The Bible - God Speaks and a People Listen and Answer (Part 1 of 3)

We Christians have as a fountain and source of our faith God’s revelation found in the Holy Scriptures. For Christians, then, the Bible is the fundamental and most important collection of sacred texts, because we believe that they contain the Word of God. In other words, they contain what God has revealed and communicated through history; and in it also we find the answers of some men, (especially the prophets), the answer of a people (Israel), the answer of Jesus of Nazareth, and of the first Christian communities to the saving design of God.

“Bible” is a Greek word which means “collection of books”. It contains 73 different books. Some of these books are very old and were written by different authors whom we call “sacred authors” or “hagiographers”; and in a socio-cultural context very different from ours. Therefore, for the “intelligent” reading, study and living of the Sacred Scripture, it is necessary:

• To know the structure of the Bible.
• To know certain fundamental biblical elements of hermeneutics (interpretation).
• To know the context of the text: that is, to know the people of the Old Testament as well as the space/time when the historical revelation occurred and, therefore, God’s progressive revelation until the time of Jesus of Nazareth, where Christianity emerges.

For all of this, theology, and more specifically biblical theology, has the help of science and methods such as exegesis, hermeneutics, archeology, paleontology, anthropology, sociology, psychology, semiology, etc.

The Languages of the Bible: Originally, the biblical books were written in three languages: Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek.

The Bible’s Literary Styles: We call “literary styles” to the diverse forms and ways of oral and written expressions utilized by the authors in a specific place and time. In the Bible we find, especially, eight great and different literary styles: historiography, the law, the prophets, lyrics, wisdom writings, apocalyptic writings, Gospels and letters.

The Old Testament: contains 46 books which refer to the history of the people of Israel; starting with Abraham (around the year 1,850 B.C.) until Jesus of Nazareth and the birth of the first Christian communities. They are divided in four groups, according to the predominant literary style of each:

The Pentateuch:

		Abbr.	Number of Chapters
1	Genesis	Gn	50
2	Exodus	Ex	40
3	Leviticus	Lv	27
4	Numbers	Nu	36
5	Deuteronomy	Dt	34

The Historical or Narrative Books:

6	Joshua	Js	24
7	Judges	Jg	21
8	1 Samuel	1 S	31
9	2 Samuel	2 S	24
10	1 Kings	1 K	22
11	2 Kings	2 K	25
12	1 Chronicles	1 Ch	29
13	2 Chronicles	2 Ch	36
14	Ezra	Ezra	10
15	Nehemiah	Ne	13
16	Ruth	Ru	4
17	Tobit	Tb	14
18	Judith	Jdt	16
19	Esther	Es	10
20	1 Maccabees	1 Mac	16
21	2 Maccabees	2 Mac	15

The Prophetic Books:

22	Isaiah	Is	66
23	Jeremiah	Jr	52
24	Lamentations	Lm	5
25	Baruch	Ba	6
26	Ezekiel	Ez	48
27	Daniel	Dn	14
28	Hosea	Ho	14
29	Joel	Jl	4
30	Amos	Am	9
31	Obadiah	Ob	1
32	Jonah	Jon	4
33	Micah	Mic	7
34	Nahum	Nh	3
35	Habakkuk	Hb	3
36	Zephaniah	Zep	3
37	Haggai	Hg	2
38	Zechariah	Zec	14
39	Malachi	Ml	3

The Wisdom Books:

40	Job	Job	42
41	Psalms	Ps	150
42	Proverbs	Pr	31
43	Ecclesiastes	Ec	12
44	Song of Songs	Sgs	8
45	Wisdom of Solomon	Ws	19
46	Sirach (Ecclesiasticus)	Si	51

The New Testament: contains 27 books which refer to the life, ministry, passion, death and resurrection of Jesus; and to the life of the first Christian communities (until approximately the year 110 A.D.), and can be divided, also, in four literary styles.

