Daily Old Testament: Isaiah 42 and My Own Book "Leadings: A Catholic's Journey Through Quakerism" (Part 36)

Isaiah 42 – This is the first of four “Songs” of Yahweh’s “servant” – the servant is in part the chosen people of Israel, but there is some mystery about the one referred to.

                  I have endowed him with my spirit

                  that he may bring true justice to the nations. . .

                  He will neither waver, nor be crushed

                  until true justice is established on earth,

                  for the islands are awaiting his law (42:1-4).

It may also be that the servant is one of the prophets, but Christians have seen in these words a reference to Christ.

                  I, Yahweh, have called you to serve the cause of
                            right;

                  I have taken you by the hand and formed you.

                  I have appointed you as covenant of the people and
                            light of the nations,

                  to open the eyes of the blind,

                  to free captives from prison,

                  and those who live in darkness. . . (42:6-7).

From Leadings: A Catholic’s Journey Through Quakerism

Part 36

Quaker spirituality also offers us a way to bring lay voices into our worship. The combining of Mass and Quaker-style worship that I experienced at the retreat center might offer a model of how such an opportunity might be opened to people; or perhaps Quaker-style meetings could take place in connection with reading Scripture apart from Mass, such as midweek meetings where people could reflect in silence on the ongoing presence of Christ’s spirit and grace in their lives.

Quakerism (at lease in its more traditional form) also offers believers a way of putting the Scripture in a more central place. The catechism of the Catholic Church says that “ignorance of the scriptures is ignorance of Christ”, but this has not quite filtered down as it needs to. Many Catholic homilists get bogged down in approaching the Scriptures in too scholarly or critical a way—almost as if they are worried that people will take them too literally or uncritically. But early Friends show us a way of using Scripture that does not require us to take them as literally true in every detail, but as writings that give us insight into spiritual truth. They see the Scriptures as the words God’s Spirit brought forth through men to tell us what we need to know about God’s existence and nature, God’s intentions with respect to humanity’s place in the creation, our relationship to him and to our fellow men, our spiritual condition, and the redemption God has worked to effect in history, including the extension of that redemption to all people in and through Christ. What difference does it make that some of these words of Scripture are literature, some history, some hymns of praise, and others letters or accounts putting the story of Christ in the context of the larger redemption narrative? The important thing for believers is that the Spirit of God gave these writing forth, gave them a unity and a power to reveal things about God and our spiritual condition that we could never know as reliably or as well without them. It seems to me also that a deep regard for the Scriptures is ultimately an implied acknowledgment that what the Church teaches about its own authority is true—that Christ’s Spirit abides in it to guide it into all truth and make judgments about what is and is not part of his Truth, for the Scriptures rest on the legitimacy of the Church and its discerning judgment.

Daily Old Testament: Zechariah 9-10 and My Own Article on "What DId I Say?" (Part 6)

Zechariah 9 – The prophet foresees doom on all the great cities of the region – Damascus, Hamath, Tyre, Sidon and the Philistine cities of Gaza and Ashdod. Those who survive will turn to the worship of Yahweh. “I will guard my Temple and protect it from invading armies” (9:8).

The people of Zion should rejoice! “Rejoice heart and soul, daughter of Zion. Shout with gladness, daughter of Jerusalem. See now, your king comes to you; he is victorious, he is triumphant, humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey” (9:9).

“I will remove the battle of chariots from Israel and the warhorses from Jerusalem. I will destroy all the weapons used in battle, and your king will bring peace to the nations. His realm will stretch from sea to sea and from the Euphrates River to the ends of the earth” (9:10).

The Lord promises to repay his people for all their sorrows – two blessings for every sorrow. The image of their victory is painted in words of war and images of peace combined The Lord’s people “will shout in battle as though drunk with wine. They will be filled with blood like a bowl, drenched with blood like the corners of the altar” (9:15). This is followed with these words: “On that day the Lord their God will rescue his people, just as a shepherd rescues his sheep” (9:16).

Zechariah 10 – The Lord will restore his people. He warns them never to look to the seers of the pagan world – household gods, fortune-tellers, interpreters of dreams. They deal only in lies and worthless advice (10:2).

The Lord’s people wander “like lost sheep; they are attacked because they have no shepherd” (10:2). He speaks of his anger towards the shepherds who failed to care for the people.

But now the people are going to be restored and the arrogance and dominance of those around them will be ended. Though they have been scattered “like seeds among the nations, they will still remember me in distant lands. They and their children will survive and return again to Israel” (10:9). In a prophecy that some saw as a prognostication of Alexander the Great’s victory over them, the prophet says that the “pride of Assyria will be crushed, and the rule of Egypt will end” (10:11).

From Leadings: A Catholic’s Journey Through Quakerism -

“What Did I Say?”

