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Scripture

Mercy In The Bible

Dr. Peter Brown

April 30, 2023 3:32 pm April 30, 2023

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What does it mean to say that Yahweh, the God of the Bible, is a merciful God? A good place to start in unpacking the idea is the Hebrew term chesed. Chesed (pronounced…

What does it mean to say that Yahweh, the God of the Bible, is a merciful God?

A good place to start in unpacking the idea is the Hebrew term chesed. Chesed (pronounced with a guttural sounding ch) is one of those delightfully untranslatable terms one finds in the Bible. It has the idea of “the giving of a break” but means much more than that. It combines the notions of “kindness,” “faithfulness,” “truth,” “persistent and steadfast loyalty” and, most of all, “love.”

We see it frequently in the context of the “unfailing love” God shows for Israel in the context of the covenant.

Though untranslatable, chesed captures an important dimension of divine mercy: steadfast and true kindness based on the covenant. Chesed is a wonderful word, but one that still fails to capture the fullness of mercy. Its relational dimensions make it too powerful to convey the idea of the seemingly random act of kindness toward someone you don’t really know well or who doesn’t deserve it. For that we need the term rachamim (again with the guttural ch sound). This one has a near English equivalent: “pity” or “compassion” — something akin to the sentiment that causes you to fall for the three-legged puppy who is neither cute nor potty-trained, but whose attraction is precisely that no one else wants him. In some cases rachamim even extends to family members.

Joseph is overcome with it in dealing with his brothers with whom by all rights he should have been angry (see Gn 43:30). God was furious with Israel, too, after the creation of the golden calf. Yet in one of the Bible’s most famous declarations of mercy, God turns away from his anger declaring in his sovereignty, “I who grant mercy [rachamim] to whom I will” (Ex 33:19).

The Greek New Testament unsurprisingly talks a great deal about “mercy,” too — using different language, of course. The most common term is eleeos, made famous in the Kyrie Eleison rite at Mass right before the Gloria where Catholics say, “Lord, have mercy.” Eleeos truly does mean something very close to what English speakers mean by “mercy,” combining the Hebrew ideas of chesed and raham. It is precisely because he is the “Son of David” with all that implies in terms of God’s covenant that Jesus is asked to take pity on blind Bartimaeus (see Mk 10:47-48; Mt 9:27; 20:30-31; Lk 18:38-39).

What the New Testament adds to “mercy” is splankna, another term difficult to capture perfectly in English, which suggests warm feelings from the deepest innards of the human person. The “deepest innards” is often translated “heart,” although splanknonpoints anatomically to the “guts” below the rib cage. Confusion on this point led to the Douay Rheims’ famous translation of Philemon 1:7 as “the bowels of the saints have been refreshed” when the idea is that the innermost being of the people of God was being renewed. When it comes to God, splankna is a “tenderizer” seasoning added to God’s mercy. The famous Canticle of Zechariah’s “tender mercy of our God” (Lk 1:78) combines the terms splankna and eleeos together.

So now with a little philology under our belt, we are now in a position to do a little biblical theology. We know roughly what God’s mercy is, but who gets it and how?

One central idea advanced by Our Lord is the connection of divine mercy for people with people’s mercy for one another.

This is the message of the parable of the debtor (see Mt 18:21-35) as well as the Lord’s Prayer — “forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors” (Mt 6:12). Our reception of divine mercy is wholly contingent on our ability to show mercy to others. This is not only because of the social dimension of chesed; by making God’s forgiveness contingent on our forgiveness we become a channel of divine mercy, which flows through us to others.

Another crucial aspect to the flow of mercy is based on the humanity of Jesus Christ. His humanity enables him to become our High Priest who is able to identify with our fleshly weaknesses, since he took on frail humanity himself, yet without sin. It is through the humanity of Jesus that we can approach the throne of grace confidently and receive mercy (see Heb 4:14-16).

But let’s not fall into the trap that mercy and forgiveness is an attribute of the New Testament while the God of the Old Testament remains a deity of wrath and judgment. Even a cursory knowledge of the Bible reveals that there are many times when mercy is shown in the Old Testament and many times when divine wrath and judgment are threatened in the New.

