Back to the Word again

Bishop Richard J. Sklba in the "Herald of Hope" column in our our Catholic Herald returns to reviewing the recent Chicago meeting of the Catholic Biblical Association.

Last month, I noted that for many years I have been an active participant in the continuing seminar on biblical issues associated with Jewish/Christian relations. This year our entire group decided to join the seminar on "typology," namely the patterns of salvation which Christians find in the books and stories of the First (Old) Testament.

"Old" Testament being problematic as an implied endorsement of the "New" Testament. But "First", well, who's to say how many there might be after a "Second". For example,

As guests overhearing someone else’s discussion, we found ourselves listening carefully to the presentation of papers which celebrated the great themes of our Christian faith as found in the stories of that First Covenant.

There's more on the vocabulary front.

This is the way that our early Christian writers (we call them the "Fathers" of the Church) tested and studied the sacred writings of Israel.

But back to the "Bible".

Certainly it is true that the New Testament is hidden in the Old (Shared), and the Old prefigured in the New!

How about the First (Old) [Shared] Testament? I suppose "Unshared Testament" for the New would sound anti-ecumenical.

There is an energetic movement these days to return to the writings of the Fathers.

It will need to be energetic, considering he assumed he had to explain who they were to his readers, rather than giving the link to the online edition.

Those great figures often gave us superb theology and were classical models of the engagement of faith with the greater culture of their age, but they didn't always provide solid examples for the study of Scripture!

On the other hand, some might think our Barth is worse than their bite.