OTHCC Chapter 96: items 1901

The Old Testament in the Heart of the Catholic Church < > All Chapters

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Jesus Christ is the Word of God.

The Bible is the Word of God.

Is this a different Word of God? Jesus Christ is

a.   one person.
b.   two persons.
c.   partly one person and partly another.

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Unlike any other book, when you hear or read the Bible, you receive - in every word of both the Old and New Testaments - a person, Christ himself. That changes everything, of course.

But it also brings up a question: is Christ one single person? Is the Christ you receive in the Bible identical to the Christ you receive in the Holy Eucharist, is he truly the Son of God, and is he the exact same Jesus whose mother is Mary, who lived in Galilee, and who died on the Cross? The Catholic Church is very, very firm on this point: the answer is yes. Christ is one person - not two, not partly one person and partly another. He is one person. <<

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Scholars who study the Bible for a living sometimes make mistakes, and scholars today, even Catholic ones, do not always operate as if the sacraments were real and the New Testament were true. Your own opinions about what the Bible means are

a.   still usually much worse than those of the experts.
b.   usually as good as those of the experts.
c.   usually much better than those of the experts.

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What are the chances that you yourself could find part of the true meaning of the Old Testament that no one had ever found before?

a.   It's possible.
b.   That's impossible.
c.   Zero percent.

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The Old Testament and the New Testament

a.   are completely separate books.
b.   cancel each other out.
c.   reveal the full unity of God's plan.

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The word ''typology'' has a special meaning within the Catholic Church. Typology is

a.   hegemonic privileging of meaning by an oppressor religious culture.
b.   seeing in God's works in the Old Testament a pre-echo of the works of his Son.
c.   the art of trivializing the literal sense of the Old Testament until it vanishes.

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You may not have known what ''hegemonic privileging of meaning by an oppressor religious culture'' means. Actually, including that answer was a kind of inside joke. Some segments of current academic culture actually string together words something like those on a daily basis. The basic charge in those words is that one culture is taking over another culture's words or ideas and giving them a new meaning at the expense of the original meaning, something like one country taking over another country.

Typology is one expression of what the Catholic Church has always done, which is to read the Old Testament in the light of the New, as if the sacraments were real and the New Testament is true. The Church was taught to do this by Jesus Christ himself, since he himself used the Old Testament to refer to himself, and also showed the disciples how the Old Testament referred to himself on the road to Emmaus.

On the other hand, the Holy Father and bishops in communion with him teach plainly that the Old Covenant is not revoked and remains in force. [CCC 121] <<

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Throughout the history of the Church, the evidence affirms that typology is

a.   always done.
b.   always done well.
c.   rarely done.

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Typology, seeing in God's works in the Old Testament a pre-echo of the works of his Son, began being done in the Church

a.   after Roman civilization collapsed.
b.   as early as the time of the apostles.
c.   beginning in the Middle Ages.

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The first person to teach that Jesus was the fulfillment of the Old Testament was

a.   Jesus.
b.   St. Paul.
c.   St. Peter.

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In the Gospel of Luke [Lk 4:16-22], Jesus reads from the book of the prophet Isaiah and says, ''Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.'' On the road to Emmaus, the risen Lord shows the two disciples in detail that he is the fulfillment of the Old Testament: ''And beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.'' [Lk 24:27]

(You need to know that ''Moses'' in Luke's words, ''And beginning with Moses and all the prophets'' here means ''the books of Sacred Scripture written by Moses'' - traditionally, the first five books of the Old Testament. So, what is meant is that Jesus started at the very beginning of the Old Testament and went all the way through.)

The risen Lord himself shows the importance and value of a detailed typological use of the Old Testament. Typology is not something that the Catholic Church made up, and it is not something that she can ever abandon. The Lord himself showed her that she can not truly see him and believe in him unless she sees that the Old Testament achieves the completeness of its meaning in him and in his works. <<

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The historical record shows that typology has been used by Catholics

a.   to justify the oppression of Jews.
b.   unerringly, with no faults or flaws.
c.   with no sinful motives.

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The meaning that the human authors of Sacred Scripture intended to convey, as discovered by scholarship and as clarified and corrected in the light provided by the Holy Spirit working in and through the sacraments, is called the

a.   allegorical sense.
b.   literal sense.
c.   spiritual sense.

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''All other senses of Sacred Scripture are based on the literal.'' [CCC 116, quoting St. Thomas Aquinas.] This means that

a.   every passage in Scripture must be taken literally.
b.   the literal sense of a passage can be ignored.
c.   the literal sense of a passage is always true.

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The historical record shows that when Catholics use typology to find the meaning of the Old Testament, they

a.   always base their typology on the literal sense.
b.   at times trivialize or evade the literal sense.
c.   never base their typology on the literal sense.

