A Challenge to Protestants: Is the Book of Esther in the Canon of Scripture?

"How do you know that the Book of Esther is the inspired Word of God and belongs in the canon of Scripture?"

This is a question I often ask Protestants. The Protestant literally has no way to prove that the book of Esther is inspired by God and belongs in the Bible. It is never quoted in the New Testament. It never mentions the word "God" in its pages. We don't know who wrote it. Even the first century Jews could not agree on its place as Scripture.

I sometimes also ask, "How do you know that the Book of Third John is the inspired Word of God and belongs in the Bible?" It doesn't claim to be written by an apostolic author and its authority was doubted by many early Christians.

The Catholic Christian has the comfort of knowing that the Holy Spirit can lead the Church to make infallible statements. Thus, the Bible is an infallible collection of infallible books.

However, the Protestant must follow the line that R.C. Sproul often gives: The Bible is a fallible collection of infallible books.

The Protestant can never give a reason for why he believes that Esther or 3 John belong in the canon of Scripture. Calvin said the books of Scripture attest to their own divine origin. But this begs the question? Attests to whom? What if someone reads a book of the Bible (let's take James for example) and after reading it thinks that it is merely an epistle of straw and contrary to the Gospel of Christ. Or what if someone reads the Shepherd of Hermes and concludes that it has the character of Scripture? Who gets to decide which books do and don't attest to their own divine origin?

The only sure way to solve the riddle is to appeal to the authority of the Catholic Church to infallibly determine matters of faith. However, if a Protestant does appeal to the Church in order to assure himself that he has an infallible collection of infallible books, he has to ask himself: "But what if the Catholic Church made other infallible statements?" And at this point, the Protestant begins to become a Catholic...

Are there any Protestants out there who feel that they can solve the problem without appealing to the infallible nature of the Catholic Church?

Do Catholics Believe That Muslims Worship the True God?

Some Protestant readers have alleged that the Catholic Church teaches a certain form of universalism or relativism and they quote paragraph #841 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church in order to prove it:

841 The Church's relationship with the Muslims. "The plan of salvation also includes those who acknowledge the Creator, in the first place amongst whom are the Muslims; these profess to hold the faith of Abraham, and together with us they adore the one, merciful God, mankind's judge on the last day."

A few observations. The plan of salvation includes Muslims. This is common sense. God desires all men to be saved. This does not mean that Muslims are saved by virtue of their being Muslims. This passage should be read in context of the entire Catechism which teaches that salvation is received through Christ alone through the means of grace provided through the Church of Jesus Christ. One cannot wrench this paragraph from the catechism and let it stand alone.

One could easily take certain passages out of the writings of St. Paul and make false assumptions that Paul was a universalist. For example: St Paul teaches universalism because he wrote:

"Then as one man's trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one man's act of righteousness leads to acquittal and life for all men." (Rom 5:18)

This is a misguided argument because one must read the verse above in light of all the writings of St. Paul. In the same way, one cannot isolate paragraph 841 from the rest of the Catechism.

The Church recognizes that the object of worship in Islam is the God of Abraham and thus the one true God. Thus, we might say that Muslims worship the true God wrongly. They attempt to find access to God in a means that is not sacrificial, and worse, not Christological. It is like men trying to hunt deer with a slingshot. They are technically "hunting deer" but their method is never going to put venison on the table. Alternatively, it is like a baseball pitcher trying to strike out a batter. He's aiming for the strike-zone, but he's throwing a feather. He had the right target but the wrong approach. The strikeout will never happen until he conforms to the established rules...and proper means.

The Excommunication of Martin Luther

Pope Leo X identified forty heretical statements in the writings of Luther. In the bull Exsurge Domine, Leo X gave Luther sixty days to recant of these heretical statements.

On the sixtieth and last day of the probationary period, Luther publicly burned a copy of the bull. Technically, Luther excommunicated himself by not complying.

In response, Leo X issued Decet Romanum Pontificem on January 3, 1521, making the excommunication of Luther official.

Luther on "Drinking Blood with the Pope"

As most of you know, I'm not a huge Martin Luther fan. Calvin seemed to be able structure his thought. Luther was off the handle. I think the trilemma of C.S. Lewis concerning the deity of Christ can similarly be applied to Luther as well.

