| The educationalist and former MJO General Secretary, Chafiq Haydar, also stresses the fact that Christian education presupposes the freedom of the person. Its goal is to help the person to discover him- or herself and his or her value as the image of God, and to learn to live out the freedom which this entails. 467 Church educational institutions should be built upon the basis of love and service so that they become places where human beings can meet God and know his holy face. THE ST JOHN OF DAMASCUS INSTITUTE OF THEOLOGY The most prominent landmark in the educational revival is the achievement of the Antiochian Holy Synod, which decided to turn the seminary of Balamand into an institution of higher theological education in the late 1960s. The Institute of Theology became one of the founding faculties of the Orthodox University of Balamand. Most of those who wish to work in the Church either in the ordained ministry or as laypersons pursue their theological studies here. Coupled with its role in preparing candidates for priesthood and service, the Institute aspires to be a place where the Orthodox heritage is re-discovered and fostered by further academic studies. In its relatively short history, the St John of Damascus Institute of Theology has made remarkable steps forward in theological education and research. In addition to Patriarch Ignatius IV and Metropolitan Georges Khodr, whose theological input is described elsewhere in this chapter, other professors at the Institute have made valuable contributions to their respective fields. In the field of Biblical Studies, Paul Tarazi, who taught Old and New Testament from 1971 to 1996 (also Professor of Old Testament at St Vladimir " s Seminary in New York since 1980), has contributed to the advancement of biblical research. In his three-volume introduction to the Old Testament, 468 he shows how the Old Testament authors use a variety of means and traditions to describe God " s revelation, challenging the readers to accept God as Lord and Master of their lives. Interesting in Tarazi " s approach is how he relates the historical traditions of the Pentateuch to the prophets, contesting the prevailing separation of these two parts of the Old Testament into two distinct theological dimensions, law and prophecy. For Tarazi, the «historical language» used extensively in the Pentateuch and the historical books does not remotely reflect what would classically be considered a »real perspective on history». Actually, the so-called «histories» of the kingdoms of Israel and Judah are concerned with the stories of interactions between the prophets and kings; this makes biblical history God " s story of his kings rather than the kings» story of themselves. This »anti-historical» approach to the Bible is important insofar as it reflects God " s message to human beings. Hence the Old Testament is thoroughly prophetical, in the sense that it conveys the word of God in its full authority and power. |
| That was why most of the Holy Scripture in Greek was read, and not chanted, during the Divine services; they chanted only the psalms and the Old Testament songs, to which were later added a few chants from the New Testament: the chant of the Theotokos, when She met St. Elizabeth (i.e. Magnification), the chant of Zechariah on the birth of St. John the Baptist and the chant of St. Simeon the God-Receiver. Because of the relative scantiness of chanting material in Greek, there appeared the need for new chants for the Divine services. In the earliest Christian times, the angelic hymn «Glory to God in the highest» (the so-called Gloria) was composed, based on the description of their singing in the Gospel, the martyr Athenagor writes the hymn «O Gladsome Light,» and then the Church starts to be filled abundantly with the inspired creations of great church chant-writers. All these church creations unfailingly used the language, images and thoughts of the Holy Scripture. The law, which we established at the beginning of this essay: the preparation for the encounter and acceptance of the Son of God, which took place in both the historical and liturgical process, but primarily through the Holy Scripture, – this law remains valid. The works of the church chant-writers, both internally and externally, are tightly connected to the Holy Scriptures. Partly this connection is dictated by the very content of the Divine service. Vespers consists of chanting and the reading of Psalms, which later began to be mixed with chanting of the so-called sticheras, i.e. chants, which are devoted to the celebrated feast, and with readings from parts of the Old Testament books, the so-called paremias. Consequently, more than half of vespers consists of Old Testament material, and new chants are composed in the language of the Holy Scripture, i.e. the language of the Septuagint. The same can be said about matins, the first half of which also consists of chants and the reading of psalms, and the second half – of singing the so-called Old Testament chants. Nowadays, instead of chanting and reading, this second half is made up of so-called canons, which were originally composed in the form of commentaries to the words of the Old Testament songs. This alone determines the Biblical character of the content and language of the canons. Matins ends with the ancient Christian hymn «Glory to God in the highest.» |
| Examples of these Christian interpretations on the Old Testament are the sermons of Apostle Peter and the first martyr Stephan, preserved in the Acts of the Apostles. Later on, when Christians converted from heathens became the majority in the Church, the Holy Scripture of the Old Testament began to be read and explained in Greek, which was commonly understood throughout the known world. Soon the books of the New Testament appeared, first the Epistles of the Apostles, then the Gospels and other Apostolic writings, which were written in Greek as well. In addition, a providentially important circumstance was the fact that the Apostolic Church had no need to worry about creating a translation of the Old Testament into the new sacred language of the Church – into Greek. This translation was already prepared by Divine providence beforehand, by the God-inspired deed of the Old Testament Church, which created such a translation of all the holy books of the Old Testament from Hebrew into Greek. This translation is called the translation of the 70, or in Latin – the Septuagint. The Importance of the Septuagint We know the history of writing of the Septuagint and believe in this ancient church legend. In the second year of rule of Ptolomaios, the Second Philadelphus (282 BC), with the blessing of righteous high priest Eleazar, selected translators from the 12 tribes of Israel did this translation. Thanks to this providential matter, the spiritual preparation to the encountering and acceptance of the Son of God spread beyond the Jewish nation and spread throughout the population of the Mediterranean shores, all of which at the time more or less spoke and understood Greek. The greatness of the significance of the Septuagint in the earliest propagation of Christianity can be seen from the fact that, at the end of the 1 st century, an overwhelming majority of those converted into Christianity came not from the Hebrews or the yet unprepared pagans, but from the so-called proselytes, i.e. |