The Synoptic Gospels:

1	Matthew	Mt	28
2	Mark	Mk	16
3	Luke	Lk	24

The Writings of Paul:

4	Romans	Ro	16
5	1 Corinthians	1 Co	16
6	2 Corinthians	2 Co	13
7	Galatians	Ga	6
8	Ephesians	Eph	6
9	Philippians	Phil	4
10	Colossians	Col	4
11	1 Thessalonians	1 Th	5
12	2 Thessalonians	2 Th	3
13	1 Timothy	1 Ti	6
14	2 Timothy	2 Ti	4
15	Titus	Titus	3
16	Philemon	Phm	1

The Writings of John:

17	Fourth Gospel (John)	Jn	21
18	I John	1 Jn	5
19	II John	2 Jn	1
20	III John	3 Jn	1
21	Revelation	Ap	22

The Catholic Letters:

22	The Acts of the Apostles	Ac	28
23	Hebrews	He	13
24	James	Jas	5
25	1 Peter	1 P	5
26	2 Peter	2 P	3
27	Jude	Jd	1

The Bible - God Speaks and a People Listen and Answer (Part 2 of 3)

Christians confess that everything found in the Bible is God’s Word; in other words, that all texts contained in the Bible were inspired by the Holy Spirit and, therefore, are Scriptures in which God reveals himself and communicates with us. Even more, we confess that “God reveals himself in history” (DV2). But . . . what is the significance of all the truths of our faith? . . . how to understand and to confess them reasonably? Let us see:

What God does is “to create”. In other words, God communicates and “expends His time” creating . . . and creates man in his image and likeness. And so, as the table, made from pine, has tendencies and “looks like” the pine wood: texture, color, streaks, smell, etc., the same way man, “creature” or “creation” of God has, because of it, “divine tendencies”, “resemblance to God” such as: tendency to be good, to be pure, to be truthful, to be noble, to be perfect, to be beautiful, to solidarity, to happiness, to life, to justice, to peace, to love, and finally: tendency towards “the good”, the same as God is “good”.

The answer of man to God’s creative action consist in the taking of conscience --through prayer-- of being a creation and behaving accordingly. In other words, it is for man happily grateful, to live understanding and manifesting “the divine” that is in him, acting “the good and proper way”.

We Christians confess Jesus as “God’s divine Verb made man”, “Word of the Father”, “zenith and peak manifestation of God”, “true God and true Man”; because man, in a perfect way, is totally “divine” for being profoundly “human”, and is fully “human” for being truly “divine”. Said in other words, God’s incarnation in Christ means that in Him, the profoundly human is profoundly divine and/or is made divine and the divine becomes profoundly human.

This is the vocation, the calling, the work, the original mission of every man; and the answer to the unceasing search for happiness: to become a true “image and likeness” of God, revealing Him”, and to be creatures similar to the Creator.

If this is the first vocation of man, it is so much more for us who call ourselves “Christians”; since, as followers of Jesus, the Son, we have become “children”, similar to our Father in heaven: “Perfect as our Father in heaven is perfect”, showing perfect love as he loves us with perfect love.

Therefore, to us Christians corresponds, personally and through the church, to be the revealing space/time of God as we follow the Son, our Lord Jesus Christ; and we do it: for Him, with Him and in Him, until God becomes “all in all”. Because of that we confess him as our “Way, Truth and Life”. To us corresponds to “Christianize” ourselves, so that being “sons in the Son” and in his “image and semblance” we are able to become “the image and semblance of the Father”.

Even more so, this is the resurrection with Christ: the work that the crucified does in us, transforming (converting) our lives and shaping it with the Gospel until he transforms us into new men, capable of calling God “Father”, as Christ himself called him and taught us to do.

But man, in the intelligent and free exercise of its existence is able -–different from the table and the pine, because God did not make us objects or marionettes-- to negate or reject “the divine” which is in us (as children of God). In this way appears evil in the world, which in Christian theology we call “sin”.

