This was tremendous. I think the Orthodox perspective on the OT is desperately needed in North America. The Orthodox view of it's Hebrew heritage is beautiful and well balanced. Doesn't hurt that it makes good sense too!
To disregard the Old Testament would be to disregard all the beauty and wisdom in it! I’m currently reading through the Old Testament, I hadn’t read it this extensively since High School (14 years ago!). Currently reading the prophet Jeremiah 😊
Marcion was right, the god of the OT is not the God of Christ and the NT in wich Christ in the book of John makes clear. You are of your father the devil and many passages saying such.
Converting to Orthodoxy has opened my eyes to the depth and beauty of the Old Testament. When you are considering what to do next for your interviews, I recommend more of this sort. Your interviews are always excellent, and this one is no exception. Thank you, Dr. Middleton!
I grew up Christian, but not really. My mother was agnostic and my father didn't practice until he became born again when I was 13-14 or so. We never went to church, I knew to love God, but wasn't interested in why. I went to college and saw a chaotic world around me. I came to find the one I'd call my wife, forever and always. I graduated and have struggled with work or meaningful career since. During my times of trying to find who I am in this year after college, I decided to turn to the Bible. I can't tell you how much these kinds of videos mean to someone who doesn't understand, but is trying to. Thank you for the wisdom, it's very needed. I'm trying to move on past who I was and build something better for my family, the son we discovered, and myself. Thank you
I'm going to catechism and reading the old testament. After reading about the dimensions and layout of the temple and then going to my Orthodox Cathedral I immediately recognized that the Church is a continuation of Jewish tradition.
Absolutely wonderful! The episodes keep getting better and better! May God bless you and your work! I look forward to next Friday's installment! Thank you ! Thank you!
Wonderful. On the road to Emmaus Our Lord explains to the two travelers, or, we should say, illuminates to them, that everything in what we call the Old Testament is about Him.
I've always loved the OT Very much, when i finally became Christian, seeing how everything was preparation for Christ's Nativity made me marvel even more about the greatness of God's plans and Providence. I can only Hope God grants capacity to understand more of the OT
I’m Jewish and looking into Orthodox Christianity because of my belief that Jesus in the Messiah. Do Orthodox Christians celebrate holidays like Passover, Yom Kippur (Day of atonement) and commandments of the Torah? That’s what brought me here.
Hello. Hopefully it's not taken as controversial, but it would be argued that Orthodox Christianity is the fulfillment of Judaism. Yes, Passover is Pascha to us, etc. Huge feasts and what not all the time commemorating ultimately God (Christ) and his life according to the calendar. It's too wide to grasp in a TH-cam comment section, but beautiful and worth the time to seek out if you are interested in that fullness of the Christian Faith
catherine kelly yes we do but the feasts are not obviously ‘calqued’ but reconfigured in light of the grace of the Reaurrecred Messiah. If you pay close attention you will learn to read feasts of the Old Covenant in the Liturgical cycle of the Orthodox Church.
Bishop Alexander had a great influence on me when I was in grad school at Marquette University, back in the '90s. His course on Eastern Christian Asceticism were a major moment in my movement toward Orthodoxy.
Love comments on book of Enoch, Jubilees and Dead Sea scrolls, concerning the temple! A correct understanding of the ANE ( Ancient Near-Eastern) worldview is critical in interpreting both the old and New testaments. May God grant his Eminence many years. Our prayers are being answered!
Yes thank you. I enjoyed. As we Orthodox say one apostolic catholic Orthodox Church Hope the Pope repents and joins us again. In the Old Testament our Christ was revealed to Moses when he rose his «ravthos” as I know it in Hellenic or staff he rose it up and down and the Red Sea opened and left to right to closed it. The sign of the cross.
Wonderful-and tantalising. Just that brief glimpse into the meaning of an "obscure" passage of the Old Testament makes one want to know so much more, and not just for the sake of accumulating knowledge.
