| H. L. Strack. Prolegomena critica in Vetus Testamentum hebraicum. Lipsiae. MDCCCXXIII. J. Wellhausen. Die kleine Propheten übersetzt und erklärt. Dritte Ausgabe. Berlin. 1898. Whedon’s commentary in the Old Testament vol. IX – The Minor Prophets by F. C. Eiselen. New-York – Cincinnati. 1907. Zapletal. De Poesi hebraeorum in veteri Testamento conservata. Freiburgi Helvetiorum. 1911. Zschokke H. Theologie der Propheten des Alten Testaments. Freiburg i. B. 1877. Не перечисляем здесь ряда мелких статей библиографического характера и мелких заметок по тем или иным вопросам, соприкасающимся с самым содержанием книги пророка Аввакума; те работы и исследования, не относящиеся к существу нашей работы, (напр. интересную заметку Nestle – Das Lied Habakkuks und der Psalter в Zeitschrift für die alttestamentl. Wissenschaft, I900, 1, или рецензию Nowack’a на последнюю (указанную нами) работу Duhm’a об Аввакуме в Theolog. Litteraturzeitung, 1907, 15 и мн. др.), которыми мы пользовались только в некоторых случаях, нами указываются в соответствующих примечаниях. Нам известно о существовании труда D. J. van Katwijk’a – De prophetie van Habakuk (Rotterdam 1912), но с ним нам не удалось познакомиться обстоятельно. Введение Личность священного писателя книги. Имя пророка Для исследователя той или иной священной книги имя её автора является предметом тщательных изысканий. Для нас рассмотреть вопрос об имени пророка представляется особенно необходимым. – в Авв. 1:1; 3:1 – вот все исторические сведения, которые с решительностью можно признать прямо и достоверно характеризующими личность автора восьмой малой пророческой книги. Нарицательное 5 не есть имя писателя книги, а есть только одно из «Prophetennamen», а потому мы сначала обратимся к слову . В Еврейском тексте Библии это имя более нигде не встречается, кроме указанных двух мест в самой книге. Следовательно, имя позволительно считать данным в первый раз самому пророку, именно его, выражением впечатления, произведённого именуемым субъектом, впечатления от его свойств или обстоятельств, при которых давалось . |
| In his subsequent introduction to the New Testament, 469 Tarazi questions the prevailing idea that the New Testament contains different theological approaches (Pauline, Johannine, synoptic and so on). For Tarazi, the New Testament contains but one view, namely the true gospel which is based on the message of the Old Testament prophets. The organic relation between the Old and New Testaments is clear in the fact that the New Testament represents the only «legitimate» interpretation of the Old Testament. For this reason, the texts of the New Testament have the same authority as those of the Old Testament, and from the moment they were written they were intended by their authors to be read as scripture, conveying to the believers the true message of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Following the tradition of the Church Fathers, Tarazi holds that Old and New Testament do not contain distinct »theologies»; they represent together the one Bible, containing the saving word of God which was revealed through the prophets and which found its ultimate expression in the Incarnation. Another biblical scholar, Daniel Ayuch, Professor of New Testament at the Institute, offers a modern reading of the narrative texts of the New Testament. He stresses the importance of reading the biblical texts in their final shape, and of analysing the level of the reader " s response. In two studies, Ayuch offers a critical and analytical reading of biblical studies in the Orthodox Church and their crucial role in the shaping of the Eastern tradition. 470 Throughout his work, he combines exegetical methods with educative strategies in order to enhance communication between academic circles and parishes. In the field of the Old Testament, Nicolas Abou Mrad, Professor of Old Testament and Biblical Languages at the Institute, has provided new insights on how to read the Bible, especially concerning the relationship between the narratives of the Old and the New Testaments. In «Abraham: typos of the Christian believer», 471 Abou Mrad shows that the idea of the New Covenant, as it is described and presented in the New Testament, is rooted in the story of Abraham, which introduces the reader of the Old Testament to the newness of God " s dealing with humankind, over against the »oldness» of human attempts to imprison God within the framework of «Ancient Near Eastern» religious categories. |
| Eventually, so that God’s revelation might be kept in complete faithfulness, by the inspiration of the Lord, several holy people wrote the most important aspects of tradition in books. The Holy Spirit helped them invisibly, so that everything in these written books would be correct and true. All these books, written by the Spirit of God through people sanctified by God, prophets, apostles, and others, are called Holy Scripture, or the Bible. The word «Bible» comes from Greek and means «book.» This name shows that holy books, as coming from God Himself, surpass all other books. The books of the Holy Scripture, written by various people at different times, are divided into two parts, the books of the Old Testament, and those of the New Testament. The books of the Old Testament were written prior to the birth of Christ. The books of the New Testament were written after the birth of Christ. All of these holy books are known by the Biblical word «testament,» because the word means testimony, and the Divine teaching contained in them is the testimony of God to mankind. The word «Testament» further suggests the agreement or a covenant of God with people. The contents