11 Divine Revelation

7/27/2019 11 Divine Revelation

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Copy and Answer the Following

during discussion1. Who is the one who reveals himself?

2. Who were the people to whom he

revealed himself?

3. Who is the man through whom God

revealed himself?

4. What can we infer/deduce or concludeas the nature or quality of the

Revealer Himself?



5. What do you call the book that

contains the stories and events of God’s revelation?

6. What makes this book different from

any other book that we know?7. What do you call the agreement or

alliance which God made with his

people?

8. What is God’s aim in revealing himself

to man through these people?



9. What are the two main parts of

the Christian Scriptures?

10. Which part is initially the

Scriptures used by Jesus

himself?11. Whose story is written in the

gospels?

12. How long did it take for the OldTestament to be compiled in the

present composition?



13.Who’s national history is written in the

Old Testament?

14.What are the books that were included

in the Catholic Christian Scriptures but

were not included in the Hebrew

Bible?

15.It refers to the list of books of the

Bible officially accepted by the Church

for being inspired.



16.How many books are there in the

Catholic Bible? 17.What is the first and what is the last

book of the Bible?

18.Which is the original language of theOld Testament Scripture?

19.What do you call the acceptability of

books of the bible believed to havebeen inspired?

20.What do you call our response to the

Divine Revelation?



fr. the Greek word apokalupsis

translated as “revelation” whichmeans “unveiling”

it is God’s personal loving communicationto us of who He is and His plan to

save us all in His love. (CFC 101)



Revelation – from the word revelare

which means to “unveil” or take away

the cover of It is the "taking away the veil," God

making Himself known through words

and deeds in salvation history. (Cf.DV 2, 4, 6-11.)







God Reveals Himself through Creation

The first way God reveals Himself to us is through

creation. "The heavens declare the glory of God,and the firmament proclaims His handiwork" (Ps

19:1).

God reveals himself to the Chosen People

God Revealed Himself through theScriptures

God Revealed Himself in fullness through

His Son, Jesus Christ



God Reveals Himself through Christ present in the Church

God continues to Reveal Himself throughthe Sacraments



PURPOSE: GOD’S PLAN

to make all of us united with Him: COVENANT

to make of humanity One FAMILY with God as

the Father and all of us brothers and sisters

To make know His love for humanity

notwithstanding its UNFAITHFULNESS

And because He loves us, he wants to save us

from self-destruction: SALVATION



COVENANT

It is a solemn agreement between

two parties. A religious covenant is a

belief shared by members of areligious community that God has

made a formal alliance or agreement

with them or with humanity ingeneral. This sort of covenant is an

important concept in Judaism and

Christianity, derived in the first

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alliance

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judaism

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Covenant_(biblical)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judaism

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alliance

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God



Examples of a covenant

relationship

Covenant with Noah: God will not destroy

humanity again

Covenant between Abraham: God will make him

the father of a great nation Covenant with between God and the Israelites –

“I will be your God and you will be my people.”

Leviticus 26:12

Between Jesus and his apostles – the New

Covenant” in which Jesus' sacrifice on the cross

would atone for the sins of all mankind.

(Matthew 26:28)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham



SALVATION

In theology, salvation can mean three related

things: being saved from, or LIBERATION

from, something, such as suffering or the

punishment of sin – also calledDELIVERANCE; being saved for something,

such as an afterlife or participating in the

Reign of God – also called REDEMPTION; or

SOCIAL LIBERATION and healing, as inliberation theology.



Salvation Experienced by Israel

Joseph-sold as a slave in Egypt to save his

people from famine

Moses – saved by the Egyptian princes to be

able to save Israel from Slavery

Cyrus I, King of Persia-gave Israel the freedom

to return from Babylon to Judea

But in all these “ I, even I, am Yahweh; andbeside me there is no Savior.” Isaiah 43:11



God Reveals Himself

God has made Himself known to

us through Creation but also

through the Old Testament.Finally God made Himself known

to us by coming to live among us

as Jesus Christ.

We call this Divine Revelation.