Part 6

I realized that the Friends’ “culminationist” way of seeing Christ—the idea that he ends history and the need for all outward religion—was something they came to because they were unwilling or unable to see that the real human history that came after him was part of the redemption story as well, the second half of the story, and that this second half might be meaningfully complex. In this they were like other Christians of their day, especially the Reformation Christians, who looked so exclusively to the biblical text and its first-century orientation. But the church had a life too; its history also mirrored or recapitulated the story of God’s first people.

Friends had always assumed that the individual believer would go through something like a recapitulation of the Old Testament story in coming to God, but it apparently had never occurred to them that the church Christ started might itself go through such a recapitulation. But why not? The church was not just a human institution, a place that contained the truth within four walls like a bank has money. It was a living organism, the assembly [ekklesia] of God’s people, Christ’s Body in the world. And if the in-gathering and shaping of the Jews as a people had taken two thousand years (and was in fact still going on), then how many millennia might it not take to gather in all the “nations” of the world formed as a people for God? How many challenges might that project involve? There would be times of faithfulness, but there might well also be times of scandal and disorder. The first people of God had known such times. Why should those gathered by Christ expect to fare better?

        

The story of God’s first people was in the Scriptures. I am not saying it is history as we might write it today, or that it is all perfectly written or perfectly understandable, but its general line is comprehensible and instructive. It is a story of people who were bearers of a promise from God, who brought to the world an understanding of what it is to live lives consecrated and devoted to God and to God’s purposes for man. What Christ did was to open that redemption to all; he revealed to all the depth and perfection of that redemption, but he did not end the story. He bestowed a promise on the leader of his disciples to bear that redemption forward in time. The assembly of people bearing that promise—the church—would not necessarily be any more perfect than his first people had been. They might even be so rebellious and unfaithful that God would be tempted to withdraw his promise from them, but there would always be enough of a remnant to go on. God’s work among us was not over; he might still perform great works among his people that we cannot even imagine.

Daily Old Testament and Early Christian Writings: Leviticus 14-15 and Justin Martyr's First Apology 53-55

Leviticus 14 – Purification after leprosy.  There are elaborate sacrifices to be made—of all kinds (holocausts, guilt offerings, sin offerings, wave, cereal). 

Everything, including the houses used by lepers, must undergo cleansing, both actual and ritual. Cleansing of the house involves a ceremony with two birds that are ceremonially clean.  One of the birds is sacrificed over an earthen jar of water.  Then the water and blood are sprinkled on some cedar wood, scarlet yarn and hyssop. Schocken editors suggests that these things were somehow associated with life. The blood of the dead bird is sprinkled on the person being purified, and when that is done, the live bird will be released to fly away.

The person being purified must wash their clothes, shave their hair and bathe themselves; then they can return to the camp, but they must still stay outside their tents for seven days.

Leviticus 15 – Regarding personal uncleanness – discharges from the body, typically from ones’ private parts (from illness or from sexual activity).  Again, great care in cleansing, avoiding contact and atoning are called for.  The important thing is keeping the Tent of Dwelling unpolluted.

Early Christian Writers

Justin Martyr (100-165 AD) – First Apology

Summary of the Prophecies

53 – The writer thinks there are many other prophesies he could mention that provide proof of the Christian Truth he embraces, but he thinks he’s mentioned enough. The arguments themselves are not enough – even Justin Martyr admits this. It is the “fruit” or “results” of the life and death of Christ and the spreading of the word about him that is most convincing.

“For with what reason should we believe of a crucified man that He is the first-born of the unbegotten God, and Himself will pass judgment on the whole human race, unless we had found testimonies concerning Him published before He came and was born as a man, and unless we saw that things had happened accordingly—the devastation of the land of the Jews, and men of every race persuaded by His teaching through the apostles, and rejecting their old habits, in which being deceived. . .”

The prophesies are critical for Justin Martyr He can’t imagine anyone believing that the God behind all of creation would take the form of a crucified man without the convincing words of the prophets, words he sees as having been fully realized in the life, death and teachings of Jesus Christ.

Origin of Heathen Mythology

54 – The poets who hand down the myths that so many in Roman society believed are not supported by this same convincing foreshadowing.

He sees that some Greek writers trying to undercut the Christian message by trying to incorporated some of the Old Testament prophecies into their myths, and some of this has already been discussed in earlier chapters.

Symbols of the Cross

55 – But despite all of the efforts of the Greek poets to coopt prophetic utterances, there never has been a single instance when they used the crucifixion, “for it was not understood by them, all the things said of it having been put symbolically. And this, as the prophet foretold, is the greatest symbol of His power and role. . . “

Daily Old Testament and Early Christian Writings: Leviticus 4 and Justin Martyr's First Apology 32-34

Leviticus 4 – Sin offerings [“hattat”] Schocken Bible note says “sin offering” is not a good translation.  It is a “decontamination offering” for priests – for inadvertent sins. 

