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ARTICLES
ARCHIVE november, 2002 |
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Note: In last month's article, we covered Part 2 of a four-part series examining the Bible - what the Bible is, where it came from, how is it used and what does it mean. The source for this four-part series is an article from "The Orthodox Study Bible: New Testament and Psalms," by renowned Orthodox scholar, Bishop Kallistos (Timothy) Ware (see footnotes). Side-by-side with Apostolic tradition which supports the Biblical message, the Bible expresses the doctrinal structure of the Christian faith and its factual proof - by God revealing Himself completely in His Son and in His Spirit. The Orthodox Church is the Church which gave the Bible to all the world. |
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The third requirement in our reading of Scripture is that it should be Christ-centered. If we agree with the 1976 Moscow Conference that the "Scriptures constitute a coherent whole," where are we to locate their wholeness and coherence? In the person of Christ. He is the unifying thread that runs through the entirety of the Bible from the first sentence to the last. Jesus meets us on every page. It all ties up because of Him. "In Him all things hold together" (Col. 1:17 NRSV). Much study of Scripture
by modern western scholars has adopted an analytical approach, breaking
up each book into what are seen as its original sources. The connecting
links are unraveled, and the Bible is reduced to a series of isolated
units. Recently, there has been a reaction against this, with biblical
critics in the west devoting much greater attention to the way in which
these primary units have come to be joined together. This is something
that we Orthodox may certainly welcome. We must see the unity of
Scripture as well as the diversity, the all-embracing end as well as the
scattered beginnings. Orthodoxy prefers for the most part a
"synthetic" rather than an analytical style of hermeneutics,
seeing the Bible as an integrated whole, with Christ everywhere as the
bond of union.
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| Such, as we
have just seen, is precisely the effect of reading Scripture within the
context of the Church's worship. As the lessons for the Annunciation and
Holy Saturday make clear, everywhere in the Old Testament we find
signposts and way marks pointing to the mystery of Christ and His Mother
Mary. Interpreting the Old Testament in the light of the New, and
the New in the light of the Old - as the Church lectionary encourages us
to do - we discover how the whole of Scripture finds its point of
convergence in the Savior.
Orthodoxy makes extensive use of this "typological" method of interpretation, whereby "types" of Christ, signs and symbols of His work, are to be detected throughout the Old Testament. Melchizedek, for example, the priest-king of Salem who offered bread and wine to Abraham (Gen. 14:18), is regarded as a "type" of Christ not only by the Fathers but equally in the New Testament itself (Heb. 5:6; 7:1-19). The rock that flowed with water in the wilderness of Sinai (Ex. 17:6; Num. 30:7-11) is likewise a symbol of Christ (1 Cor. 10:4). Typology explains the choice of lessons, not only on Holy Saturday, but throughout the second half of Lent. Why are the Genesis readings in the sixth week dominated by the figure of Joseph? Why read from the Book of Job in Holy Week? Because Joseph and Job, who both suffered innocently, foreshadow the redemptive suffering of Christ on the Cross. We can discover many other correspondences between the Old and New Testament by using a biblical concordance. Often the best commentary of all is simply a concordance, or an edition of the Bible with well-chosen marginal cross-references. Only connect. It all ties up. In the words of Father Alexander Schmemann, "A Christian is the one who, wherever he looks, finds everywhere Christ, and rejoices in Him." This is true in particular of the biblical Christian. Wherever he looks, on every page, he finds everywhere Christ. Excerpted from "The Orthodox Study Bible: New Testament and Psalms," St. Athanasius Orthodox Academy, Thomas Nelson Publishers: Nashville, Tennessee, 1993. The Orthodox Study Bible may be obtained from: Conciliar Press To: Previous Orthodox Articles |
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