| 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 The idea that the church and its new Scripture (New Testament) superseded the old Israel and its Hebrew Scripture is attested in many early Christian writings.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. |
| Biblical accounts, often shaped by ancient myths, are based on facts: actual past events in the history of God’s people. They are important for us, however, only insofar as their meaning, their ultimate significance, extends from the past into our own present life and experience. For over a century biblical scholars have debated whether the Old and New Testaments contain “mythical” elements. The answer depends on how we define “myth,” and here there is very little agreement. The Brothers Grimm held that myths are stories that speak of “gods” (in the plural). If this is the essential criterion, many scholars have held, then there can be no myths in the strictly monotheistic Hebrew Scriptures. In any case, they argue, whatever ancient mythical elements might have influenced Old Testament traditions have been thoroughly “demythologized” and rendered “historical.” Recent research into the mythology of Ancient Near Eastern religions (Egyptian, Mesopotamian, Canaanite) has shown that myths develop around a people’s religious rituals and demonstrate a fairly consistent pattern. Beginning with a particular conflict (the hero, for example, does battle with a monster who represents chaos), the mythical story recounts the defeat or destruction of the protagonist, then passes to a description of the people’s lamentation (mourning the hero). In the final stage, the hero is “reborn,” rising from death and defeat to new and exalted life. This pattern of conflict, death, mourning, and vindication seems to have originated in agricultural societies, where ritual performances reenacted, and hence promoted, the rebirth of vegetation in the spring of the new year. This pattern unquestionably influenced the development of certain Old and New Testament traditions, just as it did various Hellenistic mystery cults. One can find such movement, for example, in several of the stories included in the first eleven chapters of Genesis (especially the Noah cycle; compare the fate of Job), and even in the life of Jesus (conflict with religious and political authorities, judgment and crucifixion, lamentation on the part of the disciples and faithful women, followed by resurrection). The Old Testament, and to a limited extent the New Testament (particularly the Book of Revelation), do reflect certain universal mythical themes. It is important to stress, however, that the Bible is essentially free of myth per se, since these underlying influences have been transformed by the essentially historical interest of its various authors. |
| John Anthony McGuckin Bible THEODORE G. STYLIANOPOULOS The Bible, composed of the Old and New Testaments, is a rich and diverse library of sacred writings or scriptures derived from the Jewish and Christian traditions. “Bible” (from the Greek biblos meaning “document” or “book”) points to the authority of the Bible as the book of divine revelation. “Scripture” (Greek graphe, meaning “what is written”) signifies the actual content of the books proclaiming the authoritative message of salvation – the word of God. In a process lasting nearly four centuries, the ancient church preserved, selected, and gradually formed these sacred texts into two official lists or canons of the Old and New Testaments, respectively, a significant achievement that along with the shaping of the episcopacy and creed contributed to the growth and unity of the church. In Orthodox perspective, the Bible or Holy Scripture is the supreme record of God’s revelation and therefore the standard of the church for worship, theology, spirituality, ethics, and practice. The Bible is above all a book of God and about God – God himself being the primary author and the subject matter of the scriptures. The Bible bears testimony to who God is, what great acts of salvation God has accomplished, and what God’s revealed will for humanity is, communicated through inspired men and women “in many and various ways” (Heb. 1.1). These “ways” include words, deeds, rites, laws, visions, symbols, parables, wisdom, ethical teachings, and commandments. The overall message of the Bible is the narrative of salvation about creation, fall, covenant, prophecy, exile, redemption, and hope of final world renewal. The supreme revelation of the mystery of God is through the life, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, “the Lord of glory” ( 1Cor. 2.8 ), who constitutes the center of biblical revelation and marks the unity of the Old and New Testaments. However, insofar as divine revelation occurred not in a vacuum but in relationship to free, willing, thinking, and acting human beings, the Bible also reflects a human and historical side which accounts for the variety of books, authors, language, style, customs, ideas, theological perspectives, numerous discrepancies in historical details, and sometimes substantial differences in teaching, especially between the Old and New Testaments. |