Old Testament Prophets

And the Year of Mercy, emphasized the scope of mercy, particularly for those on the margins or the periphery. This is a question actually of great salience for the Old Testament writers in terms of avoiding wrath or receiving mercy, but also in defining the boundaries to which mercy could extend. Does it extend to Israel alone even if Israel is just as culpable as the other nations? Or can the nations receive it, too? And in no place were these very difficult questions more discussed than in the Book of the Twelve, aka the twelve minor prophets from Hosea through Malachi.

The Book of Joel is all about God’s judgment and who can avoid it when it seems that it is in store for everyone. The prophet says in Joel 2:14, “Perhaps he [Yahweh] will again relent and leave a blessing.”

This is key to the biblical idea of mercy — maybe we will get it, but God certainly doesn’t owe it to us. Therefore, we have no right to presume it. On the other hand, if we repent and show our repentance with prayer and fasting, maybe there is hope (see Jl 2:15-18).

In fact, God is merciful (see Jl 2:18-27) and will pour out his Spirit upon all flesh in advance of the judgment (3:1). Paradoxically, “all flesh” do not escape judgment. The nations will be destroyed as God’s people will be exalted (Chapter 4), because they did not call on the name of the Lord (3:5) and accept his mercy. Joel’s view is a somewhat hopeful picture that God’s wrath on the Day of the Lord can be escaped by the few who have the Spirit.

But Amos’ take on judgment is strikingly different. He makes it crystal clear that the various judgments against the nations are fixed; Yahweh, in fact, will not repent (“revoke the punishment” is the translation in the Revised Standard Version; see 1:3,6,9,11,13; 2:1,4,6). The punishments are coming and there is nothing that the nations, or Judah and Israel, can do to avoid them.

And those who have read Joel and actually want the Day of the Lord (see Jl 2:1-2) are in for a rude awakening (Am 5:17). For Amos it will be darkness and not light, with no hope — none at all.

Amos’ message is almost wholly negative. Jonah, however, turns Amos’ message on its head. Due to the reluctant prophet’s preaching, the Gentile king of Nineveh dares to perceive the same prospect of mercy for his people that Joel had for Judah (see Jon 3:9).

And he received it! God did what Amos said he would not do — he “repented” of the judgment he would inflict (see Jon 3:10). The same God, “slow to anger” in his dealings with his covenant people (Ex 34:6), shows himself “slow to anger” with a wicked Gentile nation as well (Jon 4:2).

On the other hand, Nahum rejoiced with sadistic glee that despite its slowness, God’s judgment eventually did fall upon Nineveh after all (see Na 1:3a). But the pendulum swings back again with Habakkuk. Yes, God may punish the Assyrians, but his chosen instrument for doing so is Babylon, and they are about to come down to destroy God’s people in Judah as well (Hb 1:5-6).

Zechariah finds a way for the nations to benefit from God’s coming kingdom after all — the reign which is the main subject of his book (see Zec 14:9). The nations that fight against God will be vanquished, of course (Zec 14:1-4), yet, paradoxically, the portions of the nations who survive the war and become loyal to the true worship of God will experience divine blessing (14:16-21).

On the other side of the Cross, Paul, in Romans 9-11, wonders how it can be that God is showing so much mercy to mostly Gentile Christians while non-Christian Jews seem to have lost the mercy they once possessed. Will God once again withdraw the mercy shown to Gentiles and return it to the Jews? It is hard to say!

Mercy is deeply paradoxical.

Mercy will fall next where we least expect it. God will exalt His people and punish His enemies both in history and at the end of history, but He has enemies both inside and outside the visible boundaries of Israel/Church, and even His people within Israel/Church need purification and have done things worthy of divine chastisement, as have others outside Israel/Church who stand nonetheless to benefit from the purification and be restored to God’s friendship afterward.

Mercy is understandable only against the background of sin and imminent judgment from which no one is exempt. Everyone must repent and show mercy to others, and the greatest hope for mercy is in the humanity of Jesus Christ.

Repentance does not guarantee that one will avoid suffering and chastisement, but it is the constant condition necessary to receive God’s mercy that He stands forever prepared to offer to everyone.

Dr. Peter Brown is the Academic Dean for Catholic Distance University.

