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Questions and Answers - 4

Why is Epiphany celebrated on January 6?

Epiphany is a special festival in the church year that is celebrated on January 6. The word "epiphany" is from the Greek language, and it means "manifestation" or "showing." In the first two centuries after the time of Jesus, many Christians spoke Greek. Epiphany was established as a church festival about two hundred years after the death of Jesus by these Greek-speaking Christians, so a Greek word was used to name the festival. The Greek-speaking Christians who established the festival of Epiphany were living in the area where today we find the countries of Turkey, Syria and Iraq. In this area two hundred years after the time of Jesus, the winter solstice (the shortest day of the year) occurred on January 6 in the Alexandrian calendar used by the Greek-speaking people. So Epiphany was celebrated on that day, because it marks the end of darker days and the beginning of brighter days.

A hundred years later in Rome, Christmas was first celebrated on December 25, because in the Julian calendar of the Romans that was the day of the winter solstice. When the church in Rome began to celebrate both Christmas and Epiphany, it kept Christmas on December 25 and Epiphany on January 6, the traditional night of New Year festivities for the pagans. Thus January 6 becomes the 12th night of the Christmas season, so we have songs like "The Twelve Days of Christmas."

What are the gifts of the wise men to the newborn Jesus?

The story of the three wise men is in the gospel of Matthew, which was traditionally read in the church on January 6, the festival of Epiphany. In the story these men come from the East following a bright star to bring gifts for a child born to be king of the Jews. The story tells us that these seekers brought gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Gold is a gift fit for a king, and it signifies that Jesus is a king. Frankincense is an incense that was burned in the temple in Jerusalem by the priests. As a gift, it signifies that Jesus helps us relate to God, which is what the priests were charged with doing in the temple. And myrrh is a spice used in those days in preparing for burial the bodies of those who had died. The gift of myrrh signifies that Jesus will bring us closer to God through his death.

The story of the wise men reminds us that not only the people of Bethlehem or Nazareth or even Jerusalem will be affected by the life of the child born to Mary and Joseph, but also people from far away. In fact, we are among those people, because we are far away from where Jesus was born. We don't speak the language he spoke, nor do we live in a world like his world. Perhaps that's why we enjoy the story of the wise men.

Where does John the Baptist call Jesus "the lamb of God?"

All the New Testament gospels relate the story of John the Baptist, but only the gospel of John reports that John the Baptist identified Jesus as "the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world." (Jn. 1:29) Exodus 12 relates that God told Moses and Aaron to have the Israelites sacrifice a lamb without blemish and mark their door posts with its blood, so they would be protected from the plague God visited upon the Egyptians. The Jewish feast of Passover celebrates this act of God's love for his people, and the gospel of John affirms that Jesus is the Passover lamb to be sacrificed for the salvation of the world.

In the gospel of John, Jesus does not eat the Passover supper with his disciples, because he is arrested the night before Passover begins. For the church of the author of the gospel of John, Jesus is the Passover lamb. His flesh and his blood are given for the whole world, and the Eucharist becomes the celebration of God's love for those who are faithful.

Is Ecclesiasticus in the Christian Bible?

Ecclesiasticus, or the Wisdom of Jesus the Son of Sirach, was originally written in Hebrew in the early part of the second century BCE. About 132 BCE, the prologue tells us, it was translated into Greek. The Greek text was included in the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible, and thus was among the writings that Paul and other Greek-speaking Christians read as "scripture" and was included in the Greek and Latin Bibles of the church. Ecclesiasticus was not, however, included in the Hebrew Bible after the end of the first century CE, when the rabbis closed the Hebrew canon. Therefore, the Protestant reformers did not include it in the Old Testament they translated into their own languages. They used the canonized Hebrew Bible as the basis for their translations. This is why Ecclesiasticus does not appear in Protestant Bibles today, but is in Roman Catholic Bibles.

Who was Jeremiah?

Jeremiah was a descendant of the priest Abiathar, who Solomon had banished from the temple. The prophecies of Jeremiah begin in 627 BCE and end sometime after 580 BCE. Jeremiah may have been among the exiles from Jerusalem taken to Egypt after the Babylonians conquered the city of David in 587 BCE. The twentieth chapter was dictated by Jeremiah to Baruch, his scribe, during the reign of Josiah, after Jeremiah had been beaten and imprisoned for prophesying the destruction of Jerusalem because of the idolatry of the Israelites. The Hebrew text of Jeremiah, from which the English version in the Protestant Bible is taken, differs from the Greek text (Septuagint) both in content and order. Even more surprising, different editions of Jeremiah were discovered among the scrolls at Qumran. This suggests that at least some of the scrolls of the Old Testament were read in alternative forms as late as the time of Jesus.

