CCSS: Romans by Scott Hahn

The long awaited Scott Hahn commentary on Romans, via the excellent Catholic Commentary on Sacred Scripture series, will be released on November 7th.  This is one of the best Catholic biblical series out there because it does an amazing job combining the pastoral and the academic.  It utilizes the current NAB NT, which also makes it useful for those doing lectionary-based catechesis or for homiletics in the US.

However, one of the things I most appreciate about this series is the diversity of endorsements, which really cover the spectrum of Catholic biblical scholarship.  Here is a taste of the endorsements for this edition:

"Scott Hahn has written a masterful commentary on Romans that is theologically insightful and pastorally relevant. While dealing adeptly with the historical and literary background of Romans, he always keeps the focus on its theological content and meaning for our lives. I recommend Hahn's work to all who want to discover the powerful message of Paul's great Letter to the Romans."
--Frank J. Matera, Catholic University of America

"Hahn's commentary on Romans is lucid, penetrating, theologically alert, and a joy to read. It will be of interest to both scholar and nonscholar alike. His status as one of the most prominent Catholic converts from Protestantism makes his treatment of this great Pauline text, which was of such significance to Luther and the other Reformers, of particular interest."
--Robert Barron, Auxiliary Bishop of Los Angeles

"Hahn has written an informative, elegant, and learned commentary on Romans. The exegesis is crisp, the explanations are clear, and the judgments are consistently sensible. One of the best commentaries available on Romans from within the Catholic tradition. A treat to read and a treasure to hold."
--Michael F. Bird, Ridley College, Melbourne, Australia

"For four decades, Hahn has joyfully studied, debated, preached, taught, and lived Paul's Letter to the Romans. No biblical book is closer to his heart, with the result that the vibrant wisdom of this commentary exceeds that of commentaries many times its size. Judicious in its sifting of the scholarly literature, profound in its handling of sensitive Jewish-Christian themes, and powerful in its proclamation of the gospel, this deeply Catholic commentary will find a notable place among his most enduring and influential books."
--Matthew Levering, Mundelein Seminary

ICSB Joshua (May 2017)

The trickle continues..........

This volume in the popular Ignatius Catholic Study Bible series leads readers through a penetrating study of the book of Joshua using the biblical text itself and the Church's own guidelines for understanding the Bible.

Ample notes accompany each page, providing fresh insights by renowned Bible teachers Scott Hahn and Curtis Mitch as well as time-tested interpretations from the Fathers of the Church. These helpful study notes provide rich historical, cultural, geographical, and theological information pertinent to the Old Testament book—information that bridges the distance between the biblical world and our own.

The Ignatius Catholic Study Bible also includes Topical Essays, Word Studies, and Charts. The Topical Essays explore the major themes of the book of Joshua, often relating them to the teachings of the Church. The Word Studies explain the background of important biblical terms, while the Charts summarize crucial biblical information "at a glance".

The ICSB edition of Joshua is scheduled for publication in May.

Scott Hahn: Joy to the World

“Dei Verbum” and the Biblical insights of Joseph Ratzinger

The talk Dr. Scott Hahn delivered at the American Bible Society in New York as part of "The Living Word" series of lectures, co-sponsored with America, can be read here.   An audio recording of the talk can be found here.

Some of the Content at America's Living Word Site

Including:
John W. Martens on Writing the Word and his podcast

Robert Briggs, executive vice president of the American Bible Society, talks about "The Living Word: Scripture in the Life of the Church," a new two-year collaboration between America and the American Bible Society.

Lecture by Scott Hahn on "The Sacramentality of Scripture" April 30, 2014. 

Journey Through Scripture: Guided reflections through passages of Scripture from the 'America' community.

Review of Angels and Saints: A Biblical Guide to Friendship with God's Holy Ones + Contest

The Review:
In his newest popular book, Dr. Scott Hahn, in his typically humorous and personal tone, looks at the importance and everyday relevance of the angels and saints for the ordinary Catholic.  The book has a pretty basic structure, with the first part focusing on the Church's theological understanding of the role and canonization of the saints, with special emphasis on the scriptural foundations.  In the second half of the book Hahn, in the form of a meditation, looks at the lives of particular saints.  One element of this section that I appreciated the most is that at the end of each chapter, Hahn lets the saint (or another saint speaking about that particular saint) speak for him or her self.

