This four part series is based on the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church
By DeLisle Callender & Ivo Corazza
The Old Testament
The Roman Catholic Church accepts and venerates as inspired
the 46 books of the Old Testament. When
the Church reads the Old Testament, she searches there for what the Spirit, “who
has spoken through the prophets,” wants to tell us about the coming of the
Messiah.[1]
The Old Testament tells the story of God’s creation and His
self-revelation to Noah, then to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and then to Moses
and the people of Israel. Through the
Israelites, God demonstrated His power to save His chosen people from the worst
of situations beginning with the Exodus and reaching its fulfillment in Jesus
Christ, “But when
the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under
the law.”[2]
In the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Jewish and
Christian Bible, God created mankind in His image and likeness[3],
endowed him with faculties beyond all other creatures, and infused him with
intellectual instincts, free will, and reasoning. God gave mankind dominion over everything[4]
and mankind lived in friendship and harmony with God, all living things, nature
and himself – the Garden of Eden. Man was
created in a state of holiness and original justice to share in the Divine Life.
God gave mankind one restriction, “You are free to eat from any of the trees of the garden
except the tree of knowledge of good and evil. From that tree you shall not eat; when you eat
from it you shall die. '[5] Mankind disobeyed God and broke the intimate
relationship he had with God. But God
immediately started the process of preparing mankind for reconciliation that
would take two millennia to complete. He
said to the evil one who tempted mankind, “I will
put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; They
will strike at your head, while you strike at their heel.”[6]
From a theological perspective, ten generations passed from
Adam to Noah to whom God revealed himself and made a covenant. As a result of man’s evil behavior and
disobedience, God sent a flood to wipe out everyone except Noah and his family
who were righteous and obedient to God.[7]
From Noah’s three sons, Ham, Shem, and Japheth are descended
the seventy nations of the civilized world.
These nations all spoke the same language and disobeyed God. They tried to build a city “and a tower with its
top in the sky” to make a name for themselves.[8] This displeased God and He “scattered them
from there over all the earth.”[9]
From a theological perspective, ten generations passed from
Noah to Abram (Abraham). God selected
Abraham and his wife Sarai (Sarah), who was barren, and made a covenant with
him. God said to Abram (Abraham), “Go forth from your
land, your relatives, and from your father’s house to a land that I will show
you. I will make of you a great nation,
and I will bless you; I will make your name great, so that you will be a
blessing. I will bless those who bless
you and curse those who curse you. All the families of the earth will find blessing
in you.”[10].
The Catechism tells us that in order to gather together
scattered humanity, God called Abram from his country, his kindred, and his
father’s house, and changed his name to Abraham which means, “the father of a
multitude of nations.” God said to Abraham, “In you all the nations of the earth shall be
blessed.”[11]
God chose Abraham because of his unique righteousness and
obedience.[12] He was to become the first progenitor of His
people, the first of the three major patriarchs (Abraham, Isaac and Jacob
[renamed Israel by God]). Abram was
obedient to God’s instruction and, at the age of seventy-five years, “Went as the Lord
directed him.”[13] This was in contrast to Adam who disobeyed
God, [14]
even though God had granted him a nature that exceeded that of all other
creatures. As a result, man’s
relationship with God was damaged although God did not completely break off His
relationship with, and His self-revelation to, man.[15]
“The people that descended from Abraham would be the
trustees of the promise made to the patriarchs, the chosen people, called to
prepare for that day when God would gather all his children into the unity of
the Church.”[16] Abraham’s grandson Jacob, one of the
Patriarchs, became the father of twelve sons who, with their progeny, became
the twelve tribes of Israel.[17]
One of Jacob’s sons, Joseph, was sold into slavery in Egypt
by his brothers. Through God’s divine
plan Pharaoh placed him in charge of all of the people and land in Egypt.[18] As a result of a severe famine, Joseph’s
father, brothers and their families went down to Egypt in search of grain and
were reconciled with Joseph. They
settled in Egypt.[19]
As time passed, what Joseph had done for Egypt was forgotten and the Hebrews
were subjected to hard labor. The Hebrew
midwives were ordered by Pharaoh to kill all the male children[20]
and God commissioned Moses to lead the Hebrews out of Egypt to their own land.[21] The Hebrews dwelled in Egypt for 430 years.[22]
After the Hebrews were freed from slavery in Egypt, they
entered into a covenant with God to be His people and to be shaped by the Ten
Commandments and other laws.[23] However, the Hebrews would prove to be a
stubborn and rebellious people, rejecting God many times in their history. God would also say of them, “I have seen this
people, how stiff-necked they are.”[24] Time and again through the centuries God sent
the prophets to plead with the Israelites to return to Him but they would not
listen.
