Newspaper Page Text
Thursday, October 5, 2000
The Southern Cross, Page 9
The Bible Jesus knew and cited
By Eugene Fisher
Catholic News Service
V V hich is the first of all the
commandments,” Jesus was asked
in Mark 12. He replied:
“The first is this: ‘Hear, 0 Israel!
The Lord our God is Lord alone! You
shall love the Lord your God with all
your heart, with all your soul, with
all your mind and with all your
strength.’ The second is this: ‘You
shall love your neighbor as your
self.’”
One’s understanding of Jesus’
law of love is immensely enriched by
going back to the Hebrew Scriptures
and looking up the context of the
two biblical passages Jesus cites.
—Deuteronomy 6:5: “Hear, O Is
rael, the Lord is our God, the Lord
alone! You shall love the Lord your
God with all your heart and soul
and strength”, and
—Leviticus 19:18: (You shall love
your neighbor as yourself).
The first passage, Deuteronomy
6:5, follows immediately upon the
giving of the Ten Commandments
in Deuteronomy 5. The passage is
meant by the biblical author to do
just what Jesus does with it: distill
the inner spirit and meaning of the
Ten Commandments.
So important is this verse that
pious Jews to this day place it in the
mezuzahs fixed to their doorways
and in the little boxes they strap to
their foreheads whenever they pray.
The second passage, from
Leviticus, is absolutely breathtak
ing in its challenge to contemporary
believers, no less than it was to
Jesus’ original, piously Jewish audi
ence or, for that matter, to the origi
nal readers of Leviticus.
For, Leviticus 19 is nothing less
than the basic structure of a just
and loving society. The passage is,
like Deuteronomy 6, a central
teaching in Jewish tradition.
Rabbis such as the great Akiba
(second century C.E.) cited it as “the
greatest principle in the law.” Our
modern society, great as it is in so
many ways, is only approaching the
radical sense of social justice and
love called for in Leviticus.
Jewish reflection on biblical texts
can be startling to Christians, who
do not approach the Bible quite the
same way. One of the longest de
bates in rabbinic literature from the
second century to the present con
cerns how to understand the patri
arch Joseph, sold into slavery in
Egypt by his brothers.
Here is this supposedly loving son
who makes it big in Egypt and yet
allows his father, the patriarch
Jacob who believes Joseph is dead,
to grieve for years and years. What
kind of a son is so callous? How can
Joseph have so violated the com
Why value the Old Testament so greatly?
By Father Lawrence E. Mick
Catholic News Service
bishop named Marcion was
excommunicated in the second cen
tury. He then formed his own church.
Marcion taught that there were
two gods. He distinguished between
the stern creator God of the Old Testa
ment and the merciful God of the New
Testament.
Considering the creator God the in
ferior one, Marcion rejected the Old
Testament as Scripture.
The church’s reaction to this heresy
led to the official listing of the books of
the Bible. And the church clearly ac
cepted the writings of the Jewish Scrip
tures — our Old Testament.
Of course, the church long had
used these Scriptures in her worship.
In the beginning of the church’s life,
in fact, Jesus’ followers had no other
Scriptures to use. The New Testa
ment writings did not exist until some
decades after Christ’s resurrection.
It should not surprise us that the
early church used the Jewish Scrip
tures, because Jesus himself used
them. Jesus was a Jew. He held his
faith’s Scriptures in high esteem. So
his followers naturally continued to
value them. And when the New Testa
ment writings began to appear, they
were added to the Jewish Scriptures
as sources for the readings during the
church’s worship.
The New Testament writings can
not be fully understood except in light
of the Old Testament. The writers of
the New Testament were familiar
with the Jewish Scriptures, and this
familiarity shaped the way they wrote
about Jesus and Christianity.
The Gospel according to Matthew
makes this clear, for example,
by repeatedly quoting passages
from the Old Testament that are
fulfilled in the life of Jesus. Fully
understanding Jesus and his
he God who called
Abraham is also the God
of our Lord Jesus Christ
and our God too.”
message requires knowledge of
the Jewish Scriptures that
shaped his own life and faith.
The book of the Old Testa
ment used most frequently in
Christian worship is the Book of
Psalms. This was the prayer
book of the Jews, and it natu
rally became the prayer book of
Christians too.
The Psalms have been used
during the Eucharist — the
Mass — throughout the centuries. We
are most familiar today with the
psalm after the first reading at Mass,
called the responsorial psalm. Many of
The New Testament quotes or alludes to Old Testament
passages more than 350 times.
St. Jerome, the fourth-century translator of the Bible into
Latin, once said that “ignorance of the Old Testament is
ignorance of Christ.”
It shouldn*t surprise us that the early church used the
Jewish Scriptures, because Jesus himself used them.
the hymns and contemporary songs
we use also are drawn from the texts
of the psalms.
In addition to the role played by the
Psalms in the Eucharist and the other
sacraments, psalms form a major
part of the church’s official daily
CNS photo from Cleo Photography
prayer, the Liturgy of the Hours.
The Psalms are used so extensively
because they express in rich poetry
almost every human emotion and ex
perience. They give us words with
which to address God no matter what
our situation or need.
All of the Old Testament has value
for our prayer and our knowledge of
God. The God who called Abraham is
also the God of our Lord Jesus Christ
and our God too.
The church, like the head of the
household in the Gospel (Matthew
13:52), regularly brings forth from her
storeroom both the new and the old.
(Father Mick is a priest of the
Archdiocese of Cincinnati, Ohio, and
a free-lance writer.)
All contents copyright©2000 by CNS
mandment to respect one’s parents?
What a schmuck!
Different rabbis over the centu
ries offered different solutions to the
dilemma of what to do with Joseph.
Some are ingenious, some merely
disingenuous. But I know of no
Christian commentator who even
asked this intriguing question,
much less attempted an answer!
For we Christians tend to be too
awed by the inspired nature of the
biblical text to allow its ironic spiri
tual and moral challenges to touch
our hearts and move us in this sort
of way.
Jews are the only people in the
world besides Christians who take
the Bible as God’s word. They can,
therefore, witness to its validity and
enter into dialogue with us about its
sacred meaning.
(Fisher is the U.S. bishops’ offi
cial for Catholic-Jewish Relations.)
FAITH INTHE MARKETPLACE
What key message of the
Old Testament prophets
or of a psalmist is
greatly needed by the
world today?
“The church needs to get
back to the basics of the Old
Testament. We need to care for
the hungry, the thirsty, the
sick, the old and the troubled.
This is the key message of
Deuteronomy.” — Father
William Schneider, Trenton,
N.J.
“The message of peace is
needed today, as is the message
to serve the poor. We don’t
necessarily strive to be a people
of peace; we need to do this
better. And in helping the poor,
we show our faith in action.” —
JoAnn Jones, Louisville, Ky.
“The book of Amos ... speaks
of charity and of living with
God’s word. This is an impor
tant message for the world
today.” — Tami Hoffman,
Ankeny, Iowa
“The biggest message for me
from the Old Testament
prophets is to reform our lives
in a radical way. We tend to get
caught up in the trappings of
today’s world, but God’s values
are very different than society’s
values.” — Cathy Heying,
Minneapolis, Minn.
An upcoming edition asks: Tell of an
aspect of the Mass that is, in a sense,
educational for you — that clarifies or
highlights something essential. If you
would like to respond for possible
publication, please write: Faith Alive!
3211 Fourth St. N.E.,
Washington, D.C.
20017-1100.