120-662: A Biblical word, dvir pronounced [dǝˈviːr] ( דְּבִיר ) may refer to: According to the ancient apocryphal Lives of the Prophets , after the death of Zechariah Ben Jehoiada , the priests of the Temple could no more, as before, see the apparitions of the angels of the Lord, nor could make divinations with the Ephod , nor give responses from the Debir . Bible The Bible
240-535: A "soft" notion of supersessionism. Traditionalist Catholic groups, such as the Society of St. Pius X , strongly oppose the theological developments concerning Judaism made at Vatican II and retain "hard" supersessionist views. Even among mainstream Catholic groups and official Catholic teaching, elements of "soft" supersessionism remain. The Catechism of the Catholic Church refers to a future corporate repentance on
360-487: A Christian theological basis for Zionism. The Reformed ( Continental Reformed , Presbyterian , Congregationalist and Reformed Anglican ) tradition adheres to covenant theology and historically has taught that "Christ fulfills the expectations of Jewish covenant life and renews the people of God rooted in the Old Testament and Judaism" and that "Jesus is the new temple, the new Israel." Mormonism professes to be
480-504: A book titled The Millennial Messiah , which devotes an entire chapter to "The Jews and the Second Coming". It states: Let this fact be engraved in the eternal records with a pen of steel: the Jews were cursed, and smitten, and cursed anew, because they rejected the gospel, cast out their Messiah, and crucified their King. [...] Let the spiritually illiterate suppose what they may, it was
600-623: A combined linguistic and historiographical approach, Hendel and Joosten date the oldest parts of the Hebrew Bible (the Song of Deborah in Judges 5 and the Samson story of Judges 16 and 1 Samuel) to having been composed in the premonarchial early Iron Age ( c. 1200 BCE ). The Dead Sea Scrolls , discovered in the caves of Qumran in 1947, are copies that can be dated to between 250 BCE and 100 CE. They are
720-633: A figure of that new and perfect covenant" instituted by and ratified in Christ (No. 9). Vatican II also affirmed, "the Church is the new people of God" without being "Israel according to the flesh", the Jewish people. In Notes on the Correct Way to Present the Jews and Judaism (1985), the Church stated that the "Church and Judaism cannot then be seen as two parallel ways of salvation and the Church must witness to Christ as
840-463: A place like Alexandria, Egypt. Moreover, in the early centuries of the church, some locales had better scribes than others. Modern scholars have come to recognize that the scribes in Alexandria – which was a major intellectual center in the ancient world – were particularly scrupulous, even in these early centuries, and that there, in Alexandria, a very pure form of the text of the early Christian writings
960-408: A profound influence both on Western culture and history and on cultures around the globe. The study of it through biblical criticism has indirectly impacted culture and history as well. The Bible is currently translated or is being translated into about half of the world's languages. Some view biblical texts to be morally problematic, historically inaccurate, or corrupted, although others find it
1080-468: A shift away from "hard supersessionist" replacement thinking which posited that the Jews' covenant was no longer acknowledged by God. Retrieving Paul's language in chapter 11 of his Epistle to the Romans , the declaration states, "God holds the Jews most dear for the sake of their Fathers; He does not repent of the gifts He makes or of the calls He issues. [...] Although the Church is the new people of God,
1200-463: A special two-column form emphasizing their internal parallelism, which was found early in the study of Hebrew poetry. "Stichs" are the lines that make up a verse "the parts of which lie parallel as to form and content". Collectively, these three books are known as Sifrei Emet (an acronym of the titles in Hebrew, איוב, משלי, תהלים yields Emet אמ"ת, which is also the Hebrew for "truth"). Hebrew cantillation
1320-460: A testimony to us that we have not forged the prophecies about Christ." The Catholic church built its system of eschatology on his theology, where Christ rules the earth spiritually through his triumphant church . Augustine, however, also mentioned to "love" the Jews as a means to convert them to Christianity. Jeremy Cohen, followed by John Y. B. Hood and James Carroll, sees this as having had decisive social consequences, with Carroll saying, "It
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#17328595105681440-481: A useful historical source for certain people and events or a source of moral and ethical teachings. The Bible neither calls for nor condemns slavery outright, but there are verses that address dealing with it, and these verses have been used to support it, although the Bible has also been used to support abolitionism . Some have written that supersessionism begins in the book of Hebrews where others locate its beginnings in
1560-464: A variation of this, known as Wesleyan covenant theology, which is consistent with Arminian soteriology. Certain mainline American denominations (e.g. TEC , ELCA , UMC ) have released non-supersessionist statements. Liberal Protestant opponents to supersessionism associate the doctrine with racist motivations. Paul van Buren developed a thoroughly nonsupersessionist position, in contrast to Karl Barth , his mentor. He wrote, "The reality of
1680-549: A variety of disparate cultures and backgrounds. British biblical scholar John K. Riches wrote: [T]he biblical texts were produced over a period in which the living conditions of the writers – political, cultural, economic, and ecological – varied enormously. There are texts which reflect a nomadic existence, texts from people with an established monarchy and Temple cult, texts from exile, texts born out of fierce oppression by foreign rulers, courtly texts, texts from wandering charismatic preachers, texts from those who give themselves
1800-588: A variety of hypotheses regarding when and how the Torah was composed , but there is a general consensus that it took its final form during the reign of the Persian Achaemenid Empire (probably 450–350 BCE), or perhaps in the early Hellenistic period (333–164 BCE). The Hebrew names of the books are derived from the first words in the respective texts. The Torah consists of the following five books: The first eleven chapters of Genesis provide accounts of
