Goutzioudis Moschos, Jubilee Year, Melchizedek and the Epistle to the Hebrews. A contribution to the formation of the Christian Ecclesiology, Thessaloniki: Pournaras Publications, 2006, pages 631.
The study attempts to clarify the mystery surrounding the institution of the jubilee year and the personality of Melchizedek, to examine their role in the salvation of the people of God and explain their connection in outer-biblical and other possibly New Testament texts.
After the introduction, the study is divided in two parts. The first deals with the jubilee year and Melchizedek in the pro-Christian era and the second in the Christian era.
In the introduction, the writer presents the New Testament regard of salvation and the general problematic of the absolution of sins in the New Testament, the goal and arrangement of the paper.
In the first chapter of the first part, the author deals with the institution of the jubilee year, the way it appears in the texts of the Old Testament, i.e., Exodus 23:10-11, 21:1-11 and Deuteronomy 15:12-18 etc. At the end, he examines parallel social institutions in other cultures.
In the second chapter, there is an attempt to present the jubilee year in its whole, that is, its social, economic, devotional and theological elements. Moreover, the sabbatical and jubilee year are examined before and after the Babylonian captivity.
In the third chapter, there is reference to the form of Melchizedek, as it is presented in the Old Testament, the occult literature, the manuscripts of Qumran, Philonas and Iosipos. The writer concludes that there are two different traditions with regard to Melchizedek.
In the first chapter of the second part and fourth chapter of the paper, all the indirect reports and allusions to the institution of the jubilee year in the New Testament are examined.
In the fifth chapter, the direct references to Melchizedek in the New Testament, which are in the Epistle to the Hebrews, ch. 5 and 7, are analyzed.
In the sixth chapter, there is an attempt, based on what has emerged from the study of the New Testament texts, to evaluate the facts of the Epistle to the Hebrews. Next, different reports are presented, i.e., in the Levi Testament, of redemptive personalities with a role similar to the one of the heavenly Melchizedek and the absolution of sins in later texts. In the fourth unit of the chapter, there is a connection of the jubilee year to the expected savior and the soteriological role of Christ in the Epistle to the Hebrews and of Melchizedek in 11QMelch. The chapter closes with the presentation of the contribution of the Epistle to the Hebrews to the formation of a Christian soteriology.
The paper finishes with conclusions, an extensive bibliography, an index of passages, authors, topics, foreign terms, a board of contents and a summary in English.