On the contrary, as it was already said, exercising his first vocation, man is able to untie everything he has of God, and in that way he can convert himself into God’s “revealing” space. From there, the word of a man and/or woman (which has taken conscience of being a creation, resurrected in Christ) is the “human” word but --because of that and at the same time-- is also the “divine” word or word of God; and its acts (DV2) are heroic human deeds and, therefore, acts in which God is revealed, and communicated. In that way, man and its history, will be God’s revealing time/space per excellence.

The Bible, then, is the “Word of God”: “Word revealed/inspired by the Holy Spirit of God”. It is also “human” word (spoken and/or written), proceeding from men and/or communities, which, taking conscience of being creations of God, revealed “the divine” and confess God as companion of their history and/or protagonist in it. Also, the divine and written revelation –made into Cannon-- is consigned in the Bible; but God continues to create, to communicate his saving designs, to manifest himself in the words and acts of men and in the history of the communities and the people who “reveal” him.

We Christians are men and women of the New Testament (27 books). Nevertheless, the Bible cannon contains the Old Testament (46 books) that deal with the history of a people: Israel. It is worth it for us to ask ourselves now: Why should we study the Old Testament if we are not Jewish, but Christians? . . . if we are no longer in the Old, but in the New Testament? And besides, why study the history of a specific people: the Israel of the Old Testament?

Reading the Old Testament we will verify, in each of its pages, that Israelites are “religious” people. We will understand, then, that they are a people, capable of having daily and permanent “relations” with “their” God, throughout their history. Israel confesses the presence of God in their history; they see their history as a space/time in which God reveals himself; and they see themselves as a country where the saving designs of God happen at the same time that God “reveals” them.

For example, and because of that, when an Israeli or the whole country wishes to know what is the communication, the wish and/or the Word of God, they go to the prophets, --who are for the people, in fact, the transparent, the word (the oracle) of God (of Yahweh). In other words, men and women who have taken conscience of being a creation (called by God “from the womb of their mothers”) “reveal” God when in their lives they realize the “revelation” process explained before.

Because of that, we as Christians read the Old Testament as the history of the people of Israel which is human history but, because of that and at the same time, “saving history”. It is worth bringing up the fact that it is history in which God has revealed --especially through the prophets-- his plan of salvation.

More still, Israel is seen and confessed as the people chosen by God”, “property and nation” of God, “sheep of his flock”. It was Yahweh and “not somebody else”, who “brought them out of Egypt” with His strength and powerful hand; who took them through the desert to the land “of milk and honey”; and who accompanied them --between apparent remembrances and forgotten alliances-- to better times, when the promised and expected Messiah appears.

The Bible - God Speaks and a People Listen and Answer ( Part 3 )

Christians read the Old Testament because in it we find important relationships of continuity and/or context, and of newness/rupture between it and the New Testament.

· Jesus was a Jew, son of Jewish parents, member of a people and part of their customs; knowledgeable of the Scriptures and the Law of his time, attended the synagogue, etc.

· The first Christians, members of the first Christian communities, and authors of the texts of the New Testament were Jewish men and women --very recently converted to “Christianity”. This explains why in the “New Testament” there still appear texts with the “Old Testament” mentality. As an example, we read passages in the New Testament speaking of commandments (in plural), when Jesus spoke of one: love; or when they speak of sins, (also in plural) when Jesus takes sin away, in singular, as a structural situation in the life of a person, which makes him/her commit “sins”, in plural, etc.

• · Even more, Christians confess God --One in Three Persons-- but, besides that, we attribute to him all the characteristics of God as revealed and confessed by the people of Israel in the Old Testament: Creator, Liberator, Holy, Merciful, Just Judge, King, Pilgrim, Our God, Unique, etc.

• · But it is also true that Jesus and his ministry (acts and words) supposes newness, and therefore a rupture with “the traditions of the ancestors”: “Before it was said . . . but now I tell you . . .”

• The “norm, normative, not normalized” for our faith as Christians is Christ and his Gospel; but the new cannot be discovered unless the old is known. We will not discover the “new” --which Jesus brings and his “rupture” with the past-- unless we first know the “order of things” in the Old Testament.