1920-639: Is a collection of religious texts or scriptures which to a certain degree are held to be sacred in Christianity , Judaism , Samaritanism , Islam , the Baháʼí Faith , and other Abrahamic religions . The Bible is an anthology (a compilation of texts of a variety of forms) originally written in Hebrew , Aramaic , and Koine Greek . The texts include instructions, stories, poetry, prophecies, and other genres. The collection of materials that are accepted as part of
2040-611: Is also associated with a rejection of supersessionism; Dual-covenant theology contrasts with supersessionism by holding that the Mosaic covenant remains valid for Talmudic Jews. Extensive discussion is found in Christian views on the Old Covenant and in the respective articles for each of these viewpoints: for example, there is a section within dispensationalism detailing that perspective's concept of Israel. Differing approaches influence how
2160-454: Is also known as the "Five Books of Moses " or the Pentateuch , meaning "five scroll-cases". Traditionally these books were considered to have been dictated to Moses by God himself. Since the 17th century, scholars have viewed the original sources as being the product of multiple anonymous authors while also allowing the possibility that Moses first assembled the separate sources. There are
2280-416: Is any deviation between two texts. Textual critic Daniel B. Wallace explains that "Each deviation counts as one variant, regardless of how many MSS [manuscripts] attest to it." Hebrew scholar Emanuel Tov says the term is not evaluative; it is a recognition that the paths of development of different texts have separated. Medieval handwritten manuscripts of the Hebrew Bible were considered extremely precise:
2400-544: Is defined by what we love". Natural law is in the Wisdom literature, the Prophets, Romans 1, Acts 17, and the book of Amos (Amos 1:3–2:5), where nations other than Israel are held accountable for their ethical decisions even though they don't know the Hebrew god. Political theorist Michael Walzer finds politics in the Hebrew Bible in covenant, law, and prophecy, which constitute an early form of almost democratic political ethics. Key elements in biblical criminal justice begin with
2520-494: Is derived from Koinē Greek : τὰ βιβλία , romanized: ta biblia , meaning "the books" (singular βιβλίον , biblion ). The word βιβλίον itself had the literal meaning of " scroll " and came to be used as the ordinary word for "book". It is the diminutive of βύβλος byblos , "Egyptian papyrus", possibly so called from the name of the Phoenician seaport Byblos (also known as Gebal) from whence Egyptian papyrus
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#17328595105682640-548: Is faithful to his covenant." Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who later became Pope Benedict XVI , wrote in his 1999 work Many Religions – One Covenant that "the Sinai [Mosaic] Covenant is indeed superseded." The post-Vatican II shift toward acknowledging the ethnic Jews as a covenanted people has led to heated discussions in the Catholic Church over the issue of missionary activity directed toward Jews, with some Catholics theologians with Cardinal Avery Dulles reasoning that "if Christ
2760-422: Is for all other non-Christian religions. In his apostolic exhortation Evangelii gaudium (2013), Pope Francis emphasized communal heritage and mutual respect for each other, writing: We hold the Jewish people in special regard because their covenant with God has never been revoked, for "the gifts and the call of God are irrevocable" ( Rom 11:29). The Church, which shares with Jews an important part of
2880-511: Is no surprise that different localities developed different kinds of textual tradition. That is to say, the manuscripts in Rome had many of the same errors, because they were for the most part "in-house" documents, copied from one another; they were not influenced much by manuscripts being copied in Palestine; and those in Palestine took on their own characteristics, which were not the same as those found in
3000-402: Is not broken ( Rom 11,29; cf. 3,4), mission understood as call to conversion from idolatry to the living and true God (1 Thes 1,9) does not apply and cannot be applied to Jews. [...] This is not a merely abstract theological affirmation, but an affirmation that has concrete and tangible consequences; namely, that there is no organised Catholic missionary activity towards Jews as there
3120-526: Is not too much to say that, at this juncture, Christianity 'permitted' Judaism to endure because of Augustine." Eastern Orthodox Christians follow a view somewhat similar to replacement theology/supersessionism, although they do not officially call it as such. Supersessionism is not the name of any official Roman Catholic Church teaching and the word appears in no Church documents, but official Catholic teaching has reflected varying levels of supersessionist thought throughout its history, especially prior to
3240-641: Is not until the Babylonian Talmud ( c. 550 BCE ) that a listing of the contents of these three divisions of scripture are found. The Tanakh was mainly written in Biblical Hebrew , with some small portions (Ezra 4:8–6:18 and 7:12–26, Jeremiah 10:11, Daniel 2:4–7:28) written in Biblical Aramaic , a language which had become the lingua franca for much of the Semitic world. The Torah (תּוֹרָה)
3360-459: Is short for biblia sacra "holy book". It gradually came to be regarded as a feminine singular noun ( biblia , gen. bibliae ) in medieval Latin, and so the word was loaned as singular into the vernaculars of Western Europe. The Bible is not a single book; it is a collection of books whose complex development is not completely understood. The oldest books began as songs and stories orally transmitted from generation to generation. Scholars of
3480-540: Is taken from the masoretic text (called the Leningrad Codex ) which dates from 1008. The Hebrew Bible can therefore sometimes be referred to as the Masoretic Text. The Hebrew Bible is also known by the name Tanakh ( Hebrew : תנ"ך ). This reflects the threefold division of the Hebrew scriptures, Torah ("Teaching"), Nevi'im ("Prophets") and Ketuvim ("Writings") by using the first letters of each word. It
3600-682: Is the Christian doctrine that the Christian Church has superseded the Jewish people , assuming their role as God's covenanted people , thus asserting that the New Covenant through Jesus Christ has superseded or replaced the Mosaic covenant . Supersessionists hold that the universal Church has become God's true Israel and so Christians , whether Jew or gentile , are the people of God . Often claimed by later Christians to have originated with Paul
