All right, so lesson four of this five part Bible study, we're moving along quite nicely here. We're moving into the second book. So we tackled first Maccabees and the last two lessons dividing into half and we're gonna do the same thing for second Maccabees. So lesson four is the first half, lesson five next time will be the second half.
And it's entitled today, this lesson is entitled Faithful Saints and Martyrs, our Jewish Faithful Saints and Martyrs. There's some really powerful stuff here. I'm very excited to look at all of this with you. My personal favorite of the two books is second Maccabees.
There's so much great theological, spiritual, religious topics and doctrines being discussed. We're gonna see resurrection and atonement, substitutionary atonement and creation, the next Nehemo all today are right now in this lesson. And then the next week we're gonna continue on with other topics of prayers for the dead and the dead praying for us and the resistance of purgatory and I'll touch upon a little bit with Martin Luther and the problem so I'll review that really quickly. So I'm really stoked.
I'm really pumped about getting into this lesson so much so that I'm just warning you right now, this one hour long lesson might go quite a bit longer than one hour. I have no idea we'll see how this goes. The live lesson went much longer than an hour. So there's just a lot of fun great stuff to talk about and we are taking care of seven chapters.
All right, so with that, let's just go straight into the notes here, looking at chapters one and two, which form the author's introduction to the book. One of the first letters of the Jews in Egypt and the second letter is to a character by the name of the restobelist. We'll talk about that recently or in just a minute. So these two letters have formed the beginning of the book and they also blend right afterwards into a recent history of the temple.
And there are reasons for this because there's gonna be a segue here. I'll explain this history, how it connects to what's going on contemporaneously with the author, with the Jews and the mecca bean revolt and all this stuff. But one of the biggest points here with these letters and the history is to encourage the Jews in Egypt and really the Jews everywhere to observe the feast of Hanukkah because it is not a divinely instituted feast. It is a human feast that is a result of all these troubling times and the rejoicing God's provision of protection of his people is based on the feast of booths and tabernacles which we talked about briefly in first Maccabees.
And remember first Maccabees, just a quick review here, a refresher. First Maccabees is discussing the entire story of the Greek persecution and the Maccabean revolt. So you've got really opening up with Alexander and then you go into Antiochus IV and then Papa Matathias and his sons Judas and then Jonathan and Simon are all discussed their leadership. And then finally Simon's third son John takes the helm and that's really just the beginning of the Hasmonean dynasty, right?
So that's the whole big old story. Second Maccabees now is zeroing in, it's zooming in and focusing on the detail. Some of the earlier details of the revolt, especially in the reign of Judas himself, all right? So think of first Maccabees again as the big wide angle of view.
Second Maccabees is the narrow view. So when we talk about first Maccabees together we discuss the course of the rededication of the temple and the celebration that turns into Hanukkah, what we call Hanukkah means dedication and how it is based on the feast of tabernacles and foods, I want to talk a little bit more about that. So as just to kind of prove my point in chapter two verse 16, after these letters and this history is finished, the author says, since therefore, as a chapter two verse 16, since therefore we are about to celebrate the purification Hanukkah or dedication Hanukkah. We write to you, will you therefore please keep the days that's the whole point, right?
We're writing to you to keep the days. There's these two letters and honestly you could argue as one of the commentaries I always recommend, Hey-Doc which is a great old fashioned but classic commentary on the Dewey Reams. Hey-Doc says the whole book is a letter. We're starting with two letters right now, but the whole book really is a letter for the purpose of encouraging Jews everywhere, whether they're living in Jerusalem or Judea or the surrounding territories or they're far away like Egypt to keep the feast of Hanukkah.
So having said that then, let's look at the first letter to the Jews in Egypt. This is dated around 124 BC, this is pretty unanimous here. Let's go to chapter one verse one, it says and opens up, the Jewish brethren in Jerusalem in those in the land of Judea whether Jewish brethren in Egypt, greetings and good peace. May God do good to you and may he remember his covenant with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, his faithful servants.