| It is also notable how naturally and how often Ignatius lays whatever it is he calls ‘the gospel’ alongside the Old Testament or categories of Old Testament writings, much as we have seen in the Epistle to Diognetus and Polycarp above. His eight uses of the term ‘gospel’ appear in the following combinations: Philadelphians 5.1 – 2: gospel... apostles... prophets... gospel... gospel Philadelphians 8.2: archives... gospel Philadelphians 9.1 – 2: prophets... apostles... gospel... gospel Smyrnaeans 5.1: the prophecies... the law of Moses... the gospel Smyrnaeans 7.2: prophets... gospel Five categories of religious authority are used: the archives (apparently the entire Jewish Scriptures), the law of Moses, the prophets or prophecies, the gospel, and the apostles. 273 Each Ignatian passage contains at least one designation for the Old Testament Scriptures, and at least one which pertains to the new Christian revelation, always ‘the gospel’, and in two passages ‘the apostles’ as well. All of these (except ‘the archives’) are terms used by other second-century writers to denote well- known groupings of their sacred writings. ‘The gospel’ thus too looks like one of these ‘canonical’ categories. What is more, Ignatius’ admonition to pay attention ‘especially’ to the gospel, in preference even to the prophets (Smyrnaeans 7.2), and his statement that the gospel has something ‘exceptional’, in relation to the prophets (Philadelphians 9.2), show that what is contained in the gospel is in Ignatius’ mind even more important than what is in the Old Testament. Ignatius’ use of the term ‘gospel’ as a ‘canonical’ category should help provide the context for evaluating the parallels he has with materials in the known Gospels. But even if there were no traces of New Testament writings in his letters (and by everyone’s count, there are), we would still have to say that he already knows very well the structure of religious authority, the categories of ‘gospel’ and ‘apostles’, which inevitably led to a recognition of a canon of writings to supplement the Old Testament. Clearly, this makes Ignatius a ‘proto-conspirator’ as well. The Didache |
| In the Old Testament, the 2d and 3d books of Maccabees, and the entire New Testament, except for the Gospel of Matthew, were written in Greek. Besides this, the Gospel of Matthew, and all the Books of the Old Testament which are not accepted by the Jewish canon, only survived in Greek, while their Hebrew and Aramaic originals were lost. The first translation of the Holy Scripture known to us was the translation of all the books of the Old Testament from Hebrew into Greek, which was completed by the so-called 70 (to be more exact, 72) interpreters in the 3d century BC. oly scripture Demetrius Phalareus, the learned noble of the Hellenistic Egyptian King Ptolemaios Philadelphus, set a goal to gather all the books, existing in the whole world at the time, in the capital of his king. Judea at that time (284–247 BC) was subject to the Egyptian kings, and Ptolemaios Philadelphus ordered the Jews to send all their existing books to the Alexandrian library, together with their Greek translation. Probably none of the contemporaries understood that this desire of the king and his noble, typical of bibliophiles, to compile the most complete collection of books, would have such an important significance for the spiritual life of mankind. The Judean high priests treated this task with great seriousness and awareness of their responsibility. In spite of the fact that, by that time, the entire Hebrew nation was concentrated in the single tribe of Judas, and the Judeans could boldly fulfill the wishes of the Egyptian king themselves, however, fully justly and sacredly longing for the participation of all Israel in this task, the spiritual leaders of the Hebrew nation proclaimed a fast and intense prayer among all the people, and called upon the 12 tribes to choose 6 interpreters from each of them, so that they could jointly translate the Holy Scripture into Greek, the language then most widespread. This translation, which in this way became the fruit of the mutual effort of the Old Testament Church, received the title the Septuagint, i.e. the Seventy, and became the most authoritative narration of the Holy Scripture of the Old Testament for Orthodox Christians. |
| About Pages Проекты «Правмира» Raising Orthodox Children to Orthodox Adulthood The Daily Website on How to be an Orthodox Christian Today Twitter Telegram Parler RSS Donate Navigation The God of the Bible Source: Notes on Arab Orthodoxy Metropolitan Saba (Esber) 22 May 2021 file/Getty Images There are certain erroneous or distorted beliefs that are widespread among the faithful. In this brief note, I am concerned with the one that starts out from the basis of the Bible to erroneously state that the face of God in the Old Testament is not the same as in the New Testament. Some believe that God in the Old Testament is only a god of war, cruelty, violence and racism, while in the New Testament, He is only a god of love, forgiveness, mercy and kindness. This erroneous belief is the result either out of ignorance of the Old Testament, its interpretation and its structure or under the influence of misconceptions similar to the approach of those critics of the Bible who attack it for reasons too numerous to refute here. In each case, the approach to the bible is wrong because it is not a theological approach to a religious book. Many also arrive at erroneous conclusions because they do not understand the essence of inspiration in Christianity or because they take a merely historical approach to the Bible. In Christianity, divine inspiration has taken place over the course of a long pedagogical relationship of about eighteen and a half centuries. God inspired humankind with what He wanted to say through the historical events that they experienced, speaking to them in their language and according to their understanding, gradually bringing them toward Him. The Bible is not a book of history, even though it uses history to speak theology. By way of example and not exclusively, I will cite some verses of the Old Testament where God’s face appears merciful, loving and forgiving: “ And the Lord passed before him and proclaimed, ‘The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abounding in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin… " ” (Exodus 34:6-7, see also Numbers 14:18, Deuteronomy 4:31, Psalm 86:5 and 108:4, Joel 2:13). |
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