What I find so striking about this idea of a midrashic quality to revelation is that in it we can see God's active participation in history.
Go back to the images of the two heros. Think of John the great Prophet as the heroic figure representing the Hebrew scriptures and their revelation of God. Think of Jesus as the heroic figure (obviously he’s more than that) of the full representation of the Christian scriptures.
The second and younger is shown, in the fullness of time, to be the truer revelation. Just as we see in the mythic language both within the Christian symbolic universe and without.
But what is startlingly different here is that the heroic figures are not in conflict. They are in partnership. So too for the elder Elizabeth and her young kinswoman Mary. Finally Hannah and Peninnah have resolved their rivalry by being reconciled to each other.
God has finally, in this complete moment of self-revelation reconciled the two heros. Reconciled the past and the present. Reconciled grace and law.
Psa. 85:10
Steadfast love and faithfulness will meet;
righteousness and peace will kiss each other.