May he give you all a heart to worship him and to do his will with a strong heart and a willing spirit. May he open your heart to his law and his commandments and may he bring you peace. May he hear your prayers and be reconciled to you and may he not forsake you in a time of evil. We are now praying for you here and then down below it will then immediately talk, I have to summarize a lot of seven chapters of full of content here.
So here and there I'm gonna summarize obviously like I do in all the lessons. So it talks about the reign of Demetrius and you might remember this from 1st Maccabees getting to all this stuff and all the bad things that happened and then it says in verse eight we beg the Lord and we were heard, we offered sacrifice and serial offerings, we lighted the lamps and set up the loaves that's the rededication of the temple there and now see that you keep the feast of booze and the month is left, all right? And the 188th year, so that's 124 when that letter two of the Jews in Egypt was written. So a couple of quick little things to point out here can't spend too much time on this.
Otherwise it will be a three hour long lesson. So first you got the solidarity really between the Jews and Jerusalem and the Jews that are in Egypt and really everywhere else. Because if you remember, if you studied salvation history with me or you know it another from other contexts or other courses, there was a massive Jewish population in Egypt after the Babylonian captivity. So Babylon comes into town, you can get all of this history from second chronicles as well as second kings.
So Babylon comes in and squishes Jerusalem and things are really bad, many Jews are deported to Babylon and ultimately as you know they come back. But many Jews ran to Egypt, they weren't supposed to go to Egypt, the Deuteronomy says never returned to Egypt again, but of course they did in rebellion, it's kind of a reversal of the whole Exodus story. So that was all really bad, but when many of the Jews went to Egypt fleeing for their lives right before the Babylonian king and army, they dragged Jeremiah kicking and screaming with them, right, Jeremiah saying don't do this, don't go back and all this stuff, it was a really ugly situation. After a long time, so that was about 586 BC, now we're really talking basically 400 years later around numbers, that 400 years is a long time for the people to reproduce and populate and grow and fill the earth into doing all this stuff.
So there's a massive population in Egypt. So much so that many will say that the Jewish population in Egypt was just as significant and large as the Jews in the Holy Land in Jerusalem and elsewhere. So that's a big deal. So that's why this author is writing to the Jews in Egypt.
They did not suffer the same tortures and martyrdoms as Antiochus had subjected to Jews in Jerusalem to endure. So the Jews in Egypt, either because they gave in and they followed the Hellenistic practices or not, that's kind of for historians to debate there. But nevertheless, the Jews in Egypt are being encouraged to say look, we endured all this stuff, we repurified the temple, keep the feast of days. That's the essence of what's going on here.
All right, now I do wanna say really quickly related to this, it's just worthwhile. In verse two it said, may key God, remember his covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Now the word remember, it's really important, you gotta remember the word remember, if you pardon the pun there, it's not really intentional. You have to remember that word in Zakar.
I've talked about this a lot in the Bible study on the Pentateuch and Exodus especially, it's really pops up everywhere, Genesis and Exodus, and so many other places, honestly, it's everywhere. The Zakar is more than just remember a past event. Remember your wedding day or the birth of your first child or any child, or remember your graduation, remember where you put your car keys, et cetera, et cetera. Remember is a car in Hebrew is remember the covenant that you're in with somebody.
Remember the kinship bond that you have with someone and act accordingly. So God is a car, he remembered Israel under bondage to Egypt. And now the prayer is may God is a car you now, when you're in bondage to Greece, especially all the Jews in Jerusalem. So that's a really important word, it's God's fidelity to remember his people and deliver them.
I really like that connection always with the Exodus. Now one other thing here in this letter, it says, please keep the feast of booths in the month of Chislev. Now this might be really confusing because you're like, hold on a second, I thought the feast of booths are tabernacles, it's not the feast of booths, the feast of booths is St. Patrick's Day.
