomas: “Put your finger
here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not
doubt but believe.” Thomas’ immediate reply, “My Lord and my God!”, made
without ever examining the evidence, suggests that the corporeality of
Christ’s appearance was beyond doubt (Jn 20:24–29).
Just as they rule out an explanation of the resurrection as an exclusively
spiritual occurrence, the resurrection stories also rule out the possibility that
the resurrection is merely a resuscitation. The raising of Jesus from the dead
is not like the raising of Lazarus from the dead (Jn 11). When Jesus performs
his greatest miracle, he returns his friend Lazarus back to the mortal life he
was formerly living. What the rest of Lazarus’ days were like we can only
speculate, but there is no doubt that again one day he died.
When Jesus is raised from the dead, he no longer is bound by the limitations of
time and space which hem in the rest of us. He can appear at will wherever he wants
to go, even through locked doors! Initially, even some of his closest followers have
difficulty recognizing him. When they do, they are not sent into spasms of horror as
they view a horribly mutilated, animated corpse but are overjoyed by the glorious
sight they see.
Before Jesus appears to the larger company in Luke’s gospel, two disciples meet
up with Jesus as they walk along the road from Jerusalem to Emmaus three days
after the crucifixion (Lk 24:13–35). They spend the balance of their journey talking
with Jesus about the terrible events that have just occurred in Jerusalem and
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listening to Jesus interpret the Hebrew Scriptures. All the while they do not realize
who Jesus is because “their eyes were kept from recognizing him” (24:16). The
glorious recognition finally occurs towards evening as Jesus settles down to eat with
the two disciples at an inn along the way. “When he was at the table with them, he
took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. Then their eyes were opened,
and they recognized him; and he vanished from their sight” (24:30–31).
The same bittersweet delayed recognition at the very moment that Jesus must
depart is portrayed so poignantly in the gospel of John. After the initial discovery is
made and Peter along with the disciple “whom Jesus loved” have come and gone on
their inspection, Mary Magdalene sits weeping alone outside the tomb. She first
looks inside and sees two angels. Next, she turns around to see a figure standing in
front of her who she assumes is the caretaker of the tomb and surrounding grounds.
“Sir,” Mary says, “if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I
will take him away” (Jn 20:15).
When the stranger says her name in response, Mary realizes she is talking with the
risen Christ himself. “Do not hold on to me,” Jesus says, “because I have not yet
ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my
Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’” Tearing herself away from Jesus—
she must have been embracing him—Mary becomes the first true evangelist as she
announces the good news to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord” (Jn 20:11–18).
At the conclusion of Matthew’s resurrection narratives, Jesus reminds the eleven
remaining apostles that “I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Mt 28:20).
These words were written in the context of a Christian gospel to encourage believers
separated in time from the eyewitnesses to the initial resurrection experience. They
remind us that Jesus Christ is not prevented by the limitations of time and space
from being fully present to each and every believer at each and every moment. As a
Church community we ought to take the words of Jesus recorded in an early part of
Matthew’s gospel most literally: “For where two or three are gathered in my name, I
am there among them” (Mt 18:20).
Questions for Thought and Discussion
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1) Describe how Paul’s description of his encounter with the risen Christ
developed from Galatians to Luke/Acts.
2) Why are the resurrection narratives a unique kind of literature in the
biblical library?
3) Using specific examples, describe some of the key points concerning the
resurrection that the gospel narratives make.
4) The “longer ending” of Mark’s gospel (Mk 16: 9–20) was composed long after
the gospel itself and late in the Third Stage. What other resurrection narratives
appear to be summarized here?
5) Read John’s final appearance story (Jn 21:1–24). How is it similar to and different
from the rest of the resurrection narratives? What is the evidence within the story
that suggests it was written a long time after the events it describes?
6) The last words of a famous person often have lasting impact. What are the “last
words” of the risen Christ in each of the four gospels (Mk 16:14–19; Mt 28:16–20; Lk
24:36–49; Jn 21)? How are they similar? Different? What do they reveal about how
the early Church understood its mission?
7) Who is the only person present at the discovery of the empty tomb in all four
gospel accounts? What are the implications of this?
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Chapter Ten
Christ Crucified
Legend has it that as the British marched out to officially surrender at the end of
the American Revolution the band played a tune called, “The World Turned Upside
Down.” It was unthinkable for the leaders and for the vast majority of subjects of the
British Empire that the American Revolution could really succeed. Even as the
troops were in the act of surrendering, the soldiers and their officers could not have
fully comprehended what was happening. Sometimes inconceivable things become
reality.
At the heart of the passion account—the dramatic description of the final days of
Jesus of Nazareth—we find a much more profound example of the inconceivable
becoming reality. Paul puts it this way:
For Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom, but we proclaim Christ crucified,
a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who are the
called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For
God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than
human strength. (1 Cor 1:22–25)
The narrative of the last days of Jesus proclaims that the crucifixion of a spurned and rejected
itinerant preacher and healer is the supreme moment of reconciliation between God and the
human race.
No one knows if the passion account existed in a written form prior to its
incorporation in the gospel of Mark. Catholic Bible scholars agree, however, that the
evidence points to the existence of a well-formulated passion account in some form
during the second stage of the development of the New Testament. There are three
major reasons for this consensus.
First, the crucifixion of Jesus and the events immediately surrounding it would
have been the most public and notorious moments in Jesus’ life and ministry. The
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crucifixion is the only part of the life of Jesus that is attested to in an ancient source
outside of the New Testament and early Christian writings. The Roman historian
Tacitus makes a fleeting reference to the event in his Annals written about 115–
117AD: “They (Christians) got their name from Christ, who was executed by
sentence of the procurator Pontius Pilate in the reign of Tiberius.” It is reasonable to
assume that the early Church would have had a much clearer collective
remembrance of the end of Jesus’ earthly days than of any other part of his life and
ministry.
Second, the contrast between the degree of detail in the passion account and in
the rest of Mark’s gospel is striking. Mark deals with the entirety of Jesus’ teaching
and healing ministry in ten chapters. The evangelist devotes the next five chapters to
the teachings and activities of Jesus from the day he enters Jerusalem to his
crucifixion and burial (Mk 11:1–11; 15). In between these two events—possibly
separated in time by a few short weeks or even days—Mark describes Jesus’
cleansing of the Temple (Mk 11:15–19); the Last Supper (Mk 14:1–31); the agony in
the garden (Mk 14:32–42); and Jesus’ arrest and trials (Mk 14:43—15:15).
The passion account in liturgical tradition
Finally, there is a significant piece of evidence that suggests the passion account
was already a part of the liturgical tradition of the Church before any of the books or
letters of the New Testament had been written. One of the primary channels through
which oral tradition flowed during Stage Two was the weekly celebrations of the
Eucharist and the annual celebrations of major feasts among the Christian faithful.
While the moans of bored children sitting through Sunday Mass might seem to belie
the fact, liturgical celebration has always been an effective tool through which
Christian beliefs are communicated and made understandable. Liturgical
celebrations make liberal use of symbols that make it much easier for the believer to
gain insight into the central mysteries of the faith. Because the celebration of the
Eucharist is a communal celebration, worshippers actively participate in the ritual in
a number of ways, such as engaging in common songs, prayers, and gestures. Such
“active learning” better fixes the particular stories, prayers, and beliefs of the
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Christian faith in the mind and heart of the believer.