Martin Luther was either: 1) one of the greatest reformers of Christianity, 2) one of the worst heretics and schismatics of the Church, or 3) he was simply insane. For the sake of charity, I tend to side with the third option. Nonetheless, occasionally one comes across a good Luther quote. I heard about the following quote from David Cassidy in Austin, Texas. I chased it down and it reads:

I would rather have pure blood with the Pope, than drink mere wine with the Enthusiasts. (Luther's Works, 37, 317)

By "enthusiasts" Luther means the Anabaptists and the other radical reformers that spun off from Luther's movement. It is interesting that Luther preferred Rome to the other Protestant factions when it came to the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ. If only today's Lutherans felt the same way! This is a good reminder to all those "magisterial Protestants" out there who are watching their denominations give way to "enthusiasts".

The chalice of the Precious Blood awaits you...

Mother Teresa and Her Doubts

She had doubts. Yet she was faithful to her vocation. This is heroic.

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

These words came from the lips of the Redeemer - why should we be surprised when we find them on the lips of the redeemed?

Carrying the cross is sometimes harder than hanging from the cross.

The Valley of Jehoshaphat

According to Joel 3:2-12, this is the location of eschatological judgment. The Summa Theologiae dedicates an entire section on the matter (Supp. q. 88, a. 4) and declares it to be the location of the Last Judgment. Geographically is the valley between the Temple Mount and the Mount of Olives. Jehoshaphat means "The LORD has judged," where the LORD indicates the sacred tetragammon.

Peter Leithart on New World Temples

Peter Leithart has a great post on how Franciscan missionaries modeled cities in the New World on the visionary patterns of Ezekiel.

Europeans saw the conquest of the Americas as a new Canaanite conquest. Once they subdued the land, what else would they do but build a temple. According to Hamblin and Seely, "Spanish missionary Toribio de Motolinia (d. 1568), for example, described the colonization and evangelization of New Spain (Mexico) as the conquest of a new Canaan, undertaken by the archetypal twelve Franciscan monk-apostles bringing the Ark of the Covenant into the new Temple they would build in the New World...

Read more here.

Download Scott Hahn's Dissertation: Kinship by Covenant

For the past several weeks I have been posting my thoughts and observations concerning Dr. Scott Hahn's doctoral dissertation: Kinship by Covenant - A Biblical Theological Study of Covenant Types and Texts in the Old and New Testaments. There have been several comments on this blog by folks who would like to obtain a copy Kinship by Covenant. I have also had people email me personally asking how they can obtain a copy.

Those who are interested in reading Dr. Scott Hahn's Kinship by Covenant in its original unpublished form can download a copy of the doctoral dissertation here. Enjoy and please share your comments.

Cardinal Lustiger: Jewish Prince of the Church

On August 5, 2007, the Cardinal Archbishop Emeritus of Paris, His Eminence Aaron Jean-Marie Lustiger went to his eternal reward. Cardinal Lustiger was a convert from Judaism, and his elevation to the archbishopric of Paris by His Holiness John Paul II was somewhat controversial.

The funeral began on the square of Notre-Dame, where the crowd recited the Jewish prayer for the dead, the Kaddish. Soil from the Holy Land was placed on the coffin. Psalm 113 was recited in Hebrew.

Cardinal Lustiger was entombed in the crypt located under the choir of Notre-Dame, where the Parisian archbishops have been laid to rest since 17th century. The epitaph on Cardinal Lusiter's tomb reads as follows:

I was born Jewish.

I recived the name

of my paternal grandfather, Aaron

Having become Christian

By faith and by Baptism,

I have remained Jewish

As did the Apostles.

I have as my patron saints
Aaron the High Priest,
Saint John the Apostle,
Holy Mary full of grace.

Named 139th archbishop of Paris
by His Holiness Pope John-Paul II,
I was enthroned in this Cathedral
on 27 February 1981,
And here I exercised my entire ministry.

Passers by, pray for me.

