Category Archives: J.H. Kurtz

Eucharist as Peace Offering

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The peace-offerings (Hebrew, Shelamim) were performed in Israel as the consummation of all worship; that is, of drawing near to YHWH. According to J.H. Kurtz (Offerings, Sacrifices, and Worship in the Old Testament, p. 251), the name of this sacrifice was a thank offering (where we get the word Eucharist or thanks-giving), following both Luther and Josephus (Antiquities 3.3,1). The translation peace offering comes from the Septuagint (LXX) and Latin Vulgate, while saving-offering is sometimes used, based on a rarer rendering of the LXX, says Kurtz.

Kurtz says of the peace-offerings (or “near bringings”):

Shelem denotes a gift from one who needs favour to one who grants it, whether the favour has been already granted, or is merely being sought. The Shelamim therefore were gifts presented to God, through which a man acknowledged that what good he possesed he owed to the favor of God, and what good he needed he must seek from that favour.
J.H. Kurtz, Offerings, Sacrifices, and Worship in the Old Testament, p. 252.

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Eucharist as Jealousy Offering

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The jealousy offering could be done in Israel whenever a husband suspected that his wife was living a life of infidelity. This ceremony went as follows (cf. Numbers 5.11-31):

The priest took her into the court of the tabernacle, and having put some holy water … into an earthen vessel, mixed it with dust from the floor of the tabernacle. After this, he led the woman before the Lord, i.e., before the door of the tabernacle, and having uncovered her head, placed the Corban in her hands. He then took the water mixed with dust into his own hands, and commenced a solemn adjuration of the woman, pronouncing a curse upon her in the most terrible words in case she should be guilty, declaring that in consequence of the wrath and vengeance of God her belly should swell and her hip waste away; at the same time assuring her  that the curse would take no effect provided she were innocent.
J.H. Kurtz, Offerings, Sacrifices, and Worship in the Old Testament, p. 447.

Essentially, there was a drink for the woman to take, combined with a word of institution. The word combined with the drink would ensure that an unfaithful wife would be cursed, while a faithful woman would be blessed as a result of her innocence and fidelity.

We see this fulfilled in the Eucharist, as Paul shows us in 1 Corinthians 11 that the words of institution mixed with the bread and wine of the Supper can be either a blessing or a curse. To those within the Church — the bride of Christ — who have been faithful, a blessing is expected in our eating and drinking; to those who are faithless, adulterous towards our husband, we can expect only to be accursed.

New Perspective on Leaven

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In the old testament, we read of the prohibition of leavened bread in Exodus 12 for the celebration of the Passover (along with a prohibition of leavened bread with any meat offering in Leviticus 2).

Leaven, in its original form has the same component ingredients as those of sweet dough (Kurtz, p. 292). Through fermentation, however, its makeup is corrupted, becoming sour dough or leaven. “Hence, as distinguished from sweet dough, it represented the old, corrupt, degenerate nature (Ibid, p. 292).”

In the new testament, Paul refers to leaven when exhorting the Christians at Corinth to purge out impenitent sinners from amidst the faithful (1 Corinthians 5.6), so that they may become new dough.

In his epistle to the Galatians, Paul again refers to leaven, saying:

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One New Man in Place of the Two

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Today I started reading J.H. Kurtz’s Offerings, Sacrifices, and Worship in the Old Testament, and it has been both a fascinating and edifying read thus far.

In the first section of the book, Kurtz discusses the purpose of the Mosaic food laws.

He writes:

Israel was thus to be reminded by its daily food, of the goodness of God in choosing it from among the nations, of its peculiar calling and destination, and of its consequent obligation not to be as the heathen were.

The fundamental idea of the Mosaic laws of food, therefore, was not ethical, but historical, having regard to the history of salvation.
Offerings, Sacrifices, and Worship in the Old Testament, p. 26 Continue reading →