Recall again the importance of thinking backwards when trying to understand
how the Bible came to be created. The Church did not grow out of the written books
of the New Testament. The New Testament grew out of the experiences of the first
individual faith communities which made up the Church, acting under the guidance
of the Holy Spirit. Early in the second century, a Christian writer known as Justin
Martyr (his fate, not his last name) describes a celebration of the Eucharist that
bears an unmistakable resemblance to our modern celebration. Justin seems to be
describing a practice already possessing a long tradition. And at the center of this
celebration is the recalling (“anamnesis” in Greek) of the words Jesus spoke over the
bread and wine in his final meal with his disciples before the crucifixion.
These “words of institution,” as they are called, appear four separate times in the
books of the New Testament. When we place the four versions side by side,
something interesting happens:
For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus on the
night when he was betrayed took a loaf of bread, and when he had given thanks, he
broke it and said, “This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” In
the same way he took the cup also, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new
covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.”(1 Cor
11:23–25)
While they were eating, he took a loaf of bread, and after blessing it he broke it, gave
it to them, and said, “Take; this is my body.” Then he took a cup, and after giving
thanks he gave it to them, and all of them drank from it. He said to them, “This is
my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many. Truly I tell you, I will
never again drink of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the
kingdom of God.” (Mk 14:22–25)
While they were eating, Jesus took a loaf of bread, and after blessing it he broke it,
gave it to the disciples, and said, “Take, eat; this is my body.” Then he took a cup,
and after giving thanks he gave it to them, saying, “Drink from it, all of you; for
this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness
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of sins. I tell you, I will never again drink of this fruit of the vine until that day
when I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom.” (Mt 26:26–29)
Then he took a loaf of bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it
to them, saying, “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance
of me.” And he did the same with the cup after supper, saying, “This cup that is
poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.” (Lk 22:19–20)
Allowing for a certain amount of variation due to translation, we can see a clear
connection between Matthew and Mark. Both contain the shorter form: “Take and
eat, this is my body.” Both refer to the covenant without any qualifier. Paul and
Luke, on the other hand, speak of a new covenant.
The existence of two distinct variations rules out the possibility that the exact words
of Jesus are being quoted. What we’re looking at when we read these words are
two separate formulations of the words of institution which were a part of the
Christian celebration of the Eucharist well before the creation of the gospels.
The central theme: Christ crucified
As is first recorded in the words of St. Paul, the central theme of the passion account
is Christ crucified. “Christ” is the Greek translation of the Hebrew word “Messiah.”
In English, the word means “the anointed one.” To proclaim Christ crucified,
therefore, is to say that the long awaited Messiah of the Hebrew people can be
found hanging on a cross in the outskirts of Jerusalem. Even more outrageously,
the passion account will expand upon this core proclamation to unqualifiedly
state that it was the very act of being crucified that establishes Jesus of Nazareth
as Messiah and establishes the kingdom of God within the boundaries of creation.
In order to gain a clearer sense of how absurd the Christian claim would have
appeared to the disciples’ Jewish brothers and sisters, it’s helpful to take a brief look
at the development of messianic belief in the Hebrew Scriptures. From the earliest
times of the kingdom of Israel, governing authority was conferred when a
recognized prophet of God anointed a candidate with oil. The basic idea is simple: A
human king can only have legitimacy if he receives an unambiguous sign of approval
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from God, the true ruler of Israel. A pivotal moment in the downfall of Saul, the first
king of Israel, occurs when the same Samuel who had anointed him informs him that
he has lost God’s favor (1 Sam 15:24–31).
Being “the anointed one,” therefore, had as much temporal significance as it did spiritual
significance in the days of the kingdom. The words of the prophet Nathan as recorded in
2 Sam 7 become the springboard from which a much more spiritualized concept of the
Messiah will develop. King David is thinking about how unfair it is that he lives in a
palace while that most sacred sign of the ongoing covenant relationship, the ark of the
covenant, sits in a field sheltered only by a tent. He wishes to build a Temple suitable to
be the house of God. After communicating through the prophet Nathan a basic “thank
you but no thank you,” God makes David a promise: “Your house and your kingdom shall
be made sure forever before me; your throne shall be established forever” (2 Sam 7:16).
This promise by God, often referred to as the “davidic covenant,” probably helped
provide legitimacy for the reign of Solomon, David’s son by Bathsheba. (Read the
story of David’s rape of Bathsheba and disposal of her husband in 2 Sam 11 to see
why Solomon’s right to the throne might have needed a boost.) After Solomon’s
death and the division of the kingdom, these words would have helped raise the
stature of the rulers in the southern kingdom of Judah, the blood descendants of
David, over their rivals in the northern kingdom of Israel.
The davidic dynasty was stopped cold when Judah fell to the Babylonians in the
6th century B.C. The last blood descendent of David to rule an independent kingdom
was sent into exile. Now the people of Judah needed to look for a more spiritual
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interpretation of the davidic covenant. The logic is simple: We are in a continuing
covenant relationship with a God who doesn’t break promises. So if it seems that a
promise has been broken, we must have misunderstood it. Such is the power of faith.
Messianic prophecies
The Jewish belief in God’s steadfastness gave rise to a number of messianic
prophecies that vary greatly in their imagery and in their descriptions of the manner
in which the Messiah will arrive. All of the prophecies recorded during the exilic and
post-exilic period agree on two fundamental points, however:
1) The arrival of the Messiah will signal the inauguration of the reign of God and
the end of the world as we know it. Evil will be purged from creation once and for
all.
2) The Messiah will be a descendant of King David in accordance with the davidic
covenant.
See the text of Isaiah 11:1–9 in chapter 7 of this book for a classic example of
messianic prophecy. Daniel 7, which is also referred to in that chapter, is a good
example of how mystical and vivid the messianic prophecies become in the century
or so before Jesus’ time. The title for Daniel’s messianic figure—“one like a son of
man”—is the title Jesus uses most often to describe himself in the gospels. (See Mark
2:28 for an example.)
The messianic prophecy in Daniel 7 also illustrates well the cataclysmic confrontation
between good and evil as the reign of God is established. The arrival of the Messiah in
whatever form and under whatever circumstances meant victory for the people of God—
victory over their enemies and over the forces of evil that had corrupted creation since
the first human beings misused their free will. The distinguished Jewish rabbi Gamaliel
in Luke’s Acts of the Apostles makes mention of two men who made messianic claims
but were killed by the Roman authorities and thus exposed as false messiahs (Acts 5:36–
37). To proclaim Christ crucified, therefore, was to proclaim that a Galilean preacher who
was put to death without even a struggle in the most ignominious way possible, was the
victorious Messiah whom Israel had anticipated for hundreds of years. In the eyes of
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most Jews this was an outrageous impossibility.
The consummation of Jesus’ mission
The passion account pushes the boundaries of absurdity even further by proclaiming that the
act of crucifixion itself consummates Jesus’ messianic mission. Both implicitly and explicitly, each
gospel rendering of the passion account will confidently announce that the Hebrew Scriptures
themselves prove the point. Consider the earliest written account of the crucifixion and death of
Jesus in the gospel of Mark:
Then they brought Jesus to the place called Golgotha (which means the place
of a skull). And they offered him wine mixed with myrrh; but he did not take
it. And they crucified him, and divided his clothes among them, casting lots to
decide what each should take. It was nine o’clock in the morning when they
crucified him. The inscription of the charge against him read, “The King of the
Jews.” And with him they crucified two bandits, one on his right and one on
his left. Those who passed by derided him, shaking their heads and saying,
“Aha! You who would destroy the temple and build it in three days, save
yourself, and come down from the cross!” In the same way the chief priests,
along with the scribes, were also mocking him among themselves and saying,
“He saved others; he cannot save himself. Let the Messiah, the King of Israel,
come down from the cross now, so that we may see and believe.” Those who
were crucified with him also taunted him.