| Tithes and firstfruits With regard to our material blessings, we confess that He is their true source by returning a portion to Him, to be used for His purposes in this world. These works include the maintenance of worship, the support of those called to His special service, and aid for the poor. By thus giving a portion of our wealth for His purposes, we sanctify the remainder. Through offering a part, we bring the whole of our lives into harmony with God’s will. Fr. Dimitri Cozby 29 July 2008 Source: www.orthodoxdelmarva.org “Honor the Lord with your substance, and with the firstfruits of all your produce.” (Proverbs 3:9) In ancient Israel , the Church of the Old Testament, the Law of Moses instituted the “tithe,” also called the offering of the “first-fruits”. “Tithe” is merely the Old English word for “tenth.” Israel ’s tithe was an assessment of one-tenth of all produce. Usually this portion was rendered from the first harvested of the crop, hence the tithe of “firstfruits”. The proceeds were devoted to the maintenance of the Temple , and support of the priesthood, and the sustenance of the poor (Num. 18:24, Deut. 12:11, and 26:12). These activities are still necessary parts of Church life. Parishes need suitable places for worship, education, and fellowship; we are still responsible for our livelihood; and the Lord continually reminds us of our obligation to the needy. Therefore, the practice of good stewardship, represented by the tithe, retains its importance. The motive behind the Old Testament tithe, however, was not purely pragmatic. For the ancient Hebrews tithing was never merely an efficient way to raise money. Rather, they understood that their relationship with God required them to dedicate a substantial portion of the fruit of their labor to His purposes. Our basic understanding as Orthodox Christians, derived from the Old Testament, is that everything comes from God. All that we have or hope to possess, beginning with life itself, is His gift. We acknowledge this fact in our spiritual life through prayer and fasting and through our struggle to follow His commandments. |
| John Anthony McGuckin Gospel THEODORE G. STYLIANOPOULOS “Gospel” (from the Anglo-Saxon “god-spell”) or “evangel” (from the Greek euangelion) defines the central message of Christianity: the “good news” of God’s gift of salvation ( John 3.16 ). The essence of the gospel is God’s gracious liberation of humanity from the powers of sin and death, and its restoration and communion with God in Christ and the Spirit. The centrality of Christ and his saving work, prophesied in the Old Testament and revealed in the New, means that the gospel message is proclaimed not only in the scriptures, but also, properly speaking, in all aspects of the church’s life which are intrinsically evangelical – her identity, worship, sacraments, mission, creed, theology, and practice. Although the term “gospel” (euangelion) occurs most frequently in Paul, the primary sources of the gospel are the four canonical gospels – Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John – each of which as a book is also called “gospel.” The same term also designates in the Orthodox Church the separately printed gospel lectionary (the annual cycle of selected readings from the four gospels, distinct from the parallel lectionary called Apostle – apostolos). The term “gospel” is also customarily applied to the specific lesson from the gospel lectionary recited in worship and often to the sermon itself. The first allusion to the gospel, traditionally called “first gospel” (proto-euangelion), is found in Genesis 3.15 announcing God’s promise that Eve’s offspring, the Messiah, will crush the serpent’s head while the serpent will strike the Messiah’s heel. A focal and explicit reference to the good news is Isaiah 7.15 concerning Emmanuel, “God-with-us,” born of a virgin (parthenos, LXX), fulfilled in the virginal conception and birth of Jesus by Mary (Matt. 1.23). The Old Testament generally looks forward to a great future era when God’s good news will be proclaimed (euangelizesthai, Isa. 61.1 and Ps. 95.1–3, LXX ), a day when God would decisively defeat evil and establish his rule over all the nations, ushering in an age of universal justice and peace. However, it is the New Testament that provides the theological angle from which innumerable references to Old Testament texts are freely and variously cited as messianic, that is, texts that prefigure the good news of God’s promised salvation, fulfilled in the ministry of Jesus and the life of the early church, including the preaching of the gospel itself ( Rom. 10.8 / Deut. 30.14, LXX ). |