So the feast of St. Patrick's Day, obviously not, but it's not, it's booths with the T.H. or tabernacles or tents. That is one of the divinely established instituted feasts of the Book of Leviticus in the Pentateuch, it's a fall feast.
So then what are we talking about or why? It's not the same thing, the author's not saying, keep tabernacles, he's talking about the feast of Hanukkah, which is seen as a little mini tabernacles. So here's a quote for you from your Catholic and archvial testament, says in later Judaism, the feast of booths tabernacles became the great liturgical celebration of the temple. When the feast of dedication or Hanukkah was instituted to commemorate the purification and rededication of the temple under Judas Maccabaeus, it was regarded as a smaller version or a reprised of the feast of booths.
Thus, second Maccabees, one nine, which we just read, calls it the feast of booths in the month of Chislev, which is of course, December, as opposed to the mosaic feast of booths, which takes place on the 15th of Dashri, which is usually September October, okay? So don't be confused about that, and this is actually really interesting, we're gonna see some parallels here in the most just the mosaic tabernacle and those salamonic temple and all this stuff. There's a lot to say ahead of myself. So just don't be confused about that.
Really Hanukkah, the feast of booths, is a little mini feast of booths. So it's also eight days like the feast of tabernacles, light fires all associated with it, trusting in God's providence and deliverance. All of these things are related to it. All right, that's enough about the first letter.
We gotta move on here. So the second letter is to a character named Aristotle here in chapter one verse 10. To those in Jerusalem and those in Judea, the Senate and Judas by the way, the Senate they're mentioned, I mentioned that I think I talked about this before in the last lesson. The Senate is the assembly of elders that echo the 70 elders that held Moses back in numbers, the book of numbers, the 70 elders who assisted Moses, now kind of transformed, we have more of an official serious assembly of elders that formed a quote unquote Senate.
That would be the precursor to the Sanhedrin in Jesus' day. So this letter is to, well rather those in Jerusalem and those in Judea and those in the Senate and Judas. So Judas is alive at this time. This is dated or your commentaries will say around 164 BC.
So Judas is alive, Judas died in 160. So this is a few years before Judas dies and all these people in what we would call I suppose the Sanhedrin and everyone else is writing to Aristobolas. Well, who the heck is Aristobolas here? Aristobolas is an interesting philosopher character dude.
He's a parapetetic, I down in footnote number three, I have a quote here from both the Ignatius Catholic study Bible and the Navar Bible mention this. What is a parapetetic by the way? That's not pathetic, two different words. There's someone's pathetic or they're a parapetetic.
A parapetetic is someone who likes to walk around and discuss and think and philosophize. So Aristobolas was a parapetetic, well-known Jewish philosopher as this quote here will say in both the commentaries. He was writing to the Greek king showing that Greek learning was rooted and derived from the Hebrew scriptures and Hebrew teaching, which is pretty awesome. And there's a lot of things that you can say about this.
I have to confess I haven't studied him particularly myself in my studies. I'm just an example off the top of my head. So Aristodel was the great two. He was a great philosopher and he was the tutor of Alexander the Great.
So he lived shortly, not shortly, but in a hundred years before. There's roughly 350 BC right when Alexander was beginning to conquer all the world. So in any case, Aristodel is famous for a lot of things, especially his metaphysics, his philosophy on being. And he came to the conclusion correctly, so that there has to be one only divine being, one single divine being whose existence is his essence.
He is who he is, I say that intentionally. He is, he's always existed, he always will exist. He's perfectly sufficient unto himself. And all being derives from this one of being that has always been.
He's the uncause cause, the first mover, et cetera, et cetera. Well, he comes to this conclusion after a lot of hard work, guaranteed, many, many decades of thinking and studying and discussion. But it's just revealed simply to Moses at the burning bush, a thousand years before Aristodel. That's really exciting to think about that.
And the burning bush guy simply says, I am who I am, or it's he is who he is, God simply is being. And most like, okay, sounds great. I'll tell the people. But a thousand years later, Aristodel comes to this point.
