The Adaptation of Old Testament Titles by Disciples of Jesus: Evolution through New Eyes
In a 2012 letter to my siblings, I informed them that I’d be hiking the 540 mile Camino de Santiago in the north of Spain because I needed to spend time talking to God. I’d lost my nineteen year old son and frankly, I needed some answers. If saints and mystics had heard His voice, then I most certainly deserved to. As I trudged up and down the French Pyrenees and through the eucalyptus forests on the Spanish mesa, I looked up and shouted at the top of my lungs, desperately needing to hear some answers. Where was this “Word of God” that I’d heard about since my childhood? Although I never heard a Charlton Heston voice booming from the clouds that day, …show more content…
Being struck down for gathering sticks on the Sabbath (Numbers 15:32-36) and earthquake style disasters (Amos 8:8) portrayed a punitive God, a strict policeman intent on enforcing a set of rules. The entire concept of God residing on the Mount, or in the Holy of Holies (Hebrews 9:3), accessible only to a select few worthy priests further enforced that notion that an understanding of God’s message, much less a relationship with Him was not possible or allowed. Consider Isaiah 64:4: “For from days of old they have not heard or perceived by ear, nor has the eye seen a God besides You, who acts in behalf of the one who waits for Him.” Now let’s look at how the death and resurrection Jesus changed Paul’s optics: “But, as it is written, ‘What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived, what God has prepared for those who love him,’ God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God” (1 Cor 2:9). Because of Jesus’ work on the cross, we now have insight into what I’ll describe later as “the Word of God.”
In Christology: A Biblical, Historical, and Systematic Study of Jesus, Gerald O’Collins identifies several titles that his disciples used for Jesus that, after his death and resurrection, seemed to take on new meaning from earlier, Old …show more content…
Further exploration into these reveals significant overlapping in their original meanings as well as crafting into useful, more contemporary understandings.
CHRIST
In the Septuagint, mashiah (anointed one) is translated as the Greek ‘Christos,” with a second definition of “to smear or rub with oil, i.e. to consecrate to an office or religious service:-anoint. (Wikipedia). This ritual anointing is referenced numerous times in the Old Testament by O’Collins with kings, prophets, and Aaronic priests (O’Collins, Christology, 24). Recognition of a “triple office,” provides what has been called the munus triplex by medieval theologians, Calvin and Newman, and the Second Vatican Council (25).
The author of this paper finds two of them particularly worthy of discussion, and explores how their meanings seem to have evolved significantly with time and usage.
Jesus’ death and resurrection had changed the perspectives of his disciples from an Old Testament viewpoint to one where the pieces began to “fit in the puzzle.” The “flash” of the resurrection seems to have quickly evolved their understanding of the meanings of these
In a 2012 letter to my siblings, I informed them that I’d be hiking the 540 mile Camino de Santiago in the north of Spain because I needed to spend time talking to God. I’d lost my nineteen year old son and frankly, I needed some answers. If saints and mystics had heard His voice, then I most certainly deserved to. As I trudged up and down the French Pyrenees and through the eucalyptus forests on the Spanish mesa, I looked up and shouted at the top of my lungs, desperately needing to hear some answers. Where was this “Word of God” that I’d heard about since my childhood? Although I never heard a Charlton Heston voice booming from the clouds that day, …show more content…
Being struck down for gathering sticks on the Sabbath (Numbers 15:32-36) and earthquake style disasters (Amos 8:8) portrayed a punitive God, a strict policeman intent on enforcing a set of rules. The entire concept of God residing on the Mount, or in the Holy of Holies (Hebrews 9:3), accessible only to a select few worthy priests further enforced that notion that an understanding of God’s message, much less a relationship with Him was not possible or allowed. Consider Isaiah 64:4: “For from days of old they have not heard or perceived by ear, nor has the eye seen a God besides You, who acts in behalf of the one who waits for Him.” Now let’s look at how the death and resurrection Jesus changed Paul’s optics: “But, as it is written, ‘What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived, what God has prepared for those who love him,’ God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God” (1 Cor 2:9). Because of Jesus’ work on the cross, we now have insight into what I’ll describe later as “the Word of God.”
In Christology: A Biblical, Historical, and Systematic Study of Jesus, Gerald O’Collins identifies several titles that his disciples used for Jesus that, after his death and resurrection, seemed to take on new meaning from earlier, Old …show more content…
Further exploration into these reveals significant overlapping in their original meanings as well as crafting into useful, more contemporary understandings.
CHRIST
In the Septuagint, mashiah (anointed one) is translated as the Greek ‘Christos,” with a second definition of “to smear or rub with oil, i.e. to consecrate to an office or religious service:-anoint. (Wikipedia). This ritual anointing is referenced numerous times in the Old Testament by O’Collins with kings, prophets, and Aaronic priests (O’Collins, Christology, 24). Recognition of a “triple office,” provides what has been called the munus triplex by medieval theologians, Calvin and Newman, and the Second Vatican Council (25).
The author of this paper finds two of them particularly worthy of discussion, and explores how their meanings seem to have evolved significantly with time and usage.
Jesus’ death and resurrection had changed the perspectives of his disciples from an Old Testament viewpoint to one where the pieces began to “fit in the puzzle.” The “flash” of the resurrection seems to have quickly evolved their understanding of the meanings of these