When it was noon, darkness came over the whole land until three in the
afternoon. At three o’clock Jesus cried out with a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lema
sabachthani?” which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
When some of the bystanders heard it, they said, “Listen, he is calling for
Elijah.” And someone ran, filled a sponge with sour wine, put it on a stick, and
gave it to him to drink, saying, “Wait, let us see whether Elijah will come to
take him down.” Then Jesus gave a loud cry and breathed his last. And the
curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. Now when the
centurion, who stood facing him, saw that in this way he breathed his last, he
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said, “Truly this man was God’s Son!”(Mk 15:22–39)
Note first that while the account makes us feel as if we are standing right at
the foot of the cross, there are clear signs which point to a much later
composition. Mark has to translate the Aramaic dialect that Jesus spoke
(“Eloi, eloi, lema sabachthani?”) because his audience would not have
understood it. As the passersby mock Jesus, they refer to him as “You who
would destroy the temple and build it in three days.” Such a claim wouldn’t
have made much sense during the lifetime of Jesus of Nazareth when the
Temple in Jerusalem was still under construction and was considered to be
one of the wonders of the world. The claim would have taken on a terribly
greater significance—most likely as a condemnation of the early Christians
by their Jewish brothers and sisters—in the wake of the Temple’s destruction
in 70 AD. The intervening years between the crucifixion and Mark’s gospel
allowed time for oral tradition to bring out the true meaning of the death of
Jesus for Christians.
The grand irony in Mark’s account of the crucifixion, that goes right to the
heart of what the passion account proclaims, are those Aramaic words Jesus
cries out from the cross. They are the opening line of Psalm 22, a psalm of
lament. This ancient prayer of the Hebrew people consists of two parts. First,
the psalmist emotes in great detail all of the physical and emotional pain he
or she is experiencing. You will find a number of details in the psalm that
closely match the specific indignities Jesus undergoes while on the cross.
Consider for example this brief section of the psalm: “I can count all my
bones. They stare and gloat over me; they divide my clothes among
themselves, and for my clothing they cast lots”
(Ps 22:17–20).
All of this emotional wrangling, however, is done in the context of faith. I can fully
express my anguish and my pain because I am certain that, when I get to the bottom
of it, I will find God. Notice how the whole tone of the psalm changes in the second
part:
I will tell of your name to my brothers and sisters; in the midst of the congregation
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I will praise you: You who fear the Lord, praise him! All you offspring of Jacob, glorify
him; stand in awe of him, all you offspring of Israel! For he did not despise or abhor
the affliction of the afflicted; he did not hide his face from me, but heard when I cried
to him. (Ps 22:22–24)
What appears to be Jesus’ greatest experience of abandonment, therefore, is really
Jesus’ most powerful experience of the Father’s presence.
Jesus’ perfect offering
Mark’s account of the crucifixion is also greatly influenced by a passage in Isaiah
that describes the sufferings of the “Servant of the Lord” (Is 52:13—53:12). In
Isaiah’s concise depiction of the trials and tribulations of this innocent person and
their greater meaning, the gospel writers find the divine blueprint for the manner
and purpose of Jesus’ crucifixion.
Surely he has borne our infirmities and carried our diseases; yet we accounted
him stricken, struck down by God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our
transgressions, crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the punishment that made
us whole, and by his bruises we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we
have all turned to our own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. (Is
53:4–6)
The first Christians were still immersed in a Jewish tradition that placed the ritual
slaughter and burning of animals on the altar of sacrifice just outside the Temple
building in Jerusalem as the central means of expiating sin. It was a logical extension,
therefore, for the early Church to see Jesus as the final and perfect sin offering. (See
Hebrews 8—10 for a concise and beautiful explanation.) In Mark’s gospel the proof that
Jesus has accomplished his mission is proclaimed in two subtle but profound ways the
moment Jesus dies.
The “veil of the sanctuary” that was “torn in two from top to bottom” is the large
curtain which separated the innermost room of the Temple building—the Holy of
Holies—from the rest of the Temple building and the Temple complex. To take away
this barrier that kept the majesty of God hidden from the people is to very literally
suggest that a direct experience with God is now possible. The proof of this new and
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more intimate encounter with God is found in the next verse when a Roman soldier,
his vision of God so greatly distorted by his pagan heritage, can now recognize Jesus
as the “Son of God”—the very ancient Christian title that refers to Jesus’ divine
nature as the second person in the Holy Trinity.
For hundreds of years the people of Israel tried to be faithful to a God they dimly understood
and whose ways were ultimately beyond their ability to comprehend. Yet time and time again,
when their best minds failed to make sense of this God and their actions were unworthy of
the covenant relationship, their hearts revealed the presence of a steadfast love whose depths
were unfathomable. The fundamental revelation of the Christian Scriptures expressed so
magnificently in the passion account is that the unfathomable depths of God’s love go even as
far as God’s willingness to sacrifice the essence of the divine Being for the sake of God’s
human creations.
Questions for Thought and Discussion
1) Describe the specific evidence that suggests the passion account was probably the
first part of the gospels to be formed.
2) Describe the two basic versions of the words of institution. What are the
implications of the existence of two versions of Jesus’ words?
3) Briefly outline the key points in the development of messianic belief in the
Hebrew Scriptures. What were the important points of agreement of most messianic
expectations in Jesus’ time?
4) What does “Christ crucified” mean? Explain why this statement would be such
an absurdity to the Jews. How might this proclamation serve as a “proof” of the
resurrection experience?
5) Read the full text of Psalm 22 and the four songs of the “Servant of the Lord” in
the book of Isaiah (Is 42:1–4; 49:1–7; 50:4–11; 52:13—53:12). Find as many
similarities to the passion account in Mark as you can.
6) Compare and contrast Mark’s description of the crucifixion and death of Jesus
with those of Matthew and Luke (Mt 27:33–56; Lk 23:33–48). What significant
changes do Matthew and Luke make to Mark’s account? Why? (A good biblical
commentary will be of great help here.)
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Chapter Eleven
The Gospels
The scene is as vivid in my mind as if it happened yesterday. Martin Luther
King, Jr., is delivering his “I Have a Dream” speech—one of the great speeches
in American history. I hear him lay out a beautiful vision of an America where
people will be judged “not by the color of their skin but by the content of
their character.” He ends this speech in the spring of 1968, with those stirring
words that conjure up images of Moses and the Hebrew people in the deserts
around Mt. Sinai. “I’ve been to the mountaintop,” he says, “and I have seen the
Promised Land.” Amazingly, these last lines along with King’s qualification
that “I may not get there with you” turn out to be a prophecy of his own
death. A few days later he is assassinated while standing on the balcony of his
motel room in Memphis, Tennessee.
It’s quite a picture I have been carrying around in my head. I am embarrassed to
say that it was only a few years ago, when I was preparing a class on the events
surrounding the “I Have a Dream” speech, that I realized my mistake. Dr. King
delivered the famous “I have a Dream” speech in 1963. The “I’ve Been to the
Mountaintop” speech, which seems a premonition of King’s own death, was the last
speech he delivered before he was assassinated in 1968.
Now I am too young to claim that my memory lapse has anything to do with the onset
of senility. More likely it has to do with the organic nature of memory itself. All of the
retellings of the life and times of Martin Luther King, Jr., that I have heard and passed
along, have prompted my mind to reorganize the actual historical events. The
reorganization hasn’t been random, however. While the two speeches are separated by
five years in time, they are intimately connected by the hope-filled vision they provide of
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what a color-blind society could really be like, and by their ability to communicate the
passion and conviction of Dr. King for the cause of equal rights.