So it's interesting that this philosopher guy, Aristobel is the parapetetic. He's walking around teaching his disciples all this stuff and writing to the Greek king, and hey, you Greek king, some of the great philosophical traditions that you have, maybe for example, from Aristotle. You can find it all in the Hebrew scriptures and Hebrew theology. I think that's pretty awesome.
Well, in any case, there's this letter to Aristobelus. And it's just really brief. It just essentially describes what's going on with King Antioch is the fourth. And so the bad stuff he did is leading up to his death.
I really can't spend too much more on that. All right, so then after these two letters, you find a brief history of the temple that's recounted with characters like Nehemiah, Jeremiah, Jeremiah, Solomon, Moses. It is debatable. You can argue for the position that this brief history is really part of the second letter.
I mean, that might be possible there, or it's completely separate. So you've got first letter to the Jews and Egypt, second letter to Aristobelus. And then the author here just shifts completely to the history of these main characters, specifically focusing on the temple in these previous eras. I think it makes a lot of sense that the history of the temple here is a continuation of the letters.
Because as I said earlier, hey, Dox, the whole book is a letter. The whole book is one long letter talking about what's been going on in Jerusalem, surrounding the re-dedication and re-consecration of the temple. So that way, all of the Jews in Egypt would celebrate the days, the eight days specifically. So I kind of like that.
I suppose that I would say, yes, the whole book is an epistle. It is a letter to the Jews in Egypt, so that they would celebrate the feast in the book, or the letter explains why. Why that's the case? That just makes a lot of sense to me.
So what is this brief history about the temple? Well, as I said, it just touches upon some of these major characters. And there's a reason for that. So as your Ignatia Catholic Society Bible says, the appeal to an array of spiritual, or excuse me, scriptural figures, Nehemiah, Jeremiah, Solomon, Moses, this appeal is essential for establishing the heritage and rationale for a new feast, Hanukkah, which does not have the advantage of having been prescribed in the Torah.
And that's a really significant quote. Hopefully, you can see it. Whenever I give you quotes, they're there for a reason. So this is significant because Hanukkah is not prescribed in the Torah.
So many Jews might say, well, it's all good and well that we rededicated the temple and got it back from Antioch as the fourth and cleansed it. That's all great. Praise be to God. However, I don't need to celebrate an annual feast because I'm going to focus on the seven feasts that are prescribed in the Torah.
So what the author is trying to do is he says, please keep the days, please keep the feast. And I'm going to tell you why. Although it's not prescribed in the Torah, we have ourselves a continuity of tradition and history surrounding the establishment, the consecration, and the re-consecration, dedication, the temple, in our fathers, such as Moses and Solomon and Eomiah, and we're going to talk about Jeremiah as well. So we should do the same thing as it has been re-consecrated under Judas in our own time.
So there is an argument that is being presented here based on the events of the past. I hope that makes sense, right? Okay, so then first, Nehemiah's story is told. Now, Nehemiah, if you don't know, you probably do Nehemiah is one of the key figures in the re-dedication of the temple after the Babylonian captivity.
So there's Ezzar Nehemiah, we've got two books after their names. Ezzar Nehemiah are given permission by the Persian kings to go back and rebuild everything. You're going to first rebuild the temple, then you're going to rebuild the city walls, and then Ezzar the whole time is teaching the people as a scribe and as a priest, teaching them to obey the laws and opening up their minds to the scriptures as the line comes from the gospels. So Nehemiah is very, very important.
When he comes back to help rededicate the temple, and it's really interesting, none of this stuff is in the book of Nehemiah. So it's interesting to compare and contrast it to. Let me zoom in on verse 20, where it says, after many years that passed when it pleased God, Nehemiah, having been commissioned by the king of Persia, sent the descendants of the priests who had hidden the fire to get into a thread throughout these historical narratives is the fire. So every time you see the word fire, you can highlight like I did in orange or red or something like that, make it look like fire, have fun with it, because fire is the golden thread through this whole point.