Thank you so much for this interview. I cannot wait to show my son who was just asking me why Christian seem to disregard the Old Testament. He didn't understand because he felt that there's still some things in there that are important and need to be discussed and followed
The question Most Reverend, is not whether we build our churches on the model of the Jewish temple but whether you are ready to slay a man with a sword because God will have ordered it, the way Samuel "put Agag to death before the Lord at Gilgal" (1 Samuel 15:33).
There is definitely an heavenly pattern which was revealed to Moses; however, this pattern goes beyond the physical tabernacle itself. There is a fuller description of the heavenly pattern of worship contained in the Book of Revelation, particularly, chapters 4 and 5. One can line up the arrangement of both the Old Testament arrangement of the priests and the people and the New Testament order of the clergy and laity with this heavenly pattern. It isn't just the physical temple in which we worship; it is also the "pattern" in which God's people are arranged. Archbishop Alexander hints at this when he points out that the people stand in the place of the cherubim and seraphim.
Not yet...I am working on this, though! If you haven't already, please sign up for our mailing list...I will notify folks once the podcast becomes available! -> www.protectingveil.com
From the perspective of current findings in cognitive science and developmental psychology, we can now understand the root word "-doxia" in the Late Antique Koine Greek word, "Orthodoxia" through a fourfold gnosiology, the framework of which might be borrowed either from the Jewish hermeneutical structure of the "pardes," or again from the four modalities of knowing suggested by Professor John Vervaeke at the University of Toronto, which the participatory, perspectival, procedural, and propositional levels of knowing that roughly correspond, mutatis mutandis, to in the Jewish context as "sod" (secret), "drush" (instruction), "remez" (moral), and "pshat" (literal-historical) also resonate with the medieval hermeneutical structure of anagogia, moralia, allegoria, and littera. Briefly, the most rarefied participatory "-doxia" corresponds to a developmentally complete maturation of the soul - one that has achieved the "Mind of Christ - in a consummate theosis, such that "Orthodoxy" and "Orthotheosis" could be taken as synonymous at this highest level of spiritual attainment. Next, in the perspectival mode, "-doxia" can be seen as "right seeing/appearing" which corresponds, as Bishop Alexander points out, to the connotation of "-doxia" as primarily perceptual and ocularcentric. In this mode "orthodoxia" one has yet to achieve full theosis, though the fact that she or he begins to behold reality from a theophanic worldview indicated the soul's readiness to ascend to theosis. At the procedural level, "-doxia" can be read as "worship" so that, in this type of knowing and being, "orthodoxia" lays emphasis on exactly that "right doing" or "right praxis" that alone can prepare the mind and soul to begin perceiving the "right glory." Finally, at the most semantically fundamental level, we have "orthodoxia" as that right opinion that focuses on the strictly (and merely) propositional aspect of "-doxia," which is the necessary informational content with which all catechumens and inquirers must begin their ascent through the stages of faith just described.
And this explains where the (the very first bible) Bible comes from, no joke for those who know not their is a Bible called,"The Very First Bible. Look it up and ask people to consider why it might not be a good idea.
But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. Matthew 4:4 Our Beloved Jesus Christ is The Word🕊.. "The Word, The Truth, The Way and The Life".. ... "In the beginning was the Word... and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us"... "Emmanuel, meaning God with us"... "His Word is Truth"... Jesus is "The Truth and The Way and The Life. No man comes to the Father but by Him"... The Father says we "worship Him in Spirit and in Truth"... In Truth-- Jesus Christ. In the Word-- Jesus Christ... Doesn't The Only Begotten say to us-- all things will pass away, but my Word is everlasting...🕊🙏🌅
When we are in Him, we will be ever be compelled, drawn, attracted to our Beloved Jesus Christ! His Word is our compass.. Let us be reading, singing, praying His Word, The Holy Scriptures, until our last breath🙏🕊💖🌅
While there is much compassion and beauty in the O T, there is most unattractive material as well. Any balanced appreciation of it must recognize this, and explain how it is to be reconciled with the Christian world view.
i feel like the father is very inconsistent in the old testament. 3/4 of the old testament you can see the loving father...To be honest, after the Torah throughout the prophets God the father seems so much like Christ.