† Aaron Jean-Marie Cardinal Lustiger
Archevêque de Paris

The Covenantal Humanity of Christ

Scott Hahn's Kinship by Covenant highlights the progressive nature of covenants in how they first provide a filial relationship, then move on to a probationary period similar to adolescence, and finally climax as a manifestation of the recipient as being a covenantal heir and son.

For example, Abraham was joined to God in Genesis 12-15. Tested in 16-22 (Hagar, Ishmael, circumcision, sacrifice of Isaac), and finally the grant provision that God would bless the nations unconditionally through Abraham (Gen 22 and following).

On page 503, Hahn explains how this pattern occurred in the humanity of Christ. The difference with Christ is that his humanity had to progress through the stages in order to receive what He possessed by nature in His divinity. Christ did not "learn" according to His divinity, but according to His humanity. Hahn says it much better:

Christ inherits the right to exercise in his humanity the power and the authority which were his possession by virtue of his eternal generation and divine primogeniture. (KBC, 503).

This is why Paul refers to Christ's resurrection as a "justification" and why the Epistle of Hebrews mentions so frequently "the Name" that Christ received on account of His Passion and Death.

King David Giving Bread and Wine

Dr. Scott Hahn's Kinship by Covenant highlighted a detail of Scripture that I had often missed. He quotes the passage in 2 Sam 6:12-19 that recounts how David brought the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem with dancing and liturgical pomp.

We remember that David wore an ephod and made sacrifices - rather bold moves for a man who wasn't a Levite. David even "blessed" the people. However, I never noticed one detail in particular until Dr. Hahn placed two words of the passage in bold print: bread and wine!

"he distributed among all the people, the whole multitude of Israel, both men and women, to each a cake of bread and a measure of wine." (2 Sam 6:19)

So David truly is a priest in the order of Melchizedek who "brings out bread and wine" (Gen 14:18). Christ fulfills this priestly role through the Eucharist. Christ is not a Levite but a Judean - the Lion of Judah who bears the mystical royal priesthood of Melchizedek and David. Christ's priesthood surpasses the Levitical priesthood because it is anchored his eternal status as the only begotten Son of God.

N.T. Wright on the Role the Torah

"The Torah has the effect of, as it were, piling up the sin of the world in one particular place, that is, in Israel."

-N.T. Wright from Climax of the Covenant

I like this quote because it reveals the redemptive quality of Israel as a "kingdom of priests". This is observed by how the Levitical priests ate and consumed the sacrificial sin offerings shows so that they were taking on, so to speak, "the sins of the world".

God concentrated the curse of sin at Jerusalem so that Christ could go "outside the camp" and bear it once and for all.

The Historical Date of the Assumption of Mary

Today is the feast of the Dormition (East) or the Assumption (West).

For Orthodox and Catholics, the bodily assumption of the Blessed Mother of Christ is a historical event. The falling asleep of Blessed Mary and her assumption are just as historical as, say, the fact that Abraham Lincoln was assassinated or the fact that the St. Louis Cardinals won the 2006 World Series. One day Mary's body lay in a tomb. The next day it did not. When did this happen?

In the fifth century, St Juvenal, Patriarch of Jerusalem, told the holy Byzantine Empress Pulcheria: "Although there is no account of the circumstances of Her death in Holy Scripture, we know about them from the most ancient and credible tradition." He sent to the empress the grave wrappings of the Theotokos from her tomb. St Pulcheria then placed these grave-wrappings within the Blachernae church.

What is the Assumption of Mary?
The "ancient and credible tradition" of the dormition and assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary is that when she came to the end of her life, she was translated body and soul to Heaven. In this way she received the eschatological promise of the resurrection of the body. This is fitting because she is an icon of the Church and Christ's redemption of his mother prefigures the hope of all Christians. That Mary was honored in this was is proper to love of Christ who fulfilled the commandment "Honor thy father and thy mother."

The Eastern Orthodox refer to this day as the Dormition or the "Falling Asleep" of the Blessed Mother. Some have wrongly concluded that this means that the Orthodox Church does not teach the bodily assumption of Mary. However, the Kontakion for the feast of the Blessed Mother's Dormtion reads:

Neither the tomb, nor death could hold the Theotokos,
Who is constant in prayer and our firm hope in her intercessions.
For being the Mother of Life,
She was translated to life by the One who dwelt in her virginal womb.