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Scripture

Importance of Jesus’ Parables

Dr. Peter Brown

March 20, 2023 5:05 am March 20, 2023

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8 min read

Parables are perhaps the best-known aspect of the Lord’s teaching in the New Testament, but in this He accommodated himself to patterns of teaching already in use at the time….

Parables are perhaps the best-known aspect of the Lord’s teaching in the New Testament, but in this He accommodated himself to patterns of teaching already in use at the time.

In the Old Testament, God commanded Ezekiel to teach Jewish exiles in this manner (see Ez 17:3-21; 19:1-14). Here the prophet was employing the Hebrew genre mashal. The genre appears in older settings (Jdg 9:7-15), but probably the best known is the mashal of the ewe lamb that the prophet Nathan used to convict David of his murder of Uriah the Hittite (2 Sm 12:1-4).

What is a mashal? A mashal is usually translated as “riddle,” but really it is less a brainteaser than an allegory told with different levels of meaning, with each element corresponding to a real life referent — here, the “rich man” is David, the “poor man” Uriah and the “ewe lamb” Bathsheba.

The Good Shepherd. Renata Sedmakova / Shutterstock.com

Parables can be very short, proverbial and aphoristic. Luke 5:36 and 6:39, for instance, are simply pithy, memorable sayings. In fact, in Luke 4:23, what the Revised Standard Version Bible and New American Bible translates as “proverb” is parabole in the Greek.

More common, however, are the extended parables that involve several different aspects of comparison — for example, Matthew 7:24-27 and the parable of the two houses, one built on sand and the other on rock. The Lord — unlike his hypocritical opponents — actually puts into effect His own advice, choosing a rock named Peter on whom to build His house the Church (see Mt 16:16-18).

The parables of Jesus in Matthew highlight theological themes found only in the first Gospel. The well-known parable of the wheat and the weeds (see Mt 13:24-30) and the more concise parable of the fishnet (Mt 13:47-50), both serve to underscore the Church as a mixed body consisting of both saints and sinners whom God will providentially leave in place until the time of the great eschatological separation.

Even parables common to more than one Gospel are recorded differently by each of the Evangelists. Some, like the parable of the wicked tenants are understood by friend and foe (see Mt 21:45; Mk 12:12; Lk 20:19). But the misunderstanding motif figures enormously in Mark’s version of the parable of the sower (4:1-20). Most homilists will take the view that the parable concerns our receptivity to the Word of God. But I am afraid this is a case in which the homilists have allowed the more familiar versions of the story in Matthew and Luke to color their reading. In the context of Mark, thus far there has been a great deal of opposition to Jesus and very little receptivity. Even the disciples of Jesus who have followed Him do not understand Him and demonstrate fear and unbelief (Mk 4:12-14; 4:40; 6:50-52; 7:17-18; 8:17-21). They have received the mystery of the Kingdom all right, but apparently not the knowledge and understanding that must come with it (compare Mk 4:11 and Mt 13:11).

Jesus’ Approach

The Gospel of Mark’s ironic introduction to parables begins in 4:10. Jesus is asked why He teaches in parables. What is striking is that He does not respond the way we imagine that He should, with something like, “Parables are my way to use earthly similitudes to convey heavenly realities because such analogies are the only things earthly human beings can understand.” Astonishingly, Jesus himself explains that parables are not to teach anyone anything at all, but rather to confound and confuse and to separate the insiders of Jesus from the outsiders for whom parables will be opaque (see 4:11-12).

The Laborers in the Vineyard. Shutterstock

But if this is the case, why should the disciples of Jesus have needed an explanation of the parable at all? “Do you not understand this parable? Then how will you understand any of the parables?” (Mk 4:13). In the context of Mark, the disciples are little more secure than the enemies of Jesus who are confounded by his message. How often in real life have we seen the irony of supposed Church insiders not getting the message at all?