While a beautiful talk about the important of the parts of the OT that seem to drum on as descriptions and commands. I do wish he addressed the arguments of Marcion that were alluded to in his opening statements. That is, much of the OT depicts god as very angry, wrathful, vengeful, and jealous god. A god of genocide. A demiurge as Marcion would say. How is such a murderous and cruel god reconciled with the loving and forgiving depictions of Jesus in the NT? And sadly, pointing out the beauty, and the platonic nature of the Temple design recorded in the OT doesn't address those concerns.
Probably looks like that on the first sight, if you search it in depth and study a bit more of the history of the nations of the era where the events of the old testament took place you will see that this is the heart of the people of the old world and God just gave them what they asked for in kind. Anger, wrath vengeance jealusy and more were common traits of the old testament people. This is why in the new testament the Old Testamet Law is called a Law of curse, not because God cursed the people, but because this is what the people asked for themselves. Old world people had the habbit to worship cruel gods and have cruel ways of giving justice. Even in the new testament, God (Jesus Christ) punishes those who follow ill ways. But and in the Old Testament and in the New Testament God aways forgives those who change their heart. The difference is that in the New Testament God is more approachable in the face ofJesus Christ and closer to humanity since He became an actual human.
I understand we can't deny the old testament, but I'm still not able to like it nonetheless. We shouldn't fornicate but a Abraham אברהם literally had sex with the slave from his wife, I find it very disturbing, my only moral compass is Jesus Christ, therefore i think with myself, would Christ consider moral for me to have sex with a slave?
I bet Marcion would have disagreed. And had Marcionism not been hounded out of existence and all Marcionite texts destroyed by the church, we may have a more well-rounded understanding of this early theologian named Marcion.
If you were Orthodox you would pray to the Saints and kiss the icons! If you don't do those things it's (probably?) because you don't think they're appropriate...which would make you a Protestant, as you'd be putting yourself and your opinions above the practice and tradition of the Orthodox Church.
@ProtectingVeil You're absolutely right. I'm Protestant. I put the scriptures above traditions that contradict the inspired ,infallible word of God. Traditions are not on par with the Bible. So my devotion is to Jesus.
Yea I sort of hit the wall at Joshua… you know …where they go round destroying men, women and children.. yep call it hyperbole but then you have to be consistent .., not just when text doesn’t line up with your theology
📙 FREE eBOOK on the wisdom of modern Orthodox Christian elders:
social.protectingveil.com/freebook1
This was tremendous. I think the Orthodox perspective on the OT is desperately needed in North America. The Orthodox view of it's Hebrew heritage is beautiful and well balanced. Doesn't hurt that it makes good sense too!
Thanks to God...thanks for stopping by!
To deny OT is Panheresis ( Παναίρεσις )
To disregard the Old Testament would be to disregard all the beauty and wisdom in it! I’m currently reading through the Old Testament, I hadn’t read it this extensively since High School (14 years ago!). Currently reading the prophet Jeremiah 😊
I’ve read the whole Bible in 10 months and got baptized afterwards.
Marcion was right, the god of the OT is not the God of Christ and the NT in wich Christ in the book of John makes clear. You are of your father the devil and many passages saying such.
Converting to Orthodoxy has opened my eyes to the depth and beauty of the Old Testament. When you are considering what to do next for your interviews, I recommend more of this sort. Your interviews are always excellent, and this one is no exception. Thank you, Dr. Middleton!
Thanks to God...duly noted, Joshua! Glad you're finding them helpful!
I grew up Christian, but not really. My mother was agnostic and my father didn't practice until he became born again when I was 13-14 or so. We never went to church, I knew to love God, but wasn't interested in why.
I went to college and saw a chaotic world around me. I came to find the one I'd call my wife, forever and always. I graduated and have struggled with work or meaningful career since. During my times of trying to find who I am in this year after college, I decided to turn to the Bible. I can't tell you how much these kinds of videos mean to someone who doesn't understand, but is trying to. Thank you for the wisdom, it's very needed. I'm trying to move on past who I was and build something better for my family, the son we discovered, and myself. Thank you
Glad you found my channel, brother! May God continue to guide and encourage you as you seek Him!
