{"id":5078,"date":"2017-03-12T10:00:32","date_gmt":"2017-03-12T14:00:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/?p=5078"},"modified":"2017-03-06T15:05:06","modified_gmt":"2017-03-06T20:05:06","slug":"gaining-a-deeper-understanding-of-the-new-testament-20170312","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/?p=5078","title":{"rendered":"Gaining a Deeper Understanding of the New Testament — 20170312"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>I have been sharing thoughts about the Gospel of Mark, considered the first of the Gospels that was formulated from oral and written traditions. We know that both Matthew and Luke based much of their narratives on the Gospel of Mark, although they composed them for particular audiences.<\/p>\n

When Mark composes the narrative of Jesus\u2019 death, he makes use of a range of Scriptures that depict God\u2019s righteous servant put to death by evil forces. First and foremost, he interprets Jesus\u2019 death through the lens of Isaiah\u2019s \u201cSuffering Servant\u201d. In certain passages known as \u201cthe Songs of the Suffering Servant\u201d (Isaiah 42:1-4, 49:1-7, 50:4-11, 52:13-53:12). Isaiah draws a portrait of God\u2019s faithful servant who is tortured, mocked and killed by the obtuse kings of the world, who do not understand the identity of the one whom they are killing. They also are slow to understand that his death atones for their sins and that after death he will be raised up and exalted by God. (One thing you might do during the Great Fast is pick up your bible and look up these passages in Isaiah<\/em>).<\/p>\n

Mark, who was a practicing Jew, also draws on similar patterns in the Psalms. And he surely had in mind the opening of the Wisdom of Solomon, where \u201cgodless men\u201d put \u201cthe righteous one\u201d to death because his goodness truly makes their lives uncomfortable and because \u201che styles himself a child of the Lord\u201d (Wisdom 2:13) and \u201cboasts that God is his Father\u201d (Wisdom 2:16). In this work, the righteous one is not only exalted by God but given immortality as well (Wisdom 2:23).<\/p>\n

In general, the most significant background comes from the Wisdom writings. In Catholic tradition, there are seven Jewish Wisdom writings: Proverbs, Psalms, Job, Ecclesiastes, the Song of Songs, Sirach and the Wisdom of Solomon (Protestant tradition does not include these same writings nor does the Jewish Bible). Each of these works is distinct, yet they share certain significant things in common. They are all set in domestic situations and everyday life. Many of them use a pithy, aphoristic style of speech. They are all focused on how to live a wise and holy life. They all agree that \u201cfear of the Lord\u201d [in the sense of holy awe] is the beginning of wisdom\u201d. Most important, they of them (i.e., Proverbs, Sirach and the Wisdom of Solomon) imagine God\u2019s Wisdom as a personified attribute that walks on earth and dwells among human beings. Is this not Who Jesus is?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have been sharing thoughts about the Gospel of Mark, considered the first of the Gospels that was formulated from oral and written traditions. We know that both Matthew and Luke based much of their narratives on the Gospel of … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5078","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-a-look-at-the-new-testament"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5078","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5078"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5078\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5079,"href":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5078\/revisions\/5079"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5078"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5078"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5078"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}