Note that the Eastern Church confesses that "neither the tomb, nor death" could hold the Mother of our Lord Jesus Christ.

If Eastern and Western Church agree on the historical event of her assumption, has there been an attempt to discover the date at which it happened?

The Date of the Assumption
There is no record of the exact day or year in which our Lady was assumed. This should not bother us too much. After all, we are not sure of the day and year of Christ's birth, baptism, or death and resurrection. However, we can get close. Let's look a few clues pertaining to the life and death of Mary.

We know that she was alive at the death of Christ, because she stood at the foot of the cross. At this point she was placed under the care of St. John, when Christ said, "Behold your mother." She was also present at Pentecost. After that, there is no mention of her (unless you count St. John's description of the "woman" in Rev 12 - more on this later).

Why is there little mention of Mary in Acts or the Epistles? I believe that the New Testament speaks of the mysteries of the faith in clouded language on account of the fierce persecution that Christians received from both the Jews and the Romans. Cases have been made that Galatians and 1 Peter are basically tracts on baptism, despite the fact that baptism is only alluded to in the most minimal way. The Gospel of John in particular is reluctant to spell out baptismal theology (John 3) or Eucharistic theology (John 6), although it does so in a way that only an insider would "get it". Think also of John's language about the "blood and the water". He's making points for "insiders". Mary would have been revered, but to speak of her openly would have placed her danger.

The martyrdom of St. James the Greater is recorded in Acts 12:1-2 and the date of this event is safely placed at A.D. 43 or 44. This was a Jewish persecution of the Christians. It seems that this martyrdom further widened the growing separation between the incipient Jewish community of Christians within the synagogues of Palestine and the establishment of a separate "Way" that began to gain Gentile adherents. The unique nature of the Church as distinct from Judaism would finally be ecclesiastically recognized at the Council Jerusalem in A.D. 49 or 50 (Acts 15). Acts 12 shows the Jews in a fierce attempt to destroy those closest to Christ. They kill James and imprison Peter (apparently with the intent to kill Peter).

Here is where we turn to Tradition. St. John had seen his brother St. James martyred, and St. Peter imprisoned. Everyone knew that Christ's inner circle consisted of Peter, James, and John. They had killed James and captured Peter. Obviously John was next on the hit list. Tradition also indicates that the Jews sought to kill or disgrace the Mother of Christ. So John took Mary and relocated to Ephesus sometime shortly after the martyrdom of his brother James (A.D. 43 or 44).

Thus, the falling asleep and assumption of Mary occurred sometime after this date. The tradition is almost universal that her death and resurrection occurred in Jerusalem. An alternate version has arisen from the visions of Ven. Anne Catherine Emmerich that her death, funeral, and assumption occurred in Ephesus. Interestingly enough, Emmerich places the date of the assumption at A.D. 43 or 44. However, I tend to mistrust the visions of Emmerich.

One tradition places the falling asleep of Mary after the conversion of St. Dionysius the Areopagite which occurred in Acts 17:34. This kicks the date back into the 50s. All the traditions place her Dormition sometime after the other Apostles have gone out into the world, but before the death of the other Apostles (ca. A.D. 63).

I think Mary fell asleep at this time. It fits the historical setting of most of the apocryphal legends retelling the Dormition of Mary (even though they contain a lot of miraculous events - such as bilocation or the translation of human bodies). Here is a list of reasons for placing the Dormition at AD 63:

• The Apostles (but not James Zebedee) are all still alive.
• The great miracle of the Dormition and Assumption are not mentioned in Acts, something we might expect if it happened before the composition of Acts (A.D. 63).
• The Book of Revelation seems to describe some sort of miraculous intervention of God meant to preserve the "the woman". I believe Revelation explains the seven year tribulation leading up to the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem. Thus, A.D. 63 fits perfectly.

So I'm going to say that Mary was assumed about A.D. 63 when Herod's temple was finally finished. So Mary's Assumption is a sort of "pre-tribulation rapture" occurring before the seven years of Roman-Jerusalem gridlock culminating in the end of the age - the destruction of the Temple in A.D. 70. I'd love any comments from anyone aware of any published studies on this topic.