3720-514: Is the manner of chanting ritual readings as they are written and notated in the Masoretic Text of the Bible. Psalms, Job and Proverbs form a group with a "special system" of accenting used only in these three books. The five relatively short books of Song of Songs , Book of Ruth , the Book of Lamentations , Ecclesiastes , and Book of Esther are collectively known as the Hamesh Megillot . These are
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3840-487: Is the redeemer of the world, every tongue should confess him", while others vehemently oppose "targeting Jews for conversion". Weighing in on this matter, Cardinal Walter Kasper , then president of the Pontifical Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews , reaffirmed the validity of the Jews' covenant and then continued: [B]ecause as Christians we know that God's covenant with Israel by God's faithfulness
3960-413: Is the theory developed to resolve contradictory Quranic revelation by amending the earlier revelation. Only Quran 2:106 uses a form of the word naskh (specifically nanskh meaning 'we abrogate'). Q2:106 indicates of two varieties of abrogation: "supersession" – the "suspension" and replacement of the old verse without its elimination – or "suppression" – the nullification of the old verse from
4080-524: Is thought to have occurred before 68 during Nero's reign. Early Christians transported these writings around the Empire, translating them into Old Syriac , Coptic , Ethiopic , and Latin , and other languages. Bart Ehrman explains how these multiple texts later became grouped by scholars into categories: during the early centuries of the church, Christian texts were copied in whatever location they were written or taken to. Since texts were copied locally, it
4200-786: The Hebrew Bible : the Septuagint , the Masoretic Text , and the Samaritan Pentateuch (which contains only the first five books). They are related but do not share the same paths of development. The Septuagint, or the LXX, is a translation of the Hebrew scriptures, and some related texts, into Koine Greek, and is believed to have been carried out by approximately seventy or seventy-two scribes and elders who were Hellenic Jews , begun in Alexandria in
4320-570: The Israelites and other nations, and conflicts among Israelites, specifically, struggles between believers in "the L ORD God" ( Yahweh ) and believers in foreign gods, and the criticism of unethical and unjust behaviour of Israelite elites and rulers; in which prophets played a crucial and leading role. It ends with the conquest of the Kingdom of Israel by the Neo-Assyrian Empire , followed by
4440-597: The Mediterranean (fourth century to the founding of the Principate , 27 BCE ), the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple (70 CE), and the extension of Roman rule to parts of Scotland (84 CE). The books of the Bible were initially written and copied by hand on papyrus scrolls. No originals have survived. The age of the original composition of the texts is therefore difficult to determine and heavily debated. Using
4560-656: The Nevi'im ("prophets"), was canonized in the third century BCE. A third collection called the Ketuvim ("writings"), containing psalms, proverbs, and narrative histories, was canonized sometime between the second century BCE and the second century CE. These three collections were written mostly in Biblical Hebrew , with some parts in Aramaic , which together form the Hebrew Bible or "TaNaKh" (an abbreviation of "Torah", "Nevi'im", and "Ketuvim"). There are three major historical versions of
4680-612: The Quran presents a pure and unaltered version of their divine message. The word supersessionism comes from the English verb to supersede , from the Latin verb sedeo, sedere, sedi, sessum , "to sit", plus super , "upon". It thus signifies one thing being replaced or supplanted by another. Throughout Church history, many Christian theologians saw the New Covenant in Christ as a replacement for
4800-411: The creation (or ordering) of the world and the history of God's early relationship with humanity. The remaining thirty-nine chapters of Genesis provide an account of God's covenant with the biblical patriarchs Abraham , Isaac and Jacob (also called Israel ) and Jacob's children, the " Children of Israel ", especially Joseph . It tells of how God commanded Abraham to leave his family and home in
4920-677: The gold plates —states that one of its primary purposes is "to the convincing of the Jew and Gentile that Jesus is the Christ, the Eternal God." The Nephites —whom the Book of Mormon presents as ancient Israelites who escaped Jerusalem just before the Babylonian captivity—are said to have kept the Law of Moses with an understanding that it presaged Christ's messianic mission. The Book of Mormon further teaches that because
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5040-565: The land promise in Genesis 12, 15 and 17 is understood, whether it is interpreted literally or figuratively, both with regard to the land and the identity of people who inherit it. Adherents to these various views are not restricted to a single denomination though some traditions teach a certain view. Classical covenant theology is taught within the Presbyterian and Continental Reformed traditions. Methodist hermeneutics traditionally use
5160-561: The 17th century; its oldest existing copies date to c. 1100 CE. Samaritans include only the Pentateuch (Torah) in their biblical canon. They do not recognize divine authorship or inspiration in any other book in the Jewish Tanakh. A Samaritan Book of Joshua partly based upon the Tanakh's Book of Joshua exists, but Samaritans regard it as a non-canonical secular historical chronicle. In
5280-640: The Apostle in the New Testament , supersessionism has formed a core tenet of Eastern Orthodox , Roman Catholic and Lutheran churches for the majority of their history. Many early Church Fathers —including Justin Martyr and Augustine of Hippo —were supersessionist. Most historic Christian churches , including the Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic Church, Reformed Churches and Methodist Churches , hold that
5400-463: The Bible "often juxtaposes contradictory ideas, without explanation or apology". The Hebrew Bible contains assumptions about the nature of knowledge, belief, truth, interpretation, understanding and cognitive processes. Ethicist Michael V. Fox writes that the primary axiom of the book of Proverbs is that "the exercise of the human mind is the necessary and sufficient condition of right and successful behavior in all reaches of life". The Bible teaches