I find this analogy to be extremely helpful in understanding how the life, ministry,
and death of Jesus of Nazareth were transformed through the Stage Two oral
tradition into the written gospels we possess. Just as I am reflecting on events that
happened almost forty years ago in the case of Dr. King and the civil rights
movement, the first gospel account was written about forty years after the
crucifixion of Jesus. In the intervening generations the first Christians born of the
resurrection experience and guided by the Holy Spirit, proclaimed, reflected on, and
reinterpreted the events in the life of Jesus of Nazareth in ways that would clarify the
good news that Jesus is both Messiah and divine Son of God.
Each of the gospel writers dipped into this rich tradition and both selected
and fashioned the material in ways that would have meaning for the
evangelist’s particular church community. As we mentioned in our discussion
of inspiration, the final product was a combined effort of the author’s talents
and point of view and of the Holy Spirit’s action. We have already considered
how this process led to the creation of the gospel accounts of the passion and
resurrection of Jesus. In this chapter, we’ll use our four keys to help us create
an overview of each gospel in its entirety.
Just as it’s important to begin our reading of the Bible with the understanding that
we are entering a library and not a book, it’s also important to understand what we
are really looking at when we consider the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and
John. It would seem from their grouping that the first of the gospels to be written
was Matthew and that each is a separate and distinct work. One might even imagine
four men taking notes on the life and times of Jesus of Nazareth and then each one
giving the material his own particular spin. The interrelationship among the four is
more complex than this, however.
Mark, the first to be written
The reigning consensus for some decades now among Catholic Bible scholars is that
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Mark was the first gospel to be written. Mark is the shortest of the four gospels,
contains no Infancy Narratives, is much less explicit about the divine nature of Jesus,
and contains glimpses of Jesus in action that show some rough edges of Jesus’
humanity which later gospels smooth out. (See the three versions of the story about
Jesus and the fig tree mentioned at the end of chapter one for a good example of
this.)
Most significantly, Mark’s gospel places great emphasis on the suffering that
Jesus—and by extension, his disciples—must endure in order to establish the
reign of God. This sense of imminent persecution would fit perfectly with the
situation Jews and Christians confronted within the empire in the middle of
the first century. In response to the failed Jewish revolt against the Roman
Empire of 66–70 AD, the Roman army killed thousands of Jews and
completely destroyed both the city of Jerusalem and the Temple located in
the heart of the city. Now that the people of Israel could not pray and offer
sacrifice in the Temple precincts, Israel’s relationship with God had been
dealt a potentially lethal blow.
Just before the beginning of this Jewish revolt, the first persecution of Christians
took place within the city of Rome under Emperor Nero. Keeping in mind that
Mark’s Jewish Christian audience seems unfamiliar with the native dialects of the
Palestinian homeland (remember that Mark has to translate the Aramaic words of
Jesus during the crucifixion) it’s possible that Mark’s Church could have undergone a
double dose of persecution—reeling both from the destruction wrought by the
Romans in Jerusalem and by the capriciousness of Emperor Nero.
The very idea that God must be found in the midst of suffering and persecution
must have been difficult for Mark’s community to accept. Their struggle is
personified in Peter’s who, having just come to believe in Jesus as Messiah, promptly
rejects the full implications of his insight:
And he [Jesus] asked them, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter answered him,
“You are the Messiah.” And he sternly ordered them not to tell anyone about him.
Then he began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and
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be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after
three days rise again. He said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and
began to rebuke him. But turning and looking at his disciples, he rebuked Peter and
said, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but
on human things.” (Mk 8:29, 31–33)
And so Mark leaves us to struggle with a “suffering Messiah” whose description of
discipleship captures concisely the sometimes baffling paradox at the heart of
Christian faith: “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and
take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it,
and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it”
(Mk 8:34–35).
The synoptic gospels
About 80% of Mark’s gospel is reproduced in Matthew’s gospel, and about 65% in
Luke’s. The close relationship between Mark, Matthew, and Luke is so apparent
upon closer inspection that the three gospels are referred to as the synoptic
gospels—a Greek word that means “to look at together.”And the relationship
between Matthew and Luke is even more complex than this. In addition to
sharing Mark as a common source, the two evangelists incorporate a number of
teachings of Jesus that are virtually identical but are not found in Mark’s gospel.
Consider the following two examples:
You have heard that it was said, “You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.”
But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that
you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the
evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous. For
if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax
collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what
more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? Be
perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect. (Mt 5:43–48)
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But I say to you that listen, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless
those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.... Do to others as you would
have them do to you. If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you?
For even sinners love those who love them. If you do good to those who do good
to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same…. But love your
enemies, do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return. Your reward will be
great, and you will be children of the Most High; for he is kind to the ungrateful
and the wicked. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful. (Lk 6:27–28; 31–33;
35–36)
Given the very different audiences Matthew and Luke seem to be writing for—
Matthew for Jewish Christians and Luke for a Gentile (non–Jewish) Christian
community—most scholars think it unlikely that the two evangelists had any
knowledge of each other’s work. If they didn’t copy each other, then there must
have been a common source of Jesus’ teachings that circulated widely during
Stage Two. This hypothetical collection of Jesus’ teachings (I like to think of it as
“Jesus’ Greatest Hits”)—probably existing only in oral tradition—is called “Q,” the
first letter of the German word Quelle, meaning “The Source.”
You might well be wondering at this point why we need more than one gospel if the
writings are so interconnected. Just as it would be wrong to think of the four gospels
as totally distinct from one another, however, it would also be a mistake to think of
them as four carbon copies. Each gospel presents a unique portrait of Jesus.
Consider this analogy that I often use with my students. If you were to interview
four of the people who know me best, you would end up with four distinct
descriptions. My wife would describe me in one way, my mother or father in
another, my son or daughter in a different light, and my best friend in high school
from still another angle. Placed side by side, the four accounts would complement
one another, each one providing its own particular insight into my personality
and character. (I would prefer, however, that you not ask my wife about the time I
knocked that hole in the closet wall in a futile attempt to fix a very uncooperative
door.) This same analogy would hold true for any person, and it has a good
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application to the four gospels as well.
Matthew: Jesus’ Jewish roots
We have already considered the unique portrait of Jesus in Mark’s gospel. Matthew
is writing to a community of believers with strong Jewish roots who are concerned
that accepting Jesus as Messiah might mean rejecting their centuries-old belief in
God. Matthew portrays Jesus, therefore, as a true “man from Israel.”
In the first verse of his gospel, Matthew identifies Jesus as “the son of Abraham”
and then proceeds to document this claim with a genealogy that traces Jesus’
ancestry back through King David to Abraham. Jesus’ teachings are grouped into five
distinct sermons, mirroring the first five books of the Hebrew Bible known as the
Pentateuch or Torah. When Jesus begins to present his most famous collection of
teachings—the Sermon on the Mount—he first climbs up a mountain just as, in the
book of Exodus, Moses climbed Mt. Sinai to receive the Commandments from God.
Jesus explicitly confirms his commitment to his Jewish roots early on in the Sermon:
Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not
to abolish but to fulfill. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one
letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished.
Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches
others to do the same, will be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever
does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. (Mt 5:17–
19)
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All three synoptic gospels include the account of the Transfiguration, the moment
during the ministry of Jesus when several of his closest disciples catch a glimpse of
Jesus’ divine glory (Mk 9:2–10; Mt 17:1–9; Lk 9:28–36). For Matthew’s community,
the most meaningful detail of that story could well have been the two figures who
are seen talking with Jesus during this experience. They are Moses and Elijah, the
two greatest prophets in the Hebrew Bible. For Jesus to receive their endorsement
would be analogous to an American president receiving the endorsement of George
Washington and Abraham Lincoln. The presence of Moses and Elijah serves as a
powerful image of the continuity between Jesus and the covenant inaugurated at Mt.