What is going on here is that our understanding of parables is being challenged. In this instance, it is not really about our response at all, or, more precisely, it is about the fact that in spite of the opposition of enemies of the Kingdom and in spite of the moral and intellectual failings of the Kingdom’s putative friends, the Kingdom will succeed immensely in the end. Even though most of the seeds sown by God seem to be failing, the ones that do take root will bear abundant fruit. In other words, the parable is, first, Jesus’ explanation of why the apparent failure of His ministry is, in fact, part of God’s plan — much as Isaiah’s original mission was to harden hearts for a time (see Is 6:9-13). Second, the apparent failure of the kingdom proclamation will be the seeds of its success. We could even say that not only is the parable of the sower a parable about the kingdom proclamation of Jesus, but it is a parable about parables.

The Prodigal Son

The parable of the sower shows us that we should be a little more careful about naming parables than we usually are. This parable could have been called the parables of the seeds or the parable of the soils, and each name would subtly affect our interpretation. But nowhere is the name we impart to the parable more powerful to affect our construal of it than in the parable of the prodigal son (see Lk 15:11-32).

Unlike the aphoristic parables or even the more extended ones such as the mustard seed (see Mk 4:30-32), this one has a complete story line and most of us know its basic outline. A son sells all his goods and runs away from the family, squandering his precious inheritance in the process. But then, realizing the self-imposed squalor of his condition, he repents, and his overjoyed father runs halfway down the road to meet him. The father gives him a great celebratory banquet, delighting that his lost son has now been found. From the classic spiritual “Amazing Grace” to countless homilies, this parable of repentance has piqued the religious imagination of Christians of all stripes down through the centuries.

But perhaps the repentance and joyous acceptance of the Father is not the parable’s most important theme. Often left out entirely from reflection is the anger of the elder brother, who thinks he has received nothing for his years of fidelity while his lesser, disobedient sibling is welcomed back to the family on an equal basis. The parable of the prodigal son, in fact, could be more aptly named the parable of the elder brother. Read in its entirety, the parable of the prodigal son seems like an expansive retelling of Matthew’s parable of the two sons (see Mt 21:28-32). In both cases the parables are Jesus’ thinly veiled commentaries on the state of affairs in the Church with the younger brother as a stand-in for the wayward Gentiles — welcomed back to the people of God after centuries of dissolution and rebellion — and the elder brother representing Jewish Christians, upset that their long-held privileged position in the family is being compromised.

But whatever we call it, Luke’s parable of the elder brother is among the most famous in the Jesus tradition. Indeed, as the state of Idaho’s motto is “Famous Potatoes,” Luke’s Gospel’s motto should be “Famous Parables.” It is only Luke who contains the well-known parables of the accursed fig tree (see 13:6-9), the rich man and Lazarus (16:19-31) and real sleepers like the parable of the widow and the unjust judge (18:1-8). By far the most famous of the special Lucan parables is that of the good Samaritan.

The Good Samaritan

The Good Samaritan. Renata Sedmakova / Shutterstock.com

On a surface level, the message of this one is easy to grasp — the true love of neighbor will be shown by the one who actually extends mercy (in this case corporal mercy) — and not necessarily by the professional religious. But a fuller understanding of the good Samaritan must include the degree to which the parable is profoundly subversive of the religious assumptions of Jews living in Palestine for whom a “good Samaritan” was a contradiction in terms and actually rather scandalous.

But whether they scandalize or challenge us, motivate or frighten us, we encounter the heart of Our Lord’s teaching in the parables and thus the mind of the Lord himself. The style of the teaching wasn’t unique, but the Divine Person whom we encounter is!

Dr. Peter Brown earned his doctorate in Scripture from The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. He serves as academic dean of the Catholic Distance University.

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Christmas

What Can We Learn from the Infancy Narratives?

Dr. Peter Brown

October 19, 2022 7:00 am October 19, 2022

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10 min read

Many Catholics are unaware that Advent is a penitential time in which we prepare for the Lord’s coming at the end of time. One way to prepare for that is…

Many Catholics are unaware that Advent is a penitential time in which we prepare for the Lord’s coming at the end of time. One way to prepare for that is to reflect on the Lord’s coming in time — that first Christmas — and reacquainting ourselves with a careful study of the greatest sources we have for the story of Our Lord’s birth: the Gospel passages of Matthew 1-2 and Luke 1-2 called the Infancy Narratives.