The Age of Isaac at the Moriah Sacrifice

Isaac was an adult at the time when Abraham took him to Mount Moriah to be sacrificed. Josephus says he was twenty-five (Antiquities I, 13, 2). This means that Isaac is Christological in the sense that he willingly allowed himself to be sacrificed as a covenantal first-born son.




2 Chron 3:1 identifies Mount Moriah with Jerusalem – further strengthening the connection between Christ and Isaac who is described as carrying the wood upon his back, just as Christ carried the wood of the cross.

Cherubim Are Not Fat Babies

A cherub (Hebrew כרוב, plural כרובים) is a supernatural angelic being similar to Assyro-Babylonian shedu (human-headed winged bulls). In fact, it seems that the Assyrians may have used the term karabu to describe these beings that seem to have been spirits that served the gods.

The meaning of "cherub" is obscure. It could be related to the word "mount" by an inversion of letters. This would refer to them as being a mount upon which God sits. This sort of imagery is used in the Psalms and Ezekiel - God sitting or riding upon the cherubim.

"and He rode upon a cherub and did fly: and He was seen upon the wings of the wind." (Ps 18:10)

The fact that God's presence was "located" above the Ark of the Covenant, over the two cherubim also seems to suggest that the cherubim were "mounts" in every sense of the word.

In Akkadian, the cognate of karabu means "blessed," whereas the cognate in Assyrian means "great, mighty."

Cherubim are first mentioned in the Genesis account when Adam and Eve are exiled from the Garden of Eden. Cherubim were placed at the portal of the Garden with flaming swords. Later the cherubim were depicted in the Temple (which is itself a model of the Garden of Eden). Two statues of cherubim stood at either side of the Ark of the Covenant.

The Akkadian lammasu seem to be cherubim-like creatures. They are lions with human heads and eagle wings (see photo above) and somewhat resembled the Egyptian sphinx.

My own opinion is that cherubim are depicted as a composite of the eagle, human, lion, and ox because these four creatures are at the four corners of the astrological zodiac: Leo (lion), Scorpio (Eagle as the Ophiucus), Aquarius (human), and Taurs (bull). The composite creature symbolizes the cosmos over which God sits enthroned.

So why do we associate fat babies with "cherubs"? This confusion arose during the Renaissance. Technically, little fat babies are not "cherubs", but "putti," an older Italian word meaning "children." So next time you refer to a cut little baby as "cherubic," know that you are actually describing the child as a sword wielding beast with eagle wings and a human head!

Abraham’s Levels of Sacrifice

Abraham offers increasingly greater sacrifices in the narrative of his life: first animals, second his own flesh (circumcision), thirdly his covenantal heir of the divine promises (Isaac).

The Error of E.P. Sanders’ Perspective on Paul

The Catholic should not be so keen to jump on board with the “New Perspective on Paul”. Scott Hahn points out a dreadful error in E.P. Sanders’ Paul and Palestinian Judaism (Kinship by Covenant, pp. 377-379) .

Sanders wrongly overemphasizes covenantal unity in the redemptive history of Israel. The numerous infractions of Israel, its kings, and its priests against the covenant by way of idolatry are not given serious consideration in Sanders’ system.

Sanders is correct to point out the reality of the presupposed “covenantal nomism” of Second Temple Judaism. What Sanders forgets is that the covenant has been breached and the Deuteronomoic curses have left everything in a rather pessimistic situation with the full weight of covenantal curses falling upon Israel.

Sanders desires to characterize St. Paul’s pessimistic view of Judaism as a psychological justification for Paul’s conversion to Christ. Sanders would have us believe that Paul invented the idea of a covenant-cursed Israel in order to justify Paul’s existential angst over becoming a Christian. Sanders thus sees Paul creating a “good” Christianity that supercedes a “bad” Judaism – a so-called Pauline doctrine that Sanders doesn’t appreciate.