My favorite chapter is the fourth one, which Hahn calls What Do the Saints Do? He reminds us that the saints are an active element of our lives.  They are our brothers and sisters in Christ, who truly desire that we attain eternal life with them.  So, how do they help us?  Dr. Hahn points to the Book of Revelation which "shows us the saints in heaven, they're engaged constantly in worship.....note that they are pleading with God for those who remain on earth (59-60)."  And guess what?  Not surprisingly, God answers the prayers of His saints in pretty dramatic fashion: "In response to the prayers of the saints, God calls upon the heavenly priests to blow their seven trumpets, evoking the Old Testament Battle of Jericho (61)."  That right there reminds us that God mightily responds to those prayers.  The whole chapter should give us great encouragement when we say I (or we) "believe in the Communion of the Saints."

St. Paul:
As part of this blog tour, I have been asked to comment on chapter nine, which focuses on St. Paul.  I was very delighted to get to write a bit on St. Paul.  When I ask people what their favorite part of scripture, I often hear one of three things: 1) The Psalms; 2) The Gospel of John; 3) Paul.  Notice I didn't say which letter of Paul, but simply Paul.  I have found that Paul has touched so many people who are daily Bible readers, Catholic or Protestant, that often they are unable to pick which of his letters they like best.  It would be like selecting your favorite child.  I have often felt the same way.  Those thirteen letters of St. Paul provide us a rich insight into understanding the Church, how to live as Christians, the role of Grace and Faith, and, put simply, Jesus Christ himself.  As Hahn says: "When we read them, we sometimes feel as if we're being propelled forward by a hurricane, a tidal wave, or some other force of nature.  But it's even stronger than that, because it's a force of Grace (104)."  And as Hahn points out, when we read those letters, or hear them in the liturgy, we are exposing ourselves to that same powerful force (105).

As I was reading this chapter, I couldn't help but think of the Pauline year that our Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI called for all the Church to observe in 2008.  Of all the special jubilee or thematic years that recent Popes have called, I must say that the Year of St. Paul was the one I most participated in.  I spent the year reading, and re-reading, Paul, led a few Bible studies on his letters, and made sure to meditate on many of the rich passages that have come down to us from him.   I really felt like I had been wrapped up in that "hurricane of Grace" that Hahn describes in this chapter.  The word that was continually impressed upon me was passion.  Paul, perhaps more than anyone else, knew that his whole life had been forever transformed by his encounter with Jesus Christ.  He, then, dedicated the rest of his life to proclaiming, with passion, that "Jesus Christ is Lord, to the Glory of God the Father (Phil 2:11)."  He did this, however, over a period of thirty long years.  We are so blessed to have St. Paul's words at our fingertips, as well as having documents that give biographical information about his life.  Yet, sometimes it is easy to forget that while he had many moments of not only trial and triumph as he went on mission, but also plenty of ordinary moments that made up his daily life.  I often want to be zealous like St. Paul, but Angels and Saints, and the Year of Paul in 2008, has helped remind me that the Christian journey is long.  The Lord often gives us this "ordinary" time to remember that we are totally dependent on him.  We need this time to grow in patience and trust in the Lord.  Often, I need to have a better understanding of this in my life far more than I typically do.  St. Paul, in all that he did, allowed God, in those extraordinary but more often in the ordinary moments, to build him up and remind him on whom he was totally dependent.

Contest:
Our friends at Image Books are happy to offer you, my faithful readers, an opportunity to win a free copy of this new book by Dr. Scott Hahn.  I will follow the standard contest procedures, as with typical contest on this blog which are:

1) If you have a website or blog or are active on Facebook, please announce this contest.   If you don't, that is OK.  You can still enter the contest. 

2) Please enter your name in the comment section of this blog post along with your favorite verse from one of St. Paul's letters.  I will randomly draw one winner at the conclusion of the contest, which will be on Sunday June 1 at 11:59PM.   

