In God of the Fathers I explain that among God’s oldest appellatives in the Pentateuch/Old Testament (OT) is God sharing his power/might with his chosen individuals and of divine living presence; YHWH ‒ I Am. God shares his power with patriarchs, prophets and people he set apart/chosen to be with and with whom God has chosen to speak to.
In The Son of God: The Scapegoat, I describe God’s appellative as Father/Abba implying Jesus’ closeness and intimate communication with the “living presence of God”. Father(s) is a term that also relates to Jesus’ faith that is rooted in OT’s ancestral tradition. In his ministry Jesus shares his presence among people with whom chose to be with and speak to. He uses his Word to foster love, inclusion, healing, compassion, gatherings and a following.
The Old Testament and New Testament (NT) have some fundamental distinctions that set them apart. The most notable is the language in which the narratives were written: The OT was written in Hebrew whereas the NT was written in koine, or common Greek used in the ancient world. Keep in mind that even though the NT was written in Greek, most of its authors were Jewish people familiar with OT scriptures.
Speech is a core principle of the Bible. God spoke his creation of the world in Genesis. He spoke to Adam and Eve, to Abraham and to all other Patriarchs that followed. And God spoke to Samuel and asked him to anoint David ‒ anointed and messiah are synonymous. As such David was chosen to become a great military leader and king of Israel.
In the OT anointing is performed by prophets and the priesthood following divine instructions. While Jesus, a common carpenter, was recognized as Messiah by Simon a mere fisherman, bypassing institutional tradition.
Matthew 16:15 “But what about you? He asked. “Who do you think I am?” Simon answered, “You are the Christ the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”
The most interesting part of Matthew’s quote above is the verse that follows ‒ keep in mind that Christό, is the Greek word for anointed one. Jesus called Simon a rock. A name that has been known in Christendom as Peter, or the Greek Petra meaning rock. In essence Jesus announces the metaphorical nature of his words and by extension his community~Church.
Matthew 16:17 Jesus replied, “Simon son of Jonah, you are a blessed man! Because it was no human agency that revealed this to you but my Father in heaven. So I now say to you: You are Peter and on this Rock I will build my community. And the gates of the underworld can never overpower it.
A metaphor is a shift in meaning and a break away from a normal use of words. It is an expansion of being that emphasizes the spiritual essence of what was at the outset an existing physical being/thing/reality. From now on Simon is no longer a mere disciple but a metaphorical leader representing an expansion in being of future following~community>Church.
Simon’s recognition of “the Messiah” is no longer related to the traditional institutions like the priesthood, or the material nature of the temple. Jesus inaugurates a metaphorical shift away from the literal to a metaphorical meaning that establishes a wholly other reality. It is also an expansion of God’s kingdom that embraces the world outside the limits of the Temple of Jerusalem and the role of its priesthood, expanding the administration of God’s divine plan to grassroots people.
The NT equates salvation of the people with the resurrection of the Body of Christ. Key to understanding Jesus’ message is underlined by the ambiguous distinction between the physical and spiritual/metaphysical meaning of the word body. Namely, body that means the physical anatomy of a human being and the word body that means a group of people, an assembly, hence in this context the Church.
Pope Pius XII in his Encyclical Letter, Mystici Corporis states that the Mystical Body of Christ is the Church. By Church he does not mean a material building or a physical temple, but an assembly of faithful living members of Resurrected Body of Christ.
An additional distinction between the OT and NT is the parameters that circumscribe God’s chosen people. In the OT they are delineated by the language of holy instructions, matrilineality and the promised land. The chosen people are commanded to abide by the strict application of the law/ten commandments and of pure versus impure moral codes, like circumcision.
Whereas in the NT, Greek is a departure from Hebrew. Salvation is outlined by one commandment of love that supersedes all OT scriptural instructions. In essence, if you love your neighbor as yourself you will not break any instructions and abide by all ten commandments. Hence, Jesus’ Kingdom of God transcends any cultural, ethnic, matrilineal lineage and linguistic difference.
One explanation for the use of Greek by NT writers is that Hellenism was dominant after the conquest of Alexander the Great. He made sure to popularize and expand the use of Greek and literacy throughout his empire. Whereas, reading and writing in Hebrew was a closely guarded knowledge kept by Jewish scribes and priests.
Jesus was a carpenter, Peter a fisherman. By all accounts, all of Jesus’ disciples were working class people representing a grassroots economy. Jesus and his disciples were born and lived outside Jerusalem. In contrast to the priesthood in the temple and the political power of the Roman procurator located in Jerusalem.
As Jesus’ mission moves him closer to the temple and challenges the priesthood, Jesus is arrested and then crucified. He was crucified outside Jerusalem on mount Golgotha but was buried in a tomb in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem. His physical body vanished and three days later and the Resurrected Body of Christ appeared to his disciples outside the confines of Jerusalem.
The NT point to a shift away from the center, a departure and an expansion of a spiritual tradition in terms of the Hebrew to Greek and beyond. A shift away from the priesthood who administered the scriptures to Jesus and his disciples preaching the good news. And a shift away from the Temple and the political power of Jerusalem to spreading Jesus’ message to the outside world.
I am now getting to the most important aspect of a dynamic interaction between the physical/material and the spiritual/metaphorical. Each aspect is important and complementary as it generates a wholly other essence of God’s being. Wholly other implies that each reality is distinct and exclusive but at the same time it is inclusive and whole. Because both realities are an undeniable dynamic part of the whole essence and presence of the Living God.
More on the concept of the Wholly Other:
Book of Job: A Vision of God