Did Jesus ride one or two animals into Jerusalem?

In the gospels of Mark, Luke and John, Jesus rides into Jerusalem on a colt of an ass, but in the gospel of Matthew he is seated on an ass and its colt. All four gospels take the image from Zechariah 9:9, which describes a king riding into Jerusalem "on an ass, on a colt the foal of an ass." The second part of the phrase is not actually identifying a second animal, as this does not make any sense, but is merely a poetic repetition. But the gospel of Matthew takes the text literally, perhaps because the author is much more literate in Greek than in Hebrew. These differences in understanding reveal that the other gospel authors felt free to interpret scripture in the way that made sense to them and that the author of Matthew, in taking scripture literally, is also "interpreting" it.

In which gospel does the risen Jesus appear on the road to Emmaus?

Only the gospel of Luke (24:13-35) relates the story of the resurrection appearance of Jesus to two disciples on the road to Emmaus. It is not likely, therefore, that this story comes from the earliest period of the church at the time Paul was writing his letters. In the story of the gospel of Mark the women flee from the empty tomb but are too frightened to tell anyone what they have seen. The gospels of Matthew and Luke incorporate most of the gospel of Mark into their narratives, but each author finds the ending of the gospel of Mark unsatisfactory and so writes a new gospel conclusion.

Just before telling the story of the disciples on the road to Emmaus, the gospel of Luke has related that the disciples did not believe the women returning from the tomb when they described what they had seen. The Emmaus story, and the resurrection appearance that follows in Jerusalem, are evidence that complete the passion narrative and point to the beginning of the Acts of the Apostles, the sequel written by the author of the gospel of Luke. Even as Jesus presents the Jewish scriptures in a way that inspired the disciples, the author of the gospel of Luke presents in a compelling manner the story of Jesus and the apostles of the early church.

The resurrection appearance of Jesus on the road to Emmaus points beyond itself to the church as the body of Christ, the real evidence of the resurrection. The truth of the resurrection is in the life of faith we live.

Which gospel contains the statement, "In my Father's house there are many dwelling places"?

This well-known statement comes early in the lengthy teaching of John 14 (verse 2), which reports a conversation between Jesus and his disciples immediately before his arrest. The teaching of John 14 is not included in any of the other three New Testament gospels, and most likely reflects the theology of the gospel author and his church. In the first century it was accepted practice to attribute ideas to a great teacher that seem to follow from his principles. (After all, why should a "lesser" thinker claim these as his own?) Here the author of the gospel of John does this by telling a story in which Jesus gives voice to the author's understanding of subsequent church doctrine.

The community that read the gospel of John three centuries before it was included in the canon of the Christian Bible (with other gospels that had similarly served other churches) affirmed that faith in Jesus, as the Son of God, assured one of a place, after death, in the household of God. When the the gospel of John was included in the New Testament, the perspective of this gospel became the teaching of all churches. And so words that first inspired a small group of Christians in the Middle East almost two thousand years ago have, through the centuries, helped extend the church around the world and been a source of strength and comfort for many millions of Christians.

What does "Jacob's ladder" refer to?

"We are climbing Jacob's ladder," the old spiritual goes. This refers to the story in Genesis 28:10-22. Jacob has stolen his brother's rightful blessing from his father, Isaac, and so his mother, Rebecca, sends him away to her brother Laban's home in Haran near the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, to protect Jacob from the wrath of his brother, Esau. As Jacob sleeps, he sees a ladder reaching from earth to heaven and angels descending and ascending it. Then the LORD appears and renews the promise given to Abraham of land and descendants. God also promises to be with Jacob, wherever he might go.

Jacob names the place "bethel" meaning "house of God." Some Christians think of "Jacob's ladder" as carrying them from earth to heaven after they die, so they can be with Jesus in God's heavenly home. In their song Christians added "Soldiers of the cross" to the story of Jacob's ladder and verses about loving and serving God. Surely it is by loving and serving God that we may hope to be with God after death. But the main point of the story in Genesis is that God intends to accomplish his purposes on earth. The angels are ascending Jacob's ladder, but they are also descending the ladder to enter the world in order to redeem it. The dream calls Joseph to trust in God's call to humanity, and the story of the dream similarly calls forth in us the same kind of humble faith.

Which gospel reports a resurrection appearance in Galilee?

