Week 3: January 31, 2008
CCP 213
Joseph Hollcraft M.A. 

***Journal reflection: Why is it important to know our ancestral background (pedigree)? How does it help us in discovering who we are?

 IV. Stages of Salvation History.

A . Gn.1-11 ( Book of Beginnings ) -- History of the early world , Adam and Eve, Noah…up to 2000 B.C.

1. Myth is “a story about God,” an aid to explain a reality as we see it today. Temporal language used to describe an event which relates to eternity and time, a story about activity that lies behind all stories.

a. Modern history does not convey history like antiquity.

b. Myth as symbol can be used to teach truth--not mythology as we understand it in contemporary terms. Writing style of the time period.

2. Chiastic writing-where the peak of the story is in the middle not the end.

a. Ex.25-31 is like ex.35-40. Exodus 32-34 is the central event.

1. Pentateuch is more relevant than linear.
2. Antiquity writes, at times, out of sequence.

B. Gn.12.50-- Patriarchal age , Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph and the formation of the twelve tribes of Israel.…2000-1700 B.C.

C. Exodus ( Book of Emigration )-- Israel in Egypt , Golden Calf, Leviticus, worshiping false Gods, Exodus…1700-1300 B.C./ covenant, Deuteronomy covenant (land, sanctuary, kingship)…1300-1200 B.C.

1. Leviticus: Book of the service of the sanctuary.

2. Numbers: Book of numbering the hosts of Israel .

3. Deuteronomy: Book of the repetition of the law (second law).

E. Judges--12 leaders who are provisionary leaders of the 12 tribes…1200-1050 B.C.

F. 1 and 2 Samuel-- United Kingdom (monarchy), establishment of the Davidic dynasty in Jerusalem . The building of the first temple; first scene of the spoken prophets: Nathan,… 1020-920 B.C.

G. 1 Kings-- Divided Kingdom , tribes break into Northern fork ( Israel ) and Southern fork ( Judah and Benjamin), Jeroboam and Reheboam (Solomon), Christ from the line of Judah (Is.11.1), written prophets: Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, Micah, Joel, Jonah; spoken prophets: Elijah, Elisha, and Gad. …920-721.B.C.

H. 2 Kings-- Exile , Assyrians take the North and the Babylonians finish the job and take the south. Babylonian captivity is three fold (605, 597, 586), written prophets: Nahum, Daniel, Baruch, Ezekiel, Zephaniah, Jeremiah, Habakkuk…721-539 B.C.

I. Ezra- the Return , Cyrus of Persia allows the return of the Jews and the rebuilding of the temple completed in 486...539 -167.B.C.

J. Maccabees-- Maccabean revolt …Judas defeats Antiochus IV to get back the temple and its practices. Antiochus rule of forced Hellenization--common culture…167 B.C…

K. Luke-- Birth of Christ -keeps the narrative story going, Christ is the new covenant.

L. Acts-- Early Church , Council of Jerusalem in 50 A.D (Acts 15) dispute of Gentiles and Jews and the question of circumcision in the practice of the new religion. Church becoming universal. The faith of Israel was directed toward universality.

1. Church is the climax of salvation history--What Christ came to institute. The adoration of the Magi (cf. CCC528)out of the East acts as the beginning of the Church of the gentiles.

b. Church expanding: Acts 1.1-8.5 ( Jerusalem area), Acts 8.5-13.1 (Judea- Samaria--outer region), Acts 13.1-28 (ends of the earth).

*** Fourteen (73 books in all) chronological books… Know these books in order

1. Books that keep the narrative story going: Genesis, Exodus, numbers, Joshua, Judges, 1 and 2 Samuel, 1and 2 Kings, Ezra, Nehemiah, Maccabees, Luke, Acts

V . Covenant is the Bible's central theme and Key behind the unity of Scripture and Liturgy. God's will for mankind is to be in covenant with him, a communion of relationship in love that embraces both the divine and human, heaven and earth. The word covenant comes from the Latin word convenire, meaning, “to come together.” This word is often understood as a compact agreement, which it is, but God elevates our understanding of this agreement to a sacred family bond. Covenant love is more than a contract where you say “ this is yours and this is mine ,” rather it says “I am yours and you are mine.” And for God, who is entirely relationship, His covenant would not be something external in history, but rather a manifestation of His saving love. Key notes to covenant.