Sinai.
Luke: the good news of Jesus
From the very beginning of his inspired literary endeavors, Luke had a broader
plan in mind than either Mark or Matthew. Luke would be telling the story of
salvation history with the “good news” (gospel) about Jesus as the centerpiece. Read
the opening verses of the gospel according to Luke and of the Acts of the Apostles,
and it becomes clear that the two books now separated in our biblical library were
intended as two parts of the same work. Even more than with the other three
gospels, therefore, understanding the gospel of Luke in its proper context is
essential if we are to fully grasp Luke’s portrait of Jesus.
The narrative begins in the Temple building itself when Zechariah, a member of the
priestly tribe of Israel (the Levites), is carrying out his appointed duties. The angel of
the Lord appears to him and tells him that his wife, Elizabeth, will bear a son who
will grow up to be John the Baptist (Lk 1:5–25). Elizabeth’s amazement at finding
herself about to become a mother at an advanced age is trumped when she is visited
by her cousin Mary, another Levite who has been visited by the angel Gabriel (v 26–
56).
Soon after the birth of Jesus, Luke takes us back to the Temple once again as Mary
and Joseph offer the prescribed sacrifice in thanksgiving for a firstborn son. Simeon,
the personification of the holy and faithful Israelite, takes the child in his arms and
offers thanks to God that he has been privileged to see the “light for revelation to the
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Gentiles, and glory for your people Israel.” And this is just what Jesus will be in
Luke/Acts, the foundation of a new relationship with God which will be proclaimed
both within Israel and without. The holy and faithful women of Israel add their voice
to the chorus in the person of Anna who “began to praise God and to speak about the
child to all who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem” (Luke 2:22–38).
The imprisonment of John the Baptist (Lk 3:19–20), the last of the great Old
Testament prophets, marks the end of Luke’s first act and the inauguration of Jesus’
ministry (Lk 3:21–22). Jesus sounds the principal theme of his ministry when he
stands up to read a passage from the prophet Isaiah in the synagogue at Nazareth:
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news
to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight
to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor” (Lk
4:18–19).
Luke emphasizes Jesus’ outreach to the poor and to the oppressed to demonstrate
how completely Jesus will fulfill this prophecy. It is only in Luke that we meet the widow
of Nain whose son Jesus raises from the dead (Lk 7:11–17). Luke is the source of the
parables of the Good Samaritan (Lk 10:29–37) and the parable of the rich man and
Lazarus (Lk 16:19–31), two stories that feature an outcast vindicated by God. The
persistent widow gets what she needs from the heartless judge in spite of her lack of any
worldly power (Lk 18:1–8). And in the most profound of all the Lucan parables, the
careless and thoughtless younger son, whose sins have made him a social and ritual
pariah as far as Jewish society is concerned, comes home to find that all has been
forgiven and his place restored (Lk 15:11–32). Such stories would have had so much
meaning for Luke’s Gentile Christian community, made up in large part of so many poor
and oppressed slum-dwellers in the cities of the eastern Roman Empire.
Beginning in chapter 9 of Luke’s gospel, Jesus begins to make his way from Galilee to Jerusalem.
This movement begins the journey to the cross and beyond it to the resurrection. Luke ends his
gospel—and the second and central act in salvation history—with the ascension of the risen Christ
(Lk 24:50–53). As the Acts of the Apostles begins, the focus shifts to the preaching of the good news
by Jesus’ disciples under the inspiration and guidance of the Holy Spirit (Acts 2).
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The message of Jesus Christ and the universal salvation he brings spreads
first to the lands surrounding Jerusalem, then through the cities and towns of
the eastern Roman Empire, and ultimately to Rome itself. Along the way,
illustrated most poignantly in the martyrdom of the deacon Stephen (Acts 6),
the members of the early Church encounter the same rejection and
persecution Jesus did on the way to ultimate victory. This last point is made
implicitly as the book closes with a description of how the greatest
missionary of the early Church spends his time under house arrest in Rome:
“He (St. Paul) lived there two whole years at his own expense and welcomed
all who came to him, proclaiming the kingdom of God and teaching about the
Lord Jesus Christ with all boldness and without hindrance” (Acts 28:30).
Rome—and the rest of the world—would never be the same.
John: the Word became flesh
Finally, there is the gospel of John. Written about a generation after Matthew and
Luke/Acts and two generations after Mark, the author of the final gospel and his
community have had much time to reflect on the fuller meaning of Jesus’ identity
and ministry. John’s is the gospel you need to read wearing sunglasses because the
glory of Jesus’ divinity shines through on every page.
John does not start his gospel as Mark does at the moment of Jesus’ baptism. He does
not include infancy narratives like Matthew or Luke, which project images of Jesus’
messianic mission back into the tales of his birth. John sets the tone for his portrait
of a glorious Messiah who transcends time and space by taking us back to the dawn
of creation:
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word
was God.
He was in the beginning with God.
All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into
being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all
people.
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The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it. (Jn 1:1–5)
John uses the same magnificent image a few verses later to describe the
Incarnation—that moment when the divine Word, second person in the Trinity and
Son of God, became manifest in the person of Jesus of Nazareth: “And the Word
became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a
father’s only son, full of grace and truth” (Jn 1:14).
From the moment Jesus of Nazareth enters the scene, he demonstrates the
authority and power of God. All four gospels tell the story of Jesus driving out the
moneychangers and setting loose some sacrificial animals in the outermost Temple
precinct as a public protest against the corrupt practices of the Temple priesthood.
In the synoptic gospels, however, this is the last dramatic public act Jesus performs
before his arrest. Not so in John; Jesus takes action at the beginning of his ministry
and the authorities are powerless to stop him (Jn 2:13–25).
John focuses on seven miracles of Jesus, each more dramatic than the one before. In
the town of Cana, Jesus turns water into wine at a wedding (Jn 2:1–12) and heals the
sick son of the royal official (Jn 4:46–54). He next cures a cripple who has been
disabled for many years at the pool of Bethesda near Jerusalem (Jn 5:1–18). As
opposition begins to mount, so does the power of Jesus’ miracles. Through the
multiplication of the loaves (Jn 6:1–15) and his ability to walk across the Sea of
Galilee towards the boat containing his disciples (Jn 6:16–21), Jesus demonstrates
his mastery over the forces of nature.
The spiritual blindness of those who will ultimately put Jesus to death is sharply
contrasted with the physical blindness of the man born blind in the next miracle
Jesus performs, as he approaches Jerusalem for the final time (9:1–40). The blind
man is spiritually open to Jesus and so Jesus can heal him. Jesus’ opponents have
willfully blinded themselves in spirit and therefore cannot be healed. Finally, having
demonstrated his power over every part of human life and creation, Jesus shows his
power even over death as he calls his friend Lazarus forth from the tomb (Jn 11:1–
44).
When the time comes for the passion, John leaves no doubt as to who is really in
control of the events. The soldiers who have come to take him away under cover of
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darkness ask him if he is “Jesus the Nazorean,” and Jesus says, “I Am”—the short
form of “I Am Who Am” which is the English translation of Yahweh. Jesus waits
patiently as the soldiers fall to the ground and then pick themselves up again so that
they can arrest him (18:4–10). Jesus maintains his composure throughout repeated
interrogations and “carrying the cross himself”—in pointed contrast to the synoptic
tradition where Jesus is aided by Simon of Cyrene as he makes his way to his
execution (19:16–18). As a fitting climax, John describes the death of Jesus in this
way:
After this, when Jesus knew that all was now finished, he said (in order to
fulfill the scripture), “I am thirsty.” A jar full of sour wine was standing there.
