Product Description

Letter & Spirit is a journal of Catholic biblical theology for the new millennium. It seeks to foster deeper understanding of sacred Scripture and the divine liturgy of the Church. This second volume of the journal, "The Authority of Mystery: The Word of God and the People of God," is inspired by the scholarship of Pope Benedict XVI--especially Benedict's concerns about the relation of the Bible to faith in Christ. The editors write in their introduction: "How to read the Bible is, at bottom, a question about the identity of Jesus. Is he Jesus of Nazareth only, or is he also the Christ, the Son of the living God? Did he have a divine mission to reveal the mystery of God, or was he only a man like others? Does he remain among us in sacrament and liturgy?" Letter & Spirit is published annually by the St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology, a nonprofit research and educational institute founded by Dr. Scott Hahn. The journal is published in association with Emmaus Road Publishing.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #820217 in Books
• Published on: 2002-02-12
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 141 pages

Review
His book ... furnishes us with an excellent introduction to the rich biblical theology contained within Saint Luke's historical narrative. -- Timothy T. O'Donnell, S.T.D., K.C.*H.S.

Seldom does a biblical commentary combine clarity and theological insight as well as this one. Highly recommended... -- Scott Hahn, Ph.D., author, The Lamb's Supper

Seldom does a biblical commentary combine clarity and theological insight as well as this one. Highly recommended... -- Scott Hahn, Ph.D.

This book will enlighten and educate, benefiting both the seasoned scholar and the novice... -- Stephen K. Ray, Author

This book will enlighten and educate, benefitting both the seasoned scholar and the novice... -- Stephen K. Ray, author, Crossing the Tiber and Upon This Rock

From the Author
The original inspiration for this book arose from my personal experience in leading Bible studies. In effect, I've tried to package up a detailed Bible study on Acts 1-15 in book form, in a way that's accessible to readers who may not have previous experience with Scripture study. For example, I've included detailed questions at the end of each chapter for individual study or group discussion.

Witnesses of the Messiah covers the first fifteen chapters of Acts. This portion of the New Testament describes the formation of the early Church, including Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit directly acted to establish the Church; the appointment of the first deacons; and, most centrally, the role of Peter in leading the Church, from his first sermon at Pentecost to his role at the Council of Jerusalem. There's a tremendous amount of material in these chapters that's fundamental to the Catholic understanding of the Church.

I've particularly emphasized the Old Testament background of the Acts of the Apostles. Many of Luke's reference and much of his language cannot be understood apart from the Old Testament background. One important example is the Davidic covenant, which God made with David through the prophet Nathan in 2 Samuel 7. Luke consistently presents the Church as the fulfillment of this covenant.

About the Author
Stephen Pimentel is a writer and speaker on Catholic apologetics and Scripture. He has written a series of articles on the Acts of Apostles for the magazine Lay Witness. He is pursuing graduate studies in theology at the Notre Dame Graduate School of Christendom College. His current projects include the development of a series of Catholic Bible study materials. Witnesses of the Messiah is his first book.

Customer Reviews

A Critical Contribution to Biblical Criticism
A tenet common to both genuinely Christian exegesis and redaction criticism - critique of biblical texts as compositional works - is that understanding the human author's perspective and intent is central to reliably interpreting his writings. Stephen Pimentel skillfully exemplifies this tenet in his exposition of Acts. In particular, Mr. Pimentel's diligent yet concise exegesis persuasively presents extensive and textually well-grounded evidence that Luke's perspective excluded any dichotomy of biblical theology and historicity, contrary to the presumption widespread in modern biblical criticism. Mr. Pimentel's work is especially pertinent to the corollary of this presumption, which is that New Testament authors typically compromised historicity for the sake of advancing their theological "agenda." As Mr. Pimentel shows, the text of the New Testament, and in particular Acts, strongly indicates that such a compromise would have been unthinkable to the authors of the New Testament. As Mr. Pimentel shows, these men viewed the New Covenant as culminating a theologically significant and historically real development of God's covenantal relationship with Israel.