of the Old Testament deal mainly with God’s promise to give mankind a Saviour and to prepare them to accept Him. This was accomplished by gradual revelation through holy commandments, prophesies, prefigurations, prayers and divine services. The main theme of the New Testament is the fulfillment of God’s promise to send a Saviour, His Only-begotten Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, Who gave mankind the New Testament, the new covenant. The Old Testament books, if each one is counted separately, number thirty-eight. Sometimes several books are combined into one, and in this form, they number twenty-two books, according to the number of letters in the Hebrew alphabet. The Old Testament books are divided into four sections, the law, history, wisdom literature, and the prophets. I. The books of the law, which constitute the main foundation of the Old Testament, are as follows: |
| The Septuagint: The Christian Old Testament. The early Christians were well aware of these discrepancies between the Greek Old Testament and the Hebrew Bible, but almost universally they regarded the Septuagint and translations from it, notably the Old Latin version, as the authoritative text of the Old Testament of their Christian Scriptures. The main reason for this was that the Septuagint was the version of the Old Testament that they were accustomed to using. It was in Greek that Christianity had spread throughout the Mediterranean world, and it was the Septuagint to which Christian preachers and missionaries appealed as the Scripture. The Septuagint is the version quoted and referred to, for the most part, in the New Testament, which is, of course, in the Greek of the first Christian missionaries and Christian communities. The Old Latin version (or versions) was a translation of the Septuagint and remained the principal text of the Scriptures for those who spoke Latin throughout the patristic period. When Christianity established itself among the Armenians, the Copts and the Georgians, the Septuagint formed the basis for their vernacular Old Testament. Even among the Syrians, who spoke a Semitic language, Syriac, their translation, the Peshitta, though naturally a translation of the closely related Hebrew, is not without the influence of interpretations inspired by the Septuagint. The earliest dissenting voice from the primacy of the Septuagint seems to have been the Latin scholar Jerome, whose translation, now called the Vulgate, was inspired by his ideal of Hebrew truth (Hebraica veritas), though even here, despite his shrill defense of the priority of the Hebrew, his version frequently follows the text of the Septuagint. 15: At the Reformation, the Renaissance ideal of ad fontes (“to the sources”) led to Protestant vernacular translations of the Old Testament being based on the Hebrew, and thence to the idea that the Hebrew Bible is the Christian Old Testament. |
| International Symposium on " The New Testament in the Byzantine Empire " takes place in Harvard Boston, May 1, 2013 A 3-day academic symposium devoted to the role and influence of the New Testament on Byzantine culture took place at the Dumbarton Oaks Centre for Byzantine Studies at Harvard University. This academic forum was the continuation of the previous Harvard Symposium on the theme " The Old Testament in the Byzantine Empire " that took place in 2007, reports Sedmitza.ru. The New Testament was at the heart of Byzantine Christian thought and everyday practice. The Gospels, Epistles and other texts were constantly copied and duplicated, which explains why there are currently about 5,000 uncial and italic manuscripts and lectionaries containing integral collections or parts of the New Testament texts in academic circulation. Several dozen academics from the USA, Great Britain and Greece discussed the latest results of Byzantology research on the role of the New Testament in liturgical life, theological debates, rhetoric, icon-painting, mosaics, sculpture and poetry of the latter part of the history of the Byzantine Empire (the 10th to 15th centuries). The conference " s work was divided into four sections. In the sections " The New Testament texts and their copying " and " Scribes, lectionaries and commentaries " , papers devoted to textual traditions and their development in the Byzantine Empire, the art of Biblical illustration, the genealogy of late manuscripts of the New Testament, the classification of lectionaries and their importance for textology, catena genre etc were read. Section three was devoted to the question of use of the Gospels, the Epistles and the Book of Acts in hymnography, hagiography and polemical literature. S. Arschbrook (Brown University) gave a paper on " Bearing witness: Women of the New Testament in Syrian and Byzantine hymnography " . D. Krüger (University of North California) gave the paper " The use of the Bible by Byzantine writer-hagiographers " . Section four was called " Liturgy, Homilies and Apocalypse Literature " . Papers from this section were devoted to the reception of the missionary and theological heritage of the Apostle Paul in works of late Byzantine writers, polemists, academics and orators, as well as to the use of traditions and ideas of apocryphal Revelations of John in liturgical texts of the 10th to 15th centuries. In papers in section five, consideration was given to motives of the New Testament in Church and secular art of the late Byzantine Empire. http://www.pravoslavie.ru/news/61229.htm 4 апреля 2013 г. ... Комментарии Мы в соцсетях Подпишитесь на нашу рассылку |