In this “hermeneutical” interest for knowing God better through his written revelation consigned in the Bible, it is also important to know that the Scriptures were known in Israel around the year 1000 B.C. At that time King David made “Scribes” come from Alexandria in Egypt, to put in writing, and in the files, the reach and prosperity of his kingdom.

If this is so, then we must understand that the Biblical writings were always preceded by oral traditions, with all their eventualities and shadings. Also, they were not written, nor did they appear in the chronological order in which we have them “organized” in our Bibles today. Finally, the biblical texts should be read --and lived-- with the same spirit as they were written: from the point of view of faith.

Because, the same way that a love poem is well understood and interpreted by those who have or have had the experience of being in love, the biblical texts are also “love poems” (constructed with historical data and confessions of faith) of men and women of a country --and of the first Christian communities-- who placed “all their confidence in God”. They are well understood, well read, well interpreted and well lived by those who, --as the first people who lived them-- today have the experience of the same faith in the God who communicates though the Bible.

This brings the need to be of the disposition to listen, to dialog, and to accept. With the sight placed in the situation of the person or community that reads the Word; allowing it to interpret, illuminate, and bring God to a deep reality of existence; and so making the Word of God the word of salvation. (MC I – p. 53).

Another aspect, which needs to be kept in mind, for an intelligent reading of the Bible, is the “unity” of the Bible. Christ is the center of all the Bible, so that the Old Testament is prophesy and promise, while the New Testament is the presentation and the explanation of that accomplished event.

On the other hand, we must keep in mind that the truth, which the Bible teaches, is a religious truth not a scientific truth. What the Bible wants to teach us is the great sense and truth of our lives: our salvation in Christ and by Christ. (MC I –p. 52)

The Bible is the history of salvation, but a history in which men are the protagonist with their virtues and miseries, their violence and their evil ways. In that history, and starting with Christ, God manifests his fidelity, his mercy, his purpose to save man in spite of all the sin and evil in the world. This specific point aims the moral teachings of the Bible. (MC I – p. 52).

In all texts, and in a special way in Jesus’ teachings and parables, it is important to know and to keep in mind --besides the religious and historical context-- who are the addressees of the text: their tendencies, their pretensions, and their religious attitudes with Jesus and with the rest of the believers.

The best example for the understanding of this hermeneutic key is, possibly, the reference made in the Gospel according to Luke, in the first two verses of chapter 15. There, Jesus synthesizes and describes very clearly the different attitudes of the two groups always present in the auditorium during his ministry (their acts and their words); to whom he permanently appeals with his teachings.

· All the publicans and sinners would come to Jesus to listen to his teachings, and to receive his forgiveness, his mercy and his healing, and

· The Pharisees and Scribes would gossip, criticize, and would place him to the test (for his compassion with others)

Then, the Bible message gets validity and great importance, in the measure that today –the same as yesterday-- there are men and women with a religious attitude similar to the Scribes and Pharisees (the attitude of the oldest son); or similar to the attitude of publicans and sinners (the attitude of the youngest son) as described in Luke 15.11-31.

Welcoming Archbishop Jose Gomez

On May 27th Archbishop Jose Gomez was welcomed as co coadjutor Archbishop of Los Angeles, the largest Archdiocese in the country, and the most populated by Spanish speaking faithfuls. As Chairman of the Board of Directors, I had the privilege to preside a welcoming breakfast by the Catholic Association of Latino Leaders (CALL). At this occasion I was privileged to present to the newly appointed coadjutor archbishop a crosier, a symbol of the Bishops office.

From Death to Life

If the Jewish Passover is the celebration-remembrance of the historical and heroic deeds that provided the liberation to the Old Testament peoples who were under the power of the Egyptians, the Christian Easter is the celebration-remembrance of another historical moment: Christ’s Resurrection in the life of Christians.