How did the fire get started and how was it maintained? So keep your eye on that without that word. So we sent the descendants of the priest who had hidden the fire to go get it. And when they reported to us that they had not found the fire, this is the fire that burned in the temple.
It's the sacred fire that's reserved for the sacrifices. I didn't make that clear. Or you didn't know that. They didn't find the fire, but they found a thick liquid.
It's kind of like a tar-like substance, I think, of, like oily or tar-like substance. And when the materials for the sacrifices were presented, Nehemiah ordered the priest to sprinkle the liquid on the wood on the altar because he had to use the sacred fire, right, continuously. This goes all the way back to the Pentateuch. So Nehemiah says, all right, sprinkle this liquid on the wood in what was laid upon it, the sacrifices.
And when this was done and sometime had passed and the sun, which had been clouded over, shown out, a great fire blazed up so that all marveled. So somehow, miraculously, the heat or the light of the sun hit this tar-like substance, this thick liquid, and the fire reignited. Okay, so this is important because Nehemiah is back in Jerusalem after 70 years, for almost exactly 70 years, since when the temple was destroyed by Nebuchanezzar, 70 years goes by, Nehemiah reconsecrates the temple. But it's with the same substance of the fire that burned before.
So they didn't have to go find new fire or anything like this because it's got to be divided, it's got to be sacred. So basically, the Lord accepts the rededication of the temple under Nehemiah. He lights that tar-like substance. It's called Nehemiah, we'll look at that in just a minute.
And there you have continuity from Solomon's time or Solomon's temple to his current rebuilding of the temple. All right, does that make sense? So then let's see next in verse 31, if you skip down, it says that when the materials of the sacrifice were consumed, Nehemiah ordered that the liquid that was left should be poured upon large stones. When this was done, a flame blazed up, but when light from the altar shown back and went out.
And then they reported this to the Persians. Everybody was realizing this as miraculous. In verse 36, they called this thick liquid, Nethar, which means purification. Most people called it Natha.
So it means purification. They gave this tar they never seen before. The name of purification because they used it for the purification of the temple. So why is this important?
Again, it's the continuity, the sacred fire from the Solomonic temple to the second temple after the deportation is continuity there. It's the same stuff. And here's a little quote for you showing that. The same stones upon which Nehemiah poured the liquid, the Nethar, after it astonishingly rekindled Solomon's original fire at the temple's rededication, have given their purifying fire once more under Judas.
Such a reading explains why the subsequent celebration is called the Feast of Fire. All right, so I would also say really quickly before I forget, it's called the Feast of Fire. Hanukkah is because of this miracle of the fire that relit miraculously, after all of these 70 years, these seven decades. All right, that's really interesting.
It's also called the ceremony or the festival of lights. All right, we got that from the Gospel of John and elsewhere. Why is it called the ceremony of lights? Well, there's two possible reasons.
One, because it's also called the Feast of Fire. Fire gives it light. So there you go. It's the light of the sacrificial fire that reignites.
That makes total sense. But also forget that the rabbis, and this is disputed, but I think it's totally worth mentioning. And as I mentioned before in 1st Maccabees, the rabbis said that after Judas rededicated and consecrated the temple, they only had enough oil from one vial for one lamp. But it lasted eight days, like the eight days of the Feast of Tabernacles, that little miracle for lighting the candles in the temple told everybody, look, God is behind this and God has blessed it.
So it's called the ceremony of lights for the lights that lasted miraculously eight days in the temple. So I think you could probably safely say, it's a both and, it's the fire that reignited miraculously from the Nefthar, but it's also the ceremony of lights from the candles that lasted eight days miraculously. Although that is a rabbinic tradition, it's not in scripture. If you can let people argue which one is more the case than the other, I'm fine accepting both of them.