May God grant our beloved Archbishop Alexander many years +++
Amen!
I'm going to catechism
and reading the old testament. After reading about the dimensions and layout of the temple and then going to my Orthodox Cathedral I immediately recognized that the Church is a continuation of Jewish tradition.
Absolutely wonderful! The episodes keep getting better and better! May God bless you and your work! I look forward to next Friday's installment! Thank you ! Thank you!
Thanks to God...thanks for tuning in brother! Yes...this was a particularly good one!
Wonderful. On the road to Emmaus Our Lord explains to the two travelers, or, we should say, illuminates to them, that everything in what we call the Old Testament is about Him.
I've always loved the OT Very much, when i finally became Christian, seeing how everything was preparation for Christ's Nativity made me marvel even more about the greatness of God's plans and Providence. I can only Hope God grants capacity to understand more of the OT
I’m Jewish and looking into Orthodox Christianity because of my belief that Jesus in the Messiah. Do Orthodox Christians celebrate holidays like Passover, Yom Kippur (Day of atonement) and commandments of the Torah? That’s what brought me here.
* Someone told me that I should look into Orthodox Christianity because it was similar to Judaism.
Hello. Hopefully it's not taken as controversial, but it would be argued that Orthodox Christianity is the fulfillment of Judaism. Yes, Passover is Pascha to us, etc. Huge feasts and what not all the time commemorating ultimately God (Christ) and his life according to the calendar. It's too wide to grasp in a TH-cam comment section, but beautiful and worth the time to seek out if you are interested in that fullness of the Christian Faith
No we do not Thank you Fr. Art Orth priest
catherine kelly yes we do but the feasts are not obviously ‘calqued’ but reconfigured in light of the grace of the Reaurrecred Messiah. If you pay close attention you will learn to read feasts of the Old Covenant in the Liturgical cycle of the Orthodox Church.
Lol Hey What up Guys! Joachim here! I read this comment and wondered if you became Orthodox... I watch your other channel all the time.
Bishop Alexander had a great influence on me when I was in grad school at Marquette University, back in the '90s. His course on Eastern Christian Asceticism were a major moment in my movement toward Orthodoxy.
These videos are a blessing. Thank you!
Thanks to God...glad you're finding them helpful, Odexian!
God grant +ALEXANDER many years!
Amen!
Love comments on book of Enoch, Jubilees and Dead Sea scrolls, concerning the temple! A correct understanding of the ANE ( Ancient Near-Eastern) worldview is critical in interpreting both the old and New testaments.
May God grant his Eminence many years. Our prayers are being answered!
Amen! Duly noted brother!
Thank you, thank, thank you
Yes thank you. I enjoyed. As we Orthodox say one apostolic catholic Orthodox Church Hope the Pope repents and joins us again. In the Old Testament our Christ was revealed to Moses when he rose his «ravthos” as I know it in Hellenic or staff he rose it up and down and the Red Sea opened and left to right to closed it. The sign of the cross.
There shouldn't be a Pope to begin with. Head of the Church is Christ.
This is wonderful, i.e. in our age of diversity.
Wonderful-and tantalising. Just that brief glimpse into the meaning of an "obscure" passage of the Old Testament makes one want to know so much more, and not just for the sake of accumulating knowledge.
I felt the same way...I'd love to look at the OT more deeply...
My favorite video on the channel so far. Great information.
Before I was chrismated I was told Michael, you cannot be a Christian until you are first a good Jew.
Thanks a lot.. No need to say more about your videos.. Keep going..
Thanks to God...glad you're finding them helpful, Nina!
God bless good folks, and God help the lost souls.
Amen!
God bless you father amen
Mind blown, again !
Very informative. ..thankyou
Great work, thank you!
Thanks to God...glad you found us!
Wow this was deep and beautiful
An excellent teaching!
Fantastic episode.
☦️ 🐝 ☦️
Thanck you.Laur,Romania
Thanks to God...thanks for stopping by!
Great video
Thank you so much for this interview. I cannot wait to show my son who was just asking me why Christian seem to disregard the Old Testament. He didn't understand because he felt that there's still some things in there that are important and need to be discussed and followed
Thanks to God...glad to hear it, Maria!