A. Latin word for oath is Sacramentum. God manifests his love most completely in the sacramental life of the church (7 sacraments). We are finite beings and the sacramental life leads and points to the infinite reality.

1. Gn.21.31...To establish a covenant you swear an oath .. .Hb. word is beer- sheva meaning (n) "to seven oneself ; the well of the seven; the well of the oath” The seventh day itself was God's great oath.

2. Deut.32.40...God lifts his hand in an oath swearing engagement.

a. Heb.6.13... “God swears by Himself.”

b. Heb.6.11... “Oath is final for confirmation.”

B. This covenant sacred family bond that is based on oath swearing and is seen as a flesh covenant!

1. Gn.17.13... "Everlasting flesh" covenant. In fact, throughout the Old Testament we read of God's steadfast love, which in Hebrew is Hesed, a more literal translation would read “A blood bond of love.”

2. Gen.2.23; 2 Sam.5;1 Chr.11.1-3... "Bone of my bone flesh of my flesh."

3. Ex.4.22... “ Israel is the first-born .”

4. In Mark 14.24 Christ tells us “I am the body and blood of the new covenant.”

C. Jer.3.16-17 ...“Presence of God will no longer be in the Ark of the Old Covenant, but in Jerusalem shall all nations gather.”

1. Jer.31.31...only mentioning of the New Covenant in the Old Testament. In it he is going to restore the house of Israel by writing the law on their hearts. The law will no longer be one of stone (tablets) but of the divine--flesh!!!

2. Hosea… “After a period without a king, the children of David will rise again to a great nation.”

a. 2 Cor.5.1-5... "From earthly tent being destroyed to the new building, house in which God dwells in.. ”

b. Lk.1.13...God shows fidelity to covenant language through Elizabeth and Zechariah and shows how they are they dawn of a new covenant:

1. Elizabeth means: "God has sworn.”

2. Zechariah means: "God remembers.”

c. 2 Cor.3.14...only expression of the old covenant. Paul sets this up so that we may see the first covenant (2 Cor.9.15) is transitory and the new perpetual (13.20).

VI. Intro to Genesis: The Jews called the Bible the Tanakh, a composite word made out of letters from the names of the three principle parts of the Old Testament: (1) Torah , “The Instruction” or “the Law”, the first five books of Scriptures; (2) Nebiim, “ the prophets”, which include the four major and twelve minor prophets, and also the historical books: Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings; lastly (3) Kethubin, “the writings ”, which essentially covers everything else in the Hebrew canon. “Genesis, like salvation history itself, has three parts: creation, fall, redemption; generation, degeneration, and regeneration; Paradise, Paradise lost, and Paradise regained…two big bangs and one big thud” —Kreeft. I would like to consider a few key details concerning Genesis and the first three chapters before we consider the greater themes.

A.  Days: Yom (Hb.): meaning “day”, with the connotation of an extended period or age. Augustine was the first to highlight days as something non-quantitative. In fact, the aforementioned Hebrew considered time as something not foretold by clocks but purpose. Genesis itself was written as relevant as oppose to something linear.

B. Knowledge in Hebrew means “experience”. God wanted to keep us from the knowledge of good and evil that comes from experiencing and tasting not from the knowledge that understands it. The same Hebrew “knowing” was when Adam knew Eve. Thus, a baby not a book (also consider Mary and Joseph).

1. God ‘creates' to ‘father'. From his eternal divine wisdom, the creation of man was out of the womb of love. God creates man and man chooses for God or against God. Sin is defined as separation, but considering the familial character of Scripture, sin is disobedience to the father.

2. What of our spiritual pedigree? Like the child born of the drug addict who will be conditioned to her mother's sin, so we are conditioned by our spiritual parents. This is what we call parental interdependence.

a. Since the fall in the Garden of Eden, man has been doing nothing more than hiding and passing the blame.

C. Gn.3:15: The Protoevangellion (Gk): meaning the “first Gospel” . This verse is a testament to one prevailing truth concerning the history of man: life will be a struggle against good and evil… “A struggle in grace”!

VII. Understanding Genesis through the lenses of covenant: Family at the core. God creates in order to love. The first creation account God is Elohim , whereas the second creation account God is YHWH—Adonai , “The Lord”. Elohim identifies God chiefly as creator, whereas YHWH identifies God chiefly as redeemer. The first creation account God was “creating” and in the second creation account, God was “fathering”.