Paul, however, did not invent anything of the sort. Inter-testamental and rabbinical writings reveal that Judaism essentially understood itself as living in the exile of the “cursed” and awaiting a final redemption that was fundamentally eschatological and “Davidic”. The Palestinian Jew of the first century A.D. had little hope in a renewal of the Levitical system. What they desired was a renewed covenant in the likeness of the covenant established with David. In short, they had hope in the coming of a Davidic king – a Messiah figure. This expectation can be seen as early as Ezekiel’s description of the eschatological temple – a temple that does not have a High Priest but only a Davidic Prince who enters the sanctuary.

It is the renewed Davidic covenant that St. Paul believes and preaches.

The Ark of Noah and the Ark of the Covenant

How are the Ark of Noah and the Ark of the Covenant related typologically?

One thing that comes to mind is that both bear the witnesses of judgment. Noah (who dwelled in the ark) was a witness against the evil generation that perished in the waters. The stone tablets of the law (which dwelled in the ark) bore witness against the evil generation that passed through the waters of Egypt but perished in the wilderness.

Angels Mediating the Old Covenant

In a previous post I spoke about the peculiar language in Galatians and Colossians that describes the Old Covenant being mediated by "elemental spirits". The Epistle to the Hebrews teaches the same, but describes these agents as "angels". In all three epistles the purpose of highlighting the angelic administration of the Old Covenant is to reveal the superiority of the New Covenant that is mediated by a Firstborn Son (Christ) who allows us to participate in divine sonship (not under the tutelage of angelic tutors).

The elemental spirits or angels could refer to the theophany, or more accurately the "angelophony", that occurred at Sinai. The lightning, thunder, fire, etc. are "elemental". This might be the case.

I would like to make another suggestion. The "mediating angels" is a reference to the the two angel statues that stand on either side of the ark of the covenant "mediating" the presence of God to the High Priest, priests, and tribes of Israel. There were also cherubim woven into the veils of the Temple. They refer back to the cherubim that kept Adam and Eve out of the Garden of Eden. Hence, these angels "mediate" God's presence between God and man. The Old Law centralized at the tabernacle was a microcosm guarded and mediated by images of angels.

Christ tears this angelic veil by his death and thus reveals that His covenant is superior. The human does not need to worry about sneaking past the sword-bearing angels in order to return to the divine presence. He enters the presence through Christ.

Incidentally, this view compliments St. Paul's understanding that the Jewish "elemental spirits" are essentially no better than the idolatrous gods of the Gentiles (see this post). In both Old Covenant Judaism and Gentile Idolatry, religion is mediated through material or "elemental" shrines inhabited or protected by images or statues. The Old Covenant Temple was sacred and good version of the blasphemous versions of the Gentiles (the latter of which was inhabited and guarded by evil fallen angels, according to St. Paul). Yet Paul and the author of Hebrews make the point that both the Levitical covenant and Gentile paganism lack the notion of sonship or filiation that only Christ can mediate to us by His own divine Sonship.

Prophecy of New Covenant in Deuteronomy

Most biblical scholars associate the origin “New Covenant” with Jeremiah or Ezekiel.

Scott Hahn in Kinship by Covenant cites J.G. McConville and J.G. Miller’s Time and Place in Deuteronomy in which the authors observe that Jeremiah and Ezekiel are pulling on Deuteronomy 30:6 where God promises that Israel’s heart will be circumcised. This, Hahn says, reveals that the “Deuternomic covenant is self-programmed for a future renewal – one that clearly transcends its initial promulgation – through a decisive act of God for the purpose of effecting a radical internalization of the law.” (KBC, p. 114)

This is remarkable because it shows that God’s desire to transform His people into His “sons” had not changed. The era of the Law was a probationary period until the “fullness of time” when God would bring about this plan of sonship by sending His own Son to bear the legal curses and rise up victorious from the final curse of death.

Also, Deut 32:43 seems to indicated that the nations would become “his people”. This goes along with the promise God made to Abraham that all the families of the world would be blessed through him. God’s “end game” is adopt all the nations as his sons through His son Israel, but particularly through His divine Son, the Israelite Jesus Christ.

