Author: ddelavega

I would say that Paul was one of the most explicit evangelists, traveling around Jerusalem mostly to perform missionary work, he has remained one of the most venerated saints in both the Catholic and Orthodox Church. Often times, they are shown in icons embracing each other as a symbol for our longing of a brotherly reunification. Paul wrote many epistles, most of which remain as the dogmatic center the liturgical and extra-liturgical roles of deacons priests and bishops. He has also received much criticism from rabbinic perspectives for his role as the “Apostle to the Gentiles,” who was an “antinomian to his teacher Gamaliel.” according to Daniel Langton’s Paul in Jewish Thought. Paul is also critiqued by some muslim scholars as he is generally attributed with corrupting the original teachings of Jesus and takes on the Islamic representation of a gentile.

There are four canonical gospels of the New Testament: Matthew, Mark, and Luke (synoptic gospels) and then the gospel according to John. They all tell different accounts of the birth, life, death, and the ressurection of Christ, God incarnate. These writings all have unique elements but many have what is called “Gospel Harmony,” a word for word similarity between two or more gospels. When three gospels line up, this can be referred to as “Triple Tradition,” i.e. a three way redundancy which exists primarily in the synoptic gospels. It has been under much debate as to how the “Q” source developed and for good reason, the interconnectedness of the gospels in a way determines the credibility of them as historical documents.

The actually act of figuring out the connectedness of the gospels is quite complicated, thousands of hours of parallel comparisons, and then the contexts of each must be compared to ensure that those comparisons actually have theological weight. Also, there are some linguistic differences that Biblical scholars have to look out for considering translations frequently have elements of speech from different time periods.

Since Christ was not just fully divine, He was also fully man that is, to take on a true flesh and soul. Christ’s mother Mary bore Him in the presence of Joseph and the Shepards and animals thereof. In the Icons, the nativity is often depicted in a cave with the three Magi, Joseph, and the Mother of God herself, often resting gracefully after the birth itself. As far as the monastic charter is concerned, many Orthodox fast (you’re essentially vegan) for forty days prior to Christmas in spiritual preparation for the feast day.

If you don’t know, historically accurate St. Nicholas is better than whatever consumerist abomination “Santa Claus” is. St. Nicholas was born in Myra, Greece and was ordained as a priest by his uncle who at that time was the residing bishop. Upon his ordination, he frequently distributed wealth to the poor, his legendary philanthropy is what attributed him to great generosity. The story he is most well known for is the time he was able to pay off the dowries of three women so that they could marry, not marrying would’ve most likely meant a reliance on prostitution. He then (but many scholars continue to debate this) attended the council of Nicaea in 325 where he slapped Arius out of his great love for the truth. Arius was proposing the Aryanism heresy which proposed Christ as a subordinate to God The Father. In short, tell you’re family about real St. Nicholas slapping heretics as you sit around the fireplace, happy holidays!

The psalms were written by King David and his contemporaries throughout Israel as God continues to interact with the ancient Judean people. They are constructed with meter to be sung and chanted, and they are written with poetic form. Many are incredibly prophetic of the New Testament, others are great repetitive prayers, and some were written with praise of God as its purpose. Psalm 50 in the Septuagint is of particular importance to the Orthodox Church as it is the only psalm which is recited in its entirety during the Divine Liturgy. It is recited by the priest during the Cherubic Hymn as he prepares for the holy oblation, this is prior to the Epiclesis in which the priest blesses the gifts for them to become the body and blood of Christ. This psalm was written by David after his encounter with Bathsheba whom he had and affair with, he asks the lord for forgiveness repeatedly for the sake of repentance.

Suffering happens to all of us, some of us suffer continuously, many even suffer for no reason. Now obviously something isn’t right here, how could an all-loving God let so much suffering happen to people who in no way deserve it? This is an exceptionally complicated problem, something no person could ever truly and completely understand, but suffering is often a symbol of true grace and can be used as a very powerful tool for repentance. Suffering is naturally occurring which means there is virtually no way around it, yes it can be delayed through engaging in vanity or “worldly pleasures” as many of the church fathers tell us. We see Job, he is a triumph of humility in the face of suffering and uses his suffering as a means of repentance, constantly turning away (the word for repentance in Hebrew means to turn) from evil and not losing sight of the will of God. I believe suffering happens to people who don’t deserve it is because God is perfectly aware of what one is able to handle, to push someone beyond their ability out of great love is what I think the Lord truly wants for us. It is imperative that we do not see suffering as a negative occurrence like much of the West has conditioned us to think. Suffering in and of itself is a test of our will to match God’s, a necessity for spiritual growth and to change one’s heart to something that serves beyond themselves.