Wonderful
Thank you
The question Most Reverend, is not whether we build our churches on the model of the Jewish temple but whether you are ready to slay a man with a sword because God will have ordered it, the way Samuel "put Agag to death before the Lord at Gilgal" (1 Samuel 15:33).
There is definitely an heavenly pattern which was revealed to Moses; however, this pattern goes beyond the physical tabernacle itself. There is a fuller description of the heavenly pattern of worship contained in the Book of Revelation, particularly, chapters 4 and 5. One can line up the arrangement of both the Old Testament arrangement of the priests and the people and the New Testament order of the clergy and laity with this heavenly pattern. It isn't just the physical temple in which we worship; it is also the "pattern" in which God's people are arranged. Archbishop Alexander hints at this when he points out that the people stand in the place of the cherubim and seraphim.
Beautiful
Amazing! Thank you so much for this video and for all that you’ve shared with us this far. Glory to God!
Thanks to God...glad you're finding them helpful, Julie!
Do you offer your content as a podcast as well? I struggle with the distracting features of youtube.
Not yet...I am working on this, though! If you haven't already, please sign up for our mailing list...I will notify folks once the podcast becomes available! -> www.protectingveil.com
From the perspective of current findings in cognitive science and developmental psychology, we can now understand the root word "-doxia" in the Late Antique Koine Greek word, "Orthodoxia" through a fourfold gnosiology, the framework of which might be borrowed either from the Jewish hermeneutical structure of the "pardes," or again from the four modalities of knowing suggested by Professor John Vervaeke at the University of Toronto, which the participatory, perspectival, procedural, and propositional levels of knowing that roughly correspond, mutatis mutandis, to in the Jewish context as "sod" (secret), "drush" (instruction), "remez" (moral), and "pshat" (literal-historical) also resonate with the medieval hermeneutical structure of anagogia, moralia, allegoria, and littera.
Briefly, the most rarefied participatory "-doxia" corresponds to a developmentally complete maturation of the soul - one that has achieved the "Mind of Christ - in a consummate theosis, such that "Orthodoxy" and "Orthotheosis" could be taken as synonymous at this highest level of spiritual attainment. Next, in the perspectival mode, "-doxia" can be seen as "right seeing/appearing" which corresponds, as Bishop Alexander points out, to the connotation of "-doxia" as primarily perceptual and ocularcentric. In this mode "orthodoxia" one has yet to achieve full theosis, though the fact that she or he begins to behold reality from a theophanic worldview indicated the soul's readiness to ascend to theosis. At the procedural level, "-doxia" can be read as "worship" so that, in this type of knowing and being, "orthodoxia" lays emphasis on exactly that "right doing" or "right praxis" that alone can prepare the mind and soul to begin perceiving the "right glory." Finally, at the most semantically fundamental level, we have "orthodoxia" as that right opinion that focuses on the strictly (and merely) propositional aspect of "-doxia," which is the necessary informational content with which all catechumens and inquirers must begin their ascent through the stages of faith just described.
I wonder in what church these interviews were taped? It is not St. Seraphim's Cathedral in Dallas. It is a beautiful church for sure.
Is this the same young guy who helped restore the olive groves of Athos I heard about 30 years ago?
Glory to the FATHER SON HOLLY SPIRIT...AMEN.
Amen!
Great!!!
I am treasuring this teaching as a protestant I have been robbed I don't want the shallow teachings anymore 13:04
And this explains where the (the very first bible) Bible comes from, no joke for those who know not their is a Bible called,"The Very First Bible. Look it up and ask people to consider why it might not be a good idea.
Sher gut das ist gefalt mir
Very good. Thanks for these videos that teach so much.
But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.
Matthew 4:4
Our Beloved Jesus Christ is The Word🕊..
"The Word, The Truth, The Way and The Life"..
... "In the beginning was the Word... and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us"...
"Emmanuel, meaning God with us"...
"His Word is Truth"... Jesus is "The Truth and The Way and The Life. No man comes to the Father but by Him"...