Any happening that is recorded and verifiable in the world of man and that occurred in a determined space/time and had man as its subject is considered a “historical deed”. This is precisely the case of THE RESURRECTION: a recorded happening during a determined space/time, more than 2000 years ago. It occurred in the life of the first men and women –the first Christians— whose lives the “Crucified” changed in such a manner that they went to the courageous evangelization of that kerigma (first announcement) throughout the known world and, because of it, to martyrdom (Acts 2.14ff).

Since the Resurrection happened and it is verified in the transformation of life, to a new life, as repeated so many times by the Apostle Paul about the first Christians (2 Co. 5.17). In other words, it is the new and transformed life of the first Christians caused by the Crucified which gives historical testimony of the living presence of Christ amidst Christians, in his Church and in the world.

Therefore, the Resurrection of Christ is not a literary myth, a fairy tale, a legend, nor a metaphysical deception. On the contrary, the Resurrection of Christ is a historical fact; it is tangible, unquestionable, and verifiable in every man and/or woman; and from the very first days of the Church (and until today) transforms the lives of those who have had an encounter with the Gospel of Christ and the “new man” proposal which it contains. The Resurrection of Christ occurred--and continues occurring--each time a person “renews his/her mind” (Rom 12.2), and configures his/her life following the lifestyle, the principles and the values lived and preached by Christ in the Gospel.

This mind renovation, this new criterion, this new life is what makes it possible for us to go to God “the Father” (Rom 5.5.; Gal 4.6) and to live the same life as Christ, until we are able to say as Paul said: “it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me.” In other words our “life”: is the life of children of God and brothers and sisters to all. Then, happy and confident we can say that we “are no longer slaves, but children” (Gal 4.7), and that to be free Christ gave us freedom (Gal 4.31). Also because of this John says that “We know that we have left death and come over into life; we know it because we love others.” (1 Jn 3.14). On the other hand, if we are not capable of recognizing ourselves as children of God; if we are not capable of loving each other; if the fruits (Mt 7.16) which show in our social life are not good or abundant, then Christ is not resurrected and “your faith is a delusion and you are still lost in your sins” (1 Co 15.17).
Today, Christ’s resurrection has to continue being a historical fact; through the life of Christians, who make Christ present in each space/time, and each change and new situation in human life, it continues as historical celebration.

In other words, what gives testimony of Christ’s Resurrection –which was clearly and abundantly testified by the first Christians and their communal life (Cf Acts 2.42ff and 4.32ff); is the fraternal life of those who do the Father’s will, taught by the Son: That we love one another (Jn 13.14) as God himself loves us. The stories of the empty tomb found in the “reports of the appearances” are, in themselves, beautiful literary pieces to express the most important and fundamental confession of the faith of Christians: Christ continues alive in history, he is not dead, he is risen (Acts 2.32). He is alive and risen as long as there are men and women who valiantly and without fear (Acts 9.28) share the bread (Lk. 24.13ff) and construct peace and forgiveness (Jn 20.29ff) in the joy and justice of the children of God.

To celebrate the Resurrection implies, then, to resurrect each day and always: to return to the permanent conversion and to live-in-Christ the new life as Children of God and brothers and sisters of all men and women. As a result, without this “new-life” life itself is not credible and it would only be a motive for scandal to confess that Christ has risen.

Therefore, to long for and to wish all of you a Happy Easter declares the desire for a new life in Christ in accordance with His Gospel.

“It Was Good”

The story of the Judeo-Christian salvation as consigned in the Bible opens in the book of Genesis, of the Old Testament, with a wonderful statement: “God made every one of them. Then he looked at what he had done, and it was good.” (Gn 1.25) Nevertheless, the obvious tragedy of evil, the overwhelming evidence of suffering, pain, violence, injustice, inequity and death . . . in the world, and experienced in thousand of conflicts: individual, social, international and of the family forces man to ask (from the beginning) for the cause of the messes, the attempts against the original harmony with which God created everything, and created us.