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If it could ever be shown that Catholics used typology in a mistaken way,

a.   our weakness would once again demonstrate that Christ himself must continue to protect the true meaning of the Bible.
b.   that would mean that typology is a fundamentally erroneous way to understand the Old Testament and should never be used.
c.   that would mean that all typological meanings ever discerned in the Old Testament are false or at least highly suspect.

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If it could ever be shown that Catholics used typology in a truly sinful way,

a.   our weakness would once again demonstrate that Christ himself must continue to protect the true meaning of the Bible.
b.   that would mean that typology is a fundamentally erroneous way to understand the Old Testament and should never be used.
c.   that would mean that all typological meanings ever discerned in the Old Testament are false or at least highly suspect.

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Typology is seeing in God's works in the Old Testament a pre-echo (prefigurement) of the works of his Son. Since you already know that a Catholic bishop, Catholic priests, and Catholic theology professors caused an extraordinary, brave, and utterly faithful nineteen-year-old girl, St. Joan of Arc, to be burned at the stake as a heretic, it won't surprise you to learn that typology has not always been done well. At times Catholics have used typology to oppress the Jews and to trivialize the literal sense of the Old Testament.

Catholics do not look at bishops and popes as if they were better than other mere men. They look at our Lord, and how he has promised to be with his one-and-only Bride, his very Body, the Catholic Church, forever. He will never mislead her. Finding typological meanings in the Old Testament is something the Church must do, and she does do it perfectly, but of course, only perfectly within the sacraments.

So don't believe in typology to see that the sacraments are real. Believe that the sacraments are real, to understand that beginning with the apostles themselves, the Catholic Church saw typological meanings in the great saving events of the Old Testament, such as the Passover, the call of Abraham, the sacrifice of Isaac.

Actually, that is a little white lie. It didn't start with the apostles. Jesus himself used typological meanings. He himself said that the Scriptures had been fulfilled in him. And, on the road to Emmaus, it was the risen Lord himself who showed the disciples the typological meaning of what we now call the Old Testament.

Yes, interpreting the meaning of the Old Testament through typology has been done poorly by Catholics. It has even been done sinfully by Catholics. Yet the Catholic Church can do no other than to use typology to understand the true, full meaning of the Old Testament. For typology is nothing but seeing Christ as the complete fulfillment of the Old Testament, and Christ himself taught his Church to do this.

Man is not done finding meaning in the Old Testament, whose meaning is ''inexhaustible.'' [CCC 129] Thus (however you protest), there is a chance that you yourself will one day find part of that meaning, including its typological meaning. Yet man continually needs the help of the definitive judgments of the Pope and bishops united with him to give man what he needs to study the truth of the Bible. And man gets just that. You can be certain that the typological meanings of the Old Testament professed in the Catechism and in other solemn teachings of the Catholic Church, and those expressed in her worship, are true and absolutely reliable.

Once again, it comes down to the question: are the sacraments real? Everything changes, if they are. <<

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The books

Joshua
Judges
(Ruth)
First and Second Samuel
First and Second Kings

are grouped together in the Catholic Old Testament. (The story of Ruth is included probably because it begins, ''In the days when the judges ruled...''). In relation to the Psalms, this unit of the Old Testament occurs

a.   before the Psalms.
b.   after the Psalms.

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Genesis Exodus Leviticus Numbers Deuteronomy || Joshua Judges Ruth 1 Samuel 2 Samuel 1 Kings 2 Kings || 1 Chronicles 2 Chronicles Ezra Nehemiah || >> Tobit* << Judith* Esther 1 Maccabees* 2 Maccabees* Job

Psalms

Proverbs Ecclesiastes Song of Songs Wisdom* Sirach* || Isaiah Jeremiah Lamentations Baruch* Ezekiel Daniel || Hosea Joel Amos Obadiah Jonah Micah Nahum Habakkuk Zephaniah Haggai Zechariah Malachi

The Old Testament books with a star * are not any more or less important than the others. The star indicates that the Catholic Church definitively professes and knows these books to be part of the sacred writings, the inspired Word of God [cf. CCC 120], but that they are specifically rejected by the Jewish people, and called ''apocryphal'' (of doubtful inspiration) by Protestants.

Most scholars consider the book of Tobit to be a story, not a historical account. Tobit is a faithful Jew living among pagans. Read Tob 1:1-3. Read Tob 1:5-6. Read Tob 1:16-17. The book of Tobit teaches that faithfulness to God includes

a.   giving money to the poor.
b.   restoring the Ark of the Covenant.
c.   vengeance toward enemies.

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