5520-404: The Bible by a particular religious tradition or community is called a biblical canon . Believers in the Bible generally consider it to be a product of divine inspiration , but the way they understand what that means and interpret the text varies. The religious texts were compiled by different religious communities into various official collections. The earliest contained the first five books of
5640-502: The Bible, called the Torah in Hebrew and the Pentateuch (meaning five books ) in Greek. The second-oldest part was a collection of narrative histories and prophecies (the Nevi'im ). The third collection (the Ketuvim ) contains psalms, proverbs, and narrative histories. " Tanakh " is an alternate term for the Hebrew Bible composed of the first letters of those three parts of the Hebrew scriptures:
5760-757: The Bible. A number of biblical canons have since evolved. Christian biblical canons range from the 73 books of the Catholic Church canon, and the 66-book canon of most Protestant denominations, to the 81 books of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church canon, among others. Judaism has long accepted a single authoritative text, whereas Christianity has never had an official version, instead having many different manuscript traditions. All biblical texts were treated with reverence and care by those that copied them, yet there are transmission errors, called variants, in all biblical manuscripts. A variant
5880-460: The Christian tradition) and can ultimately be traced to the medieval concept of the "cessation of the law" – the idea that Jewish observance of the ceremonial law (Sabbath, circumcision, and dietary laws) ceases to have a positive significance for Jews after the passion of Christ. According to Soulen, Christians today often repudiate supersessionism but they do not always carefully examine just what that
6000-431: The Church desist from baptizing Jewish Holocaust victims . Rabbinic Judaism rejects supersessionism, only discussing the topic as an idea upheld by Christian and Muslim theologians. Some modern Jews are offended by the traditional Christian belief in supersessionism, as they believe it undermines the history of their religion . Supersessionism may be viewed as fundamentally antisemitic . In its canonical form,
6120-670: The Former Prophets ( Nevi'im Rishonim נביאים ראשונים , the narrative books of Joshua, Judges, Samuel and Kings) and the Latter Prophets ( Nevi'im Aharonim נביאים אחרונים , the books of Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel and the Twelve Minor Prophets ). The Nevi'im tell a story of the rise of the Hebrew monarchy and its division into two kingdoms, the Kingdom of Israel and the Kingdom of Judah , focusing on conflicts between
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#17328595105686240-504: The Galilean cities of Tiberias and Jerusalem, and in Babylonia (modern Iraq). Those living in the Jewish community of Tiberias in ancient Galilee ( c. 750 –950), made scribal copies of the Hebrew Bible texts without a standard text, such as the Babylonian tradition had, to work from. The canonical pronunciation of the Hebrew Bible (called Tiberian Hebrew) that they developed, and many of
6360-536: The Hebrew Bible was produced. During the rise of Christianity in the first century CE, new scriptures were written in Koine Greek. Christians eventually called these new scriptures the "New Testament" and began referring to the Septuagint as the "Old Testament". The New Testament has been preserved in more manuscripts than any other ancient work. Most early Christian copyists were not trained scribes. Many copies of
6480-541: The Hebrew Bible was written with spaces between words to aid in reading. By the eighth century CE, the Masoretes added vowel signs. Levites or scribes maintained the texts, and some texts were always treated as more authoritative than others. Scribes preserved and changed the texts by changing the script and updating archaic forms while also making corrections. These Hebrew texts were copied with great care. Considered to be scriptures ( sacred , authoritative religious texts),
6600-499: The Islamic idea of tahrif teaches that Jewish and Christian scriptures or their interpretations have been corrupted, which has obscured the divine message that they originally contained. According to this teaching, the Quran both points out and corrects these supposed errors introduced by previous corruption of monotheistic scriptures, which makes it the final and most pure divine revelation. Sandra Toenis Keiting argues that Islam
6720-571: The Jew, then for the Gentile". Yet after the death of Jesus, the inclusion of the gentiles as equals in this burgeoning sect of Judaism also caused problems, particularly when it came to gentiles keeping the Mosaic law, which was both a major issue at the Council of Jerusalem and a theme of Paul's Epistle to the Galatians , though the relationship of Paul and Judaism is still disputed today. Paul's views on
6840-427: The Jewish denial and rejection of the Holy One of Israel, whom their fathers worshiped in the beauty and holiness, that has made them a hiss and byword in all nations and that has taken millions of their fair sons and daughters to untimely graves. [...] What sayeth the holy word? "They shall be scourged by all people, because they crucify the God of Israel, and turn the hearts aside, rejecting signs and wonders, and
6960-399: The Jewish faith "salvific". In 2011, Kasper specifically repudiated the notion of "displacement" theology, clarifying that the "New Covenant for Christians is not the replacement (substitution), but the fulfillment of the Old Covenant." These statements by Catholic officials signal a remaining point of debate, wherein some adhere to a movement away from supersessionism, and others remain with
7080-403: The Jewish people, fixed in history by the reality of their election, in their faithfulness in spite of their unfaithfulness, is as solid and sure as that of the gentile church." The Lutheran Churches have historically taught the doctrine of supersessionism. This continues to be taught in Confessional Lutheran denominations, such as the Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod , which have rejected
7200-423: The Jews are complex, but he is generally regarded as the first person to make the claim that by not accepting claims of Jesus's divinity , non-believing Jews disqualified themselves from salvation. Paul himself was a Jew. After a conversion experience he came to accept Jesus's claim to be the Messiah later in his life. In the opinion of Roman Catholic ex-priest James Carroll , accepting Jesus's divinity, for Paul,