| The first Christians did not need to write any Scriptures, they accepted as inspired and as their own, the Tanak, the Jewish Scriptures. Those are the texts that the Lord Jesus and His apostles read, memorized discussed and prayed. These Scriptures as we saw in the previous blog bore witness to Jesus as Messiah and Lord (John 5:39-46; Luke 24:10-49). And from the beginning, the Christians believed Christ fulfilled all of the prophecies and promises of the Jewish Scriptures. The New Testament is filled with quotes from the Old Testament as well as countless echoes of the ideas and themes presented in them. The Christians, however, besides reading the Jewish Scriptures, were writing materials, and by the early 2nd Century, Christians are already also referring to these early writings as Scripture. As far as we know, in the Christian epistle known as 2 Clement we encounter “… the first Christian writer to apply the term ‘Scripture’ to a quotation from the Gospel: ‘And also another Scripture (graphê) says, “I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners” ’ (2 Clem. 2.4 citing Mt. 9:13; Mk 2:17), thereby assigning biblical status to the words of Jesus and granting them the same dignity and authority as the Old Testament. The same idea is implicit in the phrase: ‘The Bible and the Apostles indicate …’ (2 Clem. 14.2), where ‘Bible’ refers to the Septuagint and ‘the Apostles’ to the New Testament.” (Geza Vermes, Christian Beginnings , Kindle Loc. 2974-80) Not only were the Christians beginning to recognize as authoritative Scripture the apostolic writings, they also were interpreting the existing Jewish Scriptures increasingly from a Christian point of view. The Christians began to claim to have the correct understanding of the Jewish Scriptures – the Scriptures were written about the Christ, and properly interpreted in Christ. For the followers of Jesus the curse of Amos 8:11-12 was finally lifted, for once again the People of God were able to hear the Word of God in Christ Jesus. |
| John Anthony McGuckin Healing ANDREI I. HOLODNY In Orthodox Christian perspective, healing of both specific infirmities as well as the fallen nature of humankind is accomplished through the incarnation, suffering, and resurrection of Christ. Prior to the Second Coming and the bodily resurrection of the saints, the church, as the Body of Christ (Col. 1.24) cares for the spiritual and physical wellbeing of her members through the holy sacraments and the merciful caring for the sick. Patristic teaching suggests that Adam was originally created by God not only holy, passionless, and sinless, but also physically without blemish or illness. Adam’s sin, therefore, had spiritual as well as physical consequences. Following the fall of humanity, death, corruption, and decay became characteristic not only of Adam, but also of all of his progeny. Hence, the purpose of the promised Redeemer was to heal both humanity’s spiritual nature as well as its physical nature: both the specific ills which affect every person individually as well as what afflicts humanity as a whole, understanding that the former is a consequence of the latter. In the Old Testament, God’s mercy and the foreshadowing of the coming Redeemer are emphasized by healings and even resurrections of the dead – for example, the resurrection of the widow’s son by Elijah (1 Kgs. 17.8–23) and the reviving of the dead child by Elisha (2 Kgs. 4.8–27). God’s promise of the restoration of humanity extends also to the healing of the infirmities of old age – the paradigmatic example of this is the elderly Abraham and Sarah’s conception of a child, Isaac ( Gen. 15.1–6; 18.10–15; 21.1–8 ). The ultimate restoration of humanity, including our physical wellbeing, is foretold by many Old Testament prophets – for example, Isaiah: Strengthen the feeble hands, steady the knees that give way... Then will the eyes of the blind be opened and the ears of the deaf unstopped. Then will the lame leap like a deer, and the mute tongue shout for joy... They will enter Zion with singing; everlasting joy will crown their heads. Gladness and joy will overtake them, and sorrow and sighing will flee away. ( Is. 35.3, 5–6, 10 ) |
| John Anthony McGuckin Judaism, Orthodoxy and EUGEN J. PENTIUC EARLY JEWISH-CHRISTIAN INTERACTION WITH SCRIPTURE In the last decades of the first century CE nascent Jewish Christianity was gradually outnumbered by the ever-growing Gentile element. From the outset, early Christianity and evolving Judaism experienced a long and intricate process of the “parting of the ways,” although there are an increasing number of scholars today who question this construct’s absolute nature, pointing to many continued interactions between the two communities of faith for many centuries. Christians have always been aware of their links with the Jewish people and interacted with them, not least through the sharing of Scripture and moral and prophetic attitudes. The Old Testament, the first part of the Christian Bible, is essentially the Jewish Scripture. The very title “Old Testament” given by Christians to the Hebrew Scripture is a phrase coined by the Apostle Paul with regard to the writings attributed to Moses ( 2Cor. 3.14–15 ) and popularized by Origen of Alexandria in the 3rd century. The title “New Testament,” referring to the new collection put together by the early church, is taken from the Book of Jeremiah announcing that God will make a “new covenant” with Israel ( Jer. 31.31 ). What was the relationship between Jesus and Judaism and its Scripture? Any attempt to define this relationship should keep in mind two factors. On the one hand, Jesus places his sayings on the same level of authority as Moses’ teachings ( Jn. 5.47 ), stating that he came to fulfill the whole entirety of the law ( Mt. 5.17 ). On the other hand, Jesus relativizes several important Old Testament injunctions, among which were the Sabbath observance ( Mt. 12.8, 12 ) and ritual purity laws ( Mt. 15.11 ). This makes one think of the relation of the Old and New Testaments as being a relationship balanced between conformity and disruption: a unity under tension. The Lord Jesus stands at one and the same moment within Judaism and beyond it. Although St. Paul never removed the Jews – the heirs of biblical Israel considered as the people of God – from the salvific framework of his theology of redemption ( Rom. 9–11 ), he certainly moved them away from the center, at which axis point he located submission to Jesus, Lord of the New Covenant. |