The Father says we "worship Him in Spirit and in Truth"...
In Truth-- Jesus Christ.
In the Word-- Jesus Christ...
Doesn't The Only Begotten say to us-- all things will pass away, but my Word is everlasting...🕊🙏🌅
When we are in Him, we will be ever be compelled, drawn, attracted to our Beloved Jesus Christ! His Word is our compass.. Let us be reading, singing, praying His Word, The Holy Scriptures, until our last breath🙏🕊💖🌅
The link in the description box to the music telling of Irish monks is not active. The music in your intro is beautiful.
Thanks for the heads up...glad you like it, @Tweetybird! You can find more here: th-cam.com/users/newhagiography
While there is much compassion and beauty in the O T, there is most unattractive material as well. Any balanced appreciation of it must recognize this, and explain how it is to be reconciled with the Christian world view.
i feel like the father is very inconsistent in the old testament. 3/4 of the old testament you can see the loving father...To be honest, after the Torah throughout the prophets God the father seems so much like Christ.
I believe the heretic that St John ran from was not Marcion, but rather Cerinthus. Although I'm sure he would have treated them the exact same, yes.
Yes, indeed. Marcion was born 15 years before the death of the Apostle.
Heretic Marcion (died at 170 A.C.) has been condemned by saint Polycarpos of Smyrna who was a student of saint John the evangelist.
@@johnmavroudis1518 Yes, Marcion was also a heretic. But I was just noting the correct name for the story about St John.
READ THE TALMUD WHEN YOU HAVE TIME, A SUBLIME TEACHING THAT REVEALED THE SUMMIT OF JEWISH MYSTICISM........
While a beautiful talk about the important of the parts of the OT that seem to drum on as descriptions and commands.
I do wish he addressed the arguments of Marcion that were alluded to in his opening statements.
That is, much of the OT depicts god as very angry, wrathful, vengeful, and jealous god. A god of genocide.
A demiurge as Marcion would say.
How is such a murderous and cruel god reconciled with the loving and forgiving depictions of Jesus in the NT?
And sadly, pointing out the beauty, and the platonic nature of the Temple design recorded in the OT doesn't address those concerns.
Probably looks like that on the first sight, if you search it in depth and study a bit more of the history of the nations of the era where the events of the old testament took place you will see that this is the heart of the people of the old world and God just gave them what they asked for in kind. Anger, wrath vengeance jealusy and more were common traits of the old testament people. This is why in the new testament the Old Testamet Law is called a Law of curse, not because God cursed the people, but because this is what the people asked for themselves. Old world people had the habbit to worship cruel gods and have cruel ways of giving justice.
Even in the new testament, God (Jesus Christ) punishes those who follow ill ways. But and in the Old Testament and in the New Testament God aways forgives those who change their heart. The difference is that in the New Testament God is more approachable in the face ofJesus Christ and closer to humanity since He became an actual human.
noetic nutrition
I understand we can't deny the old testament, but I'm still not able to like it nonetheless. We shouldn't fornicate but a Abraham אברהם literally had sex with the slave from his wife, I find it very disturbing, my only moral compass is Jesus Christ, therefore i think with myself, would Christ consider moral for me to have sex with a slave?
I bet Marcion would have disagreed. And had Marcionism not been hounded out of existence and all Marcionite texts destroyed by the church, we may have a more well-rounded understanding of this early theologian named Marcion.
Thank goodness we don't.
Can you be Orthodox and not pray to the saints and kiss the icons
If you were Orthodox you would pray to the Saints and kiss the icons! If you don't do those things it's (probably?) because you don't think they're appropriate...which would make you a Protestant, as you'd be putting yourself and your opinions above the practice and tradition of the Orthodox Church.
@ProtectingVeil You're absolutely right. I'm Protestant. I put the scriptures above traditions that contradict the inspired ,infallible word of God. Traditions are not on par with the Bible. So my devotion is to Jesus.
Yea I sort of hit the wall at Joshua… you know …where they go round destroying men, women and children.. yep call it hyperbole but then you have to be consistent .., not just when text doesn’t line up with your theology