This resurrection appearance is only reported in the Matthew 28:16-20. Paul writes that the risen Christ appeared to "the twelve" apparently meaning the former disciples, but he does not say whether this was in Galilee, as in the gospel of Matthew, or in Jerusalem, as in the gospel of Luke. The gospel of John reports a resurrection appearance in Galilee, by the Sea of Tiberias, but it is very different than this one and not all the disciples are present. So, it is hard to see these reports as variations of the same memories.

The gospel of John was written for a Greek-speaking Jewish Christian congregation. Rather than seeing Jesus as the fulfillment of Jewish prophecy, it presents Jesus as the sacrificial lamb who in the Eucharist offers eternal life. It begins with the Word being made flesh, then affirms that the flesh and blood of Jesus is saving, and ends with a story of the risen Lord eating with his disciples and telling Peter, "Feed my sheep." In the gospel of John Jesus is crucified on Passover, whereas in the other three New Testament gospels Jesus is crucified the day after Passover. In John's testimony Jesus is the Passover lamb of God, and we come to eternal life by taking his sacrifice into ourselves in the Eucharist.

Is there more than one version of the Book of Daniel?

Yes. Daniel 3:51-90 is not in Protestant Bibles, but these verses are in Catholic Bibles. How can that be? The Protestant Bible uses the Hebrew scriptures authorized by the rabbis at the beginning of the second century CE as the basis for translating the Old Testament into English and other contemporary languages. The Catholic Bible uses the Old Testament that was used in the church (first in Greek and then in Latin) for 1500 years, and this version of the Old Testament relied on the Greek version of the Hebrew scriptures (called the Septuagint) that was used by Paul and the first Greek-speaking churches.

At the time of Jesus and Paul some of the books of the Hebrew Bible were circulating among Jews in different editions. There were at least two versions of Jeremiah, one much longer than the other, and the book of Daniel was longer in the Greek version than in the Hebrew version. This does not necessarily change the general meaning of these books, but it does remind us that they were written by human beings and not simply dictated by God. To say, therefore, that the Bible is the literal word of God is to ignore the obvious fact that there is more than one version of the Bible. Christian faith affirms that all these versions of the Bible reveal the word of God, but as they contain (literally) different words it is misleading to claim that the Bible is the literal word of God.

Who is Ezekiel?

Ezekiel was a priest whose ministry extended from 593 to about 563 BCE. Jerusalem was captured and destroyed in 587 BCE by the Babylonians, and the prophet warns of this catastrophe and then afterwards offers words of hope to his captured and exiled people. Ezekiel has a powerful vision of God and hears a voice calling him to speak to his people. Then the Spirit of God enters into him, and he becomes a medium for the words of God.

Perhaps Ezekiel actually heard words, but the God who spoke through the prophets was soon to grow silent. After the exile, there were no longer seers who heard the words of God. With the end of prophecy came a time of reflection and wisdom in the life of Israel. In the Hebrew Bible this time marks the end of the story. In the Hebrew Bible the prophets are placed before the wisdom literature, but in the Christian Bible the prophets are placed after the wisdom books and proverbial sayings. Christian faith affirms that the prophets point to Jesus the Christ, and to make that clear the church rearranged the books of the Jewish Bible when they were included in the Christian Bible as the Old Testament.

Who is Zephaniah?

The prophet, Zephaniah, traces his ancestry back to Hezekiah, king of Judah (715-687 BCE), and dates his ministry in the reign of Josiah (640-609 BCE). He writes from within the court of the king of Judah, but he vehemently attacks the corruption of the priests of the temple and other officials in Jerusalem. Despite their lack of faith, the prophet proclaims, God will not abandon the Israelites, but will renew their life and their holy city.

What are the names of the disciples of Jesus?

When Jesus sends out the disciples to heal and cast out demons (Mt. 9:36-10:8), we learn their names: Simon (Peter), Andrew, James and John, Philip and Bartholomew, Thomas and Matthew, James (the son of Alphaeus), Thaddaeus, Simon (the Caananaean), and Judas Iscariot. The gospel of Mark has the same list, but the gospel of Luke omits Thaddaeus and instead lists "Judas the son of James." (Lk. 6:16) As the gospels of Matthew and Luke use most of the gospel of Mark, it seems that the author of the gospel of Luke is correcting the list that the gospels of Mark and Matthew take to be accurate. There is no list of disciples in the gospel of John, but Andrew, Philip, Simon (Peter) and Nathaniel are mentioned in the first two chapters, Judas Iscariot betrays Jesus, and Thomas plays an important role at the end of the story. The names of James, Bartholomew and Thaddaeus do not appear in the gospel of John, and none of the disciples in the fourth gospel is called John by name.

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