A. Gn.1:1: create: bara ( Hb.): meaning to “create something wholly new”; a creation out of something that was simply not there before. Genesis was never about the how as much as the why.

1. Moreover, the Hebrew bara, was used on three other occasions, the creation of matter (1;1); life (1:21); and mankind (1:27). These are concrete examples of understanding God as ‘createor'.

B. Gn.1.26, 5.3: “Let us make man in our image and likeness and let them have dominion over the earth.” We images the Trinity when two become one and that love shared creates a third…three in one (cf.Gn.2.24). Marital love expresses that divine language so that human beings can learn to speak the language of God honestly and fluently. In procreation we are leaving footprints towards the Trinity.

1. The love share between the father and the son is the Holy Spirit. So you have the love shared being the generative force creating three in one. Authentic married love is caught up in divine love (CCC 1639). This is the essence of the covenant family bond. Quote by the Holy Father.

a. I would note here that the Hebrew word for marriage is Tredesh , it also means “holiness.” In this way families become outposts of the Trinitarian life-sacrificial/unconditional love of presence. God the Father loving because He exists.

1. God's language is familial in that he destined man for family after he creates all other things. Note that in his creation account we read “let there be” but when he creates man he states “let us make.”

2. God using family language to speak of his new arrangement in His new covenant family plan in the Church. God's family is the organic character found throughout history.

a. Christ himself enters human history through a family, that of Nazareth . So that alone allows us to see the significance of the role that the family has today. In this way, the church steers our attention between family and church.

1. Jn.3.3...Our initiation is being born anew in baptism. Here we are entering into the divine life of God.

2. Rev.19.7...our ultimate destiny is a marriage supper…shalom.

3. Rom.8.15...creator as Father; Gn.1.26...Creatures are children; Ex.3812...the cosmos our are home

a. The Trinitarian life is imbued in the new covenant family formula. The wife and mother said: “this is my body given for you.” As our Lord feeds the Church so she feeds her child--from her own substance.

VIII. Understanding Genesis through the lenses of the covenant: Sacrifice at the core. In the road to Emmaus, the disciples witness the summary of a great truth. From the beginning of the Church, we see Scripture ordered to Liturgy and Liturgy ordered to Scripture. Scripture reveals Liturgy. First, consider the figures most prominently in salvation history's key moments: from creation, to the flood, to the call of Abram, to the Exodus, and finally the founding of the Kingdom with David all have that liturgical current. There is a liturgical sense in Scripture that continues in the age of the Church. Second, recall that the canon of Scriptures comes to us out of the life of the Church in her worship, and that finally Christ never states them to write anything down in order to remember him, rather, her orders them to worship.

A. Covenants through the Old Testament have a common thread in that they are marked by sacrifice (or lack there of in Adams case). Adam is the forerunner to understanding “the why” of the liturgical sacrifice (cf. Rom.5.14--typology).

B. Adam is called to “ till and keep the garden.”

1. Till in Hebrew was abodah … keep was Shoman ( Hebrew expression that could also mean worship ) . These expressions were referring to the priestly duty of guarding the sanctuary and keeping it from defilement…cf. Nm.3.28; 8.26. Here there is the implication that something must be kept out.

2. Earth was a building-a temple that he was to guard…cf.Job 38.4-7

a. Gn.2.8; 15-17... “You must surely die” literally translates you shall “die a death.”

1. Rabbis treated this as both a spiritual and physical death. Adam preferred the spiritual death.

b. Gn.3.1-7... “You shall not eat of the tree of the garden.”

1. The serpent addresses both Adam and Eve. Author uses second person plural verbs. An English translation that we cannot render because we do not have. The word “ you” is plural in its Hebrew language. The serpent is addressing them both yet only Eve responds.

c. Gn.3.2... “Serpent”… Hebrew word is Nahash . We see this same noun in Is.27.1 and Job 26.13. A better translation would be a large Sea Monster or Sea Dragon. Adam was petrified facing a life-threatening situation.

1. What we have here is more than a failure to communicate. Adams fears kept him form guarding the garden. He did not trust his father. This kept his from protecting “bone of his bone flesh of his flesh.”

3. By failing to sacrifice his life, Adam would start something that would not find its completion until Christ-the new Adam who would emerge from a garden with a saving tree through trust.

a. Gn.4.3-5...In the story of Cain and Abel there was a sacrificial offering made by both brothers. So as early as the second generation of Adam and eve we have the theme of liturgical sacrifice continuing soon thereafter.