Why is Epiphany celebrated on January 6?

Epiphany is a special festival in the church year that is celebrated on January 6. The word "epiphany" is from the Greek language, and it means "manifestation" or "showing." In the first two centuries after the time of Jesus, many Christians spoke Greek. Epiphany was established as a church festival about two hundred years after the death of Jesus by these Greek-speaking Christians, so a Greek word was used to name the festival. The Greek-speaking Christians who established the festival of Epiphany were living in the area where today we find the countries of Turkey, Syria and Iraq. In this area two hundred years after the time of Jesus, the winter solstice (the shortest day of the year) occurred on January 6 in the Alexandrian calendar used by the Greek-speaking people. So Epiphany was celebrated on that day, because it marks the end of darker days and the beginning of brighter days.

A hundred years later in Rome, Christmas was first celebrated on December 25, because in the Julian calendar of the Romans that was the day of the winter solstice. When the church in Rome began to celebrate both Christmas and Epiphany, it kept Christmas on December 25 and Epiphany on January 6, the traditional night of New Year festivities for the pagans. Thus January 6 becomes the 12th night of the Christmas season, so we have songs like "The Twelve Days of Christmas."

What are the gifts of the wise men to the newborn Jesus?

The story of the three wise men is in the gospel of Matthew, which was traditionally read in the church on January 6, the festival of Ephiphany. These men came from the East following a bright star to bring gifts to the child born to be king of the Jews. The story tells us that these seekers brought gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Gold is a gift fit for a king, and it signifies that Jesus is a king. Frankincense is a kind of incense that was burned in the temple in Jerusalem by the priests. It signifies that Jesus helps us relate to God, which is what the priests were charged with doing in the temple. And myrrh is a spice used in those days in preparing for burial the bodies of those who had died. The gift of myrrh signifies that Jesus will bring us closer to God through his death.

The story of the wise men reminds us that not only the people of Bethlehem or Nazareth or even Jerusalem will be affected by the life of the child born to Mary and Joseph, but people from far away, too. In fact, we are among those people, because we are far away from where Jesus was born. We don't speak the language he spoke, nor do we live in a world like his world. Perhaps that's why we enjoy the story of the wise men, because it reminds us that Jesus was born, lived and died for us, too, as well as for those who knew and followed him in his own time.

Where does John the Baptist call Jesus "the lamb of God?"

All the New Testament gospels relate the story of John the Baptist, but only the gospel of John reports that John the Baptist identified Jesus as "the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world." (Jn. 1:29) Exodus 12 relates that God told Moses and Aaron to have the Israelites sacrifice a lamb without blemish and mark their door posts with its blood, so that they would be protected from the plague that he was to visit upon the land of Egypt. The Jewish feast of Passover celebrates this act of God's love for his people, and the gospel of John affirms that Jesus is the Passover lamb to be sacrificed for the salvation of the world.

In the gospel of John, Jesus does not eat the Passover supper with his disciples, because he is arrested the night before Passover begins. For the church of the author of the gospel of John, Jesus replaces the Passover. His flesh and his blood are given for the whole world, and the Eucharist becomes the celebration of God's love for his people.

Is Ecclesiasticus in the Christian Bible?

Ecclesiasticus, or the Wisdom of Jesus the Son of Sirach, was originally written in Hebrew in the early part of the second century BCE. About 132 BCE, the prologue tells us, it was translated into Greek. The Greek text was included in the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible, and thus was among the writings that Paul and the early Greek-speaking churches read as "scripture" and was included in the Greek and Latin Bibles of the church. Ecclesiasticus was not, however, included in the Hebrew Bible after the end of the first century CE when the rabbis closed the Hebrew canon. Therefore, the Protestant reformers did not include it in the Old Testament they translated into their own languages, because they used the canonized Hebrew Bible as the basis for their translations. So Ecclesiasticus does not appear in Protestant Bibles today but is part of the contemporary Roman Catholic Bible.

Ecclesiasticus (Sirach) stresses our ethical obligations. The image used in this passage compares the love of God to that of a mother for her child, but we are told that the love of God is conditional. If we would know the love of God, we must help the poor and the oppressed find justice.

Who was Jeremiah?