The Christmas story that most Catholics know is actually an amalgamation of the accounts of the events of Christ’s birth according to Matthew and Luke. Harmonizations like this serve a good purpose — without them we would not have the Nativity scene or the annual school Christmas pageant — but there is a great deal to be learned by reading the two accounts as their authors actually wrote them — that is, as the prelude to two separate Gospels which each shed separate light on the Christ event.

Fulfilling Old Testament

Many will find a few surprises within the Infancy Narratives. For instance, while we see that the baby is wrapped in swaddling clothes (just like King Solomon in Wisdom 7:4-6), neither Luke nor Matthew mention any animals present at the birth. The idea that an ox and ass were present came from a creative reading of Isaiah 1:3, which speaks of these animals at the “manger,” the master’s crib. No stable or cave is mentioned in either Gospel, and there is a decent possibility that the feedbox in which the baby Jesus was laid was used to feed animals kept at the house where Joseph was forced to put the baby because he had run out of space in his room.

The word in Luke 2:7 usually translated “inn” is not the usual word for inn that we see later on in Luke 10:34. The term in Luke 2:7 is more the generic term for “accommodation,” so it may be that Joseph has his own ancestral house in Bethlehem, his town of origin, where he must go to enroll in the census. This would fit Matthew’s version in which he speaks of a “house” in Bethlehem (see Mt 2:11) where the Magi visit. At any rate, Bethlehem is important as a place because it fulfills the prophecy in Micah 5:2.

In the Line of David

But as interesting as it is to speculate on details surrounding the birth of Jesus, there is a great deal also to be learned from the more mundane aspects of the stories — and nothing is more mundane to Western ears than the genealogies — Jesus’ family history. Matthew’s genealogy might be recognized as the Gospel reading at the Christmas Vigil Mass. Perhaps boring to us, it is the most exciting thing to Jewish ears because it speaks of the return of the long-awaited Davidic king! All of Jesus’ ancestors listed from David down to Josiah, all once sat upon the throne of Judah.

Besides this, Matthew has made the curious choice to include four women in his genealogy of Jesus — Tamar, Rahab, Ruth and Bathsheba. Each woman was important in her respective biblical story while at the same time being of questionable repute. (See Genesis 38 for the story of Tamar and Joshua 2 concerning Rahab.) Bathsheba’s indiscretions with David are, of course, pretty well known.

The mention of these women, then, has three functions. First, the Gentile identity of each of the women establishes the international basis of Jesus’ background, hinting at the Abrahamic promise to bless the nations through the Davidic line (see Gn 12:1-3; 17:1-8; 22:15-19), thus explaining why Jesus is called “son of Abraham” (Mt 1:1). Second, it prepares the reader for the marriage between Mary and Joseph and the apparent impropriety that surrounded that case. But, third, including these four women in Jesus’ family tree also serves to connect Jesus even to the less savory aspects of the Davidic family. This is fitting, since as one who has come to save His people from their sins, Jesus stands as someone who bears on His shoulders the full weight of the transgressions of the house of Judah.

But the Davidic connections continue as we notice that the genealogy of Jesus in Matthew is broken into three parts of 14, the number which just happens to be the numerical value of the Hebrew spelling of David.

A few verses after the genealogy, Matthew famously cites Isaiah 7:14. This explains Jesus as not only the heir apparent to the Davidic King Hezekiah, but also the one who brings about God’s act of salvation to Israel through the pregnancy of a lowly virgin. As Emmanuel (“God with us”), God himself would come to dwell amidst His people.

The visit of the Magi illustrates that even Gentiles search for the true king of the world in contrast to the Herodian pretender, and that even earnest Gentiles need help from divine revelation (in this case Micah 5:2) to know precisely where the new king of the world would be born. The Magi’s gifts of gold and incense both befit their royal beneficiary and echo the journeys of foreigners in the days of Solomon bearing gifts to hear the wisdom of the Davidic king, and also the prophecy of Isaiah 60:6 regarding Gentile gifts to the restored Israel.