Covenants at Sinai and Moab

Dr. Scott Hahn observes in Kingship by Covenant (KBC) that there is not one simple “Mosaic Covenant”. God made a covenant with Israel after He delivered them from Egypt when He presented the Ten Commandments at Sinai. However, the law of Deuteronomy delivered at Moab is not merely a second version of this law, it is actually another covenant – what Hahn calls Sinai “reconfigured” on account of the idolatry and apostasy of Israel in the wilderness (beginning with the golden calf incident and continuing to the Israelite marriages of foreign women at Baal-Peor).

Whereas the covenant at Sinai is one that establishes the nation of Israel as the firstborn “son” of God and a kingdom of priests, the covenant at Moab is imprecatory and “reconfigures that relationship in terms of suzerain-father and vassal-son.” (KBC, p.89)

That the covenant at Moab was different that the covenant at Sinai is made clear by Scripture:

“These are the words of the covenant which the Lord commanded Moses to make with the people of Israel in the land of Moab, besides the covenant which he made with them at Horeb.” (Deut 29:1)

The sin of apostasy that the Israelites committed when they worshiped the golden calf in the wilderness was a defining moment in the history of Israel. God seems to abandon them when He tells Moses that they are “your [i.e. Moses’] people” that “you [Moses] brought of Egypt.” The only thing tethering the Israelites to God is the Lord’s promises to the Patriarchs (of which Moses reminds God and God relents of his wrath).

Deuteronomy (which Hahn identifies with the St. Paul’s “law”) is the “reconfigured law” that seems to be something that Moses establishes with Israel. There is no divine sign or theophany as at Moab. Moses is following divine orders but God has withdrawn. Moreover, there are laws introduced in Deuteronomy that have not appeared previously. These later laws are concessions to Israel’s sinfulness. They are laws governing:

• divorce
• usury
• kings (i.e. monarchs who are not the Lord Himself)
• slaughtering of animals (to avoid idolatry)

Deuteronomy or the Law at Moab is also one of imprecatory curses that the Israelites take upon themselves if they should fail to keep the laws, which of course they do not. The wording of Deuteronomy presupposes that they will indeed fail and that God will have to intervene in a new way.

The interesting thing is how Abraham proves his character by offering his own first-born son Isaac to God in sacrifice (a sacrifice that was prevented). This theme of kinship is carried into the Exodus narrative but suddenly disappears when idolatry obscures God’s familial relationship with Israel. From that time forward, Israel appears to be God’s covenant people, but the filial relationship has been ruptured.

Scott Hahn’s Kinship by Covenant

Dr. Scott Hahn’s 1995 doctoral dissertation Kinship by Covenant: A Biblical Theological Study of the Covenant Types and Texts in the Old and New Testaments is amazing. The feeling I had reading was very much like the one I experienced reading N.T. Wright’s Resurrection of the Son of God. Both are fat tomes weighing in at over 600 pages each, but each leaves you wanting more. “Oh no! There are only 100 pages left!”

The great thing about manuscripts like these is that they survey the complex contours of Sacred Scripture and bring together so many biblical concepts that you finish the volumes thinking: a) Sacred Scripture is much more inner-connected than I had ever assumed; b) man of my biblical “gut intuitions” have been confirmed by an orderly explanation.

I hope that Dr. Hahn publishes his dissertation in order to make it more widely available. In the next few days, I hope to post some observations that I gleaned from the manuscript. I am grateful to Dr. Hahn for making his dissertation available to me.

Psalm 132 and the Assumption of Mary

If you're into typology, here is a good one for our Lord's resurrection and ascension, and the Blessed Mother's assumption.

132:7-8
7 Let us go to his dwelling place; let us worship at his footstool!"
8 Arise, O LORD, and go to thy resting place, thou and the ark of thy might.

The typological meaning of this passage reads like this:

The "LORD" is Christ who "arises" in the resurrection and ascends to the right hand of the Father. The "ark of thy might" is the Blessed Virgin Mary who as the Ark of the New Covenant held within her the Word of the New Covenant - not in stone but in flesh. The context is the inauguration of the Kingdom under David. Christ is the Greater-than-David.

See Rev 11:19-12:2 for further Scriptural testimony that Mary is the "Ark of the New Covenant".