So they put a sponge full of the wine on a branch of hyssop and held it to his
mouth. When Jesus had received the wine, he said, “It is finished.” Then he
bowed his head and gave up his spirit. (Jn 19:28–30)
From beginning to end, Jesus’ glory is apparent to anyone who chooses to see.
Considered separately, each evangelist paints a portrait of Jesus that is vibrant and
that provides us with particular insights into who Jesus is and what his ministry and
death mean in the eyes of Christians. Taken together, the four writers provide us
with a rich, multi-faceted encounter with the risen Christ. It is an encounter that, like
any genuine relationship, continually deepens the more we reflect upon it.Questions
for Thought and Discussion
1) Do some memory exercises of your own. Think of a significant historical event
you lived through at some time in the past. Write down as many details as you can
remember and state in a sentence or two what you believe to be the true significance
of the event. Then do some checking on the actual facts. How much of what you
remember is your own interpretation? (This exercise would also work with
memories of personal events. Just make sure there’s someone in your circle of
friends and family whom you can check your facts with.)
2) Both Matthew and Luke leave out the introductory verse from Mark’s account of
Jesus discussing who his true kindred are (Mk 3:19b–21). Why? Explain why this
verse can be used as evidence of an early date of composition for Mark’s gospel.
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3) Read all three synoptic accounts of the calming of the storm (Mk 4:35–41; Mt
8:23–27; Lk 8:22–25). What changes do Matthew and Luke make? Why?
4) Using this chapter and a good basic commentary on the gospels, make a chart
for Mark, Matthew, Luke/Acts, and John that includes the following information:
approximate date of composition; place of composition; original audience; portrait
of Jesus that is presented.
5) Read about St. Paul’s encounter with the risen Christ in Acts 9. Compare and
contrast Paul’s experience with the experience of the disciples who encounter the
risen Christ in the resurrection accounts.
6) Explain the relationship among the gospels of Mark, Matthew, and Luke/Acts.
What two sources do Matthew and Luke have in common? Give some examples.
7) Read 1 John in the New Testament. Look for evidence connecting this letter
with the author of the gospel of John. Consider both writing style and ideas.
8) Do a biography of someone you know by consulting four people who know your
friend well. Compile your results and summarize your information.
9) Read the story of Jesus and the Samaritan woman in John 4. Explain the steps in
the process as the woman comes to fully understand who Jesus is.
10) In John’s gospel Jesus makes seven “I Am” statements, each of which reveals
something essential about who he is. With the help of a good commentary and your
own alert reading, find them.
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Chapter Twelve
Imprints of the Early Church
There was a time some years ago when I would always include a look at the
mystery of the Shroud of Turin in any New Testament course I taught. This ancient
measure of cloth which is purported to be the burial shroud of Jesus has resided in
the Cathedral of Turin, Italy, for some centuries and is first mentioned in Western
European history during the time of the Crusades. The desire to test the Shroud’s
authenticity using the best tools and methods of science began to heat up in the
early twentieth century when the negatives of pictures taken of the Shroud revealed
a much sharper image of the brutally beaten corpse of a crucified victim than the
actual photos themselves. Three-dimensional computer imaging done decades later
showed that the various shadings of the imprint on the cloth from light to dark
corresponded precisely to what they should look like if the cloth actually was
wrapped around a body. How could a medieval forger pull off a hoax designed to
thwart technology that wouldn’t be invented for hundreds of years?
The Vatican allowed scientists to examine the Shroud and even gave
permission for a tiny portion of the Shroud to be destroyed in a Carbon-14
dating test. The rate of decay of the Carbon-14 atom which begins at the
moment a living thing dies is well known. Measuring the amount of Carbon14 left in an artifact made of organic material—in this case, the plant fibers
themselves within the Shroud—provides a highly accurate and dependable
age range. Test results revealed that the Shroud dates plus or minus fifty
years from the time of those first medieval reports. The jig was up.
Based on these test results, two polarized points-of-view concerning the Shroud
have formed. Some dismiss the Shroud as another cheap religious relic debunked
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by science; others obstinately defend its authenticity in spite of the evidence.
Both camps fail to see the Shroud of Turin for what it truly is: an awesome
example of devotional art. In meticulously reproducing the effects of an authentic
scourging and crucifixion—even the imprints of the coins on the victim’s eyes
match a common coin in circulation during the time of Pontius Pilate—the
anonymous artist created a vivid, tangible, and incredibly unique image to help
believers enter more deeply into the mystery of the passion account and
resurrection.
The Shroud of Turin serves as a good analogy for the New Testament in a
couple of ways. What the Shroud of Turin does with fabric and some sort of
pigment derived from animal blood is what the books of the New Testament
do with words. The creativity and ingenuity of the evangelists writing under
the guidance of the Holy Spirit enable us to walk with Jesus and his disciples
along the roads of Galilee and into Jerusalem bathed in the light of the
resurrection experience. The letters of Paul contain moments of exquisite
poetry that provide real insight into the meaning of the incarnation,
crucifixion, and resurrection (see Philippians 2:5–11 for example). And the
book of Revelation provides a feast for the imagination through the complex
interweaving of symbols that attempt to build a bridge between the
inscrutable mysteries of the reign of God and human sense experience.
We have already seen examples of this artistry in our consideration of the
gospels and the stages of tradition behind them. As we conclude our look at
the Bible with an overview of the New Testament in its entirety, we’ll focus on
the second way in which the Shroud serves as a metaphor. Just as the Shroud
of Turin contains imprints of the process and effects of crucifixion, so the
books of the New Testament contain imprints of the beliefs, practices, and
growing pains of the early Church. The faint traces provide some valuable
insights aimed at increasing our understanding of both.
The early Church as seen by Paul
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As has been previously mentioned, the first part of the New Testament to be
written were the letters of St. Paul. Seven of them—1 Thessalonians; Romans;
Galatians; Philippians; 1 and 2 Corinthians; and the letter to Philemon—were
written by Paul himself. Six others—2 Thessalonians; Colossians; Ephesians; 1 and 2
Timothy; and Titus—were probably written by Paul’s disciples. Paul’s letters often
have the feel of news dispatches trying to keep up with fast-breaking events. He
struggles to find new and insightful ways to help the local church communities to
whom he is writing adapt the kerygma to practical problems that have come up.
In Corinth, for example, divisions have already developed among those who were
evangelized by Paul and those who were evangelized by other missionaries (1 Cor
1). In his first letter to the church of Thessalonica, written about 20 years after the
crucifixion and resurrection, Paul must begin to redefine what was a core belief of
the first generation of Christians—the expectation of an imminent parousia. This
belief held that because the crucifixion signified the establishment of the reign of
God, then the end times must be upon us. The coming (parousia) of the risen Christ
that would mark the final purging of the presence of evil from creation must only be
months or perhaps even weeks away. (Recall some of the images of the “Day of the
Lord” noted earlier in this book. A particularly good example is Daniel 7.)
By the time Paul writes his first letter to the Thessalonians, death has begun to
take its toll on the first generation of believers, with no Second Coming in sight. Just
as the people of Israel had to rethink the meaning of covenant after the fall of the
southern kingdom, so now Paul has to help the Christians of Thessalonica rethink
their concept of the end times:
We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about those who
have died, so that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. For
since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God
will bring with him those who have died. For this we declare to you by the
word of the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the
Lord, will by no means precede those who have died. For the Lord himself,
with a cry of command, with the archangel’s call and with the sound of God’s
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trumpet, will descend from heaven, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then
we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up in the clouds together with
them to meet the Lord in the air; and so we will be with the Lord forever. (1
Thes 4:13–17)
Paul still seems to expect the return of the risen Christ within the lifetime of at
least some of the members of his audience. His insistence that whether one is living
or deceased at the time of Christ’s second coming makes no difference, however, will
enable the Christian Church to get beyond the confinement of the imminent parousia
in future generations.