But Matthew does not only want to connect Jesus to David personally as a descendant who follows a preset template. Matthew wants to exploit the idea that David was a representative of the whole people. Indeed the title “Son of God” to which we are first introduced here in Matthew had several meanings. It can refer both to Israel as a whole (see Ex 4:22) just as it can to the Davidic king specifically (2 Sm 7:14). Certain Psalms refer to the son of God when discussing both David and his people (see Ps 2 and 8). This is why Jesus’ fleeing to Egypt and returning fulfills the prophecy of Hosea 11:1. As the new Israel, Jesus, the Davidic “son of God,” must do what Israel “the son of God” did. Just as Israel made a round trip from Canaan to Egypt, so Jesus must do likewise. St. Augustine called this the “head and body” principle.

Jesus and Moses

Finding of Moses, altarpiece on altar of Our Lady in the Church of Saint Matthew in Stitar, Croatia. Zvonimir Atletic / Shutterstock.com

Just as Matthew’s Nativity has made great use of the many traditions concerning David, similarities abound also between Jesus and Moses. Both figures were forced into exile to escape the tyranny of evil rulers who sought to put all male children to death in order to protect their earthly kingdoms (compare Ex 1 and Mt 2:16-18). Both Moses (see Ex 4:19) and Jesus (through Joseph his father, Mt 2:20) were commanded by supernatural means to return home at the death of the respective kings who had sought their death.

According to extra-biblical Jewish traditions, there was a story of Moses’ father (like Joseph) needing the reassurance of a dream during Pharaoh’s decree, just as there was a story of Pharoah learning of the existence of Israel’s future liberator through his palace scribes who urged him to kill Moses. There was even a tradition of Moses’ mother being barren and aged and needing to conceive by supernatural means, and one oral tradition reflected that Moses received gifts in his infancy. There is more throughout the Gospels to illustrate the extensive similarities between the two men.

Despite their differences, Matthew and Luke agree on quite a number of key details: the miraculous Virgin Birth in Bethlehem, the names of the principal characters and so forth. Luke, like Matthew, also goes to great lengths to emphasize Jesus’ Davidic ancestry. The famous Annunciation includes references to David and his kingdom! Read Luke 2.

Jesus and John the Baptist

Luke’s Nativity account has some interesting differences. Unlike Matthew’s account, in which Joseph drives the action, the real star in Luke’s Gospel is Mary. In Luke, the means of divine communication of important events are angelic appearances and conversations, unlike the dreams in Matthew’s Gospel. The first angelic visit is to Zechariah and then to Mary herself, and then, finally, to the shepherds.

A detailed study of Matthew’s whole Gospel would show that he constructs an elaborate parallel between the careers of John the Baptist and Jesus. So it is fascinating that Luke places the pair in tandem as well, although his parallel occurs entirely in the infancy account. Gabriel announces both boys as miraculous births (see Lk 1:14-20; 1:28-38), and both boys are named by the announcing angel (Lk 1:13; 1:31). At the time that the two boys met, while both in the womb, the Holy Spirit came to “overshadow” Mary (Lk 1:35) while He “filled” Elizabeth (Lk 1:41). Zechariah sings a prophetic canticle about John while Mary sings one about Jesus. After birth the two boys are both circumcised on the eighth day (Lk 1:59; 2:21), they are both marveled at by the people (Lk 1:63; 2:18), and they both grow and become strong (Lk 1:80; 2:40).

There is indeed a literary diptych in Luke 1-3 with John the Baptist on one side and Jesus on the other. Catholics often miss much of this because we tend to overlook the story of Elizabeth and Zechariah in Luke 1 and how it prefigures Mary and Jesus’ story in Luke 2.

Luke’s Gospel is one of prophecy and prayer. In addition to the two annunciations by Gabriel and the two prophetic canticles by Zechariah and Mary, we see Anna’s prophesy complementing the marvelous prophecy of Simeon — that the boy Jesus would be a sign of contradiction and Mary’s heart would be pierced. It reminds us that no Advent reflection can shut out of mind the cross of Christ, prefigured even in the infancy of Jesus.

Gospel of Joy

Above all though, Luke’s Gospel is one of joy, and there is no shortage of that in the first two chapters. The birth of John causes an abundance of “joy” to the family and friends (see Lk 1:14,58), as does the birth of Jesus to the shepherds (2:10). Mary “rejoices” over God her savior who made both miraculous births possible (1:47). Indeed the joy of Mary’s pregnancy is so superabundant that it even reaches John the Baptist, in utero, who leaps in the womb (1:44).