Okay, so after Nehemiah, then there's a story of Jeremiah. Now, Jeremiah, everyone is the prophet Jeremiah. He's really, really important. So what the author is doing is going back in time.
He's showing that continuity. Judas is connected to Nehemiah, specifically the whole temple and reconsecration story of Judas is connected to that of Nehemiah. And it goes back even further to Jeremiah in the hiding of the Ark of the Covenant from the temple. And then of course, the expectation of when is this Ark gonna come back.
So he goes on, let's see, a chapter two verse one. The author says, one finds in the records that Jeremiah the prophet ordered those who were being deported to take some of the fire, right? So there's the connecting tissue right there. The fire of Nehemiah is connected to the fire of Jeremiah.
All these rhymes, right? So by the way, really quickly, it says, one finds in the records about such and such a story that's not actually in the book of Jeremiah. So that means there's some other oral or written tradition about what he's about to say and he's referencing it. Okay, so there is oral and written tradition for the Jewish people, just as there is in Christian tradition according to Paul in 1 Corinthians and 2 Thessalonians.
I've heard him there, it kind of, it resists temptation. But there are some other source is what this author is referring to. I'm trying the story in the book of Jeremiah, that's my point. Well, in any case, let's go on.
He was being deported to take some of the fire as has been told and that the prophet, after giving them the law, instructed those who were about to be deported, that would be to Babylon, not to forget the commandments of the Lord, nor to be led astray by their thoughts upon seeing the gold and silver statues and their adornments. And with similar words, he exhorted them, that the law should not depart from their hearts. So this is Jeremiah telling everyone who's about to leave into exile, stay faithful to God while you're in exile. In the meantime, Jeremiah is handling the fire, but also a bunch of other things as well.
It says in verse four, let's keep reading. It was also in the writing of the prophet, Jeremiah, having received an oracle, a commandment from God, ordered that the tent and the ark should follow with him, and that he went out to the mountain where Moses had gone up and seen the inheritance of God. That would be Mount Nebo, not Sinai, remember. Moses went to Mount Nebo before he died to see God's inheritance.
This is all at the end of Deuteronomy. So Jeremiah came and found a cave somewhere on Mount Nebo, and he brought there the tent and the ark and the altar of incense, and he sealed up the entrance. Some of those who followed him came the mark away, but he could not find it. When Jeremiah learned of it, he rebuked them and declared, the place shall be unknown until God gathers his people together again and shows his mercy.
And then the Lord will disclose these things, and the glory of the Lord and the cloud will appear. And as they were shown in the case of Moses, an assolement asked that the place should be specifically consecrated. Okay, so interesting story here about what happened to the ark of the covenant, along with some other super important sacred vessels, like the tent of meeting of Moses itself, the tabernacle of Moses, the altar of incense, all these different things just disappeared. So God told Jeremiah, before King Nebuchadnezzar comes in, you need to go hide all this stuff in a cave somewhere on Mount Nebo, all right?
So people will ask the question, Catholics and Protestants, and what happened to the ark of the covenant? It's the most sacred object of all of Israel, right? It's holy, it's pure, it has the three sacred items within it, it's got the man of the top where jar of manna, it's got the two tablets of the law, and Aaron's priestly rod that budded, it has those things in it and then just disappears. And by the way, the ark of the covenant is the mercy seat of God, the heavenly divine king of Israel descends in the glory cloud, the shecky-nach glory cloud upon the ark of the covenant in the holy of holy.
So this is God dwelling as their divine king in the midst of the people. It's a big, big deal. And then before Nebuchadnezzar comes into town, Jeremiah told to hide it along with these other things. Okay, so after the Jews came back to rebuild Jerusalem, they never got the ark again.
They never found it because Jeremiah, so what that means is therefore God has never, had never come into the temple, the second temple, and descended upon the ark as it was missing. So the glory cloud never returned to the holy of holies for the second temple, not ever. All right, that's huge. So the people are wondering, okay, gosh, well, even after they return, when are we gonna come back?