The passion and freshness of Paul’s letters is nowhere more evident than in his
letter to the Galatians. Dispensing with most of the formal introductions that
characterize his other writings, Paul gets straight to the point:
I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you in the grace
of Christ and are turning to a different gospel—not that there is another gospel, but
there are some who are confusing you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ. But
even if we or an angel from heaven should proclaim to you a gospel contrary to what
we proclaimed to you, let that one be accursed! (Gal 1:6–9)
Paul’s primary concern is summed up in a pointed question he asks a couple of
chapters further on: “The only thing I want to learn from you is this: Did you
receive the Spirit by doing the works of the law or by believing what you heard?”
(3:2).
“Must a Christian be a Jew?”
Apparently the Galatians have encountered missionaries who have told them that in
order to be a follower of Jesus one must also be carrying out the “works of the law”—
that is, living as an observant Jew who follows all of the commandments of the Torah.
Jesus himself and virtually all of his first disciples were Jews. It was only natural,
therefore, that when these disciples embraced Jesus as Messiah, they would continue
to see themselves as observant Jews adapting rituals and beliefs only where it was
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necessary to do so. Remember that of the four evangelists, only Luke is writing for a
community that seems to have a significant Gentile membership. Even Paul himself
first set out to evangelize his Jewish sisters and brothers.
Paul recognized, however, that it was one thing to choose to continue observing the
Torah and another thing to believe that doing so was necessary for salvation.
You who want to be justified by the law have cut yourselves off from Christ; you have
fallen away from grace. For through the Spirit, by faith, we eagerly wait for the
hope of righteousness. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor
uncircumcision counts for anything; the only thing that counts is faith working
through love. (Gal 5:4–6)
The fulfillment of the covenant accomplished by Jesus is a free-will gift offered by God to
each and every human being unconditionally. To suggest that a person must perform
any specific rituals or follow any particular commandments is to say that this free will
“gift” must first be earned. What is at stake here is the kerygma itself.
This basic question—“Must a Christian also be a Jew?”—became a burning one as
Paul’s missionary journeys took him increasingly into the Gentile world. It
became the basis for the Council of Jerusalem, a meeting held sometime in the
middle of the first century. Comparing the two accounts the New Testament gives
of the issues leading up to and debated by this first meeting of Church leaders
gives us a good opportunity to see the effects of oral tradition and inspiration at
work.
Paul’s stormy version of the events must have been written in the immediate
aftermath of the meeting.
Then after fourteen years I went up again to Jerusalem with Barnabas, taking Titus
along with me. I went up in response to a revelation. Then I laid before them
(though only in a private meeting with the acknowledged leaders) the gospel that
I proclaim among the Gentiles, in order to make sure that I was not running, or
had not run, in vain….When James and Cephas and John, who were acknowledged
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pillars, recognized the grace that had been given to me, they gave to Barnabas and
me the right hand of fellowship, agreeing that we should go to the Gentiles and
they to the circumcised. They asked only one thing, that we remember the poor,
which was actually what I was eager to do. (Gal 2:1–2; 9–10)
While the Church leaders including Peter and James, the leader of the Church in
Jerusalem, seem to have worked out a basic plan of action at this meeting, the devil
remained in the details. Settling the question in theory was one thing; implementing
the plan would prove more difficult. Paul next describes a tense encounter he had
with Peter a short time later in Antioch.
But when Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood self-condemned; for
until certain people came from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles. But after they came, he
drew back and kept himself separate for fear of the circumcision faction. And the other Jews [note:
here Paul means Jewish Christians] joined him in this hypocrisy, so that even Barnabas was led
astray by their hypocrisy. But when I saw that they were not acting consistently with the truth of
the gospel, I said to Cephas before them all, “If you, though a Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew,
how can you compel the Gentiles to live like Jews?” (Gal 2:11–14)
One of the five largest cities in the Roman Empire during Paul’s time, Antioch succeeded Jerusalem
as the center of the early Christian movement. The rich mixture of both Jews and Gentiles that
made up this Syrian city’s population provided a ready-made testing ground to see if the Council’s
decree could really work. Effectively, these early struggles transformed the early Christian
communities from a small messianic movement within Judaism into a predominantly Gentile and
truly “catholic” (meaning universal) Church.
When Luke describes the events surrounding the Council of Jerusalem in his Acts
of the Apostles thirty or forty years after Paul’s letter to the Galatians, the story has
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been significantly reworked. Paul and Barnabas do not arrive in Jerusalem of their
own accord, thus forcing the issue with the Church leaders in Jerusalem. They are
sent as part of a delegation from the Antiochean church and are warmly welcomed
when they arrive (Acts 15:2–4). As discussions heat up, it is Peter himself who
delivers the pivotal speech, speaking of his own work among the Gentiles and boldly
proclaiming,
In cleansing their hearts by faith [God] has made no distinction between them and
us. Now therefore why are you putting God to the test by placing on the neck of the
disciples a yoke that neither our ancestors nor we have been able to bear? On the
contrary, we believe that we will be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, just as
they will. (Acts 15:9–11)
With this, the assembly falls silent, and James sends Paul and Barnabas back to
Antioch with a letter addressed to the Gentile Christians: “It has seemed good to the
Holy Spirit and to us to impose on you no further burden than these essentials: that
you abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols and from blood and from what is
strangled and from fornication. If you keep yourselves from these, you will do well.
Farewell.” (15:28–29)
When Paul and Barnabas deliver the message, the people of Antioch “were delighted
with the exhortation.” Paul and Barnabas go back to their evangelization in Antioch
apparently without further incident (v 31–35). What accounts for the greater sense of harmony
and significantly polished role Peter plays in Luke’s version? If Church tradition about Peter’s
crucifixion during the reign of Emperor Nero is correct, then Luke wrote more than twenty years
after Peter’s martyrdom. That means that while Paul is describing the actions of a contemporary,
Luke is describing the actions of a venerated apostle and early Christian leader. Furthermore, the
very fact that there is a need for Luke to formulate a gospel for the Gentiles is evidence that the
Council’s decision proved to be successful. Luke’s retelling of the story interprets the Council’s
actions in light of the greater harmony the decision would bring to the Church in the decades to
follow. Paul’s view from the front lines had to be more clouded.
Which account tells the truth? Both do, each in its own way. Paul’s letter to the Galatians
with all of its passion and loose ends gives us a real sense of what being in the middle of the
controversy must have felt like. Luke gives us the grand perspective only possible after some
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time for reflection has passed. Both writings are inspired by the Holy Spirit in the proper
understanding of the term. In the intervening years between Paul and Luke, the process of
oral tradition smoothed the rough edges of the actual struggle to live out the faith experienced
by the participants in that meeting in Jerusalem. It brought out the deeper meaning of what
all the struggles were about. Always the Holy Spirit works in and through real, fallible human
beings. Each generation of believers gives flesh to the Body of Christ.
The catholic letters
The remaining books of the New Testament include the letter to the Hebrews, the book of
Revelation, and the collection of letters sometimes referred to as the “catholic” letters. As noted
earlier in this chapter, the word “catholic” is not used in its modern-day meaning to define a
particular Christian denomination. The word catholic means “universal”; this adjective was used to
describe the early Church because Christians came from all walks of life and cultural backgrounds
throughout the Roman Empire and the lands of the barbarian tribes. Most of the catholic letters,
therefore, do not seem to be written to any particular Christian communities, as are Paul’s, but
rather seem aimed at the entire Church. It is quite possible that all seven of them—1, 2, and 3 John;
1 and 2 Peter; James; and Jude—were written some time in the late first century or even early
second century. Their very catholicity suggests that the Church had grown in both the number of
local Christian communities and in their interconnectedness to one another since the time of Paul
and even since the time of Mark, Matthew, and Luke/Acts.