3) I will announce the winners on June 2nd.  The winners must contact me, via email, within a week with their full name and address.  I will then forward their name to Image who will send out the book soon after.

4) One entry per person.

5) Contest is only available to those who live in the United States.

Angels and Saints Blog Tour

May 27: St. Michael and the Angels - Catholic Katie 

May 28: Moses - Abigail’s Alcove

May 29: St. Paul - Catholic Bibles

May 30: St. Ignatius of Antioch - The Orant

May 31: St. Irenaeus of Lyons - Seasons of Grace

June 1: St. Jerome - Stuart’s Study

June 2: St. Monica and St. Augustine - Happy Catholic 

June 3: St. Thomas Aquinas - Blog of the Courtier

June 4: St. Therese of Lisieux - Single Catholic Girl

June 5: St. Maximilian Kolbe - Random Acts of Momness

June 6: St. Josemaria Escriva - Catholic Mom 

June 7: Queen of All Saints, Mother of the Church - This Cross I Embrace 

Thank you to Katie at Image Books for providing me a review copy.

Dr. Scott Hahn on his book Angels and Saints

Another Hahn Book Due Later This Year

Angels and Saints: A Biblical Guide to Friendship with God's Holy Ones is set for release at the end of May.

It will be published by Image.  

Letter & Spirit, Vol. 8: Promise and Fulfillment: The Relationship Between the Old and the New Testaments

Now available:
Promise and Fulfillment: The Relationship Between the Old and the New Testaments is the eight volume in the acclaimed series from Scott Hahn's St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology. Letter & Spirit, the most widely read journal of Catholic Biblical Theology in English, seeks to foster a deeper conversation about the Bible. The series takes a crucial step toward recovering the fundamental link between the literary and historical study of Scripture and its religious and spiritual meaning in the Church's liturgy and Tradition.

This volume features an all–star lineup tackling one of the oldest questions in Christian biblical scholarship — the relationship between the Old and New Testaments. Highlights include Hahn's essay on the meaning of covenant in Hebrews 9 and Brant Pitre's reading of the parable of the Royal Wedding Feast (Matt 22:1–14) against the backdrop of Jewish Scripture and tradition.

From the Editors' introduction: 
On the day of his resurrection, Jesus' exposition to two of his disciples on the road to Emmaus (Luke 24:25 27, 32) and shortly afterwards to his eleven apostles and other disciples (Luke 24:44 47) included "all the scriptures" "beginning with Moses and all the prophets." An idea implicit and underlying Jesus' expositions in these two episodes is that a unity of purpose exists throughout the many diverse sacred books of the Old Testament. Jesus discerned there a story line, an orderly plan—a Divine economy—unfolding throughout history and expressed in the inspired record that would culminate in his own saving work. The idea of Typology is implicit and flows from this unified story—this Divine economy—that we find in the Bible. The scriptures encompass a single story, but it is composed of two parts: the Old Testament and the New…The other New Testament writers follow his example in applying "all the scriptures" to the doctrine of the church and Christian moral, ascetical, and sacramental life. It is not merely, or even primarily, a correspondence of prediction and fulfillment. It is, rather, a pattern of analogy. What began in the Old Testament is fulfilled partially even within the Old Testament, but definitively in the New, in a way that is both restorative and transformative…This issue of Letter & Spirit seeks to explain and demonstrate the propriety and necessity of interpreting the Bible using the hermeneutics of the divine economy and typology.

Articles:

From Old to New: “Covenant” or “Testament” in Hebrews 9?