Gale A. Yee, a professor of biblical studies emerita at Episcopal Divinity School proposes the idea that “In order to become prophets ourselves, to critique the unrelenting drive for profits in capitalism and recover the positive ethics of tribal living, we must become educated in the systemic structures of the U.S. economy and of capitalism itself, and then through our God-given gifts, strive to create a more equitable, just society.” I certainly do not agree with this as it deviates from what I believe is the true path outlined by the Church. In her article, she relates King Solomon’s   monarchy to Panem from “The Hunger Games” since it is divided into 12 states with a central body receiving the bulk of the surrounding modes of production. I don’t doubt that the central state in which King Solomon resided received most of the means of production but I think to call the farmers “exploited” falls into a marxist interpretation. Yee focuses on the power dynamics once again to view the Bible through the lens of critical theory, “Its stories of exploitation are usually not discussed in studies that focus on “daily life” in ancient Israel and in seminary classes on the Old Testament.” Once again, I would like to point out that the vast majority of prophets and righteous individuals were peasant class.

The Trinity is how I would describe God: the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, three in one consubstantial and coeternal essence. To get even more complicated, the Orthodox Church believes that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father unlike our Catholic brothers who believe that the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son. This is known as the Filioque clause which was added to the Nicene-Constantinopolitan creed in 1014,  filioque literally means “and the son,” in Latin which did not previously exist in the creed developed in 325 at the first council of Nicaea.

Does the Trinity fit within the typical definitions of monotheism? I would say that there is certainly a fine line between the Trinity and monotheism but a line nonetheless. Since monotheism calls for a singular God, many could interpret the Trinity as being three different modes of a singular God, like a three dimensional object which only truly occupies only one of the three or a combination at any given time. This is known as modalism, simply put it is the disintegration of the hypostatic  (the three divine persons) union of the Trinity, the Trinity has become delaminated. If there was no trinity and it was a singular God, it is at this point which we start to dabble in Monarchianism, the belief that there is a singular God and no division into the three hypostases. The Trinity is not monotheistic or three separate Gods by any means, the Orthodox worship the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as a singular God.

I believe that chapter 8 of Wil Gafney’s article is a little extremist in interpretation, I also think that the use of critical theory in this article doesn’t add to the dialogue but strays from any actual scholarship. Gafney admits to this, stating that “The passage does not say that David uses force against Bathsheba, as it does in other accounts of rape.” and the overuse of power structures makes me think Gafney extrapolated too much. Once again, I will defend that modern interpretations of scripture are inherently ethnocentric by nature as our cultures/ideologies are wildly different. There was also a segment (paragraph 2, page 212) that elaborates on the potential ethnic makeup of Bathsheba, I believe that this was an attempt to bring tie the final pages of how people of color in Judaic society were more likely to be raped. This sentence

has no source allocated for it, so it is unclear as to whether POC were actually systematically disenfranchised in ancient Judea. Once again, this is over extrapolation to say that our modern understanding of what the systematic oppression of “black and brown women and girls” are is in line with what the Ancient Judaic understanding of POC oppression is. Gafney then uses misogynoir,

in the United States as the final evolution of early Judaic systematic racism which seems a little far fetched to me. I think that perhaps this could even be a little anti-semitic, placing the cause of American racism on the patriarchal structure of Jewish culture.

What is “ethnocentrism”? Ethnocentrism is the natural tendency to understand other cultures by comparing it to their own, your culture is us, and theirs them. By recognizing our natural tendencies towards bias rather than outright ignoring them is the preferred approach when interpreting scripture. Ethnocentrism isn’t just on a cultural level, it exists also on an ideological level as well, many of the early Church’s teachings had elements of Aristotelian and Platonic philosophy in their dogmatics. Others have gone as far as to apply modern political and economic ideologies to scripture, this ended up as modern liberation theology and the so-called “Radical Christianity,” a postmodern critical theory of Christianity.

The Orthodox Church with its many national patriarchates does interpret scripture through the language that is spoken in said patriarchate yet they are limited by the very medium which the information is conveyed. The Church has made it clear that phyletism, ethnic tribalism, is heresy after the Bulgarian Patriarchate opened a church in Constantinople which was only open to Bulgarians. Because of the natural tendency to be ethnocentric, I find that individual interpretation should be done with care, I would say that using academic biblical standards is the most fool-proof method against interpretations which might go too far.

The First Commandment “You shall have no other gods before me,” is the first commandment for a reason. By making it the first commandment, this places the rest of the commandments in the context of the first, perhaps making it the root of all law. With God as the root, this gives value to upholding the law, to uphold it is now the objective good. We are of course called to uphold the “spirit of the law” rather than the law itself as individuals since sin is individual, not collective. These laws were formulated as natural theology, the Judeans certainly believed that basic ethics such as not killing, stealing, and the like should be enforced before the emergence of Abrahamic ideology.

Because of the commandments as products of natural promulgation of Jewish ethics, they were already the cultural norm. To go against these laws was to be a social outcast thus, simple social shunning was frequent until the situation was rectified. Is revenge ever justified in the Old Testament? It is never justified for man to take revenge on someone if the Commandments are broken, God speaks of taking vengeance (Dt. 32:35) but it is justified. The Apostle Paul writes in his epistle to the Romans “Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God: for it is written,” (Rms. 12:19). By separating man from God in justification, we understand that enforcing the commandments for the sake of vengeance is never justified.