7320-451: The Jews rejected and crucified Christ, they will be scattered among the nations of the earth and scourged across generations until they accept Christ as the true Messiah. According to the Doctrine & Covenants , after Jesus reveals himself to the Jews, they will weep because of their iniquities. In 1982, Elder Bruce R. McConkie , a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, published
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#17328595105687440-406: The Jews should not be presented as rejected or accursed by God, as if this followed from the Holy Scriptures." A draft of the declaration contained a passage which originally called for "the entry of that [Jewish] people into the fullness of the people of God established by Christ"; however, at the suggestion of Catholic priest (and convert from Judaism ) John M. Oesterreicher , it was replaced in
7560-458: The Law with its decrees and fastened the handwriting of the Old Testament to the Cross, establishing the New Testament in His blood shed for the whole human race. At the Second Vatican Council, which was convened two decades after the Holocaust , a different framework emerged on how Catholics should think about the status of the Jewish covenant. The declaration nostra aetate , which was promulgated in 1965, made several statements which signaled
7680-429: The Mosaic Covenant and the Church as the new people of God . The word supersession is used by Sydney Thelwall in the title of chapter three of his 1870 translation of Tertullian 's An Answer to the Jews . In the New Testament , Jesus and others repeatedly give Jews priority in their mission, as in Jesus's expression of him coming to the Jews rather than to gentiles and in Paul the Apostle 's formula "first for
7800-515: The Old Covenant has three components: ceremonial, moral, and civil ( cf. covenant theology ). They teach that while the ceremonial and civil (judicial) laws have been fulfilled, the moral law of the Ten Commandments continues to bind Christian believers. Since the 19th century, certain Christian communities, such as the Plymouth Brethren , have espoused dispensationalist theology as contrasted to supersessionism and covenant theology. Additionally, as part of Christian–Jewish reconciliation ,
7920-504: The People of God to achieve 'the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ,' in which 'God may be all in all.' The Church teaches that there is an integral continuity between the covenants rather than a rupture. In the Second Vatican Council's lumen gentium (1964), the Church stated that God "chose the race of Israel as a people" and "set up a covenant" with them, instructing them and making them holy. However, "all these things. [...] were done by way of preparation and as
8040-477: The Quran or hadith , but rather from the work of Muslim jurists who reinterpreted the Quranic message about islam (in its literal meaning of 'submission') being "the only true religion with God" into an argument about the religion of Islam being superior to other faiths, thereby providing theoretical justification for Muslim political dominance and a wider interpretation of the notion of jihad . In Islamic legal exegesis ( tafsir ), abrogation ( naskh )
8160-406: The Redeemer of all." Modern Protestants hold a range of positions on supersessionism and the relationship between the Church and the Jewish people. These differences arise from dissimilar literal versus figurative approaches to understanding the relationships between the covenants of the Bible , particularly the relationship between the covenants of the Old Testament and the New Covenant. After
8280-531: The Roman Catholic Church has placed an increased emphasis on the shared history between the Christian and modern Jewish religions . Rabbinic Judaism disregards supersessionism as offensive to Jewish history . Islam teaches that it is the final and most authentic expression of Abrahamic monotheism , superseding both Judaism and Christianity . The Islamic teaching of tahrif teaches that earlier monotheistic scriptures or earlier interpretations of them have been corrupted by later interpretations of them, while
8400-405: The Septuagint as the basis of the Old Testament . The early Church continued the Jewish tradition of writing and incorporating what it saw as inspired, authoritative religious books. The gospels , Pauline epistles , and other texts quickly coalesced into the New Testament . With estimated total sales of over five billion copies, the Bible is the best-selling publication of all time. It has had
8520-470: The Torah ("Teaching"), the Nevi'im ("Prophets"), and the Ketuvim ("Writings"). The Masoretic Text is the medieval version of the Tanakh, in Hebrew and Aramaic, that is considered the authoritative text of the Hebrew Bible by modern Rabbinic Judaism . The Septuagint is a Koine Greek translation of the Tanakh from the third and second centuries BC; it largely overlaps with the Hebrew Bible. Christianity began as an outgrowth of Second Temple Judaism , using
8640-526: The airs of sophisticated Hellenistic writers. It is a time-span which encompasses the compositions of Homer , Plato , Aristotle , Thucydides , Sophocles , Caesar , Cicero , and Catullus . It is a period which sees the rise and fall of the Assyrian empire (twelfth to seventh century) and of the Persian empire (sixth to fourth century), Alexander 's campaigns (336–326), the rise of Rome and its domination of
8760-502: The belief in God as the source of justice and the judge of all, including those administering justice on earth. Carmy and Schatz say the Bible "depicts the character of God, presents an account of creation, posits a metaphysics of divine providence and divine intervention, suggests a basis for morality, discusses many features of human nature, and frequently poses the notorious conundrum of how God can allow evil." The authoritative Hebrew Bible
8880-568: The biblical patriarch Enoch was shown a vision of Jesus as the Messiah who should be crucified and resurrected. The Book of Abraham narrates that God revealed to the titular biblical patriarch a vision of the Son of Man (a common title for Jesus Christ) being chosen in a premortal council to serve as the Redeemer of mankind. Historically, Latter-day Saint leaders and church instructional materials have promoted
9000-492: The books of Ketuvim in the order they appear in most current printed editions. The Jewish textual tradition never finalized the order of the books in Ketuvim. The Babylonian Talmud ( Bava Batra 14b–15a) gives their order as Ruth, Psalms, Job, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon, Lamentations of Jeremiah, Daniel, Scroll of Esther, Ezra, Chronicles. Supersessionism Supersessionism , also called replacement theology ,