Divine Revelation

God has chosen to reveal

Himself bit by bit to us, not

all at once.

This revelation began with

Adam and Eve who used to

walk with Him in the

Garden. Later to the Israelites

They gave us the Old

Testament which tells of

God’s revelation to them.



Divine Revelation

All of the Revelation of the Old

Testament lead to God’s greatest

Revelation.

For God so loved the world that hesent His only Son…Jesus Christ. [Jn

3,16]

Jesus chose Twelve Apostles and

taught them everything they needed

to know for salvation.

This revelation to them, the gospel,

was entrusted to those twelve and



Divine Revelation

The Apostles passed this revelation in two forms,Scripture and Tradition (Preaching).

Together Scripture and Tradition form the deposit of faith, the full revelation of Christ.

One without the other is lacking, though alwaysvaluable.

Sacred Tradition includes teachings on the Trinity,Sacraments, and our Creed.

With the death of the last Apostle (John ~100AD) there willbe no further revelation.

The Church simply looks deeper and deeper into whatwe have been iven b Christ and his A ostles.



The Magisterium

The teaching office of the Church is called theMagisterium.

The Church has the sacred duty to protect thedeposit of faith, that is all the things Godrevealed to us.

This is composed of the Pope and all the

bishops in union with him. They cooperate with the Holy Spirit to teach all

we know about God without error.

There have been many explanations of the truth

over 2000 years but the truths of our faith have



1.Finally our Lord Jesus Chr is t ,

Son of God, came to earth toreveal Divine truths to men. After

His death, His Apostles and

disciples wrote about Him and His

teachings.

There are twenty-seven of these

books, composing the New Testament .

With the forty-six books of the OldTestament the Church gathered them

together into one Book called

Holy Scr ipture , or the Bib le .



3. The deposit of faith which

Jesus Christ entrusted to theChurch is made up of two

parts: a] Holy Scripture and

b] Sacred Tradit ion , the

latter being composed of thetruths passed down by word

of mouth, and not written

down till after the death of

Christ's Apostles and

disciples, principally by theFathers of the Church.



Approach to the Bible

1. Accept the Bible as the Word of God

The Bible is a library of books. Though the Bible

contains 73 books, yet it appears to be only one

book, far from being a library of books as it claimsto be.

In the ancient world literary works are written on

rolls which were bulky and unwieldy. These rolls

were made of papyrus and skins of animals.Papyrus is made from the papyrus plant, was

durable when kept dry but became increasingly

brittle. The book form called codex is either made

of papyrus or skin animals, emerged only about a



Sacred Scriptures

The stories, events, poems, hymns of God’s

Revelations to his people is contained in the

SACRED SCRIPTURES.

The Sacred Scriptures therefore are theWORD OF GOD WRITTEN IN THE

LANGUAGE OF MAN.

The Scriptures are sacred because it is writtenthrough the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.



The Bible is Inspired

“ The Holy Bible as the word of God written

under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit they

have God as their author… In composing the

sacred books, God chose men and whileemployed by Him they made use of their own

powers and abilities, so that with Him acting in

them and through them, they, as true authors,

consigned to writing everything and only thosething which He wanted.” (Vatican II,

Constitution on Divine Revelation, ch.3, no. 11)



THE FORMATION OF THE

SCRIPTURES

The Scriptures however was not formed in one

sitting. It took 1000 years and countless

authors before God’s Revelation was

committed into writing. Beginning with Abraham-2000 BC

Moses and the Exodus- 1300 BC

Kingship of David – 1000 BC

Babylonian Exile – 586 BC

Birth of Jesus – 0-4 AD

Death of Jesus – 27-30AD



The Old Testament

1. First stage: Word acted out: God’s actual

revelation of Himself in the history of His

people.

2. Second stage: Oral tradition: The Jewish people naturally desired to

communicate and preserve their memorable

experiences with God.

They communicated these experiences orally –

in prose, poetry, songs, sermons, epics and other

forms of communication common to them.

This oral tradition of divine revelation was thelon est of the sta es of scri tural develo ment.