Scott W. Hahn

Jesus, the Messianic Wedding Banquet, and the Restoration of Israel
Brant Pitre

Matthew as Exegete:
The Unity and Function of the Formula Citations in Matthew 1:1-4:16
Jeremy Holmes

The Tradition of Christian Allegory Yesterday and Today
Leroy A. Huizenga

The New Temple, the New Priesthood, and the New Cult in Luke-Acts
Michael Patrick Barber

New Approaches to Marian Typology in Luke 1:
Mary as Daughter Zion and Queen Mother
Edward Sri

Qumran and the Concept of Pan-Israelite Restoration
John S. Bergsma

Divine Pedagogy and Covenant Memorial:
The Catechetical Narratio and the New Evangelization
Sean Innerst

Historical Criticism as Secular Allegorism: The Case of Spinoza
Jeffrey L. Morrow

Purchasing the Rewards of Eternal Life:
The Logic of Resurrection and Ransom in Matthew’s Gospel
Nathan Eubank

Should Catholics Read Protestant Bibles?

Consuming the Word 8: The Canon of the New Testament

Hahn begins this chapter on Canon with an exposition of the thought of Marcion, who attempted to "separate the law from the gospel; the God of Justice and creation from the God of grace and redemption; the God of the Old Testament from the Father of Jesus Christ (67)."  While he was eventually excommunicated, the whole affair began a slow process by which the New Testament books were officially canonized.

Hahn points out Eusebius does not initially call this list of books as kanon, but diatheke.  In this way, for the Church in the fourth century these sacred books were known as  "the covenant documents, the testamental documents (70)."  And again, as pointed out in earlier chapters, these books were the ones that were read in the liturgical assembly.

After giving a brief historical sketch of how the Church discerned finally which books belongs in the Canon, Hahn concludes the chapter by pointing out how even today the Marcion heresy persists.  Veiled in forms of "unconscious anti-Semitism" some still try to avoid the teachings of the Old Testament law and culture in order to create an even a "New Testament more to this or that individual's liking (74)."

Consuming the Word 7: The Old Testament in the New Testament

One only has to read part one, chapter two of the Catechism of the Catholic Church to get a good summary of what Hahn focuses in on in chapter 7.  It looks at how the the New Testament authors utilized the Old Testament writings.  This is essential because it shows the connection between the old and the new, promise and fulfillment.

"By virtue of their office in the nascent Church, the Apostles definitively interpreted the word of the Old Testament in light of the dispensation of the New Testament (62)."

"In the Old Testament Scriptures the entire New Testament was foreshadowed.  In the New Testament dispensation, all the Old Testament Scriptures were fulfilled.  As Saint Augustine put it: 'The New Testament is concealed in the Old, and the Old Testament is revealed in the New (62).'"

Consuming the Word Chapter 5: The New Testament After the New Testament

Hahn begins chapter 5 reminding the reader that for the early Church the New Testament was the sacrifice of the Eucharist, not a collection of books.  The books that were then collected into what would eventually be called the “New Testament” were not composed until a number of decades after the great events of Pentecost.  As those twenty-seven books eventually were written and collected, it was within the Eucharistic liturgy that “they were canonized” because they were precisely liturgical books (40-41).  

Hahn goes on to show, through those books that “were canonized” in the liturgy, that the events of the Last Supper reveal that what Jesus endured on the cross was sacrificial.  As Hahn states: “It became the offering of an unblemished Paschal victim – the self-offering of a high priest who gave himself as a victim for the redemption of others – the offering of a New Covenant (42).”  And where did Jesus speak about the New Covenant?   It is in the upper room with his apostles during the Passover meal.   This reality is shown in 1 Corinthians most especially.  First, in 1 Corinthians 10, Paul compares the bread and cup with not only Jewish sacrifices, but also Pagan ones.  Secondly, there is the fact that “the only significant narrative overlap between the Gospels and the letters attributed to Saint Paul is the institution narrative (43)."  Paul relates this narrative as, not originating with himself, but through tradition (1 Cor. 11:23).  The Eucharist was the New Testament (and remains so) before the canonized books ever were.

The final section of this chapter begins with this sentence from Hahn, which is probably the most important thus far: “The New Testament as a document presumes and depends upon the New Testament sacrifice and the New Testament meal (45).”

Your thoughts?

Hahn Duo Contest

In honor of our summer reading, I am going to have a contest for two brand new editions of Scott Hahn's The Kingdom of God as Liturgical Empire: A Theological Commentary on 1-2 Chronicles and Covenant and Communion: The Biblical Theology of Pope Benedict XVI.  Both books are outstanding and more academic than his other popular works.  