| John Anthony McGuckin Holy Spirit SERGEY TROSTYANSKIY The subject of the Holy Spirit is one of the deepest mysteries in the church. He is the Sanctifier who never becomes incarnate and whose personal being always stays mysteriously hidden, though universally extensive. From the beginning to the present day the Holy Spirit has never been a subject to comprehend, or an easy subject to speak about. Sergius Bulgakov suggested that this will not change until that time beyond time when the glorified church in Heaven, at the last day, will be able to look upon the true icon of the Holy Spirit, in the form of the glorious communion of elect saints, the completion of the sanctifying operations of the Divine Spirit in the cosmos; as then it will have a more graphic understanding of his hypostatic reality. In the meantime, the church knows him through his fundamental energy of sanctifying believers, molding them into conformity with the redeeming Christ. This mysterious character is equally present in the history of the expression of the church’s theological tradition. Orthodox pneumatology passed through a number of stages in its development. The basic insights of the New Testament authors presented the Spirit as a personal being. They concurred with the Old Testament view that the Spirit raised up judges, prophets, and seers, friends of God who led the people correctly in worship and belief, speaking as of God himself ( Judg. 3.10, 6.34 ; Neh. 9.30; Is. 11.2 ). The Old Testament also associates the gift of the Spirit with creativity ( Gen. 1.2 ), with the finding and making of beauty (especially human craft and skill: Ex. 35.31 ). However, the proper terminology capable of expressing the Spirit as a personal subsistence (hypostasis) of the trinitarian God was yet to be developed. The profound teachings on the Spirit as presented by Jesus in the final discourses in the Gospel of John have always been the church’s goal and inspiration for all pneumatological thought. The early patristic authors, in their turn, attempted to comprehend the Spirit in terms of his operations and relations to the Father and the Son. These attempts were not without certain historical and semantic confusions, witnessed among the early 2nd-century writers such as Theophilus of Antioch, and other early fathers concerned with understanding God’s work of creation and revelation. |
| The importance of fasting and its observance today: Draft document of the Pan-Orthodox Council Source: DECR Draft document of the Pan-Orthodox Council, adopted by the 5th Pan-Orthodox Pre-Council Conference in Chambésy on October 10-17, 2015. Photo: http://www.patriarchia.ru/ Published in compliance with the decision of the Synaxis of Primates of the Local Orthodox Churches, Chambésy, January 21-28, 2016. 1. Fast is God’s commandment (Gen 2:16-17). According to St Basil the Great, fasting is as old as humanity itself; it was prescribed in Paradise (On Fasting, 1,3). It is a great spiritual endeavour and the foremost expression of the Orthodox ascetic ideal. The Orthodox Church, in strict conformity with the precepts of the holy apostles, the rules of the Councils and the patristic tradition as a whole, has always proclaimed a great significance of fasting for people’s spiritual life and salvation. The annual cycle of liturgical celebrations fully reflects the patristic teaching on fasting, as well as the teaching on the necessity of constant unrelaxing watchfulness and on how to succeed in spiritual endeavours. The Triodion praises fasting as bringing the light of grace , as the invincible arms , the beginning of spiritual warfare , the perfect path of virtues , the nourishment for the soul , the source of wisdom , the life imperishable and imitation the angelic life , the mother of all blessings and virtues , and as the image of the life to come . 2. As an ancient institution, fasting was mentioned already in the Old Testament (Deut 9:18; Is 58:4-10; Joel 2:15; Jonah 3:5-7) and affirmed in the New Testament. The Lord Himself fasted for forty days before entering upon His public ministry (Lk 4:1-2) and gave to people instructions on how to practice fasting (Mt 6:16-18). Fasting as a means of abstinence, repentance and spiritual growth is presented in the New Testament (Mk 1:6; Acts 13:3; 14:23; Rom 14:21). Since the apostolic times, the Church has being proclaiming a profound importance of fasting, having established Wednesday and Friday as fast days (Didache, 8,1) and the fast before Easter (St Irenaeus of Lyons in Eusebius, Historia Ecclesiastica 5, 24). |
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