Biblical and Christian interpretation treats this experience, and the cause of evil as “sins” (in plural, in the Old Testament) and as “sin” hamartía (singular in the New Testament). This last interpretation, the one that interests us most, as Christians, as men and women of the New Testament, consists of a structural posture, a fundamental option of the life of man against his compassionate and merciful Creator and Father; against his will, and finally ­against love for the brother (especially for the smallest among us) whom, according to what was revealed by Jesus of Nazareth, we should love in the same manner and proportion to which God loves us. So, if the life in God is life in love, sin and life in sin is life without God, that is, without love; and the terrible manifestations of evil are explained as lack of the love of God, lived by men and women: His creatures, His children. But, on the contrary, all definite change of the experience of evil in the world –from the Christian point of view--comes out of God’s love among men.

In this historical point, passing from modern to post-modern times, the man of today is left blind, without an absolute truth to orient or regulate life. The life of today’s man lapses in the moral relativism of the half truths, of the hidden truths, of the life styles “a-la-carte” according to which nothing is worth anything or everything is worth the same following the practical usefulness things may have for enjoying the here and now. We live every day without the transcendent vision of history, and with the sad perspective of “no future”. Today and the immediate enjoyment is all that counts; and all that is valid and justified with that goal.

In today’s world, the moral relativism, subjectivism and sentiment (against all reason) as a theological interpretation of evil, universal and objective, lost its place because all is allowed to today’s man –especially if it is forbidden-- as long as it provides pleasure. On the other hand are the standings and behaviors of men and women closer to the modernism; these tend to judge everything as evil and a sin, in a very rigorous and scrupulous manner, and in the words of Jesus himself “You strain a fly out of your drink, but swallow a camel!” Lent reminds us that not just anything is sin; but sin does exist: it is the negation to God’s will which asks that we love one another as bothers and sisters, for the construction of a society and world better than the existing one, where we now live and for which we are all responsible.

“The LORD saw how bad the people on earth were . . . He was sorry that he had made them.. .”(Gn 6.5,6) Lent, a strong liturgical time which calls to conversion, is above all, a good time to return to the interpretation of the world and human history under the light of Him from whom hangs and depends our life. For Christ, with Him and in Him, humanity has a new opportunity; and Lent must be a perfect time to go back and look at our lives from the perspective of God, who shows us his love, but at the same time shows us our rejection of His love and the love of our brothers and sisters. Lent is a time in which our sin becomes clear: our falsehood, our lack of meaning, our treasons and fears. Finally, it reveals our lack of faith which is lack of trust in God who has loved us and calls us eternally to his home, to life in Him.

The conversion to which the Word of God and the liturgy of the Catholic Church call us to in the time of Lent, consists of taking into conscience the love of God, manifested in our lives, manifested in all we are and possess and –with it­ the consciousness of our sin as a fundamental standing against the love of God. Lent is a time for sincere repentance; for adjusting our lives to the life which Jesus proposes in his Gospel, and to have absolute confidence in the forgiving love of the Father.

All of this, against a society apparently satisfied, proud, pre-potent, conceited; with science and technical conquests, which instead of bringing us closer to “love one another” has placed walls between us full of sophisticated armaments to kill each other, and very far from the life in the original paradise for which we were created.

Lent is a calling to construct an ethical and moral society. The “amorality” (life without moral norms) and “immorality” (life against all moral principles) of so many travels, these days, through all the paths of life; and opens grooves of violence, blood, death, crisis, war, divisions, hunger, injustice, inequity, misery, etc.

The Christian theological system allows the believer in Christ to always start again, to try anew, to trust the loving Father once more, and to permit him to embrace him/her with His eternal love. The Sacrament of Reconciliation is the experience that the original harmony is always possible; that the broken relationship with God, with our brothers and with nature can be cured forever; and that the kindness of all things loved by God, in the first days of creation, is possible today as well.

I invite you to live this Lent 2010 intensely, as a precious period in which the Catholic Liturgy allows for us to try again, and among ourselves, find the lost paradise which God made “looked. . .and saw that it was good.”