God revealed Himself to man and man developed rituals and
precepts as an act of worship and love of God.[25] More rituals and precepts were added
throughout the centuries as the Israelites developed a theology based on God’s
self-revelation, but the rituals and precepts were not always added to foster a
deeper relationship with God. In the
Book of Isaiah God said, “This people draws near with words only and honors me with
their lips alone, though their hearts are far from me, And fear of me has
become mere precept of human teaching.”[26]
God told the Israelites to be obedient to Him. He led the them from the oppression of
slavery in Egypt and established them as the people through whom he would
reveal Himself to mankind. After they
reached the Promised Land, they were led by a series of Judges and after the
Judges, God anointed prophets to guide them.
They demanded a king like the other nations and God allowed them to have
Saul as the first King of Israel.[27] King Saul was followed by David around the
year 1,000 B.C. who made Jerusalem the capital and brought together the twelve
tribes that formed the kingdom of Israel.
David was followed by Solomon who further consolidated the twelve tribes
and built a Temple for the Israelites to worship God.[28]
Upon Solomon’s death in 933 B.C., the kingdom split in two.[29] In the South were the two tribes named Judah
and Benjamin with Jerusalem as the capital, and the temple. In the North were the other 10 tribes that
formed Israel with Samaria as the capital.
Israel in the North was not faithful to the Davidic Dynasty and began to
follow some of the Canaanite religions and deities.
Around the year 721 B.C., the Northern Kingdom Israel was
captured by the Assyrians and some of the ten tribes were scattered among other countries to the North
of Israel leaving a remnant behind in the Northern Kingdom.[30]
The leader of Assyria then brought in 5 kings from other nations and
mixed them in with the remnant of Israel in Samaria.[31] The Jewish religion and customs were
adulterated with the customs and religions of their captors.[32] This
mixed group of people became the Samaritans.
The Southern Kingdom Judah was captured around the year 608
B.C. and most of the people were deported to Babylon[33]
where they remained in exile for approximately 70 years until the year 538
B.C. The exile finally ended when the
Persian conqueror of Babylon, Cyrus the Great, gave the Jews permission to
return to Palestine.[34] Several deportations took place; not all Jews
chose to leave, some returned to their homeland and others dispersed to other
lands, thus constituting the first of numerous Jewish communities living
permanently in the Diaspora.[35]
The Greeks and Romans then took turns in dominating the
Middle East. In the year 333 B.C.,
Alexander conquered the Middle East and Greek language and culture took
root. In the year 167 B.C., King
Antiochus tried to force the Jews to renounce their faith and this gave rise to
the Maccabees and the Israelite Martyrs.
In the year 63 B.C. Rome dominated the Middle East with Herod as king of
Israel from 40 B.C. to 4 B.C.[36]
[1] Catechism
of the Catholic Church. para.702
[2] Gal. 4:4
[3] Gen. 1:26
[4] Gen. 1:27-28
[5] Gen. 2:16-17
[6] Gen. 3:15
[7] Gen. 6:7-22
[8] Gen. 11:4
[9] Gen. 11:8
[10] Gen. 12:1-3
[11] Catechism
of the Catholic Church. para.59
[12] Gen. 12:4
[13] Gen. 12:4
[14] Gen. Chap. 3
[15] Gen. 3:15
[16] Catechism
of the Catholic Church. para. 60
[17] Gen. 49:28
[18] Gen. 41:39-46
[19] Gen Chapters 42 to 47
[20] Ex. Chapter 1
[21] Ex. Chapter 3
[22] Ex. 12:40-41
[23] Ex Chapter 24
[24] Ex. 32:9
[25] Charpentier,
E. (1993) How to read the Old Testament
(p. 20) New York, NY: (The Crossroad Publishing Company
[26] Is. 29:13
[27] 1 Sam. Chapters 8 & 9
[28] Charpentier,
E. (1993) How to read the Old Testament
(p. 22) New York, NY: (The Crossroad Publishing Company
[29] 1 Kings Chapters 11 &
12
[30] 2 Kings 17:6
[31] 2 Kings 17:24
[32] 2 Kings 17:41
[33] 2 Kings 24:12-17
[34] Ezra 5:13
[35] Charpentier,
E. (1993). How to Read the Old Testament (pp. 22-23). New York, NY: The
Crossroad Publishing Company
[36] Charpentier,
E. (1993) How to read the Old Testament
(p. 23) New York, NY: (The Crossroad Publishing Company
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