This is the same joy described by Pope Francis in his encyclical Evangelii Gaudium (“The Joy of the Gospel”), in which he states that the Gospel’s joy “fills the hearts and lives of all who encounter Jesus…. With Christ joy is constantly born anew” (No. 1).

Each Advent and Christmas gives an opportunity for us who await the Lord’s second coming to allow the Holy Spirit to make us experience the joy of those who met Him when He came among us as man.

Dr. Peter Brown received his doctorate in Biblical Studies at The Catholic University of America, which includes advanced studies in Greek and all biblical languages. He currently is academic dean at Catholic Distance University where he teaches several courses.

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8 min read

Christmas

What was the Star of Bethlehem?

Dr. Peter Brown

October 11, 2022 9:38 am October 11, 2022

8 min read

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8 min read

Every year around Advent, Catholics are reminded of the story of the Nativity of Our Lord. Actually, for those keeping score, there are two stories of this in the Bible,…

Every year around Advent, Catholics are reminded of the story of the Nativity of Our Lord.

Actually, for those keeping score, there are two stories of this in the Bible, which are often amalgamated in the Christian imagination. The Gospel of Luke presents the notion that the birth of Jesus itself took place in a stable, as he was “laid in a manger” (2:7), or what we would call today an animal feedbox. Matthew’s presentation climaxes in a house, probably sometime after the birth of Christ. Besides the Holy Family itself, the most famous part of Matthew’s account is the Magi, these mysterious three men who journey from the “east,” probably Persia, in search of a young boy born King of the Jews. The Magi have greatly outdistanced Luke’s poor shepherds in the popular imagination.

One question that keeps arising is what was the “star” that not only revealed the fact of the Savior’s birth but led the Magi on an over 1,000-mile quest to the exact place of the baby in Bethlehem?

Natural Phenomenon?

The most popular solutions today usually involve various and sundry astronomical phenomena — most commonly a comet, a planetary conjunction, a supernova or (rarely) a meteor. Those who promote these theories run the gamut, ranging from the merely curious, to fundamentalist Christians always eager to use science to “prove” the veracity of biblical stories, to serious historians looking to use known times of past astronomic events to more precisely date the birth of Jesus Christ.

But we don’t need to be experts in astronomy to note the fundamental problems with such readings. Stars, planets, comets and so forth are very distant from earth. While they do indeed move (or at least appear to move from our vantage point), they do not naturally move in ways that can lead people to exact locales on the earth’s surface, let alone to come to rest over a young boy in a house. For a star to do this, it would need not only to shine day and night to guide the Magi on their journey but also to drop out of the firmament and come much closer to earth. Evidently what we are dealing with is a one-off “star” that was behaving in supernatural or preternatural ways. And this means that modern astronomy, which like all science limits itself to purely natural occurrences, is of no use to us at all in telling us what it was.

Ancient interpreters of Matthew didn’t know modern astronomy. They were unaware that stars and comets are massive burning objects that would engulf our happy planet in a seething inferno were they ever to approach sufficiently close to the earth’s surface to lead Magi to a city, a house or a person. But they did surmise the basic facts: the star that Matthew describes was not behaving the way stars ordinarily behave. If anything, the Star of Bethlehem was behaving like an angel!

“Under the Form of a Star”

Indeed, in his masterful article, “The Magi’s Angel,” which appears in his book “Studies in Matthew: Interpretation Past and Present,” New Testament scholar Dale Allison not only reminds us that in the ancient world of Matthew stars were not only closely related to angels, but that many famous Christian commentators up to the Enlightenment thought that the star might well have been an angel, or at least a specially created star moved under angelic guidance. Interpreters like John Chrysostom, Ephraem, Augustine, Origen and Theophylact assumed that the star was either specially created and not part of the heavenly system, the Holy Spirit or an angelic being under the guise of a star. St. Thomas Aquinas — well aware of the folly of holding the star a natural occurrence — thought that what Matthew describes was an “invisible force made visible under the form of a star” — something out of the reach of normal astronomy.