So here are the rules:

1) If you have a blog, please advertise this contest on your site. (If you don't, you can still enter the contest.)

2) This contest is only for people who are in the North America.

3) To enter, please put your name in the comment section of this post.  Winner will be drawn randomly.

4) The contest ends on Sunday, July 7th @ 11:59 PM EST. I'll announce the winner on Monday morning.  At that time, the winner must contact me, via email, with their address within one week to receive their prize.

5) One entry per person. If you post anonymously, you must leave a name at the end of your comment entry

Thank you to my friend Louis of Baker Book House for providing me the Hahn books for this contest!

Consuming the Word Chapter 4: The New Testament After the New Testament

In this chapter, Hahn looks at how the term "New Testament" was used for the two and a half centuries following the apostolic era.   Beginning with the early Fathers of the first two centuries, notably St. Irenaeus and St. Clement of Alexandria, Hahn shows that for the early Church the "New Covenant/Testament" was associated with the concept of a new family bond which was connected to the liturgy of the New Covenant, the Eucharist (29).  While St. Ireneaus uses the term "New Covenant" to focus on the new Christian dispensation, or family bond,  we see this connection of New Covenant and the liturgy most clearly with St. Celement.

St. Clement, in reference to the term "New Covenant/Testament," states that Christ: "made a New Covenant with us; for what belonged to the Greeks and Jews is old.  But we, who worship him in a new way, in the third form, are Christians.  For clearly, as I think, he showed that the one and only God was known by the Greeks in a Gentile way, by the Jews Judaically, and in a new and spiritual way by us (29)."  Later, Clement using athletic themes, states: "go and submit himself (Christian life) to the Word as his trainer, with Christ as the referee of the game; and for his prescribed food and drink let him have the New Testament of the Lord (28-29)."  (Keep in mind, what was discussed in previous chapters, that the term "New Covenant/Testament" is only uttered by Jesus at the Last Supper."

It is only when we get to the third century that the term "New Testament" is used for a set collection of sacred texts (30).  We see this in the writings of Tertullian and Origen.

Hahn concludes the chapter by looking at how many earlier church writers described the Eucharist in covenantal language.  He references Clement of Rome, Ignatius of Antioch, Justin Martyr, Origen, Augustine, and John Damascus.  All of these Church Fathers understood that the "Eucharist was the sacrificial rite required by the covenant-and by the very nature of covenant (34)."

What are your thoughts on this chapter or from what we have read through thus far?  I am just trying to pick out a few points of interest in each chapter rather than give a comprehensive analysis of each one.

Consuming the Word Chapter 3: The New Testament in the New Testament

As Hahn points out, the term "New Testament" is found six times in the 27 books that would later be referred to as the New Testament of the Bible.  While the number may not be a lot, it's significance cannot be overstated.  Hahn shows in this chapter that the term "New Testament" according to the Scriptures was not originally the name of a collection of sacred books, but rather "a sacramental bond (21)" that makes understandable (and accessible) the events of Good Friday.

Getting the terms right from the beginning is essential.  The word "testament" which comes from the Latin is diatheke in Greek and is most often translated into English as "covenant."  (The older Douay-Rheims is helpful here in that it translated the Latin novum testamentum as "new testament" and not "new covenant" in the institution narratives.  See page 20 in Hahn's book for more on this.)  Diatheke is the Greek equivalent to the Hebrew word for "covenant" which is berith.  In the Old Testament, "New Testament" or berith chadasha appears only once, and that is in the famous passage found in Jeremiah 31:31.  The covenants that God made with his people in the Old Testament form the basic identity of the children of Israel.  These covenants were "normally marked by a solemn ritual oath, sealed with a blood sacrifice and. often, with a shared meal (18)."  So, when Jeremiah prophesies a new covenant, he notes that it will indeed be new, but it won't be completely different or divorced from the pattern of the earlier covenants.

