Summer Reading 2017

Each year around this time I like to hear from you as to what you are reading this summer.  Summer seems to always be a great time to dig out that book you got for Christmas or your birthday, but just haven't gotten around to yet.  This summer, I have a small stack of books that I am hoping to get through (although my wife might say it isn't that small.)  Perhaps "hoping to get through" isn't the best way to put it, since I am not trying to win a race, but rather since I don't teach in the summer I do have some free time.  So, quality of reading is far superior to quantity of reading.

Here is what I am up to this summer:

The Message: Catholic/Ecumenical Edition (I have been using this as my main reading/lectio bible for the past year.  I have been using the NRSV/NABRE for study and the classes I teach.)

A Book of Hours w/Thomas Merton (I have used this daily for almost two months.  Initially thought it was a bit of a gimmick, but it has been a great help to my daily prayer time.  Also, highly adaptable.)

A Long Obendience in the Same Direction by Eugene Peterson

Genesis 1-11: A New Old Translation by Bray and Hobbins

The Kings and Their Gods: The Pathology of Power by Daniel Berrigan

Cold War Letters by Thomas Merton

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 6: The Church of the New Testament

This chapter, which speaks on the importance of apostolic succession and tradition, can best be summed up in this concluding sentence: "From Clement through Eusebius, from Basil through Leo, the Fathers of the early Church knew - and not only knew, but took for granted - that every written word of the New Testament presupposed the enactment of the liturgy of the New Testament in the Church of the New Testament (56)."

For Christ did not establish a school of scribes before he ascended to heaven.  Instead, it is clear that he founded a Eucharistic community, built upon the Apostles, who were sent out to proclaim the Gospel to all nations.

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?

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!

Scott Hahn Interview on "Consuming the Word"

Nope, this isn't a "7 Questions" edition unfortunately, but this comes from the Image Catholic Books website and is well worth your reading.    Do remember to pick up a copy of Consuming the Word since we will begin our summer book discussion next week.

Here is an excerpt from the interview:

Q. What inspired you to write this book?

The big inspiration is the Word of God. The Gospel tells us that “the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us.” For Christians, this is the pivotal truth of our faith and the pivotal moment in history. We share in that moment through the incarnate Word, whom we receive in the Eucharist, and the inspired Word, which we have in the Scriptures. My book celebrates both.

That inspiration has been welling up inside me for much of my lifetime, and it’s behind everything I do. It gets me out of bed early in the morning, and it keeps me up late at night. More immediately, however, the inspiration that got this book started was actually a chance encounter with a high-school friend of mine. When we were teens, he was Catholic and I was evangelical. I used to challenge him about the Mass. I’d ask: “Where do you find the sacrifice of the Mass in the New Testament?” Eventually he left the Catholic Church and became an evangelical. I, meanwhile, became a Protestant minister before converting to Catholicism.

Well, turnabout is fair play. Now that our religious affiliations were reversed, my friend put the question to me: “Where do you find the sacrifice of the Mass in the New Testament?” This book is, in a sense, my response to my friend’s question.

I hope I demonstrate, to the satisfaction of scholars as well as lay readers, that the Mass is the New Testament — that the New Testament was a sacrament long before it was a document, and we can see that in the document itself.

For the rest of the interview, go here.

A Summer Book Discussion?

Yeah, I have failed at doing things like this here on this blog from time to time, I admit it.  However, summer is a great time to pick up a good book and have a discussion.  So, I am proposing that we spend the summer examining the newly released book Consuming the Word by Scott Hahn.  We would accomplish this by reading a chapter or two each week and having a discussion about it here on the blog.  I would do the initial post for a particular chapter, giving some brief comments.  Hopefully my comments, but more importantly your reading of the text, would then serve as a starting point in order to initiate an active discussion in the comment section of that post.  So, who is interested in doing this with me?

If you are, RSVP with me in the comment section of this post so that I can see if there is any interest in doing this.  Also, let me know if you would consider initiating a particular chapter's discussion by putting together an introductory post.

Of course, you need to get a copy of this book before hand.  If there is interest, we will begin this summer reading in about two weeks.