It is easy to see how ancient interpreters would so closely relate stars to angels. Like Matthew’s star, angels are bright (see Mt 28:3; Acts 6:15; 2 Cor 11:14), they come down to earth (Dn 8:10; Mk 13:25; Rv 1:20; 9:1-2; 12:3-4), they reveal things to people (too many examples to list here) and they serve as guides. Most famously the pillar of cloud by day and pillar of fire by night that guided Israel in the wilderness was the angel of the Lord (Ex 13:21).

In the Sanctus we invoke the “Lord of hosts.” These “hosts” (Saba’oth in Hebrew) are angelic armies closely related in the Bible to stars (see 1 Kgs 22:19; Is 24:21-23; Jer 19:13; Neh 9:6; Dn 8:10). If we were to look at the Dead Sea Scrolls and extra-biblical literature of both ancient Judaism and Christianity, these examples of the kinship between stars and angels could be multiplied ad nauseam. For these reasons many ancient paintings depict an angel (sometimes also with a star) leading the Magi.

The ancients readily saw stars as living beings, whose patterns could reveal things and tell stories about the world. In Eastern Christianity, this belief was partly carried over from Greek philosophy of Plato popular with many of the Church Fathers, but lingered because it fit in well with cosmology of the Bible. The view of an animate cosmos had currency well into the Middle Ages. Aristotle himself was unsure whether stars had souls. But in Aristotelean cosmology (the most up-to-date available in Aquinas’ day), stars were seen as the prime movers who in turn were moved by the unmoved prime mover, God. But in this way they were part of the chain of motion which could move things upon the earth. It was debated in the Middle Ages to what degree astral movements could actually predict happenings on earth. Aquinas used the terms “astronomy” and “astrology” interchangeably.

Astrology lost credence as the Middle Ages progressed and observers of the night skies developed the ability to make far more precise observations and mathematical computations. Mostly this was a salutary development. Astrology as a matter of fact could never effectively predict events on earth. On the other hand, astronomy could eventually reveal many truths of the universe while launching satellites, rockets, space shuttles and putting a man on the moon.

The separation between astrology and astronomy was much like the gulf that emerged between alchemy and chemistry. Wizards with esoteric “knowledge” have given way to geeks in lab coats. Stars have become the exclusive property of astronomy — gaseous giants that generate enormous quantities of heat, light and gravitational pull. But this was never Matthew’s notion of “stars,” nor that of any of his original interpreters.

Modern Thinking

The world is mostly the better for the changes. But we should be aware that the de-animation and de-supernaturalization of the universe has had some adverse effects in the way moderns think and read Scripture. It was Enlightenment thinkers, unconsciously reading a rationalistic framework into the Bible, who insisted that everything unusual in the Bible must have some natural explanation. We get annoyed — or should — when someone insists that the miracles of the Bible are really just natural phenomena that were exaggerated or misunderstood by the ancients. Jesus healing the sick and the blind was “really” just “spontaneous natural cures” to which medical literature attests. Jesus walking on water is “really” just him appearing to walk on very shallow water. Jesus quieting the storm was “really” just microbursts of wind that meteorologists affirm can come and go rapidly in the sea of Galilee. The multiplication of loaves was “really” everyone sharing their own lunch.

We don’t take these “explanations” that seriously because they implicitly deny the supernatural power of Jesus. Showing this was the whole motivation of narrating the miracles in the first place. But for some reason many still look to modern science to inform us what the Star of Bethlehem “really” was in terms of the underlying astronomy: the “star” in Matthew “must have been” a planetary alignment or a comet or supernova or planetary conjunction or something of this nature.

Modern biblical scholarship is saturated with just this scientific paradigm. Its conceit is that newer knowledge of the world is always superior to older knowledge. Often, new knowledge really is better, but not always! But the Star of Bethlehem is a classic example of how modern assumptions about the world can lead us seriously astray in interpreting an ancient text whose authors did not share those assumptions. Ignoring the interpretive tradition in this case has made many modern interpreters look very foolish and has misused otherwise valuable astronomical knowledge. Like much else the Bible recounts, the star of the Magi was a special intervention in the world by God, probably carried out with the intermediation of one of his angels. It was a Christmas miracle. And for all that modern astronomy can tell us, it cannot tell us anything about that!

Peter Brown, Ph.D., earned his doctorate in Scripture from The Catholic University of America. He serves as academic dean for the Catholic Distance University.

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