Excuse me, after they return, when is the ark gonna come back? And therefore, when will the glory cloud come back? And Jeremiah says, these things will be found when the glory of God returns and the people will be regathered. At first glance, the regathering of God's people might refer to the Jews returning from Jerusalem, returning from Babylon, from captivity, but that never was complete.
Only the Jews from the kingdom of Judah, thus Jews from Judah, right? Gotta be careful with our words, head return, but not the rest of the Israelites, from the northern tribes, they're still waiting for the regathering of all the tribes, even after the Jews rebuild the temple that second time. So it's really interesting to think about this. Gosh, okay, when will the glory of the Lord return and the ark be found in this cave?
My personal opinion on this matter, and again, you could take it with a grain of salt whenever I say it's my personal opinion, my personal opinion is this, this is fulfilled in Luke chapter two. Because Luke chapter two is the infancy narratives of our Lord. What do you find, but our Lord is in a cave with his mother, Mary, as the new ark. Now, in a lot of other Bible studies, we do a lot of work explaining how Mary is the new Ark of the Covenant.
This is in context with Second Samuel, when David brings the ark into Jerusalem, there's just Revelation 11 and 12, there's a lot of things to talk about. It will definitely make this particular lesson really, really long, but Mary is the new Ark of the Covenant, because the three things in the original Ark, the rod, the manna, and the law, all point forward to Jesus Christ. He is the bread of life, he is the law of God, and he is the high priest. So if Jesus fulfills those three things, Jesus is found within the sacred womb of his mother Mary.
So Mary is the new Ark of the Covenant. And again, elsewhere, we could prove that with a lot more time, but it's a really beautiful thing. She's the new Ark of the Covenant. And so this is interesting, Jeremiah says, you're not gonna find the Ark until God's glory returns and the people will be regathered.
That begins with the birth of Christ. He could say the conception of Christ for sure. But what's interesting is after Jesus is born, in Luke chapter two, verse eight, you have the story of the shepherds. And it says in that region, this is Luke chapter two verse eight, in that region there were shepherds keeping watch over the flock by night, and the angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shown round about them.
The glory of the Lord is the Sheckinach cloud, right? So the glory appears back to Israel again, to reveal that the time for the regathering of the people has come in the birth of Jesus Christ. So they didn't find the old Ark in a cave, they found the new Ark in a cave. That would be Mary.
Mary's the new Ark, they find in the cave, Jesus is born, the glory of the Lord has returned, and the people will be regathered again. Now that's all my own personal connections, I could be dead wrong on that. So take it to prayer and take it to thought. I think there might be something to that.
The new, and again, if you compare that with Revelation, Mary is the Ark. So I'll say really quickly, since I brought it up. If you don't know, in Revelation chapter 11, at the end of the chapter, John has a vision of the Ark in God's temple, but then the next verse, chapter 12 verse one, is a woman who is Mary and the church, and is well, that's all true, but it's certainly Mary. So Mary is the Ark, and you're like, wow, that's really interesting, well, because she is a new Ark, and now she's found in the cave.
All right, moving on now, I hope that's enriching for you, but it's a really cool thing to consider what happened to the Ark, and when will it be found? All the jokes about Indiana Jones putting that aside, right? It's a great movie, it's a fun classic movie, Indiana Jones searches for the Ark, but the Ark, the original Ark will never be found. Even if some Ethiopian church or whatever claims to have it, and they haven't proved it, it's no longer necessary put at that, because the fulfillment of the Ark's typology is there in the Blessed Virgin Mary.
Hey, this is Doc Nick, thank you so much for listening to this course sample. If you enjoyed it and want to listen to the entire lesson, please become a student over at scriptureandtradition.com, where you can listen to this entire course, but also all the other courses that we have available in the S&T audio library, where you can listen to them on demand, however, and whenever you want. So thank you so much, God bless you, and keep setting your vitals.