When these are committed by the high priest, he brings guilt on all the people.  He must offer a young, unblemished bull.  Its blood should be brought into the tent and sprinkled toward the sanctuary seven times.  Some of the blood should go on the horns of the altar of incense.  The fat shall be burned, the hide, head and uneatable parts shall be brought outside the camp to a clean place where it can be burned in a wood fire and the ashes left.  The eatable part may not be eaten by the priest according to Schocken lest he profit from his own wrong.  But from other people’s offerings, he may eat.

When the entire community has sinned inadvertently by violating one of the Lord’s commands “but the people don’t realize it, they are still guilty. When they become aware of their sin, the people must” make the “decontamination offering.” For this offering, the “elders of the community” are the ones who make the offering.

If the inadvertent sin is committed by one of the leaders of the community, when he becomes aware of the sin, he must make the offering. The seven-fold sprinkling of the altar is omitted, but everything else is the same.

And if “any of the common people sin by violating one of the Lord’s commands, but they don’t realize it, they are still guilty” too. Then they become aware of the sin, they too can make an offering of a female goat with no defects.

Early Christian Writers

Justin Martyr (100-165 AD) – First Apology

Christ Predicted by Moses

32 – Like so many – Jesus’ disciples and those who came after them – Justin Martyr finds in the prophecies, “types” and “figures” of the Old Testament, the most convincing arguments for the claims of the Christians. I can well understand how they cringed at the demands of the Marcionites that the Old Testament god and the Old Testament itself should not be part of the Christian world view.

Jacob’s prophecy about the destiny of his twelve in Genesis 49 – here mentioned as Moses’ words – are quoted: “’Judah, your brothers will praise you. . . . The scepter will not depart from Judah, nor the ruler’s staff from his descendants, until the coming of the one to whom it belongs, the one whom all nations will honor. He ties his foal to a grapevine, the colt of his donkey to a choice vine. He washes his clothes in wine, his robes in the blood of grapes.’”

And then addressing again his Roman addressees, “[A]nd after He (i.e. Christ) appeared, you began to rule the Jews, and gained possession of all their territory.” And in all races of men “there are some who look for Him who was crucified in Judaea . . . [and] the prophecy, ‘binding His foal to the vine, and washing His robe in the blood of the grape,’ was a significant symbol of the things that were to happen to Christ, and of what He was to do. For the foal of an ass stood bound to a vine at the entrance of a village, and He ordered His acquaintances to bring it to Him then; and when it was brought, He mounted and sat upon it, and entered Jerusalem, . . . And after this He was crucified, that the rest of the prophecy might be fulfilled. For this ‘washing His robe in the blood of the grape’ was predictive of the passion He was to endure, cleansing by His blood those who believe on Him. For what is called by the Divine Spirit through the prophet ‘His robe,’ are those men who believe in Him in whom abideth the seed of God, the Word. And what is spoken of as ‘the blood of the grape,’ signifies that He who should appear would have blood, though not of the seed of man, but of the power of God.”

Similarly the prophecy of Isaiah in 11:1 is discussed: “’A star shall rise out of Jacob, and a flower shall spring from the root of Jesse; and His arm shall the nations trust.’ And a star of light has arisen, and a flower has sprung from the root of Jesse-this Christ. For by the power of God He was conceived by a virgin of the seed of Jacob, who was the father of Judah, who, as we have shown, was the father of the Jews; and Jesse was His forefather according to the oracle, and He was the son of Jacob and Judah according to lineal descent.”

Manner of Christ’s Birth Predicted

33 – He quotes the words of Isaiah again: “’Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bring forth a son, and they shall say for His name, ‘God with us.’” For things which were incredible and seemed impossible with men t hese God predicted by the Spirit of prophecy as about to come to pass, in order that, when they came to pass, there might be no unbelief, but faith, because of their prediction.”

Mary’s virginity is significant to the writer in part because it is important to him to distinguish the conception of Christ from other stories of gods that had had intercourse with women – stories that were omnipresent in Greek and Roman times.

“It is wrong, therefor, to understand the Spirit and the power of God as anything else than the Word, who is also the first-born of God . . . and it was this which, when it came upon the virgin and overshadowed her, caused her to conceive, not by intercourse, but by power. And the name Jesus in the Hebrew language means . . . Savior in the Greek tongue. Wherefore, to, the angel said to the virgin, ‘Thou shalt call His name Jesus, for He shall save His people from their sins.’ “

Place of Christ’s Birth Foretold

34 – “And hear what part of earth He was to be born in, as another prophet, Micah, foretold. He spoke thus: ‘And thou, Bethlehem, the land of Judah, are not the least among the princes of Judah; for out of thee shall come forth a Governor, who shall fee My people.’”

There is such a town thirty-five stadia [term of measurement] from Jerusalem, and this is verifiable from the tax registers of Cyrenius, first procurator in Judaea.