As stated earlier, "new covenant" is found six times in the Christian scriptures.  Yet, the only place that Jesus mentions the "new covenant" is during the Last Supper.  He doesn't use the term to denote a book, but rather a sacred bond initiated through a sacred meal (21).  The beginning of his passion, which will inaugurate the "New Covenant," begins with a sacred passover meal with the apostles.  "Thus, in Jesus's only use of the term, we find that 'New Testament' refers not to a text, but to a rite and to the new order brought about by means of that rite (22)."  Even when the term "new testament/covenant" is found in the New Testament Letters is appears most often in relation to discussions on liturgy and priestly service (22).  Therefore, according to Hahn, it is clear that "when the phrase 'new testament/covenant' appears in the document now known as the New Testament, it appears consistently amid the discussion of sacrificial liturgy and priestly office (23)."

Hahn concludes this section by pointing out that the only way a person could make the connection that the crucifixion of Jesus was a sacrifice, instead of simply a public execution, was the offering Jesus made during the Last Supper (24-25).  The Last Supper explains the what and the why of the Good Friday death of Jesus.

Consuming the Word Chapter 2: Before the Book

The first term than Hahn examines is one we are well familiar with, the "New Testament."  As he points out, it is "indeed a foundational term (9)."  Yet, when asked, most Christians would point to the twenty-seven books of the Christian Bible to describe what is the New Testament. Thus for most, if not all, it is a title of a book.

Hahn points out, however, that we don't find the term "New Testament" used to describe this collection of books until the very end of the second century (10).  Even into the third century, there was still some discussion as to which books belonged in the "New Testament."  Yet, the early Christian's belief system was based on a "New Testament," but it wasn't a book.

Now this does not mean that the early Christians didn't reverence the Scriptures, that is something that Hahn is not suggesting at all.  He spends the rest of chapter 2 showing how the early Christians "treated as sacred, and thus inviolable" the Scriptures from a very early date (14).   It seems the Hahn, who could have moved immediately on to explaining what the earliest Christians did mean by the term "New Testament," instead chose to spend a few pages reassuring his, perhaps Protestant, readers that the Church of the first four centuries honored and reverenced the Sacred writings, both old and new.  He spends a little bit of time looking at the term "canon" and showing that the even some first century Christians, as seen in 2 Peter, already considered some of the Apostolic writings as sacred.

To see what the term "New Testament" really meant to first or second century Christians, we will have to wait until chapter 3.  "If we seek to understand the vocabulary of our faith as the early Christians understood it, we must be willing to be surprised (16)."

Consuming the Word Chapter 1: The Sacrament of the Scroll

Some of my initial thoughts:

Hahn begins his work with the story of St. Romanus the Melodist, who was a sixth-century composer of homilies in hymn form.  He recounts how St. Romanus, like Ezekiel and John the Seer, was commanded to eat a scroll, in this case by the Blessed Virgin Mary.  As Saint Jerome remarks: "Unless we eat the open book first, we cannot teach the children of Israel (4)."  Truly, you cannot give what you do not own.  The New Evangelization needs more lay people who have consumed the Word and are ready to go out into the world proclaiming that Jesus Lives!

Yet there is more to this than just a need to understand his written word really well, although that is important.  Hahn points out that Romanus, Jerome, Ezekiel, and John all knew that "Salvation comes by way of a covenant-a covenant embodied in a Word, a Word that is made flesh, a Word that is consumed (6)."  

What it means to "consume the Word" is going to be examined over the coming chapters, particularly in light of the Scriptural and Patristic evidence.  But before we are able to do this, it is essential that we understand how the early Christians understood those particularly important theological terms like "covenant," "testament," "liturgy," and "Eucharist."  This is the main reason Hahn wrote this book.  The need to understand what these basic, though essential, theological terms meant to the sacred authors and the earliest Christians will not only have a profound impact on our own lives, but also on how we spread the Gospel in the 21st Century.  "Our recovery of the newness of that vocabulary-the New Testament, the New Covenant-is especially urgent right now, as the Church embarks upon a New Evangelization (7)."

Your thoughts?

Summer Reading Discussion Beginning Next Week!

Dr. Scott Hahn's Overview of Ephesians