9120-421: The books were compiled by different religious communities into various biblical canons (official collections of scriptures). The earliest compilation, containing the first five books of the Bible and called the Torah (meaning "law", "instruction", or "teaching") or Pentateuch ("five books"), was accepted as Jewish canon by the fifth century BCE. A second collection of narrative histories and prophesies, called
9240-465: The city of Ur , eventually to settle in the land of Canaan , and how the Children of Israel later moved to Egypt. The remaining four books of the Torah tell the story of Moses , who lived hundreds of years after the patriarchs. He leads the Children of Israel from slavery in ancient Egypt to the renewal of their covenant with God at Mount Sinai and their wanderings in the desert until a new generation
9360-442: The coming cessation of the old law and of the carnal circumcision was declared, so, too, the observance of the new law and the spiritual circumcision has shone out into the voluntary observances of peace." Augustine of Hippo followed the views of the earlier Church Fathers but emphasized the importance to Christianity of the continued existence of the separate Rabbinic Jewish faith: "The Jews ... are thus by their own Scriptures
9480-578: The conquest of the Kingdom of Judah by the neo-Babylonian Empire and the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem . The Former Prophets are the books Joshua, Judges, Samuel and Kings. They contain narratives that begin immediately after the death of Moses with the divine appointment of Joshua as his successor, who then leads the people of Israel into the Promised Land , and end with the release from imprisonment of
9600-532: The culture of the fourth century Roman empire. The Bible has been used to support the death penalty , patriarchy , sexual intolerance , the violence of total war , and colonialism ; it has also been used to support charity , culture, healthcare and education . The term "Bible" can refer to the Hebrew Bible or the Christian Bible, which contains both the Old and New Testaments . The English word Bible
9720-542: The divine Christ. As recently as 1943, Pope Pius XII stated in his encyclical Mystici corporis Christi : By the death of our Redeemer, the New Testament took the place of the Old Law which had been abolished; then the Law of Christ together with its mysteries, enactments, institutions, and sacred rites was ratified for the whole world in the blood of Jesus Christ. [...] [O]n the gibbet of His death Jesus made void
9840-583: The early Christian church translated its canon into Vulgar Latin (the common Latin spoken by ordinary people), a translation known as the Vulgate . Since then, Catholic Christians have held ecumenical councils to standardize their biblical canon. The Council of Trent (1545–63), held by the Catholic Church in response to the Protestant Reformation , authorized the Vulgate as its official Latin translation of
9960-461: The end of the Talmudic period ( c. 300 – c. 500 CE ), but the actual date is difficult to determine. In the sixth and seventh centuries, three Jewish communities contributed systems for writing the precise letter-text, with its vocalization and accentuation known as the mas'sora (from which we derive the term "masoretic"). These early Masoretic scholars were based primarily in
10080-506: The establishment of the political state of Israel in the wake of the Holocaust, mainstream Christian theologians and denominations began to re-examine supersessionism and some communities came to outright reject the teaching. Protestant hermeneutical frameworks tend to guide views on the subject, with covenant theology generally associated with supersessionism and dispensationalism generally opposed to supersessionism. Christian Zionism
10200-490: The final promulgated version with the following language: "the Church awaits that day, known to God alone, on which all peoples will address the Lord in a single voice and 'serve him shoulder to shoulder' (Zeph 3:9)." Further developments in Catholic thinking on the covenantal status of ethnic Jews were led by Pope John Paul II . Among his most noteworthy statements on the matter is that which occurred during his historic visit to
10320-519: The first century BCE. Fragments of the Septuagint were found among the Dead Sea Scrolls; portions of its text are also found on existing papyrus from Egypt dating to the second and first centuries BCE and to the first century CE. The Masoretes began developing what would become the authoritative Hebrew and Aramaic text of the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible in Rabbinic Judaism near
10440-534: The gospels and Paul's letters were made by individual Christians over a relatively short period of time very soon after the originals were written. There is evidence in the Synoptic Gospels, in the writings of the early church fathers , from Marcion , and in the Didache that Christian documents were in circulation before the end of the first century. Paul's letters were circulated during his lifetime, and his death
10560-489: The idea that those who accept baptism into the church are literal descendants of the scattered Israelites, primarily the tribe of Ephraim. However, those teachings have been de-emphasized since the latter 20th century in favor of a competing narrative regarding members being adopted or "grafted" into the House of Israel. The title page of the Book of Mormon —which adherents believe is among content translated by Joseph Smith from
10680-426: The kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people producing its fruits." Many early Christian commentators taught that the Old Covenant was fulfilled and superseded by the New Covenant in Christ, for instance, Justin Martyr wrote that the "true spiritual Israel" referred to those who had "been led to God through this crucified Christ". Irenaeus taught that, while the New Covenant had superseded
10800-653: The last king of Judah . Treating Samuel and Kings as single books, they cover: The Latter Prophets are Isaiah , Jeremiah , Ezekiel and the Twelve Minor Prophets , counted as a single book. Ketuvim (in Biblical Hebrew : כְּתוּבִים , romanized: Kəṯūḇīm "writings") is the third and final section of the Tanakh. The Ketuvim are believed to have been written under the inspiration of Ruach HaKodesh (the Holy Spirit) but with one level less authority than that of prophecy . In Masoretic manuscripts (and some printed editions), Psalms, Proverbs and Job are presented in