| In reality, there was no “New Testament” when this statement was made. Even the Old Testament was still in the process of formulation, for the Jews did not decide upon a definitive list or canon of Old Testament books until after the rise of Christianity. As I studied further, I discovered that the early Christians used a Greek translation of the Old Testament called the Septuagint. This translation, which was begun in Alexandria, Egypt, in the third century B.C., contained an expanded canon which included a number of the so-called “deuterocanonical” (or “apocryphal”) books. Although there was some initial debate over these books, they were eventually received by Christians into the Old Testament canon. In reaction to the rise of Christianity, the Jews narrowed their canons and eventually excluded the deuterocanonical books-although they still regarded them as sacred. The modern Jewish canon was not rigidly fixed until the third century A.D. Interestingly, it is this later version of the Jewish canon of the Old Testament, rather than the canon of early Christianity, that is followed by most modern Protestants today. When the Apostles lived and wrote, there was no New Testament and no finalized Old Testament. The concept of “Scripture” was much less well-defined than I had envisioned. Photo: http://azbyka.ru EARLY CHRISTIAN WRITINGS The second big surprise came when I realized that the first complete listing of New Testament books as we have them today did not appear until over 300 years after the death and resurrection of Christ. (The first complete listing was given by St. Athanasius in his Paschal Letter in A.D. 367.) Imagine it! If the writing of the New Testament had been begun at the same time as the U.S. Constitution, we wouldn’t see a final product until the year 2076! The four Gospels were written from thirty to sixty years after Jesus’ death and resurrection. In the interim, the Church relied on oral tradition-the accounts of eyewitnesses-as well as scattered pre-gospel documents (such as those quoted in 1 Timothy 3:16 and 2 Timothy 2:11-13) and written tradition. |
| There have been many various ways that the Eastern Orthodox have sought through history to assimilate, in a conscious manner, the Old Testament as scripture. Classic among them are the Byzantine modes of reception and interpretation which can be briefly summarized as follows. In the first place stand the patristic works (commentaries, biblical interpretations found in various writings, and catenae or florilegia of verse comments preserved in Greek, Syriac, and Coptic). What makes the patristic expositions of scripture valuable even in a postmodern world dominated by a hermeneutic of suspicion is the church fathers’ persistent search for the skopos, the “goal” of the biblical text, its moral sense allied with a desire to apply an immediate pastoral application for it. Patristic exegesis with its overarching christological orientation and its typological searching moves from plain historical meanings (the literal sense) through allegorical reading, to search out higher moral and mystical senses. In the second place, Orthodoxy approaches the Old Testament through the major route of liturgy (hymnody, lectionaries, and liturgical symbolism as reflected in various Byzantine “rubrics”). The Old Testament texts and themes found so extensively in the Byzantine hymns show a very high degree of exegetical freedom within a dynamic liturgical setting. In the third place, Orthodoxy approaches and interprets the Old Testament through iconography (frescoes, icons, the arts of illumination), a process which sheds additional and sometimes invaluable light on the way the Byzantines read and understood the Old Testament in relation to the New. For example, the iconographic positioning of the ancient biblical episodes and figures in an Eastern Orthodox church can reflect the way in which specific Old Testament symbols were interpreted within the wider context of Byzantine tradition. The ascetical and spiritual tradition of Orthodoxy (Burton- Christie 1993) also determines how the Old Testament is seen within the church (monastic rules, canons, ascetical texts). Both cenobitic and individual forms of monastic spirituality are thoroughly regulated by specific scriptural readings, helping the ascetic and lay believer embark on what the fathers call the path of theosis or “deification.” Lastly, it goes without saying that the dogmatic tradition of Orthodoxy is profoundly influenced by the Old Testament. Conciliar resolutions (creeds and decisions of local and ecumenical councils) crafted during the Byzantine period are based primarily on canonical scriptural texts, and the Byzantine modes of reception and interpretation of the Old Testament feature deeply within them (see Pentiuc 2011). |
| John Anthony McGuckin Old Testament EUGEN J. PENTIUC TWO TESTAMENTS, ONE BIBLE The Jewish Bible, also known as Tanakh or Hebrew Scriptures, is for the Orthodox Church the first part of the Christian Bible or Holy Scripture. It is called by Christians the Old Testament in a precise theological balance to the affirmation of the New Testament. These terms were first signaled by Origen of Alexandria in the 3rd century and were developed into a theory of interpretation using Hellenistic hermeneutics where typology was used to read the Old Testament in the light of the New (Kannengiesser 2006). The early church’s struggle with Marcion of Pontus over the Old Testament’s place and role besides the emerging Christian scriptures occupied most of the 2nd century. Marcion (d. 160) rejected the Old Testament as having any authority for Christians. He argued that the God of the Jews was totally different from, and inferior to, the