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John Bergsma

“Is there anything in the New Testament about the need for priests in the Church? Many Protestants would argue no. And if you point out that there is a priesthood in the Old Testament, they are likely to say it was a feature of the Old Covenant that was undone by Christ. How should a Catholic respond?

“In Jesus and the Old Testament Roots of the Priesthood, biblical scholar John Bergsma convinces readers that Jesus did, in fact, intend for a ministerial priesthood to be a key feature of the New Covenant.

“Bergsma shows how the priesthood is a major thread holding together the biblical story line – beginning witht Adam’s loss of the gift of priesthood in the Fall and the long process of restoring his descendants to a priestly status over the centuries, culminating with Christ.”  [From the cover]

John Bergsma is a Professor of Theology at the Franciscan University of Sgeubenville. A former Protestant pastor, Dr. Bergsma has authored several books on Scripture and the Catholic faith. He and his wife Dawn reside with their eight children in Steubenville, Ohio

“With characteristic clarity and depth, John Bergsma identifies and unpacks the Scriptural foundations of the ministerial priesthood. Far from human or ecclesiastical ‘invention,’ it is Jesus himself who intended it, fulfilling in himself the types which prefigured it, and instituting a new priesthood in his very person. This volume makes clear that any account of the relationship between the royual priesthood of the baptized and the ministerial priesthood which views them ‘competitively’ fails in understanding them both. Readers, lay and ordained alike, will benefit from Dr. Bergsma’s lucid analysis and a scholarship which is placed clearly at the service of the Gospel.”

Msgr. Michael Heintz, PhD, Dean, Mount St. Mary’s Seminary

 

Table of Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1: The Priesthood from Adam to Abraham

Chapter 2: The Priesthood from Isaac to the Exile

Chapter 3: The Priesthood in the New Testament

Chapter 4: The Scrolls, Celibacy, and Holy Orders

Epilogue

Emmaus Road Publishing, ©2021, Hard cover, 176 pages