10920-461: The late third century BCE and completed by 132 BCE. Probably commissioned by Ptolemy II Philadelphus , King of Egypt, it addressed the need of the primarily Greek-speaking Jews of the Graeco-Roman diaspora. Existing complete copies of the Septuagint date from the third to the fifth centuries CE, with fragments dating back to the second century BCE. Revision of its text began as far back as
11040-526: The latest books collected and designated as authoritative in the Jewish canon even though they were not complete until the second century CE. The books of Esther , Daniel , Ezra-Nehemiah and Chronicles share a distinctive style that no other Hebrew literary text, biblical or extra-biblical, shares. They were not written in the normal style of Hebrew of the post-exilic period. The authors of these books must have chosen to write in their own distinctive style for unknown reasons. The following list presents
11160-479: The mainstream interpretation of the New Testament of all three major historical traditions within Christianity – Orthodox , Roman Catholic and Protestant . The text most often evident in favor of the supersessionist view is Hebrews 8:13: "In speaking of 'a new covenant' [Jer. 31.31–32] he has made the first one obsolete." Other statements by Jesus have also been used, namely Matthew 21:43 "Therefore I tell you,
11280-403: The matter was characterized by "displacement" or "substitution" theologies, according to which the Church and its New Covenant took the place of Judaism and its "Old Covenant", the latter being rendered void by the coming of Jesus. The nullification of the Old Covenant was often explained in terms of the " deicide charge" that Jews forfeited their covenantal relationship with God by executing
11400-438: The mid-twentieth century. The theology that religious Jews dissent by continuing to exist outside the Church is extensive in Catholic liturgy and literature. The Second Vatican Council (1962–1965) marked a shift in emphasis of official Catholic teaching about Judaism , a shift which may be described as a move from "hard" to "soft" supersessionism, to use the terminology of David Novak. Prior to Vatican II, Catholic teaching on
11520-452: The most authoritative documents from which to copy other texts. Even so, David Carr asserts that Hebrew texts still contain some variants. The majority of all variants are accidental, such as spelling errors, but some changes were intentional. In the Hebrew text, "memory variants" are generally accidental differences evidenced by such things as the shift in word order found in 1 Chronicles 17:24 and 2 Samuel 10:9 and 13. Variants also include
11640-525: The nature of authority and the sharing of power, animals, trees and nature, money and economics, work, relationships, sorrow and despair and the nature of joy, among others. Philosopher and ethicist Jaco Gericke adds: "The meaning of good and evil, the nature of right and wrong, criteria for moral discernment, valid sources of morality, the origin and acquisition of moral beliefs, the ontological status of moral norms, moral authority, cultural pluralism, [as well as] axiological and aesthetic assumptions about
11760-443: The nature of valid arguments, the nature and power of language, and its relation to reality. According to Mittleman, the Bible provides patterns of moral reasoning that focus on conduct and character. In the biblical metaphysic, humans have free will, but it is a relative and restricted freedom. Beach says that Christian voluntarism points to the will as the core of the self, and that within human nature, "the core of who we are
11880-404: The nature of value and beauty. These are all implicit in the texts." However, discerning the themes of some biblical texts can be problematic. Much of the Bible is in narrative form and in general, biblical narrative refrains from any kind of direct instruction, and in some texts the author's intent is not easy to decipher. It is left to the reader to determine good and bad, right and wrong, and
12000-517: The notes they made, therefore differed from the Babylonian. These differences were resolved into a standard text called the Masoretic text in the ninth century. The oldest complete copy still in existence is the Leningrad Codex dating to c. 1000 CE. The Samaritan Pentateuch is a version of the Torah maintained by the Samaritan community since antiquity, which was rediscovered by European scholars in
12120-468: The old, the moral law underlying the Law of Moses continued to stand in the New Covenant. Whereas, Tertullian believed that the New Covenant brought with it a new law , writing: "Who else, therefore, are understood but we, who, fully taught by the new law, observe these practices, the old law being obliterated, the coming of whose abolition the action itself demonstrates. ...Therefore, as we have shown above that
12240-407: The oldest existing copies of the books of the Hebrew Bible of any length that are not fragments. The earliest manuscripts were probably written in paleo-Hebrew , a kind of cuneiform pictograph similar to other pictographs of the same period. The exile to Babylon most likely prompted the shift to square script (Aramaic) in the fifth to third centuries BCE. From the time of the Dead Sea Scrolls,
12360-496: The others. The work of Matthew Tapie attempts a further clarification of the language of supersessionism in modern theology that Peter Ochs has called "the clearest teaching on supersessionism in modern scholarship." Tapie argued that Soulen's view of economic supersessionism shares important similarities with those of Jules Isaac's thought (the French-Jewish historian well known for his identification of "the teaching of contempt" in
12480-471: The part of Jews: The glorious Messiah's coming is suspended at every moment of history until his recognition by 'all Israel,' for 'a hardening has come upon part of Israel' in their 'unbelief' toward Jesus [ Rom 11:20-26; cf. Mt 23:39]. [...] The 'full inclusion' of the Jews in the Messiah's salvation, in the wake of 'the full number of the Gentiles' [ Rom 11:12, 25; cf. Lk 21:24], will enable
12600-427: The path to understanding and practice is rarely straightforward. God is sometimes portrayed as having a role in the plot, but more often there is little about God's reaction to events, and no mention at all of approval or disapproval of what the characters have done or failed to do. The writer makes no comment, and the reader is left to infer what they will. Jewish philosophers Shalom Carmy and David Schatz explain that
12720-604: The power and glory of the God of Israel. And because they turn their hearts aside, [...] and have despised the Holy One of Israel, they shall wander in the flesh, and perish, and become a hiss and by-word and be hated among all nations.: (1 Ne. 19:13-14; 2 Ne. 6:9-11.) Such is the prophetic word of Nephi." Some Jews consider the Latter-day Saint practice of posthumous baptism a particularly disrespectful enactment of supersessionist beliefs, and have repeatedly requested that