Consider this passage from the Second Letter of Peter, a candidate for the most recent book in
the New Testament library. The challenge to rethink the belief in the imminent parousia which Paul
issues to the Thessalonians has clearly been taken up by the Church in the decades after Paul’s
ministry.
But do not ignore this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a
thousand years, and a thousand years are like one day. The Lord is not slow
about his promise, as some think of slowness, but is patient with you, not
wanting any to perish, but all to come to repentance. But the day of the Lord
will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a loud noise,
and the elements will be dissolved with fire, and the earth and everything
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that is done on it will be disclosed…. Therefore, beloved, while you are
waiting for these things, strive to be found by him at peace, without spot or
blemish. (2 Pt 3:8–10, 14)
About a half-century after Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians, the early Church under the
guidance of the Holy Spirit came up with the delicate balance between patient endurance and
immediate preparation that endures to this day. God’s timetable for bringing to a conclusion the
work inaugurated by Jesus on the cross is not for us to know. Given this reality, the wisest course of
action is to live fully as a disciple of Christ in this present moment.
The sacredness of the present moment is made manifest many times in the various books which
make up the library we call the Bible. It is in that moment, time and time again, that human beings,
beginning with the earliest ancestors of the Hebrew people, experienced profound encounters
with a God who is both incomprehensible and yet so intimately known to the human heart.
Questions for Thought and Discussion
1) Do some research on some other famous relics of the Middle Ages (example—the true
cross). What function did these relics serve in the past? How have our more critical analysis
of these relics in modern times helped and hurt the cause of faith?
2) What kinds of truths are revealed by artistic interpretation? By on-site
reporting? Give examples, both biblical and non-biblical, of each.
3) List the letters of Paul. Which are considered to be actually authored by Paul?
4) With the help of a Bible atlas, trace the three missionary journeys of Paul. Do
some research on the major cities and towns Paul visited.
5) Compare and contrast Paul’s letter to the Galatians and his letter to the Romans. Give examples
of the development of Paul’s ideas from Galatians to Romans. Consider particularly Paul’s view of
the role of faith and good works.
6) Read the account of Paul’s arrest in Jerusalem, imprisonment, and journey to Rome in the
Acts of the Apostles. Compare and contrast Paul’s experiences with those of Jesus in the passion
account in Luke’s gospel.
7) List the seven books of the New Testament known as the “catholic letters.” Explain why
they are sometimes given this name. What does their generally late date of composition
suggest about how the Church was changing at the beginning of the second century?
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8) Read Hebrews 11. Compare and contrast the author’s interpretations of Old Testament
stories with the texts themselves. (Check the footnotes and cross-references in your Bible for help
here.) What does your research reveal about the process of biblical interpretation in general?
About the workings of biblical inspiration?
10) Discuss some current teachings and beliefs of the Church that, like the imminent parousia, are in
need of a radical reinterpretation.
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Epilogue
Packing for
the Journey
This book began with a parable about a key that unlocks the gate to a garden full
of magnificent surprises. The purpose of our travels together since then has been to
give you the basic directions you need to find the key, open the lock, and go inside. It
is my deepest hope and prayer that you have also received along the way a taste of
the wonders that await you there.
Maps and guidebooks are helpful in planning any conventional trip; that’s even more
true as you embark on an adventure into the central mysteries of the Christian faith. As
we conclude our time together, therefore, I want to leave you with a list of resources that
have greatly helped me go ever deeper into that garden. These resources are listed
according to several basic categories.
I. Bible Translations
The first thing you need is a good, modern translation of Scripture that is grounded
in sound and prayerful scholarship. These are all excellent translations of the Bible:
Jerusalem Bible
New American Bible
New Revised Standard Version
The Catholic Study Bible consists of the New American Bible translation and
footnotes plus a collection of introductory articles on various topics that place the
best of modern biblical scholarship at your disposal in an easy to read format.
The American Bible Society (ABS) is an excellent source for any number of
inexpensive and good translations of the Bible in many languages. The main office
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is in New York City.
II. Bible Commentaries
Each of the following selections contains a series of volumes. There is usually one
volume of commentary for each book of the Bible.
Commentaries supply
background information on the specific biblical book as well as reflections and
information on individual passages.
The Collegeville Series (The Liturgical Press, Collegeville, MN).
Daily Study Bible, by William Barclay (Westminster Press, Philadelphia, PA).
Anchor Bible, Doubleday, NY.
Ignatius Catholic Study Bible (Ignatius Press, San Francisco, CA).
The most compact and comprehensive one-volume commentary containing the gist
of about seventy years of Catholic biblical scholarship is the New Jerome Biblical
Commentary (Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ 07632). This work has been
extremely helpful to me over the years, but is not recommended as a beginner’s
source. More “beginner friendly” is Eerdman’s Handbook to the Bible (Eerdman’s
Publishing Co., Grand Rapids, MI).
III. Dictionaries
Biblical dictionaries are extremely useful resources when you need to find
information on one particular topic quickly—“Messianic Beliefs,” for example.
Three good ones are:
Dictionary of the Bible, by John L. McKenzie, S.J. (Macmillan Publishing Co., NY).
The Oxford Companion to the Bible, Bruce M. Metzger and Michael D. Coogan, eds.
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(Oxford University Press, NY).
The Collegeville Pastoral Dictionary, Carroll Stuhlmueller, ed. (The Liturgical Press,
Collegeville, MN).
If you are more ambitious, (and have unlimited finances!), the Anchor Bible
Dictionary is a state-of-the-art multivolume resource.
IV. Magazines
A subscription to one of the following publications is a great way to keep up with ongoing developments in biblical scholarship. My favorite is The Bible Today
(Collegeville, MN).
To stay on the cutting edge of archaeology in the lands of the Bible the beautifully
illustrated Biblical Archaeology Review (Biblical Archaeology Society, 4710 41st
Street, Washington D.C. 20016) is a great resource.
God’s Word Today (PO Box 56915, Boulder, CO 80322-6915; 800-246-7390) is a
daily guide to reading Scripture.
Other Catholic publications which contain occasional or regularly occurring
columns and articles on scripture include:
Religion Teacher’s Journal (Twenty-Third Publications, Mystic, CT).
St. Anthony Messenger (St. Anthony Messenger Press, Cincinnati, OH).
U.S. Catholic (Claretian Publications, Chicago, IL).
V. Miscellaneous
Three other resources that I have found very useful are:
1. A Bible concordance. This enables you to look up a particular verse organized
alphabetically by key word in order to find its location in the Bible. The American
Bible Society has a good and inexpensive edition.
2. A synopticon. The three synoptic gospels are listed in parallel columns on each
page of this book. This is an excellent resource for comparing and contrasting
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various versions of the same story (United Bible Societies).
3. An atlas of the Bible. These books of maps are really helpful in locating the cities
and towns and geographical landmarks of the Bible. HarperCollins publishes a good
one. Check your Bible commentaries and Bibles for maps also.
V. Computer Resources
Many of the print resources listed above can now be found on CD-ROM. Christian
Book Distributors (CBD) includes a good-size software section in their catalogues.
Also look for ads in the magazines listed above. Check with publishers of print
resources to see if they have electronic ones as well.
As far as the Internet goes—for getting to know the Bible, it’s a mixed bag at this
point. Start with print resources. Magazines such as those listed above can be good
sources for finding web sites that are based on solid Bible scholarship and are still in
existence.