More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
Read between
December 6 - December 11, 2015
René Laurentin has tried to show that Luke’s infancy narrative follows a precise chronology, according to which from the moment of the annunciation to Zechariah until the presentation of Jesus in the Temple, 490 days elapsed, that is to say seventy weeks of seven days each (cf. Structure et Théologie, pp. 49ff.). Whether Luke consciously adopted this chronology must remain an open question.
A different possible interpretation of the 70 weeks mentioned by the prophet Daniel. Perhaps it has already been fulfilled.
Augustine drew out the meaning of the manger using an idea that at first seems almost shocking, but on closer examination contains a profound truth. The manger is the place where animals find their food. But now, lying in the manger, is he who called himself the true bread come down from heaven, the true nourishment that we need in order to be fully ourselves. This is the food that gives us true life, eternal life. Thus the manger becomes a reference to the table of God, to which we are invited so as to receive the bread of God. From the poverty of Jesus’ birth emerges the miracle in which
...more
“I see him, but not now; I behold him, but not nigh: a star shall come forth out of Jacob and a sceptre shall rise out of Israel” (Num 24:17).
What are we to make of all this? The great conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn in the sign of Pisces in 7–6 B.C. seems to be an established fact. It could well have pointed astronomers from the Babylonian-Persian region toward the land of the Jews, toward a “king of the Jews.”