12840-431: The restoration of the original Christian faith and that the ancient Hebrew religion was a form of proto-Christianity. Nevertheless, Latter-day Saints believe that the modern day descendants of Israel are still God's covenant people, but they have nonetheless apostatized from the proto-Christian faith that God anciently revealed through the ancient patriarchs and Israel's prophets. For example, the Book of Moses narrates that
12960-448: The sacred Scriptures, looks upon the people of the covenant and their faith as one of the sacred roots of her own Christian identity (cf. Rom 11:16–18). As Christians, we cannot consider Judaism as a foreign religion; nor do we include the Jews among those called to turn from idols and to serve the true God (cf. 1 Thes 1:9). With them, we believe in the one God who acts in history, and with them we accept his revealed word. Similarly,
13080-419: The seventh century, the first codex form of the Hebrew Bible was produced. The codex is the forerunner of the modern book. Popularized by early Christians, it was made by folding a single sheet of papyrus in half, forming "pages". Assembling multiples of these folded pages together created a "book" that was more easily accessible and more portable than scrolls. In 1488, the first complete printed press version of
13200-472: The substitution of lexical equivalents, semantic and grammar differences, and larger scale shifts in order, with some major revisions of the Masoretic texts that must have been intentional. Intentional changes in New Testament texts were made to improve grammar, eliminate discrepancies, harmonize parallel passages, combine and simplify multiple variant readings into one, and for theological reasons. Bruce K. Waltke observes that one variant for every ten words
13320-448: The synagogue in Mainz (1980), where he called Jews the "people of God of the Old Covenant, which has never been abrogated by God (cf. Romans 11:29, "for the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable" [NRSV])." In 1997, John Paul II again affirmed the Jews' covenantal status: "This people continues in spite of everything to be the people of the covenant and, despite human infidelity, the Lord
13440-418: The twenty-first century are only in the beginning stages of exploring "the interface between writing, performance, memorization, and the aural dimension" of the texts. Current indications are that writing and orality were not separate so much as ancient writing was learned in a context of communal oral performance. The Bible was written and compiled by many people , who many scholars say are mostly unknown, from
13560-421: The words of Cardinal Kasper, "God's grace, which is the grace of Jesus Christ according to our faith, is available to all. Therefore, the Church believes that Judaism, [as] the faithful response of the Jewish people to God's irrevocable covenant, is salvific for them, because God is faithful to his promises," highlight the covenantal relationship of God with the Jewish people, but differ from Pope Francis in calling
13680-494: The written Quran ( mus'haf ). Both Christian and Jewish theologians have identified different types of supersessionism in the Christian reading of the Bible . R. Kendall Soulen notes three categories of supersessionism identified by Christian theologians: punitive, economic, and structural: These three views are neither mutually exclusive, nor logically dependent, and it is possible to hold all of them or any one with or without
13800-579: Was dichotomous with being a Jew. His personal conversion and his understanding of the dichotomy between being Jewish and accepting Jesus's divinity, was the religious philosophy he wanted to see adopted among other Jews of his time. However, New Testament scholar N.T. Wright argues that Paul saw his faith in Jesus as precisely the fulfillment of his Judaism, not that there was any tension between being Jewish and Christian. Christians quickly adopted Paul's views. For most of Christian history, supersessionism has been
13920-594: Was exported to Greece. The Greek ta biblia ("the books") was "an expression Hellenistic Jews used to describe their sacred books". The biblical scholar F. F. Bruce notes that John Chrysostom appears to be the first writer (in his Homilies on Matthew , delivered between 386 and 388 CE) to use the Greek phrase ta biblia ("the books") to describe both the Old and New Testaments together. Latin biblia sacra "holy books" translates Greek τὰ βιβλία τὰ ἅγια ( tà biblía tà hágia , "the holy books"). Medieval Latin biblia
14040-665: Was noted in the recent critical edition of the Hebrew Bible, the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia, leaving 90% of the Hebrew text without variation. The fourth edition of the United Bible Society's Greek New Testament notes variants affecting about 500 out of 6900 words, or about 7% of the text. The narratives, laws, wisdom sayings, parables, and unique genres of the Bible provide opportunity for discussion on most topics of concern to human beings: The role of women, sex, children, marriage, neighbours, friends,
14160-533: Was preserved, decade after decade, by dedicated and relatively skilled Christian scribes. These differing histories produced what modern scholars refer to as recognizable "text types". The four most commonly recognized are Alexandrian , Western , Caesarean , and Byzantine . The list of books included in the Catholic Bible was established as canon by the Council of Rome in 382, followed by those of Hippo in 393 and Carthage in 397. Between 385 and 405 CE,
14280-412: Was ready to enter the land of Canaan. The Torah ends with the death of Moses. The commandments in the Torah provide the basis for Jewish religious law . Tradition states that there are 613 commandments ( taryag mitzvot ). Nevi'im ( Hebrew : נְבִיאִים , romanized : Nəḇī'īm , "Prophets") is the second main division of the Tanakh, between the Torah and Ketuvim. It contains two sub-groups,
14400-481: Was supersessionist from its inception, advocating the view that the Quranic revelations would "replace the corrupted scriptures possessed by other communities", and that early Islamic scriptures display a "clear theology of revelation that is concerned with establishing the credibility of the nascent community" vis-à-vis other religions. In contrast, Abdulaziz Sachedina has argued that Islamic supersessionism stems not from
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