Jeremiah was a descendant of the priest Abiathar, who Solomon had banished from the temple. The prophecies of Jeremiah begin in 627 BCE and end sometime after 580 BCE. It is thought that Jeremiah was among the exiles of Jerusalem who were taken into Egypt after the Babylonians conquered the city in 587 BCE. The 20th chapter was dictated by Jeremiah to Baruch, his scribe, during the reign of Josiah, after Jeremiah had been beaten and imprisoned for prophesying the destruction of Jerusalem because of the idolatry of the Israelites. The Hebrew text of Jeremiah, from which the English version in the Protestant Bible is taken, differs from the Greek text (Septuagint) both in content and order. Even more surprising, different editions of Jeremiah were discovered among the scrolls at Qumran. This suggests that at least some of the scrolls of the Old Testament were read in alternative forms as late as the time of Jesus.

Did Jesus ride one or two animals into Jerusalem?

In the gospels of Mark, Luke and John, Jesus rides into Jerusalem on a colt of an ass, but in the gospel of Matthew he is seated on an ass and its colt. All four gospels take the image from Zechariah 9:9, but the gospel of Matthew wants to show that Jesus literally is the fulfillment of prophecy. And Zechariah 9:9 describes a king riding into Jerusalem "on an ass, on a colt the foal of an ass." The second part of the phrase is not actually identifying a second animal, as this does not make any sense, but is merely a poetic repetition. But the gospel of Matthew takes the text literally, perhaps because the author is much more literate in Greek than in Hebrew. These differences in understanding reveal that the other gospel authors felt free to interpret scripture in the way that made sense to them and that the author of Matthew, in taking scripture literally, is also "interpreting" it.

In which gospel does the risen Jesus appear on the road to Emmaus?

Which gospel contains the statement, "In my Father's house there are many dwelling places"?

What does "Jacob's ladder" refer to?

Which gospel reports a resurrection appearance in Galilee?

The gospel of Matthew in 28:16-20. This resurrection appearance is only reported in the gospel of Matthew, although Paul writes that the risen Christ appeared to "the twelve" apparently meaning the former disciples. In the gospel of Mark there are no recorded resurrection appearances, and in the gospel of Luke the appearances all occur in and near Jerusalem. The gospel of John also reports a resurrection appearance in Galilee, by the Sea of Tiberias, but it is very different than this one. It is hard to see these reports as variations of the same memories.

The gospel of John was also written for a Greek-speaking Jewish Christian congregation.  Rather than seeing Jesus as the fulfillment of Jewish prophecy, it presents Jesus as the sacrificial lamb who in the Eucharist offers eternal life.  It begins with an affirmation of the Word being made flesh, then affirms that the flesh and blood of Jesus is saving, and ends with a story of Jesus eating with his disciples and then telling Peter, "Feed my sheep."  In the gospel of John Jesus is crucified on Passover, whereas in the other three gospels of the New Testament Jesus is crucified the day after Passover.  In John's witness Jesus is the Passover lamb of God, and we come to eternal life by taking his sacrifice into ourselves in the Eucharist.

Is there more than one version of the Book of Daniel?

Yes.  Daniel 3:51-90 is not in a Protestant Bible, but these verses are in a Catholic Bible. How can that be? The Protestant Bible uses the Hebrew scriptures authorized by the rabbis at the beginning of the second century CE as the basis for translating the Old Testament into English and other contemporary languages. The Catholic Bible uses the Old Testament that was used in the church (first in Greek and then in Latin) for 1500 years, and this version of the Old Testament relied on the Greek version of the Hebrew scriptures (called the Septuagint) that was used by Paul and the first Greek-speaking churches.

Who is Ezekiel?

Who is Zephaniah?

When Jesus sends out the disciples to heal and cast out demons (Mt. 9:36-10:8), we learn their names: Simon (Peter), Andrew, James and John, Philip and Bartholomew, Thomas and Matthew, James (the son of Alphaeus), Thaddaeus, Simon (the Cananaean), and Judas Iscariot. The gospel of Mark has the same list, but the gospel of Luke omits Thaddaeus and instead lists "Judas the son of James." (Lk. 6:16) As the gospels of Matthew and Luke use most of the gospel of Mark, it seems that the author of the gospel of Luke is correcting the list that the gospels of Mark and Matthew take to be accurate. There is no list in the gospel of John, but Andrew, Philip, Simon (Peter) and Nathaniel are mentioned in the first two chapters, Judas Iscariot betrays Jesus, and Thomas plays an important role at the end of the story. The names of James, Bartholomew and Thaddaeus do not appear in the gospel of John, and none of the disciples in the fourth gospel is called John.