Christian God. His radical view, one that was often echoed by Gnostic teachers, accelerated the broader Christian embrace of the Hebrew Scriptures as a whole, and most scholars agree that the defeat of Marcion greatly helped to fix the church’s canon of received scriptures. Another early danger, supersessionism, discernible in the indictment of the Parable of the Wicked Tenants ( Mt. 21.33–46 ) and supported by Paul’s teaching that the coming of Christ put an end to the custodian role of the Law ( Gal. 3.24–5 ; Rom. 10.4 ; cf. Heb. 8.13), led to a premature devaluation of the Old Testament among some Christian commentators. The idea that the church and its new Scripture (New Testament) superseded the old Israel and its Hebrew Scripture is attested in many early Christian writings. Even so, the church as a whole has been able to keep the two Testaments in a dialectical unity, in the main avoiding factual reductionism and supersessionism as dangers. The centrality of the Christ event in Christian tradition, not least as a key hermeneutical principle, helped in reaching this objective. |
| The Mystical Supper is short, the repetition of It in the Divine liturgy is short as well, but the Christian consciousness understands that one should not approach this act, which is the most important in the universe, without worthy, appropriate preparation, for the Lord says in the Scripture: «Cursed be he that doeth the work of the LORD deceitfully.» And «For he that eateth and drinketh (the Communion) unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation to himself, not discerning the Lord " s body» ( 1Cor. 11:29 ). Worthy preparation for the acceptance of the Son of God in the historical process was mainly the Holy Scripture. It, i.e. the careful reverent reading of It, can be equivalent to the preparation for the acceptance of the Son of God in the process of the Divine service. That is why, from the very beginning of Christian history, the Holy Scripture occupied such an important place in the matter of the preparation of Christians to the Sacrament of the Eucharist and Communion of the Holy Gifts, i.e. in the Divine service, and not only as an imitation of the synagogue, as it is often interpreted. In the early church, in the very first years of Its existence, in Jerusalem, when the Church consisted primarily of Judeo-Christians, the reading and chanting of the Holy Scripture was performed in the holy language of the Old-Testament church, in ancient Hebrew, though the people, which at that time already spoke Aramaic, almost did not understand this language. In order to explain the Holy Scripture, Its text was interpreted in Aramaic. These interpretations were called targums. In Christianity, targums mean interpretations of the Old Testament in the sense of its fulfillment and making the New Testament whole. These interpretations of the Old Testament were done by the Holy Apostles themselves, and in the early Church were used in place of the Holy Scripture of the New Testament, which, as such, did not exist yet. This way, in spite of the absence of New Testament books in the early Church, essentially the Christian Divine service from the very beginning consisted of listening to and learning from the Divine words of both Testaments. And the interpretations of the Old Testament Scriptures by the very Apostles – the Law, Prophets and Psalms, were the most important part of the preparatory for the Holy Eucharist Divine Service. |
| When the problem of the idols was no longer present, however, as in the case of the instructions for Temple worship in the Old Testament, or in the case of the illumined church celebrating the incarnation of the Lord, then the divine attitude toward icono- graphic representations has to be seen as completely different. God not only does not stop them, but on the contrary, he commands and commends them. The Orthodox Church thus considered the Old Testament-based interdiction of the image as being a provisional, pedagogical measure. The difference between icon and idol becomes evident since the idol pertains to polytheism while the icon pertains to the divine economy which has overthrown idolatry from (Christian) society. The Old Testament interdiction of images was disputed by the iconodules through the comparison that they made between the two testaments; using the parallel between law and grace as it is found in the Pauline theology. They invoked the text of St. Paul ( Gal. 3.23 ) from which one sees the inferiority of the law compared to the time of faith (grace); thus, as the Old Testament could not be compared in authority to the New, the character of this commandment (circumstantial, contextual, and transitory) needed also to be seen in the light of the new principles of monotheistic worship established in and by the incarnation. The iconodules also invoked the assertion of St. Paul (Heb. 10.1) regarding the law as being a shadow, and the Christians as living in the era of grace, not of law. If the law still held literal validity in all respects, they argued, Christians would also need to keep its other imperatives, such as the Sabbath or circumcision. But this would clearly be to deny the radical new element of the religion of the incarnation, which the icon celebrates. According to St. John of Damascus, if, in the Old Testament, the direct revelation of God was manifested only through the word, then now, in the New Testament, it has been manifested through word and image alike, because the divine unseen has become the seen, and what was non-representable has now been truly represented. |
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