Panel: QUARRYING WATER FROM UNFAIR TEXTS



444.6 - RESET ON THE CHRIST: JEWISH HERITAGE AND CATHOLIC FAITH IN A HERMENEUTICAL FRAME TO REV 7:1-8

AUTHORS:
Malatacca R.G. (Associazione Biblica Italiana (ABI) ~ Lucera ~ Italy)
Text:
This contribution focuses on Revelation 7:1-8. It examines the reception history of this problematic passage within the Book of Revelation (especially Rev 7:4-8), which has often been used to support replacement theology. Such interpretations have long shaped the complex history of cooperation and conflict between Catholics and Jews but appears as a questionable hermeneutical framework in light of Nostra Aetate and subsequent theological developments. After outlining the dominant allegorical interpretations of the passage within the Latin, Byzantine, and Syriac traditions—interpretations that contributed to a Weltanschauung asserting the superiority of the Church over Judaism—the paper turns to a unique inscriptio preserved in British Museum Add. 17193, which functions as a hermeneutical frame for the passage. This source preserves an alternative reception of Revelation 7, offering a more literal and non-supersessionist interpretation that assigns an ongoing theological role to Jewish identity in relation to Catholic faith. Each group has its proper place, moment, and role within salvation history and, according to this interpretation, Jews are entrusted with a decisive act of faith in Christ in times of deception—moments in which the Church from the Gentiles may falter. The study argues that the reception of Revelation 7 allows for a theological framework in which Jewish identity retains a meaningful role within salvation history.