Mr. Pimentel's exposition is thorough enough to gratify the formally trained student of Scripture, while remaining highly readable to non-scholars. This exposition principally consists of surfacing the literal "saturation" of Acts in Old Testament subtexts underlying the direct citations and quotations of Old Testament Scripture. As Mr. Pimentel convincingly shows, these pervasive subtexts clearly indicate Luke's insight into the significance of the New Covenant Church: as the covenant community established and advanced by Jesus Christ through the Holy Spirit, the Church is the definitive fulfillment of God's covenantal promises to Israel from Abraham to David. This insight has tremendous religious significance, which Mr. Pimentel ably assists the believing or searching reader to grasp through helpful reflections at the end of each concise chapter. Yet Mr. Pimentel's work has a distinct critical value as well, for the New Testament's message cannot be properly understood apart from an intellectually honest accounting for the authors' perspective of that message.

A must have!
This study is truly divine. We just finished this in our Parish's women's bible study and we never have enough time, even with two hours set aside, to discuss everything. The nice thing about the format is that if you want to read the chapters from the bible you can but you do not have to as it has five pages of concise, easy to follow, thought provoking commentary. There are usually five to seven questions at the end of each chapter. The only thing is that you have to really spend some time flipping back and forth in the bible to all of the OT and NT references in the questions in addition to the catechism. It is worth the effort and truly felt like a study instead of reading and then genuflecting. I learned so much about Catholicism, Tradition, Old testament portents to the coming of Christ, The Holy Spirit as a living and breathing being and where our Church roots first began. I am looking forward to continuing the rest of Acts in Witness of the Messiah.

The Acts of the Apostles - Unlocked
This small Bible study book is a part of the Kingdom Series published by Emmaus Road out of Steubenville, Ohio. This small series of books (4 books total) focus upon the overarching theme of the Davidic Kingdom in the New Testament. This text is fairly short at 141 pages of larger than normal typeface with a couple of pages of reflection questions and blank writing space at the end of each chapter. The writing style is accessible to the average layperson, and the author's conclusions are well thought out.

In "Witnesses of the Messiah," Stephen Pimentel consistently shows how Luke wrote his Acts of the Apostles with the Old Testament in mind. Pimentel points out the various literary allusions to the Old Testament and how these allusions (as well as the explicit citations of the Old Testament) can help us understand the narrative better. Sometimes he will even give a transliteration of the Greek to help the average reader understand these allusions.

There are three main themes in Acts of the Apostles, which Pimentel explains. First, Luke portrays the time directly after the ascension of Jesus as a time of intercovenantal transition when the Deuteronomic covenant was about to come to its visible end with the destruction of the Temple. The actions of the apostles and the Christian communities display a keen awareness that divine judgment will soon befall Jerusalem (and it did in 70 A.D. with the first Jewish-Roman War and the seige & destruction of Jerusalem). One example is the selling of land and homes in Jerusalem immediately after Pentecost. More than radical charity, this is a pretty good economic choice. Why keep your land and home investments, when they are about to lose cash value due to a national disaster?

The second major theme is that of the Davidic Kingdom. Now that Jesus Christ is enthroned as king over his kingdom in the Ascension, he reigns through the Apostles' ministry by means of the Holy Spirit. Through the earthly ministry of his ministers, Jesus reunites the 12 tribes of Israel. Considering the fact that 10 of these 12 tribes were assimilated nearly completely among the Gentiles, the apostolic mission to the Gentiles (those non-Jewish nations or people) is the means by which all of Israel - all 12 tribes - will be restored into the united kingdom under the Son of David: the Church.

This leads us into the third and final theme: that of incorporation of the Gentiles into the Church. Pimentel carefully analyzes the events leading up to and including the Council of Jerusalem in Acts 15, which solved a major problem of evangelizing the Gentiles: whether they should follow the dictates of the Mosaic Law. Since the Law (i.e. the Mosaic Law) was a national law meant for the Deuteronomic Covenant, it is no longer binding upon those who have entered the New Covenant and who have now received the law of this New Covenant: the New Law of the Holy Spirit.

This concise and well-written Bible study would do well, I think, on the parish level with small groups. As a parish director of adult formation, I intend to use this text as the textbook for just such an endeavor in the near future.