Third stage: Writing and Editing

Gradually some Jewish writers wrote a few

accounts of some important events in their

history. Even so, oral tradition continued sideby side with the written accounts. It was

common then that one important event had

several oral accounts and a few written ones

circulating in different parts of the country. For

example, the story from Abraham to the

threshold of the Promised Land in the first five

books of the Bible (Pentateuch) was written in



Two Parts of the Scriptures

Old Testament – or Hebrew Scriptures – it

contains the stories from the Creation up to the

Maccabees when the corrupt Hasmonean

dynasty rules Israel New Testament – It contains the gospels, Acts

of the Apostles and the epistles and end with

the Book of Revelation

Together, the Old Testament and the new

Testament for the Christian Scriptures



Old Testament divisions

Torah or the Law-composed of the first five

books of the OT commonly called the “Books

of Moses” namely, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus,

Numbers and Deuteronomy Nevi’im or the Prophets = This division

includes the books which cover the time from

the entrance of the Israelites into the Land of

Israel until the Babylonian captivity of Judah

(the "period of prophecy")

Kethubim or the Writings sometimes also

known by the Greek title "Hagiographa" and

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_language

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_language



New Testament Divisions

Gospels – the book that contains the words and deeds

of Jesus, the Christ

Acts – the narrative that contains the life of the early

Church

Pauline epistles - letters written either by Paul or for

Paul addressed to the communities and persons of the

early Christian Churches

Catholic epistles - The name given to the Epistle of St.

James, to that of St. Jude, to two Epistles of St.

Peter and the first three of St. John

Book of Revelation – the last book of the Bible also

called Apocalypse and deals with the themes of the end

times

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08275b.htm



http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/11752a.htm












How many are the books of the

Bible?

Catholic Version=73

Old Testament = 46

New Testament = 27

Protestant Version = 66 Old Testament = 39 (plus 9 Apocrypha or

Deuterocanonicals)

New Testament = 27 Hebrew Bible = 24 (Some books are

considered as one like Chronicles 1 & 2)



Canonicity

The word canon comes from the Hebrew word

“kaneh” meaning a reed which can be used as

a ruler. The Greek word for it “kanon” means a

measuring rod. Applied to the Bible, the termcanon refers to a norm of revealed truth, a rule

of faith. So CANONICITY refers to the

acceptability of certain list of books by the

Church as be inspired and to contain a rule of faith and morals while CANON refers to the

books accepted as authoritative by the

Church.



Original Biblical Languages

Hebrew Bible- Hebrew – this is the Bible of

the Jews which probably Jesus read and

studied.

Septuagint – Greek – this is the Hebrew Bibleas translated into Greek in about 200 BC

New Testament – Greek Koine or the

common Greek of the New Testament era Vulgate – Latin – the Christian Bible translated

into Latin by St. Jerome in about 400 AD

(Ignorance of the Bible is ignorance of God)

F ith O R t G d’



Faith as Our Response to God’s

Revelation

If God make Himself known through revelation,

therefore, our acceptance of His revelation is

acceptance of God Himself. That is our Faith,

our response to God. Because of faith wecommit our whole self to God.

Faith therefore is our acceptance and

response to what God revealed to us through

the Sacred Scriptures.



Charac ter ist ics o f Faith

Faith is a free act. It is never forced upon us.

Faith brings joy and ease to love God.

Faith brings a deeper understanding of

revelation.

Faith brings people together to form a

community.

Wh t d " f i th" i d il



What does " fai th" mean in daily

li fe?

Faith in general means the way we know,

accept, and relate positively to others,

especially the mutual trust, love, and fidelity

we experience in family and friendships.

What is meant by "Catholic



What is meant by "Catholic

faith"?

Catholic Faith is "to know, love, and follow

Jesus Christ in his Body, the Church" (PCP II

36).

It is that attitude, activity, and process by whichwe, empowered by God's grace:

To freely commit our entire selves to God,

To offer our liberty, our understanding and our

whole will to God who reveals Himself and His

plan, and

To willingly assent to His Revelation (cf. DV 5).

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11 Divine Revelation